My apologies

If anyone other than immediate family has used our "guest" (front) bathroom within the past month...I owe you a sincere apology.

I had no idea there was a spider living behind the door, subsisting quite comfortably on the fat crop of bugs in his web.  (We're working on getting Mini-me to close the door when she uses the bathroom, so he'd had complete privacy for a while.)

It's news to me that, if you don't wash the storage bag for the bath toys, it will leave a soap scum silhouette on the bathtub wall.  (Duly noted; this is a new monthly chore!)

Who'd have guessed that Cuddles enjoys chewing on toothbrushes, and that there were three half-digested toothbrushes stored under the sink on top of the stack of fresh towels?  (In the future, they will be stored in a secure location.)

In short...this bathroom needed a lot of attention, and it finally got it tonight after the kiddos went to sleep.

Action Plan:
1.  Clean light fixture
2.  Clean mirror
3.  Clean sink
4.  Clean toilet
5.  Clean tub
6.  Wash all bath toys, rugs, and towels
7.  Wipe down baseboards and mop floor

The light fixture was the same kind as the one in the master bath, but smaller, so I made short work of that.  After cleaning and re-installing the bulbs and shining the mirror behind them, the light in the bathroom was almost blinding.  The bathroom is painted bright orange -- the kids love it! -- and it was sort of like working in a giant highlighter.

Cleaning the sink was no special chore, but I did take a moment to marvel at the amount of pink toothpaste two small girls can manage to affix to a bathroom sink.

It was when I started tackling the toilet that I noticed the full extent of the bathroom's need for attention.  The toilet itself wasn't bad; I take pride in cleaning out the bowl and the surface about once a week.  However, the floor around it was in rough shape.  Here's the thing:  the wasted space in the master bath seems to have appeared at the cost of space in the front bath, and it's a tight little room.  There's not really room to mop or sweep, so...I just let it go.  I'll be brutally honest when I say I can't remember the last time I mopped this bathroom.  On the floor and in the corners around the toilet were dust, dog hair, toothpaste drops, dead bugs, tiny rubber bands, toddler hair, sand...the list goes on.  Honestly, I was so appalled at my lack of effort in keeping the floor at least moderately clean that I scrubbed it with renewed vigor on my hands and knees.  I made three passes:  once with ammonia while cleaning the toilet, once with apple cider vinegar, and once with a Lysol wipe for good measure.  By golly, that floor sparkled when I was done with it!

I took a break from the floor to address the bathtub.  It wasn't horrendously dirty, but it's easy to skip cleaning the tub:  if company's coming, I just pull the curtain and save it for later.  That said, the scrubbing bubbles did their job well, and after a quick wipe-down (and removal of all toys for a run through the dishwasher) I felt content with my results.

On that note, though, I have a verdict on the scrubbing bubbles:  they work, and I'll finish using the can, but I doubt I'll buy any more.  After yet another evening enduring a headache caused by the fumes from cleaning, I don't think it's worth it, and I do feel a bit "safer" breathing in vinegar rather than unidentified chemical fumes.

My last task was to wipe out the crevices above and on the door, just as I have in the rest of the house.  It was while I was doing that, though, that I happened to glance down and notice the fingerprints and smudges at the three-foot mark.  Thinking back to yesterday's experience in the laundry room, I guess I've learned yet another lesson:  to get the house really, really clean I need to examine it from the level of a four-year-old.  When I knelt down to clean the smudges, I noticed a pretty consistent ring of them around the hallway, which also happens to be one of very few unpainted areas in the house.  Another item to add to My Love's to-do list?  Or maybe a "vacation" while the kids stay with their grandparents and we spent the weekend painting.  It sounds romantic...