Dirty Dishes

I have dirty dishes in my sink as I write this.

Today is a rain day here at home.  It's a cool 60 degrees and the mix of cool temps and rain seems like a gift delivered to our doorsteps.

But inside or home it hasn't felt cozy and nice.

We just received AMAZING hand me down clothes.  I mean, a-maz-ing.  Boxes and boxes of them.  Last night I held up each item and one of the four boys said yay or nay to it.  Then I told them to make sure they had them taken care of.

And they trotted upstairs like angels and did.

At least, I thought they did.

This morning I told the boys that since it's so rainy and cool, how about they get their room totally clean so we are all set for when we all get home after being gone a week to face the football and school schedule's we'll be facing.

Granted, the boys don't like to hear about school.  I don't like to hear about school.

I could hear them fighting and whining and screaming at each other.

Because I was still in my pj's and barefoot, I easily snuck up the stairs to see their rooms...trashed.

Messier than they were before, if that's possible.  PILES of all the clothes I have worked so hard to wash, dry and fold literally strewn from one end of the room to the other.

S4 wanted to tattle on S3.  S3 was clinging to S4 begging him not to.  S2 was playing.  S1 was laying on his bed.

I snapped.  I did.  I told them I did not appreciate spending HOURS of my day every day washing, drying and folding their clothes for them to do this.

S2 piped up that he had taken care of all his clothes and had a whole dresser drawer with nothing in it.

I found out later that was because he had taken armloads of clothes and dropped them off on S3 and S4's bed as in "Here are new clothes for you!".

I stormed out of their room, sat down in a chair and cried.

I did.

Then I bucked up, stormed up those steps and we had a major overhaul of their rooms.  We sorted every item of clothing.  We made beds.  We left not a thing on the floor but the clothes for us to give to another family with three boys.

While they were finishing up, I made one of their favorite lunches, tuna noodle. I had told them they couldn't eat until the room was vacuum clean.  They thought they might die of starvation.  Instead of lunch at noon we had lunch closer to two.  I may have snickered a little at their "dire" predicament.

Today was the day I have been looking forward to all week.  A day to bake and clean and call me crazy, but I was looking forward to it all.  I can't wait to leave for Arizona knowing my house is clean.  I mean, what if something happens to me and people come to my house only to realize that I had to put mouse poison in one of my kitchen drawers and I have cobwebs all over my walls?  I mean, I just can't have that!

But that's my life.

Today my husband is gone for his second overnight this week.  Very unusual, he hardly ever has an overnight and so to have two in one week is...unusual and never happened.  Yesterday I had a GREAT day.  The boys had a fun day.  And today I just look around our messy home and listen to my fighting boys and just want to hide in the laundry room (the one room no one knows exists except me) and cry.

And it would help if my fairy godmother would show up right about then and turn everything sparking clean and make the awful mice hiding in my house like the cute little Gus and his friends from Cinderella. 

This may have been my FAVORITE movie growing up! 

But that didn't happen.

Instead, I just kept on keeping on. Take a deep breath in and out.  My Prince Charming sent me a text to tell me he had emailed me a song that he just heard that he swears I could have written.

And this is what he sent me.



That man, I love him so...as in my husband.  Not the teenage boy Scotty.

I needed this EXACT song today.  I had never heard it before.  It is bound to become one of those songs you sing for the rest of your life.

THIS is what I usually am like.  I need to relax and forget the cobwebs and while the boys need to clean their rooms, heck, I have SO VERY MUCH to be thankful for.  So much.

Right down to the man who is gonna come stumbling in this door exhausted.

As I was writing this, he called me to tell me he is headed home early.  Will be home in about an hour.   The boys have gone upstairs and the chandelier is literally swaying with them running and playing and not fighting.  And while the house is a mess and there are dirty dishes in my sink, I am looking forward to forgetting all that and curling up in his arms with our boys all around and watching some tv tonight, just relaxing and being us.

But if a fairy godmother and magical mice show up and clean my house, I won't send them away.  Heck, I may cry just for the joy of seeing them and having a clean house!

Just thought I'd be depressingly honest with you all today.

Hanging Clothes is a Trip

We hang clothes on the line.

Oftentimes, I get busy doing this that and the other thing (imagine that) and don't get the clothes on the line in a timely fashion - like as soon as they get out of the washing machine.  By the second load getting done, I am lugging the heavy wet clothes outside.

