It's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it

It's summer. We are SOOOOOO off-schedule, it's not even funny.

Actually, it IS funny. And fun.

The kids go to bed by 10pm, we all wake up sometime around 8am. Sometimes 9. And then we lay in bed, all 5 of us and laugh and talk. It's some of my favorite times.

And it's times like this that I'm thankful for a husband with a musician/realtor schedule, whatever that is. He works odd hours, and sometimes long hours, and we miss him for dinner more often, but he's around for morning cuddle time.

Maybe I should be embarrassed that I'm still in bed at 8 or 9. But it's only a season, and I'm determined to enjoy it instead of think about what I could/should be doing instead. It's been special.

Matt and I were talking this morning during said cuddle time and one of us made a comment about rich people having servants. So the inevitable question arose. It's a question that I hear at the very least 37 times each and every day. "What does _(fill in the blank)_ mean?"

"What's a servant, Mom?"

"Well, it's someone who serves you. Someone who does things for you."

"Someone who cooks, maybe, and cleans your house." Matt clarified.

"Ohhhhh. Uh-huh. (In ALL sincerity) So you (gestures to Matt and I) are our servants!"

I laughed until my stomach hurt and I had snot coming out my nose.

I realized later that I never told her why we were laughing so hard.

I never told her that I wasn't her servant.

I just laughed and snorted and finally left the room and went and made some coffee.

Operation Family Laundry

I. Hate. Laundry.

Plain and simple, it's my nemesis. But. It's getting worse. I remember I hit a wall when I had one child. It was SO MUCH! Then add another, and then another. And all of them, as they grow, their clothes grow. And, recently, both my girls have regressed with their nighttime accidents, so we have multiple sets of sheets to wash some days. It's just a boat load of laundry.

I ask you, what will it be like when I have 3. teenagers.

Oh, yeah. They will do their own laundry...

...Right?!?

Since we moved into our new house, I just have not been able to get on top of it. There is always much laundry. Even when I make a huge effort to get it all done, there's more that appears out of nowhere.

These are the (frequent) conversations we have:

Corene: Mommy, I don't have any underwear, but it's ok. I can wear the underwear from yesterday.

Me: NO, you can not wear a pair of underwear 2 days in a row.

Corene: Actually, 3.

Me: Excuse me?

Corene: I already wore them for two days.

Me: (covering ears) La la la. I didn't hear that.

Corene: I SAID, I ALREADY WORE...

Me: I know, I heard you. (digging through the laundry basket of clean clothes) Here's a pair of clean underwear.

Corene: That's Ava's underwear!

Me: Put them on. (They have the same size behind, really)

OR

(Dinnertime)

(Ava sitting cross-legged in her skirt at the table)

Me: (noticing that a certain undergarment is missing from Ava's bum) Ava, did you forget to put your underwear back on when you just went potty?

Ava: No, I didn't have underwear today.

Me: Excuse me?

Ava: I couldn't find any this morning. But, I had a skirt on. You couldn't see my bum.

Me: Ava! You were over at Luke's house today playing in the dirt! And you didn't have any underwear on??

Corene: (piping in) It's ok, Mom. Whenever I could see her bum I reminded her to sit like a lady.

Me:(covering ears) La la la. I didn't hear that.

Corene: I SAID...

HAHA.

And I'm not even going to address the issue of having nonstop baskets of clean clothes that don't get put away. Our issue in the above scenarios doesn't mean we don't HAVE clean clothes. It means they can't FIND them.

And, babysitters can't find them, and Grambies can't find them. Yes, even DADDIES can't find them.

It is making me crazy. I'm so sick of it, I'm reinventing the wheel.

So. I have a new plan. I am going to[try to] do 1-2 loads of laundry each and every day (ok, most days), and put it away that day. Folded and put away. My thought is that if I do just a little at a time and make a habit of it, it will be easier to handle, instead of having 8 loads and being overwhelmed by it. I'm thinking that it will take me 30-45 minutes of my day if I do it this way.

What do you think? Will this work? This is Grambie's way, she's been suggesting this would make my life easier for years. But I've never been interested in buckling down and being good about it. So here I go.

Wish me luck.

I'll update you on my progress.

And just to be real, I'll include pictures.

But not today.

I'm starting tomorrow.

Actually, I'm putting away the clean clothes tomorrow. So I'm starting on Thursday.

Really.

Of Dogs and Kids

We've got messes:

Popcorn.

Who needs a dog?

Don't judge me.

Yes, he ate all of it.

I didn't clean a bit of it.

Thank you.

Days and Praise and Glaze

I had one of those days today.

