There’s nothing more unwelcome than an early guest. This is abundantly more true when you have kids. Being a parent sees you socialising much more in the home – and however much you may try to avoid it, you will inevitably have to host. But as any parent knows, there’s nothing you can do that can’t be undone by a small child (to paraphrase The Beatles) – you can tidy all you like, but they will mess it up again in seconds. You will have no choice but to guest-proof your house in the last five minutes. Here’s how:
Before you start
1) Park the kids. TV, IPad, playpen, whatever it takes, people!
2) Create a smoke screen. If you do this part right, you can skip most of the following steps. The important thing is to create a first impression. An illusion. A front. Basically, you need to distract your guests with booze. Tea and biscuits if you must. Whichever – you need to do a cursory wipe of the table (sweeping all the clutter into your hell drawer to despair over later), slap a plate of biscuits or chips’n’dips on it, get that kettle steaming or that cork popping. Keep them talking in the kitchen and buy yourself time to perform any steps you missed when you “pop to the loo”.
3) Double up on your deodorant. These will be a very sweaty five minutes.
The Five-Minute Plan
Check your face. What is your level of undeadness? I’d rather be caught with a full nappy bag on the sitting room floor than without mascara.
Check for dirty nappies – the above notwithstanding, this is pretty much a bare minimum, especially if your guests are non-parents, or have older children and may have forgotten how it is possible to change a nappy and be so distracted immediately afterwards by kiddy madness that you can forget to put the bag in the bin.
Hide your Calpol caches – no visiting parent is going to want to see evidence of a recent (possibly current?) temperature. A non-parent will just think it’s odd to have baby medicine in every possible location in the house, like geocaches.
Hide the nit shampoo – precautionary or not, the suspicion will be planted in their – now incredibly itchy – head.
Hoover the main thoroughfare. Even if you hoovered only that morning, the kids will have helped themselves to biscuits and done a Hansel and Gretel on the entire living area. Scuff up the hoover marks with your feet so it isn’t so obvious that you only did the main walkways.
Hide all washing up – if necessary mix clean and dirty in the dishwasher. Curse your family for their inconvenient need for breakfast.
Sweep all toys with a brush into an impromptu den made of a towel flung over a laundry airer. “Oh, yes, they’re so sweet, they love to create their little worlds in their den.” Hold hands over children’s surprised mouths.
Force all clothes into laundry baskets. If they are full, drawers will do. If they are full, dress your children in them. “What do you mean, you’re too hot, darling?”
Seal up the Room of Doom. For the rest of your rooms to be tidy, one must pay the price. Whether a whole room or a cupboard is the receptacle for all your desperate junk from the rest of the house, paint its door shut, barricade it or create some kind of “lady in the attic” fear about it. No one must open that door. Ever.
Check loo. Change towel, wipe kids’ toothpaste spit off sink, pick up randomly abandoned child’s pants. Squirt some cleaner down the loo and scrub if required, thinking dark thoughts about people that never clean the loo but are the main cause of the need arising. Issue a lockdown on everyone’s bladders and bowels.
At the appointed time of arrival
Flick TV off (“My kids? TV?”), shove hoover behind door, pop cork and secretly hope they’ll be late. And you know what’s even better than a late guest? An absent guest.* Then you can enjoy the temporary calm of your superficially tidy house without the strain of maintaining the pretence. You get the credit without the clearing up afterwards. And next time, it’ll be their turn to host. *Not every time, obvs!
Related posts: Hostzilla
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Lol @ hiding the nit shampoo. Even reading that made me itch!
Ha ha, sorry!
This is me! Lol! Glad I’m not the only one
Glad you’re with me!
I love this!!! It’s totally the same at my house, except I NEVER hoover. #sharewithme
I wouldn’t hoover if I could help it, but my family are so crumby and muddy!
THIS IS BRILLIANT!!!! I love it. I couldn’t stop laughing and nodding in agreement to what I do when I last minute find out that someone is coming over. AWWW it really is a sweaty 5 minutes isn’t it? Park the kids couldn’t agree more. hahahaha Thank you so much for linking up. your post are always captivating, funny and I love reading them!!!! You have such a great blog! You really do. I love it. Thanks for the linky support and coming back again. #sharewithme
Aw thanks Jenny, you’re too kind! You find yourself answering the door with actual beads of sweat dripping off your face 🙂
Very similar to the routine that happens when I expect visitors, but the absolute worst thing is when the are unexpectedly. That’s a very sweaty 30 seconds when you hear a car pull onto the drive! Tips gratefully received! #sharewithme
Ooh, they are not friends if they arrive unexpectedly. Unacceptable!
This is a regular occurrence in my home and one I’m very practiced at! I love the idea of a ‘smoke screen’ ie alcohol lol – always a winner!
I know, you get it down to a fine art after a while!
i read nit shampoo…. i scratch my head…. i read ‘now incredibly itchy head’ haha!! hilarious! #sharewithme carsonsmummy.blogspot.co.uk xx
I can only say – sorry!x
I love it Jess! I follow the kids around with toilet bleach and air freshener 😉 This perfectly sums me up! Brilliant! x #sharewithme
Ha ha! Thanks x
I am incredibly jealous of the room of doom – we have no option for that! damn you open plan 😉
Ha ha! It’s a mixed blessing as when they’ve all gone you have to unpack it all again.x
I’m loving this handy guide! Particularly the advice about hiding the Calpol – no-one wants to suspect that you are luring them into a den of evil toddler germs! Good work. Keep it up. #Sharewithme
Ha ha – illness must be concealed at all costs!
He he, this sounds like me 10 minutes before people arrive! I have far too many he’ll drawers/cupboards/corners 🙂 #ShareWithMe
I just shudder to think about all that stuff lurking in hidden places…!
YOu are funny! I have to confess to be doing these things too! Its our secret tho =P #sharewithme
And as you open the front door, with a smile lipsticked on your face, the cat regurgitates rodent on the carpet and you know that somewhere, there is a headless corpse…
Brillian blog, hilarious and oh so true.
Oh yes, I’ve been here many times…. it’s the bath room you want to watch, no one wants to see drips of your child’s wee on the toilet seat! X
Ha ha – very true!x
Everyones got a room of doom!! I’m in mine right now…blogging instead of sorting!
#sharewithme
Totally relate. The most housework at mine always gets done ten minutes before the guests arrive. Great idea about double deodorant. I’ve also been known to the ‘pop to the loo’ (ie throw all toys/laundry under our duvet then hastily slap some make-up on). Why do we do it to ourselves! Great post – thank you. x
Hilarious, I agree with the doom room, hiding all washing up (in the above mentioned Doom room, aka poor hubby’s office) and the mascara ;-). #PoCoLo
Fantastic! V funny, but actually true and v useful too.. 🙂
#pocolo
Thank you! Honed over many years.
Ha ha well done, Wry. I am shameful. I leave dirty nappies near the front door, and take them as a ‘job lot’ to the bin when one of the babies falls asleep so that I only have to leave one of them to wander for 15 seconds while I pop the dirty things out. Many a time I have guests just as nappies are in the hall. WELCOME TO MY SMELLY PIT OF A HOUSE. Is what I usually don’t say. 🙂 x
This is SO me! I used to bung everything in one room and shut the door!! The worst day was a playdate with 2 year olds coming round – the house was a bomb site when they left!! Thank you for linking to PoCoLo 🙂 x
I love the post! I am very busy with the kids and the work that when guests come I literally clean the whole house for 30 minutes. Sometimes I am happy that guests come because otherwise I will never find the time to clean! Thank you for sharing! The ideas are great!