What DO you do all day?!?!

I think there is nothing that irritates stay at home mom’s more than the genuinely curious stranger who dares utter the words “What do you do all day?”  I suppose some think about how they’re at their jobs all day long, come home and manage to make dinner, clean up the house and take care of the kids needs in the evening and truly can’t imagine what they’d need to do if home all day long. 

So what do I do all day?  Let’s see, from morning through dinner, here’s today:

I wake up and feed Nolie and CamCam their breakfast.  While they’re eating I decide that today’s the day I’m going to finally have the dreaded kitchen counter that everything seems to end up on completely cleared away.  School papers are recycled or filed away, everything that needs to go upstairs is put on the stairs, bills are brought down to the office desk, toys are brought to the toy room, remotes are put away, etc, etc.  It looks wonderful.

Nolie and CamCam finish eating and bring their dishes to the sink.  CamCam tells me I really need to do dishes.  He helps me empty the dishwasher, and I fill it.  It is almost full, there’s just enough room for a couple more dishes.  I make a mental note to run it after I eat my breakfast. 

I decide to first clean the entry, the smallest and easiest room in the house to clean.  Then I’ll have one clean room!  Put everything away, vacuum up all the dirt and mud.  Success!  While in there, find a note from the school I need to sign.  Put it on the kitchen counter so I don’t forget.

Come up to the main area to pick up toys.  While picking up, see how dirty the bottom half of all the windows are in this room and so wash them.  Nolie and CamCam decide to go play outside.  Great, that will make it much easier for me to clean.  Manage to vacuum the kitchen.  Start picking up toys and while bringing something upstairs realize how much laundry there is to do.  Start a load, and sit down to fold what’s already clean.  Hear yelling outside, stop folding to go and see what they’re fighting about.  Start back upstairs, but notice that kitchen counters need to be washed when I walk by them.  Start washing them, find a nerf bullet behind the toaster, walk upstairs to put it away.  See the huge pile of partially folded clothes, sit down to fold some more. 

Hear “Little Hurricane” trying to open the door.  Open the door for him, and he slyly peaks through the door.  Think, “He’s so cute.”  Then think, “What’s that smell???”  Realize it’s poop, and then realize it’s all over his hands.  Wisk him off to the tub.  Go into Little Miss’ room and bleach the wall where the poop art was made.  Strip his bed and add it to the laundry pile.  Try and figure out what else little poopy hands could possible have touched and wash it all.  While cleaning find a note she needed me to mail, throw it down the stairs to put on the kitchen counter so I don’t forget to mail it.

Sit down to fold laundry, see “Little Hurricane” climbing out of the tub.  Bring him down to dress and feed, there’s a knock at the door.  It’s Nolie, bringing me the mail.  I grab it and throw it on the kitchen counter to go through later. 

Hear screaming outside, then the front door slam.  Nolie comes in, covered in mud.  I send him back to the entry to get undressed, then upstairs for a shower.  “Little Hurricane’s” mad because I won’t let him outside so he spits his milk all over the floor.  Start to wipe it up and hear CamCam come inside.  He’s even more covered in mud.  Strip him down in the entry, and send him up for a bath. 

Lunch time, while we’re eating lunch I look online to see what activities I can sign the kids up for the summer. Print out the info, throw it on the kitchen counter to fill out later.  Turn around and see “Little Hurricane” has finished his lunch and is running his peanut butter hands all over the window and licking the window.  Clean up from lunch and send the boys to the toy room to play. 

“Little Hurricane’s” mad they won’t let him play with them so he starts spitting everywhere.  Tell him to stop and think that I really need to mop. 

Go back upstairs to switch around the laundry and while putting away a pile realize the kids floors are covered in dirty clothes.  Didn’t I just have them pick this up yesterday??? Oh well, gather it up from all rooms and throw it into the bathroom. 

Nolie yells to me that CamCam peed his pants.

Run downstairs and see that not only is CamCam soaked, but he’s been walking all around.  Get him back to the tub, then wash up everywhere I can see pee and make a mental note that I definitely need to mop the floor later.  While washing, see little game pieces under the heaters.  Grab them out and put them on the kitchen counter to put away later. 

While I was occupied with that, “Little Hurricane” had reached the bag of animal crackers on the kitchen counter and dumped the entire bag on the kitchen floor in his eagerness to get it into his bowl. 

