Check It Off the Bucket List

Anyone know what this is?  

It's a photo I have decided to title, "The Laundry Is Done".  

I can't remember ever having accomplished this before, but if I have then the feat comes around with the frequency of an appearance by Halley's Comet.  It might happen once more in my lifetime, and I'll be just as excited about it then as I am now.

You can scoff if you like, but finishing the laundry has been the impossible task since I got married and had children.  How very 1950's of me, right?  You might be wondering why this task is mine alone, and wouldn't it be more manageable if I had everyone pitching in?  Of course it would.  I'm not stupid, but I recognize an effort that isn't working when I smell it.  Cameron and Ethan were put in charge of their own laundry once and soon decided that they would rather wear twice-baked underwear and stink of a port-a-potty in a boys' locker room than bother with such a menial chore. 

So now that the laundry is done I will enjoy the wide open space of my laundry room for approximately 24 hours, and then I will start the next enormous batch.  You may send congratulatory e-mails, or simply leave your praise in the comments section below.

To Do List - Now 'Til We Leave

1.  Have a good cry.  That way I can emotionally handle the rest of the list.

2.  Shower.  Daily.

3.  Wrap all the Christmas gifts before Christmas Eve so I can go to bed before two for a change.

4.  Clean every forty minutes from now until D-Day.

5.  Take a load of crap to the dump...or just send it to work with Andrew so he can make use of his company's dumpster.

6.  Watch a Christmas movie without doing anything else at the same time.  

7.  Make corrections to Joyce's personal history, insert pictures, make cover, bind eight books.  Before Christmas Eve.

8. Make salmon dip for the family Christmas Party on Friday.

9.  Find a storage unit in Vancouver.

10.  Pay the bills, make a grocery list, and go grocery shopping on the busiest grocery shopping day in the month of December with five kids in tow.

11.  Cry again, just for good measure.

12.  Remind the kids hourly that Santa is watching them.

13.  Pack the kitchen and the bathroom.

14.  Organize the things that need to be kept out of the storage unit; clothes, a few toys, fishing equipment, bikes, important paperwork, stash of movies, computer, beds and bedding...  I hope that's all.

15.  Sit at the hospital on Tuesday with mom while dad has heart surgery again.  Pray for easy-peasy, in-n-out, no complications.  

16.  Feel guilt for leaving mom, especially while dad is an invalid, and also for not visiting all the family we don't see often before we go.  

17.  Figure out what I'm forgetting, because I know there must be a hundred things I've neglected to do.

18.  The most dreaded task of all:  Clean the blinds.

See - except for that last one, it's not such a big deal.  I can do this.

"My Laundry Owns Me"...

That's the phrase I used to explain my laundry habits to a friend I was talking to the other night. She tried to hide her disgust when I uttered my confession, but her eyes kind of glazed over and her smile reeked of disdain and pity; as though she was horrified at my revelation of slothful housekeeping.

You see, she had just told me that she does all three large loads of her laundry every Monday and has it washed, dried, folded, and put away all on that one day.

Well, hurrah for her!

She does laundry for three. Herself, her three year old daughter, and her girlie man husband who only wears one outfit a day.

I, on the other hand, have a family of six. I am the only one who manages to go through one pair of pants and one shirt a day. Everyone else has work clothes, play clothes, wet clothes from swimming, gym clothes, school clothes, the clothes they sharted in... Not to mention the sheets and the towels.

So while I am happy for my friend and her ability to anally finish her laundry by tackling all three loads once a week, I am OK with my system, too.

What is my system?

Wash enough of it that it doesn't suffocate us. And don't even dream of having it all finished until the last little boy grows up and moves out of the house.

As long as everyone has fresh underwear, who the hell cares?

It Was A Man Cat Fight!

We currently rent a house with a basement apartment. Several people have come and gone from that little two bedroom abode, and I like to think that it's because they grow tired of living in the shadow of our greatness. (Other possibilities include new jobs, buying a house, witness relocation, and really annoying neighbors. But not us, of course.)

Our most recent inhabitants are a couple with a small child, and from the moment they first pounded on their ceiling, (our floor), to tell us to be quiet, we knew there were going to be issues.

