A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever

I can tell Spring is coming, and for real this time. How can I tell? I have been cleaning like a woman possessed. I didn't clean this much when I was pregnant and in nesting mode, but Spring always gets me in high gear when it comes to cleanliness.

I usually work in sectors so that I don't burn out trying to do the whole house in one day (I've tried that, before kids of course, and it was.not.pretty.) Today was the wasteland known as our refrigerator. I am so embarrassed to even tell you that I have not given this appliance a really thorough scrubbing since the first year we lived in this house. If you can count the intervals between refrigerator cleanings in years, you're in trouble. (Although, in my defense, we've only been in this house for 3 years. So really, it's only been about 2 years since the last serious fridge overhaul. That's not too bad, right? Right?!)
I've wiped up the sticky juice spots, the ketchup dribbles, the leaky milk jug puddles, but that's mostly just spot cleaning. This was a heavy duty, no-holds-barred, war on dirt and chilled grime.

Baby Girl even lent me a hand. After I removed the top shelves and dropped them in the sink, I turned around to find her crawling into the space meant for the fruit and vegetable crispers. I saw her mouth moving and did the patented Mommy Finger Sweep only to come away with a petrified lump of string cheese that had fallen to the Bottomless Well of Microbes beneath the crispers. My probing hand was met with Fists of Fury, complete with Baby Razor-Claw Action, and ear-splitting shrieks of "Mommy! Mee-hee-hee-hee." Loosely translated, that means: "Mother! Please do not deny me the pleasure of cutting my teeth on rocks of cheese that I have managed to scrape off the floor of the refrigerator." I put her in her holding cell Exersaucer, and the cleaning continued unabated.

At one point, when the entire contents of the fridge were spread over the counters and the dining room table, The Boy wandered in from his dirt pile in the backyard. He was alarmed by the sight, but when I told him to open the fridge, he exclaimed, "Wow! This is so, so shiny in here! I think we should not get any more drips in here."

My thoughts exactly, bud.

PS: One more thought on the Total Fridge Makeover: Mr. Clean Magic Erasers are worth every shiny penny they charge. They do not go too far in calling them "magic," because they must be imbued with the same kind of powerful voodoo that allowed Frosty to come to life. These things could wipe the freckles right off of Older Girl's nose - they are that good. (Huh - I really need to figure out how to generate some income from all of these endorsements I'm just flinging around!)