Older two are home from school.  CamCam and Nolie are laughing and pressing their hands and faces all over the big window as they walk by the big window.  Switch over to homework mode and tell the little boys they need to play by themselves now.  They bring their toys out so they can be near us still.

Time to start dinner.  While working on dinner, I’m brought field trip permission slips to sign and returned papers for me to look at.  I tell them to put them on the kitchen counter so I will remember to take care of them later. 

After dinner ask my oldest two to fill the dishwasher and run it.  They inform me there’s room for 2 plates, 1 cup and that’s it. 

Crap, I forgot to run it after I ate my breakfast. 

So what do I do all day long?  Well, the kitchen counters are covered in papers, mail and school stuff, the laundry is all over the place in various phases of “needing to be put away, needing to be folded, needing to be washed and needing to be sorted,” my entry way is full of mud, my floors desperately need to be vacuumed and mopped, my windows are covered in fingerprints and who knows what else, the kitchen sink is full of dirty dishes and there are toys all over the floor.

I guess I do nothing all day. 

Will Work For Diapers

I have 2 toddlers in diapers full time.  Little Hurricane is small for his age, so he’s still in a Huggies size 3.  This is good for me, because the genius diaper companies charge the same amount for every size pack of diapers, but give you less and less as the sizes go up.  Size 3 still gives me a reasonable amount of diapers.  If I buy the small pack it will at least last the week.

CamCam is a size 5.  Lots less diapers.  CamCam also has a sensitive butt, so his delicate little behind will only tolerate Pampers Cruisers.  He can not use Luvs, not even regular Pampers.  Outside of designer diapers, which I’m sure must exist somewhere (what else would the rich and famous buy, right?) Pampers Cruisers are the crème-de-la-crème in the diaper world.    Which, naturally, equals more money. 

Oh wait, I forgot diaper companies are tricky.  Same money, less diapers. 

I have one in pull-ups at night.  Pull-ups are about $10 a pack and have all of like 6 pull-ups in them.  Completely ridiculous. 

And then of course there’s wipes.  I go through a crazy amount of wipes.  Part of it’s my fault- I realize that the only thing between my hand and all that yuckiness is a flimsy little wipe.  So I like to double up.  The Dada saw me do this once and told me to just use one, I was wasting wipes.  So I told him he could wipe the poopy butts with his one-wipe-covered-hand instead of me doing it if he’d like. 

He hasn’t brought it up since. 

But the majority of my wipes are used by Little Hurricane.  No matter how high or hidden I keep the wipes, Little Hurricane can get to them.  He LOVES to pull them out of the container.  He likes to wipe furniture with them, he likes to “wash” the floor with them.  If you do not have hardwood floors and have also never been fortunate enough to have someone wash your floor with baby wipes, you may not realize that the two form a deadly combination. 

Quite literally. 

That wipe leaves some sort of film on the floor that turns it into an instant sheet of ice.  Walk over said spot while wearing socks and you don’t stand a chance.  And he really likes to wash the stairs.

He also likes to throw them.  Every week I lose at least one pack of wipes to this.  He pulls those little buggers out of the pack as fast as he can and throws them across the room.  Ever seen that show Minute to Win It?  On that show they have this one game where the contestant has to pull all the tissues out of a box in under a minute. 

Little Hurricane would ROCK at that game.

I caught him on the tail end of this one the other day.

 

Throw, throw, throw

Brand new box of wipes all gone, look at the joy on his face:

The aftermath:

So to everyone that’s ever asked, yeah, it’s pretty expensive having multiple kids in diapers. 

I’m drowning in testosterone!

I am not a loud, crazy person.  I am calm.  I like quiet.  Noise stresses me out. 

So how did I get four loud, wild, chaotic boys ? 

At least I have Little Miss.  She can keep them in check.  When she plays with them, she makes sure things never escalate out of control.  But some day she’ll grow up and move out.  Even if she waits until she’s 20 to move out, the little 3 will only be 15, 13 and 12. 

I’m pretty sure they’ll still be living here at that age.  Pretty sure.

Which means I’ll be the only girl.

The only girl in a house full of boys. 

Sometimes Little Miss stays away overnight and I get a glimpse of what my life will be like. Full of burping, poop jokes, and mess.  And at the end of every sentence, CamCam will say- “Like my buuutttt!!!!”   I don’t quite know what he means by that, but it evokes a squeal of laughter from his brothers. 

