I’m not even going to show you the “after” picture.
I’m not even going to show you the “after” picture.
I actually enjoy the fatigue that comes from a good-ol‘-stem-to-stern housecleaning. These days, however, the house is lucky to get the dust buster poked in a few corners, let alone a good Swiffering. One neighbor of mine described her house as “neat, but dirty”. I think we officially joined that club when I was tempted to throw some Listerine in the towel bowl just to make sure I got all germs with the next flush.
Truly, I don’t have enough hands, hours, or motivation to hit all the baseboards, quarter-rounds, window panes, cracks and crevices that need attention. Which, would be all of them, in case you’re wondering. Of course, when Mo practiced her cursive writing in the dust coating her bookcase, I knew I had to do something.
The problem with housecleaning is that, like with so many other household tasks, they seem to multiply exponentially in a matter of moments. For instance, I may see a fingerprint (or five) on the window pane, so I go to get some Windex. En route through the kitchen for my supplies, I step through a minefield of shredded crayon wrappers, Cheerios, broken hair elastics, and assorted Barbie shoes. I make a notation to get the broom and the dust buster. In the kitchen, the sink looks like it threw up since no one ran the garbage disposal before turning on the dishwasher. I Clorox the sink, run some water and add some baking soda down the disposal. Then, just for kicks and because no one else is home, I dump the rest of the baking soda down the disposal, add a few drops of red food coloring and some vinegar. “Molten lava” erupts from the garbage disposal. I’m such a child, but the glee is short lived because now, I have to clean that up, too.
Kitchen sink finally de–gunked, I notice some flower petals that have jettisoned themselves off of the plant on the window sill. This has now formed a nice little party with crumbs from the toaster and assorted condensation rings from where we’ve left glasses and mugs. I wipe down the counter and then turn around to hit the other counters. Then I see the stovetop. I wipe that down, and notice fingerprints on the cabinet doors surrounding the stove. Fingerprints! I was supposed to get the Windex for the fingerprints in the other room. And I resume my course for the cleaning supplies in the laundry room.
I open the laundry room door and clearly see that the washer and dryer have caught the same bug as the sink — there is clothing vomitus everywhere. I drag the laundry buckets out into the living room and being rolling socks, folding underwear and undershirts, and sorting 2T pants from 4T pants. When I reach to the bottom of the bucket for the last piece, my eye catches a rogue raisin on the carpet next to the bucket. Just ahead of the raisin is another broken elastic hair tie and peanut. Time to get the vacuum.
Now, I have a strong aversion to vacuuming. I mean, I would rather write a thesis on William Faulkner than vacuum. Growing up, I would do just about anything to get out of vacuuming. Ugh, it was the bane of my pubescent existence! My dad was a regular Vacuum Gestapo, what with his reviewing my work to see that vacuum tracks were clear and present throughout all carpeted areas of the house. You know, vacuum tracks — the lines in the carpet that shows that it’s been freshly vacuumed? Yeah, you gotta have the tracks.
We had this Sears vacuum that was like a bloated footstool attached to a giraffe neck length of hose topped off by a phonebook sized head that sucked up all the detritus of daily life. And it had a retractable electrical cord, so when you were done, you could press a lever and the cord would get snapped back up into the main unit. Snapped is a key word — I gave myself all kind of lashings just trying to wrap up the vacuum and put it away. And don’t get me started on dragging the darn thing through several rooms and around corners! I would tug and tug on the hose and finally, the main unit would come hurtling from another room and crash into my ankles. From the calf down, my legs were varying shades of yellowish-green black and blue marks cross hatched with electric cord lacerations. I swore I when I grew up, I’d never vacuum again.
When we got married, I think one of DH’s vows was “to love, honor and vacuum,” as he has been the sole master of our Dirt Devil. The other day, however, the rugs were looking like the entire sandbox from the pre-school has been liberally sprinkled over its dimensions. DH was outside sweeping up leaves and branches, so I thought I would surprise him by vacuuming the rugs. Such a sweet wifely thing to do, right? So I go get the vacuum, unwind the (non-retractable) cord, plug it in, step on the switch and. . .nothing.
Hmmm. We have electricity. I’ve got this thing properly plugged into the wall. I’m stepping on the lever. The handle release is working and yet, nothing. It can’t be broken; we (DH) just used it last week-end. I empty the filter, I examine the hose attachments. It’s not working. I don’t know what else to do and I don’t want to ask DH to come look at it, but I’ve already spent about 10 minutes fooling with this thing and . . .wait a minute. . . .What’s this lever right here?