But, if my husband is outside, he always helps me.

I would like to romantically think he helps me just because he enjoys spending time with me.

But I know better.

He helps me hang clothes on the line because it saves money since we are not using the dryer.

Sunday night he was helping me hang clothes on the line and S4 comes strolling up.  "Ahhhhh, ain't that so cute? You and Mama, hanging clothes on the line. So sweet. So adorable," he crooned in his best romantic sing songy mocking voice.

Jake laughed.  "Careful.  That there will end up in a blog."

All the boys were migrating toward the clothes line and they began hanging things up.  I have long learned to just accept the way they hang things and not worry what it looks like or how it is hung.

out our kitchen door, looking toward our rental house

"Hey, Mama?" S4 asked.  S4 begins many conversations this way.  "Why do we use these clothes pins?"

"To keep the clothes on the line, silly!" responded his Daddy.

"Why can't we just use duct tape?" he asked.

"Yah! Duct tape would work!" S3 agreed.

Before I could even laugh, S1, calm and steady, patiently explained that duct tape would leave a sticky residue to the clothes and that was why we didn't use duct tape to hang them up.

It's as if he has thought about this before.

Daddy laughed. "Now it's for sure going to be a blog."

So he snapped the photos for me with his droid.

I've Turned Into Ma Kettle

Today, after I had drug the garden hose all over the yard giving all my looking like death dried up plants some more water, I hung clothes on the line.

I was standing there, clothes pin in hand, wearing the hanky skirt I had found for a dollar and the cami top with no support in it whatsoever (I had slept in it), my hair in a bun with it all falling over my face and the rooster crowing from the chicken coop when it dawned on me...

I had turned into Ma Kettle.

We grew up watching all the Ma and Pa Kettle movies. I had laughed at that silly Ma Kettle.

And had suddenly become her.

So, I hurried with the laundry, took a shower, downed another cup of coffee to look awake, wore my most supportive bra and while my hair is in a bun, it is at least sorta stylish.  I am in shorts and tank top.  I still look a bit unkempt...but not that unkempt.

How long have I been Ma Kettle and not known it???

And here is a video clip to make you laugh. Not of her feeding the kids or of laundry but funny just the same.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bfq5kju627c

Why Do I Love My Husband???

My washing machine broke.

I will let you just momentarily imagine how many loads of laundry my boys produce.

Okay, enough of that!! You will have nightmares.

The GREAT thing is that our Maytag Bravos washing machine is under warranty from Lowes.  It's a super nice one that I have been super impressed with but it is only seven months old.  It suddenly made a terrible squeaking sound and I limped it along hoping it would not die before the repair man arrived...but it did.

So, I went to the laundry mat.  That was quite traumatic, as I stated last week.  (Read the comment on that blog post, it is the BEST....What To Do If You Find a Dead Man on The Side of the Road.) But it is also super expensive, it cost forty dollars to do my laundry there last week. OUCH!

I could have kissed the repairman when he fixed my washing machine on Wednesday afternoon.  I was so ecstatic!

Two loads later, it broke.

Same exact problem. 

I tried to limp it along.  Two loads later it refused to work again.

I nearly cried.

When I called the help line, the man on the other hand read my email aloud and said, "We will try to rush this. Four boys...you need your washing machine.  But as I see it, you are looking at next Friday before someone can get there."

As in seven days away.

Having used all the quarters I could scrounge up in my entire house and suburban, I was griping to my husband that in this 90 degree heat I was going to be headed to the laundry mat this week.  And I was going to have to bite the bullet and stick a twenty dollar bill in that quarter return thing to have enough to do laundry.

I really should have just gone on about how wonderful it really is to have ALL your laundry done, loads and loads, in less than an hour.  I should have mentioned how I was looking forward to time alone to read my stack of books.  Or wondering what sort of interesting characters I may encounter.

Because my husband said, "Hey! We could use the washboard! Think of the money we would save! You could stay here.  We'd help you, it would be fun!"

I glanced over to the washboard hanging on our bathroom wall.  Then I imagined this scene.....

There is no part of this at all that appears fun to me in any way.

My husband, on the other hand, is going on and on about how it will be a great experience for the boys and everyone can help and so on and so on.  I started to just tone him out.

