Life's What You Make It • Featuring Slumberdown WIN Your Housework For a Year

Do you ever feel like you are just existing? You get up, get the kids, ready for school, set off on the same familiar journey, almost on auto pilot, and the day ends as quickly as it started, and you wake up and the whole process begins again. Like so many other parents I try and squeeze as much into one day as possible, juggling work, an endless to do list and trying to keep on top of the house. It’s basically organised chaos, and the organised bit might be stretching the truth a little.

There’s baskets of washing that need putting away, trousers and tops that have been shaken to within an inch of their lives rather than ironed, (anyone else use that trick?!) and I find smoothing them as I fold them can work a treat too in desperate times! Baby wipes are my best friend, just don’t look at the window ledges too close or you might see the tell tale ever so slightly smeary signs that I’ve whizzed round the picture frames with a wet wipe instead of dusting. 

It almost feels sometimes like we are survival mode. The house isn’t dirty it’s just not quite up together. Instead of Saturday mornings spent hoovering the stairs and evenings in front of an ironing board we work and play because life feels too short. I’ve been too bogged down with the weight of grown up life lately and I’ve missed enjoying the boys. I keep thinking what will they remember when they’ve left home? Will it be that there was never an airer of clean washing in the kitchen or will it be the bike rides, trips to the seaside and movie nights under a blanket with a 7pm “midnight feast”?

If I could wave a magic wand the one thing I’d want is a cleaner. To just take the stress out of keeping a busy household ticking over. Term time weeks just race by, the boys stay late for clubs three days a week and with darkness descending before we even make it back on the driveway I desperately make the most of the time we do have at weekends. All the chores mount up during the week and it feels miserable to spend a precious Saturday sorting the recycling and washing bathrooms floors. We both work from home a lot of the time and don’t have that same longing to be together as a four that I imagine so many including my sister and brother in law feel if you have a long commute or work silly hours or just simply miss them during the day. 

In lots of ways working from home is such a blessing and in others it can make you forget how precious quality time can be. It doesn’t have to be extraordinary it can be as normal as being at home on a Sunday afternoon for a roast and a game of Guess Who or taking the dogs out with their scooters. 

As part of Slumberdown’s latest and may I say greatest competition I challenged the boys to a noughts and crosses pillow game and a few rounds of duvet Twister. They LOVED it. We used every pillow in the house to make our board and then drew and cut out our own cardboard pieces. They are surprisingly competitive when it comes to noughts and crosses, whispering tactics and strategies in my ear as they tried to out fox each other!

Our version of Twister couldn’t have been easier, we whipped the cover off one of their duvets and used some sheets of coloured felt from their arts and crafts stash. We borrowed a dice from a board game and we were set. You realise how inflexible you are when you play against nimble 5 and 7 year olds! 

We are not quite sure who was the winner as we all ended up collapsing in a heap after about 4 turns and then the inevitable pillow fight took over.

It sounds silly but I need to force myself sometimes to make time for games like this. Forget the list of things that should be done, that need to be done, and put them off for just one more day. Some jobs can’t wait but lots can. With our bedroom and bathroom renovations well under way I am not going to win the battle for a show home house anytime soon but even when it’s all plastered and painted and the carpets are laid I still think I won’t be up to date on washing and ironing! Well unless my mum comes to rescue me. 

Slumberdown’s new competition is all about making the most of time with our kids and they are offering one very lucky winner the chance to win their housework for a WHOLE YEAR! 50 regular cleans and 2 deep Spring cleans from Molly Maid to help give you more time to spend with your family instead of cleaning bathrooms and washing dishes! 

All you have to do to enter is share and upload a photo of your family and a moment you wish you had more of. If you could free up more of your time with a fairy godmother visiting once a week what would you spend that time with the kids doing? Tell Slumberdown for your chance to win.

Share your photos with #LifesWhatYouMakeIt. Upload from Instagram or Twitter or upload your file directly from your phone or computer here. 

Good luck!*

Full terms and conditions can be found here.

Disclosure* In collaboration with Slumberdown - I wish I could enter though - what a prize!