Mopping

So, my homemaker battle has been floor cleanliness. Jason's pet peeve is dirty floors. He doesn't care if the beds aren't made, or if the dishes aren't done... but he HATES dirty floors. Of course, I have an almost-3 year old and a 15 month old, so they dirty my floors at least 3 times a day, and sometimes I just don't have the energy to sweep and mop one more time before Jason gets home from work! Anyway, I am a big informercial watcher (it's a secret vise that happened when I was up doing middle of the night infant feedings and care) and I got 2 WONDERFUL things off of informercials that I actually found worth sharing with all of you in the internet world. The first one is the swivel sweeper. The thing is AMAZING. Lizzy can use it, it is so easy! It swivels, like it says, and picks up stuff with rotating brushes in all 4 directions and on the corners. It also lies flat, so you can get it under stuff really easily. It is terrific for every day after meal touch ups. It works on both hard floors AND carpets, so when Rachel gets a hold of the kleenex box while I'm in the shower, and shreds 50 kleenexes all over the living room floor, it's no problem to clean up. The other wonderful invention that I got today is the shark steam pocket mop. Now this one is cool. I have tried traditional rag mops, the squeegee mops, and microfiber mops... they have all been terrible. We have travertine floors, and they have a marbled appearance, and are VERY hard to clean. I would often end up on my hands and knees scrubbing my huge expanse of tile floor by hand. When we first bought the house, the travertine looked beautiful, with a matte finish, but with a sheen to it. No matter how hard or much I mopped or scrubbed by hand, my travertine would be matte, with no sheen. In addition, I had to wait to mop until Rachel was napping, because otherwise, she'd follow me around, slipping on the wet spots and banging her head on the floor, or else crying behind the wall of chairs I made to block off the kitchen... it was just no fun. SOOOO, I saw that they had the steam mop at Costco, so I went for it. I mopped my floor with it today and WOW. It is amazing! It got everything up off the floor, and the sheen is back! It looks SO beautiful. I can't wait for Jason to get home and see my amazing floors! It's especially nice, because it dries almost immediately, so Rachel did not slip around on the floor. I also used it on our hardwood floor in the study, and regular tile floors in the bathrooms. They all came out gorgeous. Then, because I saw them do it on the informercial, I lifted the thing up and steam cleaned my granite countertops. Now that was cool! I also was able to steam clean the fireplace stones at the base of the fireplace, which were coated in nastiness from the kids, and have always been really hard to get clean. Anyway, enough informercial from me... if any of you are hating your constant cleaning the floor battle, I highly recommend these products!