Oh yes, that would be the “on” switch. When I’m done, I’m going to use my college degree to get the fingerprints off of the windowpanes.
Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Yeah, I’m manifesting that definition every day.
Every morning, I get up while it’s still dark to savor a few moments by myself. I usually throw on my gym clothes and head downstairs. My routine is pretty much the same: check email, check my buddies’ blogs, toss in a load of wash and empty the dishwasher. I’ve even started making lunches and prepping dinner (yeah, I’m kind of Type A). At about quarter to seven, I set out making breakfast for the girls. Once they get up, I’ve got a pretty tight routine that carries us right up to pre-school drop off.
Take yesterday morning:
6:45 – get breakfast ready
7:00 – get the girls up
7:40 – wrap up breakfast and get dressed for school
8:15 – playtime for Mo and Co/tidying up for me
8:30 – out the door, into the car, off to school
And despite all of my micromanaging, the one thing I haven’t figured out is why is it that by the time I get the girls settled down for breakfast, I realize I haven’t gotten anything for myself? I mean, they’re happily munching away and I haven’t got anything on my plate. I haven’t even got a plate!
Part of this stems from my relentless devotion to Weight Watchers. In the not too distant past, I wouldn’t let anything cross my lips that hadn’t been weighed, measured and calculated for it’s caloric impact on my body. Just grab some toast and slather on some jelly?! Not unless it’s Nature’s Own White Wheat Bread with 7 squirts of I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Butter and 1/2 tbs of Welch’s Sugar Free Jelly per slice (points=2). Bacon and eggs? Only if it’s two slices Jennie-O turkey bacon and a quarter cup of EggBeaters cooked in a non-stick pan that has been lightly sprayed with olive oil cooking spray (points=2). Weight Watchers can make the even the most sane turn into Sally Albright.
Another part of the problem comes from the fact that I am a notoriouly finicky eater. I eat pizza and baked ziti, but I don’t like cheese. No grilled cheese, cheese and crackers or cheeseburgers. I like shrimp, but not when it’s cooked. I like tomatoes, but on my sandwiches and salads, not in chunks in my spaghetti sauce. I drink fat-free milk, which is the equivalent of water that a cow has walked past, but only with cereal. Milk and cookies? Why desecrate the goodness of the cookie with a sub-par beverage? I like my Cream of Wheat with about a tablespoon of water in it so it’s the consistency of paste rather than soup. I can eat yogurt and bananas, but when I get down to the last bite, I start to gag (I know, I’m starting to make Sally Albright look normal).
Anywhoodle, when it dawns on me that all I have is air-pie while the girls chew on Cheerios, I get up to remedy the situation. The minute my buns break contact with the chair I’m peppered with requests:
Mommy, can I have milk?
Mommy, can I have apple juice?
Mommy, can I have more milk?
Mommy can I have more apple juice?
Mommy, can I have toast without jelly?
Mommy, can I have toast without butter?
Mommy can I have toast with jelly and with butter?
Mommy can I have waffles with bacon and side of French Fries?
I spin and whirl between the fridge and the toaster, each trip pushing my own breakfast that much farther from my grasp. No wonder my stomach to think my throat has been cut. Truth be told, I should know better than to indulge Mo and Co with every breakfast request. On the one hand, I don’t want them to be hungry at school and unable to concentrate. On the other hand, let’s face it: they’re in school from 8:50 to 11:50. 3 hours without nourishment does not a famine make.
I’m only re-inforcing bad behavior with my up and down, up and down antics. I only have myself to blame when my reminders that “I’m not a short-order cook!” bring up snorts and snickers. For Christmas, they’ll probably get me a plastic name badge and a matching hairnet.
By the time I’ve gotten them sufficiently satiated and pull together some kind of semblance of breakfast for myself, they’re done and trying to pull out puzzles, crayons, finger paints, dress-up clothes, and bicycles.
So, I’ve begun a new regime after running through a couple of options. I was tempted to just put the milk, the cereal, the bread, the butter and all les accoutrements on the table during breakfast, but who wants to schlepp it out only to schlepp it back? Besides, I’ve got this thing about milk being left out (gross!), even if it is only for a 20 minute breakfast. I thought about prepping breakfast the night before, but I kept forgetting until I was already in the bed for the night. So I’ve come up with three suggestions rules to keep our morning routine machine well oiled.
1. Breakfast is what is. There are no exceptions, no substitutions, and definitely no returns.
2. Eat what’s on your plate, not what’s on my plate, your sister’s plate, or anyone else’s plate. Quelle surprise! We all have the same thing.
