Two in the hand is worth one in the garage

I thought that a huge car loan would buy me freedom. But alas, 'tis not so. Right after we got the van, me, my kids, and my husband all got sick. I think Mark spent two or three days of his life last week asleep on the couch. Then, Saturday morning, our car wouldn't start, so now it's visiting the car doctor. Two vehicles...It was a nice thought while it lasted. Let's hope we don't have to buy a new transmission or something. So Mark drove the van to work yesterday and today, and where am I? Here at home.

It's not like I don't have lots to do here. I almost got the flowers trimmed and the leaves raked before the snow hit.

But here's the thing. I know what's going on now. There's a conspiracy to keep me inside my house. Someone is afraid of what will happen if Kaylie escapes and unleashes herself upon the world. So they sabotaged my finances for five years, made me move to where the nearest bus stop is a twenty-minute walk away, and then they got desperate. They saw the van, sneaked into my garage, and did something to the car engine so I couldn't get away.

Isn't it great that my kids are so clever?

Toddler magnet

We will spend the next 5-6 weeks saying "No!", "Don't touch that!", and "You'd better not break that or else!" We'll be breaking up fights between the children because the older one will insist that he was only protecting the tree when he hit his brother in the nose. We'll hear children whining because Santa should have known that boys will change their minds about what they want Christmas Eve even though they insisted it was nothing but Star Wars from the moment the tree went up.

But it was hard to wait even this long to put the tree up. I am only partially a victim of merchants' evil early seasonal marketing schemes. I also blame my Christmas spirit on being a musician, which means I have to start practising Christmas music in October or November. When you've got Christmas on the brain, it doesn't take long before it shows up in your living room. And in your baby's mouth.

10 Impossible Chores

Sometimes I wish I did a better job keeping up with the housework. I used to think I could easily keep a spotless house if I stayed at home. Ha! As irritated as I get when things are in disarray, I've realized that having a clean house is an impossible standard. And here's why--there is no time to do housework. I used to think that staying home would give me plenty of time, but it's just the opposite. The reason for this is that there are many, many chores that cannot be done while the children are awake. I will list them in case anyone doubts me.

1. Ironing. I might occasionally feel bad about the wrinkled shirts that have been hanging on the hall pegs for weeks on end. But I would feel a whole lot worse about my children ending up in the emergency room blistered to the bone because playing with the iron cord seemed so much more interesting than playing with Thomas trains.

2. Dishes. When Liam was a toddler, I actually put a baby gate up in the kitchen to keep him away while I was doing dishes. That wouldn't work so well now (with a bigger house and two children), so rather than letting Kyle impale himself, we sometimes eat with china plates and plastic forks.

3. Wrapping presents. Sharp objects (scissors), sticky objects (tape), and noisy, crinkly objects (paper). Enough said.

4. Sweeping the floor. While having a one-year-old necessitates more frequent floor cleanings, it also makes said cleanings rather difficult. My little one loves to impersonate a vacuum cleaner, and his favorite time to do so is when the food he so loves to scrounge is covered in dirt and dead insects.

5. Cleaning up toys. It's amazing how interesting broken and boring toys can become when Mama is trying to put them away.

6. Cooking dinner. Nothing says lovin' like knives, hot ovens, and hot stoves. And Mama loudly reminding them that I'm doing all of this cooking for them (so they can complain half an hour later about how they don't like whatever it is I'm making that they haven't tasted).

7. Cleaning bathrooms. I try to clean with natural products like baking soda so we only call Poison Control once a week. But I have another problem with the bathroom. Kyle's favorite place is the bathtub. He dives into the tub headfirst whether there's water in it or not.

8. Raking leaves. Who am I to deny my children the pleasure of jumping in a freshly raked pile of leaves?

9. Taking a shower. My children have a built-in alarm system set to wake up one minute before Mommy does. It doesn't matter how early I set my own alarm. They will find a way to disrupt my shower-taking time.

10. Making beds. It's not 100% impossible, but it took me several years to master the art of making beds while children are jumping on them. You have to time it just right so you pull the sheets during the split second their feet are in the air.

So, after recording all the chores that are impossible during the daytime, I think it's pretty amazing that my children are fed and clothed every day. Don't ask me to do anything more.

Halloween

One of these pictures is of Liam three years ago. One is of Kyle two weeks ago. Can you figure out which is which?

Minivan Mama

We did it! We bought ourselves a minivan (with only a small amount of guilt). This means that Mama and children will not be stranded in the house all day, every day. There is the possibility of escape! There is the possibility of sanity! There is the possibility that I won't have to break my wrists or my back pushing that double stroller uphill! If the children are biting each other or biting the house, we can leave. If Mama only wants to do four loads of laundry, she can go do something else.

We have been a one-car family for five years now (and a no-car family for a year before that). Now we can go to the library, the park, the bookstore, the toy store...we can visit family, we can volunteer...the possibilities are endless. Have I convinced everyone (i.e. myself) that this purchase was justified?

Sicko

A few weeks ago, I was sick. I wasn't so miserable I had to stay in bed--just miserable enough not to do housework (and how is that different from every other day?).

So for the entire day, I didn't do dishes or laundry. I didn't make any beds and I didn't clean any rooms. The children and I watched movies.

Miraculously enough, the world went on. The house did not cave in from the accumulated dirt. The children did not turn into serial killers (just cereal tossers). They didn't say anything like, "Mom, I can't believe you can raise us in a house like this. I am ashamed to know you." In fact, they seemed to enjoy themselves.

But I didn't. It was a novelty to sit around and do nothing, but the novelty wore off quickly. I get grumpy when I'm surrounded by squalor. I don't know if this comes from a pathological need for control or if I just like things to look pretty, but somehow all seems right with the world when our clothes don't smell (and we have more friends).

Lesson learned: The kids don't care about the state the house is in. They'd be happy eating from plates with last week's dinner stuck to them. So when I'm running around the house finding more messes to stress out over (let's not even talk about how often I haven't cleaned the bathroom since we moved in), I have to remember this--I'm a neat Nazi just for me.

Why can't you just say it?

One of my personal pet peeves in published literature is this--authors love to find substitutes for the word "said". I'm not sure what well-meaning elementary school teacher decided "said" was not cool enough to stand on its own, but he or she did us a disservice. In the words of author Tim Wynne-Jones, "Such people are dead wrong." (http://www.timwynne-jones.com/) I get annoyed and distracted when a book's characters observe, declare, warn, assure, answer, and reply instead of just talking. Then, to make it even worse, they do so gladly, loudly, smilingly, etc. Enough with the adverbs! It's obvious that finding "said" substitutes (and filling up space) is exactly what the writer is doing. If a writer can't let "said" stand on its own because it wrecks the pacing or because it's too boring or because there's not enough detail without the extraneous declarations and assurances, then maybe the writer needs to rethink the whole scene .

I'm back!

I wasn't able to blog for the longest time because of the security settings on our browser. Finally, I fixed it all by myself. So you may find blogs on here more often. Yay!