Even when they’re playing nicely together, it doesn’t take much to send everything spiraling out of control.  Today Nolie and CamCam were playing with a jump rope.  Nolie let go of his end, and it snapped and hit CamCam.  CamCam screamed and cried, and, because he was mad at Nolie, he pushed The Baby down.  Because CamCam firmly believes that when you’re mad at someone bigger then you, it’s best to pick on someone smaller then you.   The Baby screamed and cried, and LaLa ran down to the basement before I could.  He yelled at Nolie for hurting his brother, and pushed him away from them.  Which made Nolie get upset.  And also scared The Baby, who cried even louder. 

Everyone got in on this one.  A simple little mishap and I have a room of screaming and crying boys.   

Wish I could go back in time and give these to me:

 

 

 

 

 

Little Hurricane was on a roll this morning!

-------------------------------

What Was He Thinking?!?

I would LOVE it if I could, just once, understand my kid’s thought process.  How often I shake my head and say “What were you thinking?”  

“Were you thinking???”

Just the other day CamCam and Nolie were downstairs playing.  I heard CamCam cry, so I went to see what was up.  CamCam was standing at the bottom of the stairs, Nolie was hiding (definite guilty move!) and CamCam’s face was covered in a black sorta haze.  My paranoid prone brain naturally went to every worst case scenario that could have produced crying AND a black face. 

“What happened to you?”  No answer.

“What did Nolie do?”  No answer

“What’s happened to your face?!?!”  That’s when Nolie saw his chance.  He knew he’d be in trouble with the first two questions, but on this one he was scott-free.  He came bouncing out of hiding and exclaimed “CamCam ate the stamps!”

Apparently my boys were playing with stamps, and CamCam decided to lick the inkpad. 

“What were you thinking?  Why on earth would you lick the inkpad?!?”

Naturally, he had a perfectly logical explanation:  “Because, I was playing basketball and so then I ate the black.”

Well, logical to him anyways. 

I really wish I could say they grow out of this.  But, alas, experience has taught me that this is not so.

Last year, when my oldest son was 12, I went into his room and saw that his comforter had a big hole in it.

 

“What did you do to your comforter???”
”Nothing, it ripped.”
”There’s no way that it ripped like that.”
”Yes it did.”
”You seriously expect me to believe that it ripped in a perfect square.”
    silence
”Did you cut it?”
”Yeah.”
”Why did you cut it?”
”I spilled lemonade.”
(trying to wrap my brain around that one)”So why would you cut it if you spilled lemonade on it, I can just wash it.”
”No, I didn’t spill lemonade on it, I spilled it on the shelf here.”
(trying not to scream) ”I don’t get it.”
”I didn’t have any towels to wipe it up with.”
”So you thought cutting your comforter was the best idea?!?”
”What else was I supposed to do?”

I have a feeling that once they’re teenagers, it only gets worse.

House Cleaning Strike

You know what I don’t want to do anymore?  Clean my house. 

Nope.

Had enough.

I hear many moms say it’s a never-ending battle.  And guess what?  It really is a never-ending battle. 

At any given moment I have enough laundry thrown around the house to open my own Gap store.  And everyday I pick it up.  How is that even possible?  I know there’s seven people living here, but come on!  No one's changing clothes 10 times a day, where is all the laundry coming from?  Heck, CamCam won’t even wear clothes.  Is someone throwing it out of the closets when I’m not looking?  Something fishy is definitely going on here. 

And dust.  I think all the world’s dust originates at my house.  Yup.  Right here is the source.  Sorry people.  It doesn’t matter how often you dust, soon as you turn around, it’s right back.  It’s like some sort of evil monster. 

Ohhhh, fingerprints.  I have fingerprints all over the windows, furniture and kitchen appliances.  Except, my kids have Indestructible Fingerprints.  No matter what cleaning product I buy, I can’t get them off.  I actually wiped some of the finish off our end table, but the fingerprints wouldn’t budge. 

Mopping is a joke.  All I do when I mop is guarantee that soon after someone will have an accident.  Maybe someone can’t make it to the bathroom.  Maybe someone decides to throw a plate of food across the room.  Or maybe someone decides their old enough to get their own glass of apple juice and then, oops, when they spill the entire bottle decide they better use every towel they can find to smear the stuff across the room.  