3. Eat what you’ve been given before you ask for more.
4. Half a spoonful of yogurt cannot possibly constitute fullness, so don’t even try it.
5. A courtesy taste is required of all foods. This includes a small portion of the food on the tines of the fork/in the bowl of the spoon going into your mouth, being chewed and swallowed. Touching the tip of your tongue to something for 0.007 seconds and declaring, “I don’t like it” isn’t the same thing.
3. When Mommy sits down, she ain’t gettin‘ up until her plate is clean. In other words, chew slowly and take small sips on that apple juice, ya dig?
I’m thinking this little list can be modified for lunch and dinner, too. What with Thanksgiving dinner all but here, I’m about to xerox this and affix it to everyone’s water glass. Then, when I sit down to eat, I’ll sit down and stay down. And we all know thankful I’ll be for that.
Since the temperature has been steadily falling the past few days, I’m trying to find more after-school activities for the girls that allow us to be in a climate controlled environment. Oh, and I don’t want to have to pay for it. Two kids plus an adult at one those inflatable playplaces or Chuck E. Cheese? We’re in a recession people! Plus with all of the fervor over H1N1? I won’t even go into that.
So, how have we been passing the time? We go visit my parents. We meet our friends for lunch and trade playdates at our respective houses. We go to the library. As a matter of fact, we’ve been to the library so many times in the past two weeks, when we went in on Wednesday, Mo and Co just grabbed a cart and started re-shelving some books.
Yesterday, I decided that they needed to run around a little bit, but the wind was biting just a bit too hard. I hate to admit it, but I’ve totally lost my New England edge. The thermometer drops below 65 and I’m breaking out thermal underwear and Perfomance Fleeces. I even went so far as to put two throw blankets in the dryer for 20 minutes and then drape them over the kitchen chairs so that the girls could be wrapped up in that fresh-from-the-dryer-warmth while they had breakfast. My mom once said, “Never start something you don’t plan on doing every single day” (I was a young newlywed at the time, so you can take your pick on activities to which she was referring — wink, wink, nudge, nudge). I had no idea fulfilling a daily request for “warm blankets” would be one of those things.
But as I was saying, the weather has cooled and we’re looking for some things to do. Enter the play area at the mall. Despite the H1N1 pandemonium of late, I took my chances and relied heavily on strength of daily vitamins, slatherings of Purell, and our seasonal flu vaccines. Besides, we haven’t been to the play area in a while. Probably not since that iPhone wielding mom who just watched as her kid face-planted into the floor (ahhh, good times). Our recent trip certainly didn’t disappoint.
First of all, they have since installed these pressurized gates on both of the entrances into the play area. I think it’s to keep the kids in, but it works more to keep people out because every single person that rolled up on those gates wrangled with it for like five minutes before someone inside the play area yelled, “You have to push it! You have to push it!” I saw one frustrated dad look around several times like he was waiting for Ashton Kutcher to jump out from behind the Starbucks and yell, “Dude, we totally go you!” After several ineffective attempts to open the gate, another patience-impaired parent tossed in her kid and her stroller. She then channelled Shawn Johnson and vaulted over it. Her execution score was low, but that was because she bobbled her landing.
We get into the play area and Mo and Co take off, blending into the mix of toddlers and pre–schoolers leaping off of things and sliding down others. I sit back, keeping one eye on my girls and another on the steady influx of moms, dads, and caregivers that begin to populate the place.
One mom comes lurching into the play area, straddling her child’s body as she holds him by the wrists and drags him across the ground. Seriously. She was dragging him. By the wrists. Across the ground. Are you kidding me?! At first I thought maybe he had some kind of paralysis of the legs because — oh yeah, he was being dragged!
He wasn’t crying or yelling or anything. He had this placid look on his face like, “Yeah, this is how I do.” The mom deposited him in front of some equipment like a retriever depositing some slippers in front of their master. She then pulled off his shoes and his coat while he laid face down on the floor. And he just laid there, chillin‘, even as several kids vaulted over him, as they ran laps around the perimeter.
He eventually got up, though I didn’t see where or when because Donatella Versace came in with Dolce by the hand and Gabanna in the stroller. Oh, can I tell you?! Actually, I misspoke. Donatella’s breasts came in first, followed by her lips, and then the rest of her. I mean, it’s Friday afternoon in Norfolk and this broad is wearing painted on jeans, Gucci stiletto boots, and a white tee shirt so tight, her nipples looked at me and whispered, “Help. . .us. . .can’t. . .breathe. . .”