Freezer catastrophe, gas leak, Dr's appointment that was not fun. ahem., various and assorted small things that made me want to throw something. You know the kind of day? Thankfully, mercifully, these days do not happen all that often. I will write about the freezer catastrophe some day soon. I'm. not. ready. yet. Still. too. fresh. Must. go. throw. something.

With all of the struggles in the day, God gave me some beautiful things.

A gorgeous day that melted some of my tension away...

A sweet friend who made my day without even knowing it...

A HI-larious little boy who played peek-a-boo and melted my heart clear down to my toesies...

A little twinkle-toed little girl who showed grace and art...

A brown-eyed girl whose smile warmed my insides...

A lifelong friend and hubby extraordinaire who made my heart burst...

Psalm 150 - which made my heart sing...

Love it how in the emotion of a bad day, I have even more capacity to praise God, because my emotions are already right there, at the surface. Thank You, Lord, for giving me the Psalms to read today.

*************************************************************

We interrupt this explosion of feelings of thankfulness to bring you an important message:

(How's that for the lousiest transition evah?)

I must give y'all a Foody Friday category. Let's go with spicy food. Not necessarily HOT food, but something with a kick. No tater tot casserole here. Think ethnic, or barbecue, or Mexican (I guess that's ethnic, but it's a whole category on it's own, ain't it?), or even herb-y. Have fun with it.

See you on Friday!

A plea

Anyone have an old AT&T/Cingular cell phone sitting around that you don't use anymore? One that works?

Mine doesn't work anymore and I can't figure out why.

Taz strikes again.

Actually, it's not fair for me to point all the blame on poor little Taz. You see, this sweet cell phone has functioned as the ace up my sleeve for a few months now. You know what I mean? I have 5 minutes of shopping left, I've used every trick in the book to keep Taz occupied, and he's getting fussy. What do I do? I whip out the cell phone and he's happy... it gives me at least 5-10 minutes of fuss-free time. I use it as a last resort, but... hey, when you're desperate, you're desperate.

But, umm... after that 5-10 minute window, when a child is done with a toy, we all know he politely taps his mother on the arm and hands the toy back, right?

Mmmhmmm.... this child practices his slider with the toy, aiming for the hard floor. Even if it's a very expensive toy.

Hence my dilemma.

Help?!!

PS. At this VERY moment, Taz is sitting next to me and eating a bowl of chopped raw onions. Is this normal activity for a young Taz? Do I need to get him some help?

Well, there was no surgery today because of...


and...
Isaac has mild athsma, and they won't do general anesthesia if he's wheezing, and after a feverish 24 hrs, he started wheezing. Darn. Bummer.

YIPPEE!!!!!

Yesterday, as I felt the babe's head and knew that his fever was not a small one, I was relieved, hoping we'd have to cancel. When I got him up from his nap and heard that unmistakable wheeze, my insides did a little jump. How terrible is THAT??!!


I don't want my little sweet Isaac to go limp in my arms, and be taken away from me to have pointy needles shoved down his tear ducts. That sounds so dramatic, but any of you moms who have had a child have any sort of surgery that requires general anesthesia KNOW what I am talking about. When that anesthesia starts, and that medicine starts going through their blood, they go limp, they feel lifeless.

It's FREAKY, people. Freak-y.

So, as foolish as it is (we will reschedule for a few short weeks from now...) here's one mama bear that's thankful I don't have to go through that today. I'm gonna hold him tight and nurse him back to health with a thankful heart.

Because when that anesthesiologist and surgeon look me in the eye, I want to poke them in the eye with something sharp and say, "Don't you DARE hurt him".

I know.

Mama Bear mode isn't always logical.

Messy Hospitality

OK, truth be told. I'm not a neatnik. I like my house clean. But I don't like being the one to implement those changes. I go through manic streaks where I clean like crazy, have a clean house for a while (because everybody knows it's easier to clean an already clean house), and then it turns into a pit and it's so hard to get it back out of the pit unless I have another manic streak. That's pretty much how my household works. So, maybe 30% of the time, it's clean, and the other 70% it's... ummmm.... not.

I used to not physically be able to leave the house messy when I left to go somewhere. When I still had only 1 child (oh... the days...), I remember distinctly telling a friend I couldn't meet her for a playdate for another 2 hours, because in my mind I knew it was going to take that long to clean up. It stressed me out to leave dishes in the sink or anything out on the counter or table or floor.

I'm so over it.