How about picking up?  Anyone still bother to try and pick up toys and things that are where they do not belong?  I read this cleaning tip once- it said to take a laundry basket with you throughout your house and anything you find that isn’t where it belongs, toss it into the basket.  Hahaha, one laundry basket!  Could anyone accomplish this with one?  I think I’d need at least 10.

But seriously, if I really put my mind to it and decided that this was it, I was going to go right now and not stop until I had the entire house in tip-top shape, I bet I could get the whole thing done in less then 3 hours.   

I could do it.

And my three little boys, if they really put their mind to it and decided to go right after and not stop until they had messed up everything I did, I bet they would be done in less than 3 minutes. 

They have done it.

I hope I’m not asking for too much, but. . .

I think I need a break.

One week would be nice.  One week away on vacation somewhere warm and I could have a week off from doing laundry.  Ahhhh, that would be great.

Although a week off from laundry probably isn’t possible.  What would everyone wear?

6 Days then.  I’d like 6 days off from cleaning the house.  No vacuuming, no dusting- how awesome would that be?

Of course, no one would be cleaning in those 6 days, so I’d just have a lot of catching up to do.  6 days break is asking too much.

5 Days- for 5 days I would love it if the kids would stop fighting.  No pushing someone because they took your toy, no rough-housing resulting in tears.  It would be so quiet here.

But how would I stop them from fighting?  Sure, Little Miss is fine, but it’s in boy’s blood to fight- I don’t think it’s possible to contain it. 

So 4 Days it is.  For 4 days I don’t want to have to clean up from a single meal.  No highchair trays dumped to the floor to signal “I’m Done!”, no peanut butter sandwiches turned into table art, no more spaghetti sauce in hair. 

I think that’s asking the impossible though.  NO way that could ever happen.

How about 3 days?  A long weekend- maybe The Dada and I could go away for a long weekend and just relax.  Marvelous.

Except that I know the minute I leave the house I’d miss my kiddos too much and I wouldn’t enjoy myself at all the entire time.

So a long weekend away is expecting too much of me.  How about 2 days?  For 2 days I’d love it if I didn’t have to pick up a single toy.  No rooms looking like a hurricane or tornado just went through them.

Of course I DO have a little hurricane and tornado living in my home. 

So one day.  For one day could no one please ask me for food?  No more eating full meals and then 15 minutes later crying to me about how hungry your tummy is.  No hanging on cupboard doors wailing about how you need to “eat, eat, eaaaattttt!”  No opening the fridge door and climbing up inside. 

But that’s never going to happen, I have a house full of boys.  Endless guts.

So maybe just a few hours?  Could I have a few hours to maybe work on “The baby’s” scrapbook?

Fancy paper, markers, nifty scissors, glue, stamps and endless piles of stickers- what on earth am I thinking asking my little boys to stay away from that tempting spread???

Ok, so if a few hours is too much, how about a minute?  If I could just have one minute to run upstairs and use the bathroom without “Little Hurricane” pushing a bar stool over to the kitchen sink, climbing up the stool and onto the counter, then crawling into the kitchen sink and drinking the old liquids out of the dishes sitting in there; if I could just do that- it would be the best thing ever. 

Lost in Translation

What is wrong with the filter in our boy’s brains?  I know they are hearing what I say, but there must be something wrong with the connection between their ear and their brain that takes what I say, and turns it into the complete opposite.  And it’s not just one of my boys.  Nope, it’s all four.  So it definitely has to be a “boy thing”. 

I even think The Dada suffers from this.

I’m in the entry, putting on the boys coats and shoes as quickly as possible because we are running late for a doctor’s appointment.  I get “Mr. Trouble’s” stuff on him.

I say:  Ok, go out to the van and quickly buckle yourself in.  We are late so please go right into your seat.

He hears:  Go outside and run around to the back of the house.  Try and hide and when I come looking for you, run away and hide somewhere else.  Keep this up until we are REALLY late. 

I’m upstairs putting away laundry that has gathered outside the bedroom doors.  I’m in the boys room and CamCam comes up to me with a pile of his sister’s clothes.

He says: Here ya go ma.

I say: Thanks CamCam,  but these are your sister’s, they don’t go in here. The Baby’s sleeping in there though, so just put them back on the floor. 

He hears:  These are your sister’s.  Open her door and put them in her room, preferably as loudly as possible. 

We are out in public and Nolie and CamCam run off from me as we are leaving a building.  CamCam runs outside and takes off.  When we get into the van, I give the boys a stern talk about listening and safety.

