So our little Ben is now at an age where he has the ability to terrorise all around him and demolish everything in sight. Left to his own devices, he finds entertainment in dropping stuff, pulling things off walls and slamming doors on to fingers, cups, plates, grapes and assorted footstuffs.
The house is looking a bit worse for wear and the only way to counter it is to play with him.
So much so that when I get home and take over, feed him his tea, bathe him and put him to bed, Jen is completely shattered. This means that the house is getting a little untidy.
So we’ve decided to employ the services of a cleaner to come in and do the fundamentals, the stuff that you can’t do with a 14 month old tearing around, stuff that involves cleaning materials.
The trouble is, now we have someone coming in to the house to clean, Jenny worries that the house will look untidy and so has me tearing around cleaning the house in preparation for the cleaner. The result - I’m financially poorer for the cleaner AND doing more cleaning and tidying than I did before. Catch 22 I’m afraid. I did suggest an alternative (Swedish au pair or similar) however this was both unacceptable to my wife for obvious reasons, and in the long run, probably a bad investment… i’d never get a word in.