We have hard wood floors and four boys. There's going to be some noise, and there's only so much I can do about it. Welcome to the bottom floor, People.

We've never had any problems with any of the other basement dwellers. No noise complaints, no dead body hidden in the closet kind of smells, no obnoxious polka music, etc. But these people have kinda had daggers for us from the get-go.

Yesterday I was sitting on the living room floor and going through a giant stack of homeschool curriculum while Drew watched cartoons and Trent pushed his ride-on toy from one end of the room to the other. He crashed into the wall a time or two, but I was too engrossed in second grade math workbooks to think much of it...

...Until three violent explosions rocketed my backside into vibrate mode. The guy downstairs was pounding on the ceiling - AGAIN! It irritated the crap out of me because he was essentially saying that my kid cannot play with the toy he wants to play with at two thirty in the afternoon! Lighten up, right?

But the really infuriating part was the way he handled it. He pounded on the floor like a gorilla-child instead of just coming upstairs, knocking on my door in proper grown-up fashion and asking me to keep it down a little. That approach would have been just fine.

After the pounding stopped and I had finished my deep breathing exercise, I took Trent's toy away and did my best to keep everyone quiet for the rest of the day. But first I called Andrew and told him how annoyed I was. Andrew didn't have much to say about it - just listened with a few well timed "uh-huh"'s and we all moved on.

But when Andrew got home last night, he did not come in the house - he went downstairs and knocked on the door.

When I realized what he was doing, my armpits started to prickle with that nervous sweat and my heart pounded so hard I almost couldn't hear what was going on.

I held my breath and listened to the exchange: (if I may paraphrase)

Andrew: I heard there was an issue today with the noise?

Dude: Yeah, well, when they're rolling the toys all over the floor...

Andrew: So that's how you're going to handle it? Pound on the ceiling?

Dude: This conversation is over. (Forcefully shuts door.)

And then!

And then the real drama began!

Andrew decided in that instant of door being shut on the conversation, that he would play along. He turned around and pounded his tree-trunk legs up every one of the stairs as hard as he could, walked into our house, across the kitchen and into the living room, attempting to put his foot straight through the floor with every. single. step.

I went into full on panic mode, trying to calm him down. "Andrew! Stop it!", I hissed at him with no effect whatsoever. There was steam coming from his beet-red ears and our four noisy boys simply stared in shock.

Andrew sat down on the couch and turned on ESPN and said not a word until I came in to ask him where we were going to move.

We discussed the pros and cons of several new living arrangements for a while, Ethan sat at the table in solemn angst and asked me if we were going to get kicked out that night or if we could pack our things first, and Cameron, for once, felt the tension in the air and didn't prance about the room chanting random phrases about peace and war.

Then came the knock at the door.

Andrew looked at me expectantly and I shook my head, "Oh, no! This is your fight, I am so not opening that door."

It kinda surprised me that he didn't ignore it.

I hid in the living room while Andrew opened the back door and looked into the face of the man he had just beaten in a contest of childish rants.

And Dude apologized!

It's amazing how fast men can suck up an incident and move on. They shook hands and went back to their sports.

Passing me on his way back to the couch and his NB playoff game, Andrew said, "That took balls."

So now I guess it's nothin' but respect for the Dude in the basement, but I will still be in hiding for at least the duration of the weekend.

The Sunny Side of Life

Admittedly, I spend a lot of my time feeling like I'm out of control of my life.

By nature, I am a pessimist.

And I don't like it. (Because we pessimists just don't like stuff.)

So I've been working hard lately at seeing the bright side of things...

Having to take three toddlers to an hour long "Spring Sing" performed by a bunch of first graders can be a nightmare experience trying to keep little bodies still and little mouths shut...

OR it can be an opportunity to watch a little boy who belongs to you sing his heart out as you cry tears of joy that you get to be his mom.

Having to drive thirty miles in traffic to take a bag of baseball equipment to your husband who forgot to bring it with him to the game can be an exhausting chore when you factor in the one year old who will giggle maniacally while he steals balls from the dugout...

