Have breakfast on my kitchen floor

I just finished one of my less desirable tasks--cleaning the kitchen floor. If it were just slightly less of a complicated task, I might not resist it so strongly. Maybe some of you can relate. My kitchen and dining room and breakfast knook are no longer simply kitchen cabinets and tables and chairs. Now along with all of the expected elements of these rooms also are the play kitchen and picnic table and two small storage containers full of playfood and play kitchenware and the three drawer rolling drawers for storage of things like playdoh, crayons, markers, paints, etc. Not to mention the highchair and booster seat and a stepstool! So sometimes just getting to the starting line of the race feels like an accomplishment. You know what I mean? Just getting things cleared away enough to be able to sweep and mop feels like half the task. But tonight I felt compelled to do it and to do it well, because my poor little 7 month old has salmonella! (If you have a moment, we'd appreciate you pausing and praying for his recovery.) We've had a rough week, to say the least with very little sleep for Momma and Benjamin, and on Thursday I took him to the doctor. She was guessing it might be rotavirus, and she recommended that I send a stool sample to the lab. So after collecting the sample (fun, fun) I took it to the hospital on Friday morning thinking I probably wouldn't hear back until Monday or Tuesday at the earliest. My doctor called me today at 3:00 to tell me the lab had called her with the news that he has salmonella and we needed to start an antibiotic immediately. Then began the speculation game--where in the world did a 7 month old get salmonella??? He's breastfed and has only been introduced to two vegetables. I called Gerber and spoke with a defensive woman who did little more than make me feel silly for calling--I think Beechnut will be my new favorite after that encounter. Anyway, we've been working this afternoon and evening to try to really clean things thoroughly. Who knows how he got it? It could've been from a million different sources. Just pray your children won't have to endure this, though. It's not been pretty--high fevers and constant diarrhea which leads to a horrendous diaper rash. I felt like I should really clean--in case he got it here in our home. My mom once said to me that she didn't have lots of memories of being sick as a kid, and she often wondered if it could've, at least in part, been because my grandmother was and is such an amazing housekeeper. Ever since she told me that, I've considered the possible truths within it. Mimi (my mom's mom) keeps her house spotless, and speaking of eating off of the floor (as my title offers), you'd feel comfortable eating off her floor most any day! My dad's mom is the same way--spick and span. My brother-in-law Andy jokes that he thinks they have the ability to hover above the carpet, because when they greet you at the door, there aren't any feet impressions on the carpet until you walk in and create them. So I keep clinging to the fact that I come from a long line of great cleaners, and while I don't know that I could hang with them right now, I hope someday to be able to have chops like theirs. For the next 12-24 hours, my kitchen floor is safe to eat upon. After that, I make no guarantees.