She reached into her BeDazzled Coach bag made of some animal that probably wasn’t on the ark and promptly got on her BeDazzled cell phone. Quelle surprise! Little Dolce in his toddler Ed Hardy Shirt and 7 for all mankind Jeans hopped up on a climber and started yelling, “Mom! Mom! Look at me!” Donatella waved a BeDazzled hand at him and kept on talking. “Mom! Mom! Look at me!” Dolce persisted.
Well, I looked, and do you know this little joker proceeded to dance on top of that climber like he was Michael Jackson on the roof of a car in front of a courthouse! At first I thought he was having a grand mal seizure, what with all his popping and locking, but then when he grabbed his crotch? Oh my.
I cast my eyes around to do a check for Mo and Co and I spotted their respective Afro puffs bobbing up and down in between various children and equipment. And then, in my line of sight strode another woman, dragging a prone child by the wrist across the floor. Again with the wrist?! I suppose that was all she could manage because there was squirming infant trying to launch itself out of her compromised grasp.
Just behind her, a dad had his child by the wrist and ankle and began whirling himself around in a circle. He looked like a mast and the kid looked like an unfurled sail. And the mom?! She was standing off to the side with her hands over her mouth looking aghast. Seriously, lady? Stop that madness (yes, I know, I’m such a hypocrite). I was just waiting for the “pop” and the squeal that comes with dislocated bones. But really? If you are going to do your best Gordeeva and Grinkov impression, the local mall probably isn’t the best place to do it.
After that little display, I figured it was time to give the girls a 5 minute departure warning. When it was time to leave, I was braced for the post-lunch/pre-nap meltdowns. The girls put on their shoes and coats. Co got in the stroller and Mo buckled her in. They got their palms filled with hand sanitizer and rubbed their mitts together as we made it to the car. In record time, we were out of the lot, back to the house and into the bed for naps. And I didn’t even have to drag them by the wrists to do it.
Let me just set the record straight. I don’t do arts and crafts, despite what the Scholastic website would have you believe. You all know how I’ve suffered for my art in the past. I thought that with the girls going to school, I might be able to get off the hook with having to drag out the box of glue sticks, pipe cleaner’s, finger paints and googly eyes. Yeah, so much for that.
On Friday at school, Co was sent home with a large construction paper turkey feather Accompanying instructions said to ask your child what she is thankful for and provide a pictorial display as well. I figured this would be a good activity for me and the girls on Saturday afternoon.
Mo, Co, and I sat around the table, crayons and paper in reach and got down to business. I asked Co what she was thankful for and she said “My mommy and my daddy and my Morgan and my me and my mommy and my daddy and my Morgan and my me and. . .”
Mo said, “Um. . .turkey, green beans, rice, carrots, lettuce, potatoes, and walnuts.” All of this from the child that only eats Chinese chicken and broccoli and chicken nuggets?
We select some pictures for Co to glue onto her feather and Mo is busy working away on cutting out pictures from a magazine.
So far, so good, but by now I should be able to recognize the calm before the storm. In a matter of minutes, the grabby-hands come out. Snatching of colored pencils begins, pencil shavings are dumped on the floor, a glue stick is being used as chapstick (though in hindsight that probably wasn’t a bad idea). Co is using rubber stamps and the stamp pad to decorate her face. Mo is yelling out orders to me on how to clothe her paperdolls.
“I want tights!”
“I want shoes!”
“I want different shoes!”
“The dress needs peplums!” (What is this? Project Runway?)
“This isn’t how Daddy does it!”
And wham-o! Mo is dissolving into a toddler sized puddle of snot and tears. She’s upset because Co won’t share the scissors. She’s upset because she can’t find a black crayon. She’s upset because she needs a new brown paper bag with which to make a paper doll because there’s the faintest trace of yellow crayon on the bag she has. She’s upset because Mommy has no idea how make ballerina princess paper dolls like Daddy. She’s upset because the moon is not in the seventh house and Jupiter is misaligned with Mars.
Her eyes fill with tears the way a glass fills with water. When she closes her eyes and opens her mouth to cry, those tears ping out of her face with surprising velocity.
I implore her to calm down. I beg her to stop crying. I tell her that I can’t help her when she’s so upset. My Greek chorus of one (a.k.a Co), says, “I’m calm down. I’m not crying. I’m not upset” which is like squeezing a can of lighter fluid onto a bonfire. Thanks, Co.
