Oh, yeah, I have a daughter

Cleaning: No one in our house is particularly psyched about it, but I've felt alone for a long time as the person who enjoys having it being clean - Rick and Max have just never seemed to care.

Rick sometimes seems to take it farther: For him sometimes, cleaning is an annoying inconvenience to be avoided (OK, he's vaccuuming the kids' room as I write...). My cleaning is often annoying to him - he hates not being able to walk on a wet floor, he considers anything beyond the basic measures as excessive. The closest he gets to gratitude is when I clean for guests before he gets home from work and we then don't have to do it together the night before they arrive.

Max is worse. He screams and yells when something has been put away. He hates the sound of the vaccuum. He spent many years pulling the mop out of my hands.

But today when Max and Eliza were down playing in the basement and Rick was grilling I vaccuumed and mopped the floors. Eliza came up first, by herself and was just thilled. "It smells nice!" she said. And I said, "Yes, I cleaned." She took a deep breath. "Thank you for cleaning Mommy!"

I feel so much less alone.