The thought of having a crawling baby in a few short weeks is making me anxious. My home is lived in. Since I have no domestic help whatsoever, I'm mostly in charge of the daily cleaning and clearing up. The nightly restorations of the living room and play area are mostly up to me, too. Hence, I am very aware of the ‘problem’ ahead.

My four-year-old can leave a toy in the most random of places. He can drop chunks of meat under the couch, which I find when I lift the couch to run the vacuum through. He also trails in a boatload of sand in his shoes every day when he comes back from kindergarten. It honestly baffles me and annoys me as I clean up every last grain of sand.

My husband has multiple cables under his desk. The router found itself on the floor and there are all kinds of bits and bobs scattering the floor. I know I have to change every layout in my home to make it safe for a crawling baby, but looking around at our lived-in mess makes me a nervous wreck. Where do I start? How do I do it? Where do I put this? Where do I put that?

Even though I am a stay-at-home mum (SAHM), I do not clean the floors everyday. I see other SAHMs do it and power to them! I definitely cannot carve out enough time in the day for all my household chores, including everyday vacuuming. But having a crawling baby means I will have to vacuum almost everyday. Mop regularly and deep-clean often. The cleaning bit is not even as stressful as the idea of having to do it with an energetic explorer on all fours.

I cannot get my regular chores completed efficiently because my baby is always by my side. Now that he is more aware and more explorative, I have to spend more time being hands-on with him. His 30-minute naps barely give me enough time to prep for meals. I honestly do not know how I will do it, but I know something has to be done.

Being a mother is the most polarising job. We want our children to grow and we cheer for them wholly when they go through these milestones. On the other hand, we are sad about losing our little babies to ‘grownhood’ and we also fear the consequences of them growing. Instead of enjoying the big crawl moment, my mind is buzzing with the thoughts of safety and cleanliness of the floors so that my baby can have the best environment to achieve this milestone.