OR... it can be a priceless gift when you realize that not having to bring that bag of equipment would have meant missing the sight of your really old husband sliding into second base and even better - getting to watch him try to stand up afterward.

Finding the joy in life's not-so-fun moments makes the journey so much more beautiful.

Now I'm going to go find the joy in scrubbing the kitchen floor. I know it's there somewhere!

The Unexpected Joy of Weeding

Today was Andrew's day off, and we usually try to get a thing or two done around the house. For some reason, we were especially ambitious today and decided to tackle the yard and the garage.

Boy, you should see the inside of my house right now. It's amazing what one day of neglect will do.

We started on the yard at about nine-thirty this morning. Yeah, we're that good. Andrew mowed and I got to work on a patch of weeding that I'd successfully ignored since the snow first melted, (which truthfully wasn't all that long ago). I purposefully ignore this spot every spring for as long as possible because there are spiders and bugs in that particular area that are so grotesque that the thought of my gloved hands touching them makes my skin crawl.

Thanks to weeks of my slovenliness regarding this patch of earth, there were so many weeds that I hadn't even made a dent in it by the time Andrew finished the mowing.

I was almost discouraged, but then two things happened:

1: I decided I didn't care if it ever got finished.

2: I found an Easter egg.



Yeah, an Easter egg. A camouflage one, no less. Three guys hid eggs for me on Easter Sunday, and it is now obvious to me that neither my husband, my brother, or my brother-in-law know me well enough to know that hiding an egg in that spot could mean it would never be found because weeding is at the very bottom of my to-do list.

It falls right after shaving my bikini line and shredding my tax documents from 1998.

So finding that egg today was like a big reward for making it so far into the jungle. It was a sign that I could quit, because there was no way I was going to find anything else in there as good as an Easter egg filled with one plastic soldier and one box of Nerds.


Maybe I'll get to the rest next week.

And yes, there is a bush under all those weeds. See it? It has yellow on its leaves. Everything else has to go.

Nine to Six, Tuesday Through Saturday

It is with overwhelming trepidation that I write this post, because the last time I wrote a gratitude post the cosmos decided to punish me with three weeks of washing dishes by hand.  If that happened with this one we'd be toast.  So here goes nothing.

I am grateful for Andrew's job. 

(Cringe, hold breath!  Any second now he's going to call and tell me that he got laid off and it will all be my fault.)

I am grateful that he has a job.  It's an amazing thing that he is still employed, and has been at the same place for four years, despite all the uncertainty that has been going on in the world.  Especially in his field.

But more than that, I am thankful that he enjoys his job.  He looks forward to going to work, and that is rare.  Having a husband who is willing to take on the entire responsibility of providing for our family so that I can be the one to raise our children is a huge blessing for all of us, and he deserves to be happy in what he does.

He may not be doing the same thing three years from now, (or three days from now if the blogging gods continue to be cruel), but for the time being, I recognize this gift and I am thankful for it.

Because I clean up enough poop already.

My kids are not privileged. Andrew and I provide them with the things they need, ie; food, clothing, shelter, love, etc. They have never been to Disneyland, Chuck E. Cheese's is a fictional place they see on TV, I have never seen a reason to buy them a pair of Heelys, (there are plenty of other ways for them to brake their wrists and rudely cut off other people in the grocery store aisles), they do not have their own laptops, I frequently buy their clothes at a consignment shop, and a second hand Playstation 2 is the closest they will ever get to having a cool gaming system.


Sometimes when other people buy their kids toys or ice cream, I tell my kids they can't have any, but I make sure they get to watch those other kids lick away at the drips of ice cream running down their waffle cones, or play with their nifty new gadgets that beep and fly.


I do that because I think it's good for them to not get the things they want sometimes. If I gave them everything they ever wanted, I would have to change their names to Veruca Salt, buy a peanut factory and find myself a respectable mink coat.


Experiencing want gives a person character and depth. Gratitude. Generosity. An ability to empathize with others who experience a more meaningful want. I regularly deprive my children of material goods both to save myself a heap of money and to raise them up to be decent people. I certainly hope it's working.


