Every Mommy should have a day to clean.

Today is a milestone in mothering. Today I left little Margo-the-mommy's-girl with her Oma to spend the night and give Mommy a break and, perhaps more importantly, Mommy and Daddy some alone time together. The latter has yet to happen, even though it is 7:00pm, because husband is still at work and shows no signs of leaving for at least another half hour.

In the last 48 hours husband has worked (nearly) 25. Take away 15 hours of sleep time and perhaps 4 hours of computer... calculating... that leaves us about two hours of family time. Give or take that has been his regular schedule the past few weeks... er... months. Give because you do have the occasional home at 5's and take because then you also add the 21 hour day he worked a month ago and the once a week on call, once a month weekend on call, and drill weekends.

No wonder we don't get along lately.

Anyway, since Margo is not at home I elaborately planned to do projects I cannot do when she is here under foot. When I got home from dropping her off, I discovered an unknown project waiting for me: operation sit on the couch.

It took a surprisingly quick hour and a half to complete operation sit on the couch. Somehow I managed and after sitting on my butt enjoying silence and facebook status browsing I started cleaning my house... slowly.

IT.

WAS.

AWESOME.

Cleaning can be enjoyable, therapeutic and relaxing. After a few hours of cleaning, with my bucket of supplies sitting next to me as I type, I find I am much less stressed and can now enjoy a shower without an ear straining to hear the babe's wake up cries or a little head poking around the shower curtain, trying to jump in with mommy. In a few hours I know the anxiety of not seeing babe for so long will again creep in, and I'll have to tackle the bedroom because it is the only room left to clean, but until then I am enjoying this little break.

Gotta go, temple cleaning here I come!