I say:  You boys have got to start listening to me.  I’ve told you over and over that you have to stay next to me when we are out.  It isn’t safe when you run off.  But you don’t listen to me and that’s why we don’t get to do fun things like go to Chuckie Cheese and go to the playground.  When you start listening and being safe, then we can do more of these fun things.

CamCam hears:  We’re going to the playground!

The older two have been home from school for a half-hour and I am letting them know what their chores are. 

To my oldest I say:  You need to put your clean laundry away.  Please make sure you do not just throw it all in one drawer, you need to put everything away in the correct drawers.  I’ve even laid it out according to which drawer it goes in for you so there’s no excuse.

He hears:  Grab the 4 piles of clean laundry in one massive swoop and dump everything into the bottom drawer of my dresser.  If it topples over, grab whatever fell onto the floor, open the top drawer, and shove it into that.  Now, granted, only the middle drawer is staying closed, but 1 out of 3 isn’t half-bad. 

It’s getting close to dinner time, and I’m in the kitchen trying to finish up as quickly as possible.

I say:  Alright everyone, you gotta get out of here.  I know you’re all hungry and I’m going as fast as I can, but I cannot cook like this. 

They hear:  Mom can’t finish cooking unless The Baby is standing between her legs, hanging onto them and crying, Nolie and CamCam are running around her hitting each other, LaLa is looking in all the pots and asking if he can “just have cereal to eat.” 

The little boys have all been tucked into bed.  I’m in Nolie and CamCam’s room.

I say:  Ok boys, now it’s time to go to sleep.  I read you your book, everyone’s gone potty, you have your drinks right here.  There is no reason for you to get up.  I don’t want any talking or fooling around, it’s time for sleeping.

They hear:  Ok boys, it’s now time to act like caged animals.  I want to hear banging on the walls, throwing of toys, and LOTS of laughing.  Hopefully loud enough to wake The Baby. Tear apart your room.   And, I can think of at least 6 different things you could come out of your room to ask for.  Whatever you do- do not go to sleep. 

I wonder if stamps are figured into the cost of raising a child?

Recently I sent The Dada a text message that read:  You’re out of stamps. 

To which he replied:  How can I be out of stamps?  I just bought some.

To which I replied:  Because certain people in our house do not understand the meaning of the word “stamps”, but they do understand the meaning of the word “stickers”.

Yes, once again my boys were up to no good.  CamCam had his back to me, and I heard some paper crinkling.  I kept looking over, but didn’t see anything.  I assumed he found a little piece of paper on the ground and was playing with it.  But eventually I asked him what he had.  He said “Stickers.”  I figured he took some stickers out of his potty reward stash and was playing with them.  I don’t know why I haven’t learnt my lesson by now.  Why do I always assume my boys are playing with something normal? Why haven’t I learnt that their little imaginations never take them to toys or stickers or plastic containers?  No, their little mischievous imaginations take them to makeup drawers, markers, trash and anything that would waste my money. 

When I did finally go over to them, I saw that they had gotten into our stamps and put them everywhere.

“Who put these everywhere?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” said Mr. Trouble.  “CamCam and me?”  And then, get this, he says, with a sense of pride and accomplishment in his voice, “We worked very hard.”

Like I should be thanking him or something!  “Wow boys!  Great job!  I am so impressed that you put these very expensive stickers all over the room.  Way to go!”

 

---

This is pretty cool.  All our doorknobs should have a stamp on them.

 

If your going to play with stamps, there must ALWAYS be an attempt to mail a baby. 

  

 

So if you think your boys are up to no good never, never, never ask them about it and take their word for it.  Investigate.  I assume I’m being taught this lesson by toddlers so that when I’m the mommy of teenagers I’ll know better.

Thanks boys.

That isn’t apple juice running down your arm. . .

There is a lull in the morning.  A time that peace and quiet reigns over my house.  The oldest two are off at school, two of my little boys are still sleeping, and The Baby is silently looking at books.

Silence.

This is MY time.  I can read a book, poke around on the computer, or just sit and drink coffee while looking out the window. 