Now, before anyone begins to assume that my kids have nothing, are never treated to anything special or shown that they are loved beyond measure, I should tell you that Ethan is the owner of nearly every Star Wars Galactic Hero ever manufactured, and Cameron, who has no use for such things, has never been unable to complete an impromptu art project for lack of materials. Candy is the fifth food group at our house. We have frequent family movie nights. I forked out dollar bills on a regular basis this summer when the ice cream truck would stalk our neighborhood. I've surprised them with presents when they brought home report cards that made me particularly pleased. I read to my kids every night before bed. I tickle them and tease them and tell them more than once every day that I love them more than cotton candy and foot rubs combined. So don't go feeling bad for them just yet. Wait for the end of the post.


There is one area where I feel I have short changed my kids, and might continue doing so for a good, long while: We have never had a pet. Unless you count the time that I bought them each a fish when Cameron was four and Ethan was two. Andrew and I let Cameron and Ethan each pick out one fish. They were both thrilled, and I was amused at the naming process.


"Cameron, what are you going to name your fish?", I asked.


"Fish."


"Yes, I know it's a fish, but what are you going to call him?"


"Fish."


Okay.


"Ethan, what are you going to name your fish?"


"Blue," was Ethan's firm reply.


"But he's yellow?" I pointed out.


"No. Blue."


Fish and Blue were members of our family for about a week when we noticed that Blue was taking bites out of Fish whenever Fish happened to swim in Blue's personal space. This went on for a day or two, and finally, when Fish's back-end was missing several scales and he was swimming a little bit lopsided, I decided that we would have to exterminate poor Blue. I didn't want to have to explain to Ethan what had become of his beloved pet, so I told him that his fish was being very bad and hurting the other fish, so we would have to flush him down the toilet to go live with the other naughty fish. Ethan was fascinated by Blue swirling around in the toilet bowl, and finally disappearing into that mysterious world of Fish Rehabilitation.


A day or so later we went to the pet store again and replaced Blue with two fish that looked like Dalmations, and which I took the liberty of naming Pongo and Perdita.


Our fish experience did not get better from there. Shortly after the arrival of our two new fish, I became very tired of the weekly tank cleanings that were more of an exercise for my gag reflex than anything else. I was sure that cleaning the tank so often shouldn't have been necessary, and so I again paid a visit to Pet Smart, where I was helped by a girl who falsely advertised intelligence by wearing black-framed glasses. She told me that a couple of snails would do the trick. The snails eat scum, see, so two of them ought to be able to handle our little ten gallon tank. No prob. I picked out two black fellas and, after acclimating them to the temperature of our tank's water, dumped them into their new home, which featured a smorgasbord of delicious, green slime.


The next day, neither snail had moved so much as an inch from where they landed upon their arrival, and had not even had the courtesy to emerge from their shells and introduce themselves to their tank mates. I assumed, after another day of observation, that going so long without activity could only mean that they were dead. I guiltily buried them in the kitchen trash. (I later learned that such behavior is normal for snails and that I probably gave our two black friends a live burial, but what can I say? Someone should have warned me.)


Back to Pet Smart, where I got two more snails, yellow this time, in case they might be more durable than the black, and home we went. The yellow snails were not a bit shy about exploring their new surroundings, and took no time at all in searching each other out and enjoying one another's company.


"Why is that snail on top of that other snail, Mama?"


"They are giving each other piggy back rides! Snails like to do that. Aren't they fun?" Bullet dodged for another day.


Now, I am not an expert on snails or their reproductive habits. They could be asexual, for all I know. But I do know that there were constant piggy-back rides going on in the water, and in just a matter of a week we had some kind of alien-snail egg sacks lining every corner and crevice of that darn tank, and the snails were so busy with their games, that they were forgetting their dietary needs altogether - which meant that I was left to clean the blasted tank again, this time being forced to empty the entire thing, chisel the repulsive egg sacks from their many hiding places and remove the disgusting, sludgy particles from rocks and fake seaweed. 

I have never spent so much time trying to force my brain into it's happy place and failed so completely. It was disgusting. But after about an hour and a few dry heaves, the tank was sparkling and the fish were happy.


