What is up with house cleaning? Is there a 12 step group for that?

So...Ive decided that I either have to be totally obsessive or totally lazy with housework. I can't seem to find a happy medium. I used to make sure everything was in its place...vacuum and sweep and mop several times a day...organize closets...you know, the typical 'Monk' stuff. But then after I had a third kid and was pregnant with my fourth, I got way too obsessive about cleaning and darn near killed myself trying to keep things perfect.  I was exhausted. So I stopped doing certain things all together.
Well that didn't work either because with 4 kids, my house became a total wreck in no time. So now I want to find the middle. How much is 'too much' and how much is 'not enough'? I want my floors picked up, but this seems like an impossible and futile effort. As soon as I get the floors vacuumed or mopped, someone drags out the goldfish crackers or some sort of multi piece toy and all of my efforts are dashed in 30 seconds flat.  It is at that point in time that inevitably the doorbell rings and one of my friends 'pops by'.  I want to shout 'but I really DID just have a clean house....I'm not a total disaster always.' But really I am.  I guess I should just admit it and accept it. I could start a support group...'Messy Houses Anonymous'.  Here is what I would whine at everyone in my first group meeting....."But I just can't bring myself to follow after the kids and pick up every sock they take off randomly.... or every toy, or every snack they sneak....there is ALWAYS a mess somewhere!!"
Some of you (and yes I CAN hear you in my head all the way from here) are saying, "Just teach the kids to do chores!". To this I say, "Come here so I can knock you upside the head!" I do teach my kids to do chores...but anyone who actualy has normal kids knows that this is really a laughable idea.  They do take only about 10 minutes to clean up their own messes, but only after rolling around on the floor for three hours whining that its 'toooo haaaarrrrrdddd!'.
So either I wait till I have enough energy, or I wait till the kids decide that it is not actually going to kill them... or maim them...or give them leprosy, to clean up their messes. And heaven forbid it was someone else's mess...
So maybe its not that I won't do it...or that I'm lazy...its the waiting! I'm waiting for me or I'm waiting for them. (I'll go with that...'my house isn't messy...its a training camp for kids to learn how to clean stuff up').
I just want to know why I cant I have superhuman energy or a magic wand? I have decided that these women who have pristine houses and the same number of kids as me must clean ALL DAY LONG (and you and I know that just isn't healthy), or they secretly hire someone. Or maybe they really do have magic wands and they are just watching me from the crystal ball while chuckling to themselves at how I am failing so miserably at an impossible task....! Heh heh heh...do you like how I've demonized those of you who are actually good at keeping your house clean and a smile on your face? I think if your house is clean, you are all either mentally ill or one of the three hags in MacBeth.  If my house is actually clean (which it very rarely is) then I am surely not smiling like you clean people. Well I am after I get to sit down in it and enjoy the quiet silence....so....no, I'm not smiling. I'm likely snoring...or out shopping for something that I suddenly come up with that we must have...right now...
Maybe I just have to accept the fact that this is not a talent of mine?  Some people play piano...some people sing...some people clean their house. That just seems like a cop-out. I sound like a whiny wuss.  "Pull up your bootstraps woman! Get to work!'. . .I can hear a teeny drill sargent that is marching around on my left shoulder...
...Que the tears and hiccups. . .
Sigh.
Well. I guess I better get to it....the only way to develop a talent is to practice right? I know I'm not the only mom who thinks this way.  There I admit it. I am average....SUB par even...I accept this and I know that there must be 12 steps I can follow somewhere to change this about me. But until my kids grow up, I refuse to seek them out.