And then Mr. Trouble comes down the stairs.  He immediately wants food, says his tummy hurts and he MUST have food NOW.  The Baby is excited to see his brothers finally waking up, and starts running around full of jibber-jabber.  He runs by me as I’m getting Mr. Trouble his breakfast, and I catch a whiff of a dirty diaper.  Mr. Trouble says he needs milk, his tummy is really, really, really hurting and he needs milk now.  The milk and dirty diaper must wait a second, I hear a “tap-tap-tap” coming from upstairs.  CamCam is up, and he needs to be let out of his room.  I run upstairs to let him out, decide to pick him up so I can quickly get back downstairs.  The pressure of my arm is just enough to send his full diaper over the edge.  Yucky liquid starts running down my arm. 

And so my morning has begun. 

Goodbye peace, goodbye quiet. 

We shall meet again 24 hours from now.

What Do These Things Have In Common?

 

Three Lego wheels….

A Lincoln Logs man…

 

A bean bag….

One sock….

Two fighting men…

 

Vacuum piece…

  

A red Imaginext bullet…

Yet another Lego wheel and a magnetic ball….

 

So what do these items have in common???

These are all items I pulled out of my sub-woofer

Things I Never Thought I’d Hear Myself Say

Being a mother changes many things about you.  Remember all the things your mom did when your were a child that drove you nuts?  THOSE are the things you find yourself doing.  I hated it when I was a kid and I’d ask my mom why I couldn’t do something and she’d reply:  “Because I said so, that’s why.”  But WHY, I wanted to know.  I didn’t care what the reason was, I’d still listen, I just wanted to know what her reason was.  I swore I’d never say that to my kids.  Well, a person can only take being asked “why” so many times, I’ve discovered.  When every reason you give is met with resistance, because I said so, is the only unarguable answer there is.

Ever been out in public and noticed a disheveled mom with little ones in tow, hair clipped up in a messy bun that isn’t fooling anyone- we all know you didn’t shower today, complete with sweatpants and her husband’s dirty t-shirt?

 “What on earth is wrong with her, I’d never go out in public like that?” 

Then you encounter your umpteenth sleepless night because your baby’s teething, and when on earth are you going to take a shower- can’t leave toddlers and babies unattended, and Mt. Laundry is definitely taking over your house leaving you with nothing to wear, and crap- you’re out of milk.  Now who’s the messy slob out at the grocery store?

Then there are those times where you say something, and right after you think “I can’t believe those words just left my mouth!”  There are things you just never thought you’d hear yourself say. 

Here are my recent favorites:

Don’t touch my bananas  
Said to “The Baby” while at the grocery store.  Bananas happen to be his favorite food and he was bending over backwards- literally- to reach the bananas in the cart behind him and trying to eat them, skin and all. 

Why is there a can of tomato paste in the toy box?
I think that’s a reasonable question.

Please stop sucking on the window.
And I think this is a reasonable request.

Stop using the baby as a weapon!
Said to my oldest while in a parking lot- he was pushing “The Baby” in the stroller and trying to run down his brothers and sister.

Come here so I can smell your butt.
Never ever ever did I think I’d hear myself say this.  Much less, multiple times a day.  But when you have multiple kids in diapers, what other way is there to tell who’s responsible for that horrendous smell in the room?

---------------------------

How about you?  What things have you said to your kids lately and right after thought: I can’t believe I just said that!

He’s at it again!

Shout and Bissell need to team up. 

Seriously.

Together, they’re a force to be reckoned with.  I’ve combined the power of Shout with my Bissell carpet cleaning machine a number of times.  But today it REALLY saved me.

Today I was working on chore charts for my kids.  CamCam was in the room with me.  I finally finished one of my charts and stood up to bring the laptop over to the printer.  I was about to walk over when I was distracted by a “click, click, click” noise.  I turned and that’s when I saw him.

CamCam

Standing in front of my couch. 

With a pen.

Clicking it open and shut.

Not by pushing the button.  Nope. By slamming it on my couch. 

You know that feeling when you’re aware something horrible is happening, and you know you must go over to see what it is, but you walk in slow motion as if the act of walking in slow motion will make time go backwards and undo what you’re about to see.  That’s how I walked over to my couch.  You see, my couch isn’t even a year old.  The Dada and I timidly replaced our old couch with these new ones we love.  We did so timidly because we knew we still had preschoolers in our house, and they were the ones who ruined our old couch. 

It was drawn on.  Jumped on until the springs gave out.  Ripped.  Vomited on.  Peed on.  The final straw was when my 3rd child pulled the cushions off of the couch, sat down on it to watch TV, and then peed on the couch.  Urine dripping down the inner springs, no way I could get in there. 