A couple of days later, the snails, who must have been very bored and resorted to their old games, had produced another crop of potential young. I was outraged! How dare they commit such an act in a spotless tank?!? I felt like I was living in a science fiction movie and would wake up one night to the sound of an ominous sucking/popping/gushing sound and creep out to the living room to find a mass of jelly-like pods pulsing with giant snails. They would surely hatch and begin oozing shiny trails all over my walls and floor.


Not long afterward, I began avoiding the tank in every way - no wandering glances, give it a good, wide berth when walking past - until Cameron yelled to me in a high-pitched, alarming voice, "Mama! There are baby snails!"


No. Please, no.


Sure enough, there were about thirty million teensy snails, complete with translucent yellow shells stuck to every wall of the tank.


That was it. I couldn't take it anymore, and I threw the entire thing in the garbage that night. I am not an animal person, and I have no regrets.

There has been a time or two that I have taken care of a family member's pet while they have gone out of town. The worst of these experiences came when I tended to my older sister, Natalie's, hermit crabs while she was on her honeymoon in Africa. (Insert green jealousy here.) 

I think the instructions for the hermit crabs' care were something along the lines of, "They have enough food to last them, so just make sure they have water". 

Seems simple, huh? 

Sometime during Natalie's overseas vacation, however, I went to check on the little darlings and found one missing. How in the world could he have gotten out? I didn't even know if it was Sampson or Delilah that had escaped, so even if they were the super intelligent species of hermit crab and had ears, it would do me no good to call for it. I wouldn't know which name to call out. 

So I crawled around on the floor, looking under tables, couches and appliances, inside shoes, behind doors... This went on for a while, and I felt like an idiot the entire time. Eventually I became convinced that the poor crab had opened a second story window and climbed out to enjoy life on the road. Ungrateful thing didn't even leave a note. And how rude to make The Great Escape on my watch!


By the time Natalie and Kamaki arrived home, both crabs were back in their habitat, and I was sure that whichever crab had done the disappearing act needed to have their name changed to Houdini. It was impressive stuff. Natalie then told me that the crabs sometimes crawl out of their shells and bury themselves in the little pebbles in the bottom of the tank. Hmmm. More information that would have been helpful prior to the crisis. No matter; I adore being made to look stupid by all spineless creatures, not just snails.


I know that there are benefits to pet ownership that ought to be considered. Kids learn responsibility and how to care for someone other than themselves. I think that's about it, though, and there are far more reasons to avoid adopting an animal than there are pleasures to be derived from such an act.


Andrew is allergic to cats. Cats are out.


Birds, hamsters, guinea pigs and all other rodents are vile and smelly.


I obviously can't hack a fish tank.


Reptiles, no thank you.


Aside from a chimpanzee, which I'm sure requires arduous amounts of paperwork, the only other option is a dog.


Dogs require pooper-scooping on a daily basis, unless you don't mind having a stink-infested yard and having to watch where you step. 

Dogs shed - not a good fashion statement. 

And then there is my history with dogs. They like to bite me. I won't go into it here, but I've been left a little paranoid and am only partial to my mother's dog, a Boxer, who once protected me and my kids from a vicious attack by a rabid mutt running around Mom's neighborhood with a starved look in his eye. But liking him doesn't mean I can stomach touching his jowls.


In the past, Andrew and I have always had legitimate excuses such as a landlord wouldn't allow pets, or lack of a fenced backyard to keep a dog contained that prevented us from having to take the plunge into pet ownership. I know that those circumstances will not keep us safe forever, and that one day we will have to get it over with, but I am fine with waiting a long, long time for that.


My kids are probably missing out on a fantastic boyhood experience, and for that I feel badly. Just not badly enough to give them what they want. Some day. Like when they are old enough to bathe a dog on their own so that I don't have to touch it's more unsavory parts. And when they are old enough to clean up after it knowing that if they miss anything, they will be kissing their dog good-bye.


Until then, I will give them each extra hugs and remind them that we all have enough on our plates for now. And I will sleep peacefully without having to worry about goopy eggs in my living room hatching into rabid dogs with unnatural crab claws, or some other such nightmare.