Do entertaining and young children mix? - Blogtoberfest day 8

I love to entertain and when we designed our extension and new deck I kept this very much in mind, the only thing is I also love to present a tidy and clean house, have it looking its best when people come over.

Now since having kids I have had to try and not worry about the high cleanliness standards I have set myself and managed to do this in the 'old house' (not easy for me). But when showing the renovated house to people who haven't been over for a while I have slipped, it has brought out the clean perfectionist in me again.

As many of you would know with a six and four year old around things don't stay tidy for long and I have found myself in the past week in this constant state of rushing around after them cleaning as I have tried to catch up with friends I haven't seen in ages. Now this is a recipe for stress and exhaustion as I have discovered with my focus on getting the house ready the kids have reacted as kids do.

So in one day last week 15 minutes before my morning visitors I came out of the shower to find the kids had got all the DVDs out and placed them all around the lounge. Then half an hour before my afternoon visitors I went outside for five minutes to tidy the back garden and came back in to find my four year old had thrown soggy toilet paper all over the bathroom! Now I am smiling while I write this, but I certainly wasn't too happy when these episodes happened.

So what is the lesson for me, entertain less to stop these stress causing episodes or somehow just relax? What about you, do you go into a flurry of cleaning before people come over?

I must say that I do have a couple of friends that come over regularly and with them I am quite relaxed about the state of the house. How do I get like this with others?