And, you know, it's not my nature to be stressed out about that kind of thing... it had to do with how I felt about what "others" might think. We had a fairly picked up house before kids, but I never stressed about it. It was messy sometimes. But somehow things had changed after having a baby... I had friends that I needed to impress with my fabulous housekeeping skills, *I* had to pick up, just so *I* felt good about *myself*. Every time I had a friend over and the house wasn't in "company" shape, I apologized about the "mess". It was a bit of pride, a bit of fear, and a lot of insecurity.

When my oldest was 11 months old, I went on a trip to Oregon to visit my dear friend from high school, Michelle. It was a girls week. She has a little boy just a few months younger than Corene, so we played and the kids played.

I will *never* forget that trip. It was heaven, absolute heaven. Her house was spotless SO messy!!! We walked in the door, and there were toys everywhere... she brought me up to the room where I would stay, stepping over laundry baskets of clothes as we went. She showed me the kitchen, where an entire load of dishes was in the sink.

It was JUST like my house!!!

And here's where I learned a lifelong lesson. She NEVER apologized, never tried to "cover up her flaws", never said anything that made me feel awkward. She was just REAL. I have never felt so welcome in somebody's home.

We had conversations about flylady.net and the struggles of keeping a home clean, and all the frustrations and challenges of learning about this "mom" business. We loved each other and encouraged each other. We rejoiced in each other's joys and felt each others pains.

And, I dare say it began with that simple act of hospitality.

The world has it backwards. We use the words "good hospitality" to describe a Martha Stewart placesetting, lavish and *perfect*.

But I am forever changed. Hospitality means open, inviting, real. It means we don't hide our ahem.. *many* flaws.

I leave my dishes in the sink and I let my kids' art projects remain on the table and the legos are all over the floor and the dress up clothes litter the girls' room.

And we go play. Or we go to the grocery store. Or we go to school. Or, *shocker* we have a playdate in our messy house! No apologies.

I do look forward to my manic phases, though. Gotta love a clean house.
Gotta love no hate NO- LOVE the Flylady.

Really I don't DO!!!

A tale of 2 socks

I hate socks. That is, socks that are "supposed" to be matched and put into the right child's drawer. In our laundry, we have white socks that say "12-24 months", "2-3 years", and "3-4 years" on their soles. We have lots of patterned socks in 2 sizes, one size for each girl. And we have a whole host of random purple, pink, red, yellow, blue, green socks. All sizes. (You should all know, however, that I do have a good handle on what socks are Isaac's, so no worries that my girls are wearing his socks! At least I don't think so...) That adds up to at least 230 different socks in my home. You might think that at any given time, we could come up with 2 that are the same pattern and size. Umm... rarely.

Several months ago, there was a segment on our local news station with moms that talked about how far we are now from the 1950's and the "perfect homes" that women were expected to keep. The panel of moms were talking amongst themselves and were saying to each other, "We can't always find 2 matching socks for our kids. It's ok." One of the moms answered, "I'm lucky to find 2 socks. Forget if they match!" I was like, "AMEN, sister!"


What is it about socks? My girls are dressing themselves most days (except for Sunday- I must approve Sunday clothes). And I tell you, a serious party happens upstairs when the girls find 2 socks that match each other. They run downstairs yelling, "Mommy! Mommy, LOOK!!" WOOHOO! We celebrate.

Yep. Uh-huh. I did NOT dress her, I promise.

So, tell me - can YOU find 2 matching socks in your house? (No fair if you have all boys).

Blessings to you!

Jenny

Gotta Laugh

So today was one of those days... do you ever have those days? At 20 degrees, it's a "warm front" in MN standards, but I'm a Southern California girl and to me it's not warm until it's at least above freezing. So we stay inside. SO, the kids are climbing the WALLS. Jumping, running, giggling hysterically. Does the term "sensory-seeking" mean anything to y'all? We had a continuous flow of this: "Corene, go upstairs and jump on the trampoline for 5, no 10 minutes. Ava, it's your turn after her." "Mo-mmmm-my, ca-n I st-op jum-pi-ng n-ow? I'm t-ir-ed!" "No, keep jumping!!!" Even my 1 year old, Isaac, was throwing himself on the ground and laughing like a hyena.

But... the pendulum must swing in the other direction, no? So at one point in the afternoon, all 3 of my children were crying, more like screaming at the top of their lungs. I actually stopped mid-frustration and laughed. Out loud. It came from that feeling, "You've got to be kidding me! This can NOT be happening". I full-blown got the giggles. Both my girls stopped crying, kind of smiled and said, "Why are you laughing?" (this didn't last long, the crying resumed immediately). I don't even remember what they were crying about. My point is, I laughed. For but a moment. It made all the difference. It was my pressure release valve. Gotta laugh.

Tomorrow there will be no laughter. I'm wising up. There will be movies.