My patience for this entire project evaporated the minute I brought that construction paper turkey feather home on Friday so you can imagine the Herculean strength it is taking me to keep it together. I reach back into my Mommy arsenal desperately groping for some type of something to diffuse the situation. Hugs! Of course!
“Mo, come get a hug!”
She hiccups herself over to my lap and wipes her nose ofn my shirt. I wrap my arms around her, pushing scraps of paper off to the side, opting to forgo chastising Co as she rouges her cheeks with an inked-up rubber stamp — it’s non-toxic and I’ve got Lever 2000. When we’ve cooled our jets for a while, I ask Mo if she’s alright and she mumbles something into my chest.
“What was that, sweetheart?”
She lifts her head, her eyes round and glassy, and she says, “My dress needs puffy sleeves, too.”
Right, of course it does.
I’ve always had trouble pronouncing the word hirsute. It sounds like “here-soot”, but I want to say “hair-suit”, which I think makes more sense. Thankfully I never had to use hirsute in a sentence that described myself. For those that haven’t cracked a Merriam Websters in a while, hirsute refers to excessive hairiness or as Wikipedia so eloquently puts it, “excessive and increased hair growth on female humans in locations where the occurrence of terminal hair normally is minimal or absent. ” Think Barnum and Bailey’s Bearded Lady or perhaps the cafeteria lady that dished up your Taylor Ham & Cheese lunch in elementary school. You get the idea.
Now, I have to admit, I have been pretty negligent about my eyebrow maintenance as of late. I’m getting a little Frieda Kahlo to be perfectly honest. Co was out of school the other day for a teacher in-service so it was her dubious pleasure to accompany on this little junket. I knew I didn’t have a whole lot of time as I spent the better part of the morning working off those Reese Cups from Halloween, so I opted to hit up the little nail/waxing hut in the mall.
I’ve got Co strapped in the stroller, plied with Goldfish and apple juice and we make our way past the nail tech benches and rows of pedicure chairs. The young lady directs us into the waxing room — more like closet — and instructs me to lie back on the reclining chair. Co has been wheeled and parked out of the way on the left hand side of the chair, but she is in an excellent spot to see what’s going on and throw out two year old questions and concerns about my welfare.
Now, you all know I’ve got big hair and often times the curls fall forward onto my face. The tech brushes my hair off of my forehead and then turns to get her wax applicator (I’m being generous here– we all know it’s a Popsicle stick). When she turns back, the hair has moved back to my forehead. She turns and puts down the wax applicator, turns back, pushes my hair aside, albeit a little more forcefully, and then turns to get the wax. Guess what happens with my hair. Seriously, when she turned around again, I swear she gave an exasperated sigh before using both hands to push and scrunch my hair away from my face. I think she put her foot against the wall for leverage.
With my hair semi-secured off of my face, she begins to apply the wax and the strips. Co cranes her head around, straining against the stroller straps to see what’s going on. With every step of the wax and rip process, she wants to know:
“What dat?”
“You have a boo boo?”
“Ow, Mommy. Ow, ow, ow, right?”
“Your face is hurting! Your face is hurting!”
I assure her that I’m fine, though ripping hair off of one’s face using hot wax is probably about as far from fine as you can get. Part of me wonders if exposure to this beauty regimen is going to burrow into her brain and then when she’s 11 years old, she’ll have brows and a ‘stache like Madonna’s daughter and demand electrolysis.
Speaking of mustaches, I never likened myself to Tom Selleck before, but the waxing tech must have thought he and I were twins separated at birth. As soon as she finished my brows, she asks, “You want me to get your mustache, too?”
My hand flies to my upper lip, fingers probing around expecting to feel an outcropping of hair. “What?!,” I stammer “Get my what?”
“Your mustache,” she says, waxed covered Popsicle stick poised and ready to go. “I can take care of that.”
I grab the handheld mirror lying on the counter and look at my face. It’s bad enough that the ripping of the wax from my brows has raised puffy red welts around my eyes and along my brow bone. Forget about my hair preceding me when I enter a room; now my inflamed brows had that pleasure . Did I really want to add a pink puffy upper lip? No, not really.
So, I thanked the tech, tucked my chin down to my chest, pulled my curls over my brows and wheeled us out of there. As we boogied on out of the mall, I ended up walking past several of those kiosks that sell skin and hair care products, including as kiosk for threading. The young man was holding some thread between his hands as he leapt out at me. “Excuse me, Miss? Can I just ask you a question? You look really familiar.”
“No,” I said striding past. “I am NOT Tom Selleck!”
I think it’s the slippers doing a triple axle in the air over his head. . . .