It's not quite this bad yet.

I tell myself that our house is better-kept than most. Not better than everyone’s, certainly; there’s a level of everyday cleanliness that really cannot be achieved by a two-income family with no housekeeper. If we had one of those all-white minimalist interiors, it would be maximalist dingy before long. But I am enough of a neat freak to keep the house orderly, at least, and my wife and I both respond to true grubbiness with a mop and a bucket (as opposed to, say, a nap). Last weekend, I scrubbed down the tile backsplash in the kitchen, to remove that thin film of ick that collects after awhile, and felt extremely virtuous. I’d say we’re probably a little better on this front than Theodore is, at least by his reckoning.

So why is it that, as our little guy begins to crawl, he comes up from the floor looking like he’s been digging in someone’s garden?

I could understand it if he went off into some corner behind the sofa that’s rarely swept. But he crawls in the middle of a hardwood floor that, to my eye, looks shiny, and displays no visible dust. Then we pick him up a few minutes later, and he looks like he’s just been costumed as a street urchin for an amateur production of Oliver Twist.

I want to blame New York’s sooty air. Or the EPA. Or our poorly sealed air conditioners. Or anything except my own sloth. Somehow I don’t think it’s going to stick, though. So I’m going with the idea that he’s going to help us clean. “Can you crawl along the bookshelves today? And be sure to catch that little space outside the kitchen door–there’s a spiderweb down by the baseboards.”  Can we attach little dampened pads to his knees and forearms, and really get some scrubbing done? My Child, My Swiffer.