Momservation: If the Lord had meant for us to do spring cleaning, He wouldn’t have given us closets.
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It’s the first full day of spring and I’ll tell you what I’m not going to do:
Spring cleaning.
Why should I when I can still reap the benefits of Out of Sight Out of Mind that a closet door affords me? I may be barely able to shut a few of them, but that’s nothing that a DO NOT OPEN sticker can’t handle.
I’ve had a decorative tile prominently displayed in my home that declares a personal philosophy that I long ago adopted:
Good mothers have dirty floors and sticky ovens, but happy children. 
I think I need to etch on there – and closets stuffed full of disorganized crap.
I’ve long banked on the fact that my kids are going to remember the days when we dropped everything to go fly a kite, check out if there’re butterflies at the river yet, or rode our bikes to see the rainbow of tulips our neighbor plants every year, over whether Mommy kept a wicked clean and organized closet. They are not going to care if my blinds and ceiling fans were dust free. It won’t bother them that I have expired canned goods, stale crackers and cookies, and never used spices in my pantry.
When they one day have kids of their own and are reflecting back on what to bring to the table from their own childhood, I hope it’s the belief that these moments are precious and clean closets can wait.
To an extent. I certainly don’t want us to end up on an episode of Hoarders or Clean House with Niecy Nash.
But the first day or the first weekend of spring should be celebrated by going out and playing with your kids, not cleaning house. Try some from this list:
Things to do with Your Kids Instead of Spring Cleaning
- Plant a strawberry garden to harvest in the summer.
- Look for lady bugs and caterpillars in the tall, green grasses.
- Skip rocks at the river, pond, or lake.
- Ride bikes to go get Slurpees at the local 7-Eleven or gas station convenience store.
- Fly a kite.
- Go on a neighborhood scavenger hunt for blooming flowers to press between book pages.
- Go cheer on a local baseball or softball game that your kid isn’t playing in. Make sure to stop by the snack shack.
- Play Frisbee.
- Go to a local park and play Hot Lava Monster with them on the playground equipment (or whatever else their imagination invents).
- Try to watercolor the sunset.
Here’s to a layer of dust on top of your hutch so thick you can make dustmen.