We actually went for quite some time without any couch whatsoever, just because we KNEW bad things would happen to our new couch.  But finally we made the plunge. 

I’ve been stressed about that couch ever since. 

And today I see this:

And this

Also this

Finally this

“No!  No no no no no no no!” I said.  Like that was going to do anything.  I froze.  I knew I needed to get to it quickly if I had any chance of getting it off.  But I didn’t know what to use.  I didn’t want to smear the ink and make it a big blue spot.  I didn’t want to use something that would ruin the color on the couch. 

I had one shot.

I tried to use just water, but that did nothing.  So I took the plunge, went and got my Shout.  I have the spray bottle kind and the gel kind with the brush in the cap.  That’s the one I went for.  Then I went and got my Bissel handheld machine. 

Just a little shout, used the brush to work it in, sprayed water on it, used the machine to work it together and then suck out the excess- that combination was removing all that ink!  I was so happy!

My couch was pretty wet, and  so I put a towel on it to suck up some more water.  I figured the least CamCam could do was provide the weight on the towel.

 

Now it was done, and I just hoped with everything I had that when it was dry, the couch would be one color. 

Please no permanent cleaning spots. 

Voila!

Back to new.  I just hope the next “accident” is as easy to fix.

It’s Summer, Cut Me Some Slack Part 2

Here we go again, seeing how much an early two year old changes from an almost three year old.  This time? 

Makeup

CamCam has always LOVED getting into things.  But especially my makeup.  He is fascinated with it all.  He loves to open the little containers, see what’s inside.  Color with what’s inside.

I’m really hoping this is just a phase and not a way-of-life.

-------------------------------------------

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

HAHA, I Told You!

I think our house may just be a little bit too small. I really like my house, but it's becoming a bit tight. The biggest issue is that we all are sharing one bathroom. It wasn't such a big deal when we first built our home. The "Leader of the FabFive" and "Little Miss" were just little kids at the time. Preschoolers. It was convenient to have us all right next to each other and sharing the same bathroom.

But now they are older and need privacy. And then there's also the fact that there are a lot more kids. The Dada and I are now outnumbered. The drawers are being taken over by kids toothbrushes. "Little Miss" has an entire drawer devoted to her hair stuff. All the adult stuff is being pushed aside to make room.

And of course there's also THIS problem. The problem where I will walk into the bathroom and find this:

(To continue reading this post, click here )

-------------------------------------------

The other day I tried to put CamCam in for a nap.  He still needs naps, but he still is fighting them.  I thought this time we succeeded, as he had been in his room for quite a while and I hadn’t heard anything from him. 

I was in the hallway outside his room, when this little face peeks out at me:

Here we go again.

 

CamCam shares a room with “Little Miss”, and instead of napping he had been playing in her makeup. 

Specifically, a tube of rather dark lipstick.  To a two year old, lipstick is the BEST tube of finger-paint imaginable.  Every time CamCam’s played with makeup, I am surprised at how difficult it is to remove.  This time I had to remove it from CamCam, his clothing, Little Miss’ bedding, a wool rug and CamCam’s bed. 

This toddler bed was bought for our oldest son.  After him, I gave it to my cousin who used it for two of her sons.  My cousin leant it out to a friend of hers.  It found it’s way back to me for CamCam.  This bed survived 4 boys and none of them did anything to this bed that couldn’t be undone.  It took CamCam to paint it pink with lipstick and leave his mark on this bed forever.   I was able to remove most of the lipstick, but it’s pink hue remains all over the side of the bed.

    

The part in all this that made me really chuckle occurred when I was scrubbing the rug.  I looked over and saw the baby Mickey Mouse that “Mr. Trouble” and CamCam carry all over my house and take care of as if it was their own baby.  CamCam had smeared chunks of lipstick all over baby Mickey’s mouth. 

So, once again, for the official tally:
Getting into makeup a year ago
vs. Getting into makeup today:
No Change

Here’s What Happens While I’m Blogging

It’s really hard when your a mommy blogger to find the time to blog.  Most of my posts are written with a little one crying or whining or screaming at my feet.  Generally there is sibling fighting going on in the room with me.  Kids will start asking me for stuff I’ve said no to all day because they know there’s a good chance I’ll absentmindedly say yes.  Honestly, it’s a wonder I’m able to form a complete thought, much less a complete sentence. 

Sometimes, though, REALLY special stuff happens while I’m blogging. 

For example, take the last blog post I wrote.  While I was up here typing that post, unbeknownst to me, a little painting party was going on in my basement.  I was enlightened to the fact that this was occurring when “Mr. Trouble” came up the stairs saying he needed to wash his feet.  I looked up at him, and he was covered in paint- his hands up to his elbows, all over his shirt, all over his feet up to his knees, and his shorts- all covered in paint.  “Leader of the Fab-Five” saw him and yelled at him to stop walking, which of course just made “Mr. Trouble” walk very slowly up my stairs while sliding his body against the wall. 

I got him into the shower, and then went downstairs to investigate.  Not surprisingly, CamCam was also an attendee at this fun painting party.  I discovered that he and his brother had attempted to clean themselves in the bathroom down there.  So my walls in the bathroom all around the sink were covered in paint, the sink itself was completely covered, and the floor had painty water splattered everywhere. 

The absolute worst area was, obviously, the room in which they were painting.  It hasn’t even been a month since I repainted this room.  It needed repainting since CamCam had written all over the walls with marker.  Well, apparently someone needed to catch their balance while exiting the room, and used my freshly painted walls to break their fall. 

My white carpet now has fabulous brown footprints all over it.

 

Yeah, I know.  Choosing white carpet was definitely NOT one of my better choices in life. 

Here’s the guilty party, not looking very guilty at all.  Actually looking like they had quite a bit of fun.

And here is the masterpiece that caused all this chaos.

Quite the work of art.  People buy all sorts of weird art, I wonder if I could sell it and make enough to have my carpets cleaned.

Note to self. . . .

Never again send your 2 year old  unsupervised to brush his teeth. 

Unless you again want to find him sitting on the bathroom counter, sucking down a tube of toothpaste. 

Dear Dyson

Dear Mr. Dyson,

I LOVE your vacuum.  I needed a new vacuum for quite some time, and your commercials had me intrigued.  After getting fabulous feedback from some current Dyson owners, I decided to take the plunge and buy one for myself. 

I was not disappointed- your vacuum practically sucks the carpet off of my floor.  However, I was watching TV recently, when a commercial of yours came on.  You said something to the effect of how you look at the problems in vacuums and find solutions.  So I thought I’d point out just a couple minor problems you may want to address.

First, I know the entire suction in the vacuum rests on your cyclone technology.  Fabulous really.  Like 5 mini tornados inside my vacuum, circling around and sucking up debris. 

Here’s the problem- my little boys. 

Everyday my 2 littlest boys dump cereal on the ground.  At first I thought it was just accidents, or them just acting their age, but then I started to notice something.  Every time they’d dump the cereal, I’d vacuum it up, and then they would follow me around the room watching the vacuum in fascination.  Over time I realized that they weren’t clumsy, they were actually throwing cereal on purpose so they could watch their little cheerios and kix swirling around in the vortex of air.  CamCam gave them away- one day he let a little “look ma, cereal going round and round and round” slip. 

Now I think this problem is easily solved, just stop with the see-thru container.  No one wants to see all that junk anyways. 

Second:

This little grey button unleashes the canister holding all the horrors that used to be on my floors.  The phrase “A man must have invented that” comes to mind. (I don’t want any hate-mail coming my way.  If your offended by what I said, send a bunch of men over to vacuum my house. haha) In case you weren’t aware, grown adults are buying your product.  There really was no need to make the button so obvious.  Hide it a little, tell us where it is.  I promise, we’ll remember.  As it stands now, your button is prominently out there.  And guess who LOVES buttons?

Him

and him

I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve chased one of them around my house as they run around carrying that canister laughing and laughing at me. 

And once that canister is off, here’s what they see:

Red?  Really?  Was it really necessary to make the button that unleashes all the yuckiness bright red? 

“Yoo-hoo, boys, here I am!  Push me!”

Now I know that technically everything in that canister was on my floors just a few minutes ago, but there’s something so much worse about it being relet out.  I mean, technically toilet water comes from the same water that runs to our sinks, but I don’t see anyone drinking that.  I think I’ve made my point. 

So, anyways, if you could just find a way to make these few minor adjustments, I think you’ll have the perfect vacuum. 

You could even call it “The CamCam.”

Sincerely,

CamCam’s Mommy