I did mutter under my breath, "Thanks for the new blog post" though.

Please, go kiss your washing machines for me.

A Desperate Day Calls for Red High Heels or Painted Toes

Today was beautiful. So very close your eyes and soak in the sun and sigh and thank God for such beauty.

Wonderful day.

And I had mountains of laundry to do. I think we have spoken before on such things. But lets just put it this way, my mother seen my laundry pile and told me to go to the laundry mat...and start purging boys clothes too.

I was working on enjoying the chore of hanging the clothes on the line because the lilacs were hanging in there for me. I could drink in their intoxicating sweet smell.

So, I am working on hanging clothes on the line, cleaning carpets (a long story I won’t bore you with) and S4 informs me he isn’t feeling well. This is unlike him. He laid on the couch and informed how his tummy, his legs, his head, his toes all hurt. And then he napped so I know he wasn’t feeling well. I brought down all his stuffed animals, tucked him in on the couch, filled his favorite Lightning cup with Gatorade, sat by his side when he asked.

Yet, when he was in the bathroom puking he stops and says “See, I told you I had to frow up”. What’s the point with arguing with a four year old.

As he continued to not feel well and run for our one toilet in the house to puke or not to, he would ask me to sit with him and rub his back. He’d hold his hand up and show me a fist, fingers, hand...however it was he felt he needed his back rubbed. It totally cracked me up but I couldn’t laugh at him. That would be mean.

So, I was cleaning puke and doing laundry. You can see how my day was going. And on facebook, two of my friends on opposite sides of the country who do not know each other were also lamenting laundry.

It was in the air, I tell ya.

So what did I do with one of my friends? We looked up red high heels. Because that is what you do when you are folding laundry and feeling unstylish.

I have long dreamed of wearing dark jeans and a cute blouse and RED HEELS. And I found a pair I just love. But they are eighty dollars. I can buy a lot of groceries for eighty dollars. (and they are sold out)

Sigh.

I was thinking of the cute outfit I could have, the Broadway show I could see, the glamour I may one day find as I was rubbing S4’s back and waiting for him to puke when I noticed how badly my unpainted toes look.

So, as soon as dinner was done, I grabbed my nail polish, sat on the stool in the kitchen, and painted my toe nails. My hubby was very late for dinner (never got home till quarter to nine) or he would have joined my boys in thinking I had truly gone crazy.

Girl crazy.

Cuz sometimes, a girl has gotta do what a girl has gotta do. And if a girl has to pass on beautiful shoes, fold camo laundry, clean puke, resteam clean the carpet, well, at least she can do it with her toes a beautiful shade of NYPD Beet. I feel much better now! (as does S4, who after puking got ALL BETTER in time for Hubby to come home....I'm glad he is better but you know how it goes, Hubby is wondering if he really was sick.)

Sadie is at it Again....

Yesterday was a wonderful day for drying clothes on the line. And since I have mountains upon mountains upon mountains of laundry to do, and since the boys are not allowed to swamp and mud play until I catch up on the laundry, I was using full advantage of my thought- it -would- be- huge- forever- but- now- it -is -really- too -small- clothes line. I had washed our comforter and hung it out there and when dinner was over, headed out to get it before the dew got heavy on it.

As I walked out the door, Sadie refused to tag along. This is highly unusual. She ALWAYS tags along with me. I called her a bit and she looked at me with her sleepy looking eyes as if to say "I have played hard and just want to rest."

That should have been my first warning.

I went out, got the ONE blanket, came right back in and Sadie was not where I had left her. I walked around the corner to head towards the bedroom and there was Sadie, on the couch, in the dark living room.

She looked up, ears totally pricked up, a wide eyed "I have done nothing wrong" look on her face.

"Whatcha doin?" I asked her as I flipped on the light.

And there, there on the couch was the DINNER HAM !!!!!!!

If the cat had been in the room, I am certain she would have blamed her, or the other dog, or the boys....but she was caught fair and square.

Ug....if it's not one thing, it's another.

And she is forever more walking out the door with me. I will not fall to her "I am soooooo sleepy and sweet and tired and not hungry" look again.

A Day off

It's been a busy week here on the farm. Not with farming, but just with errands. Wednesday I went to the other cement city and ran errands with my mom. I cannot remember the last time I ran errands with my mom. We went to Sam's Club and she was happy she didn't have to buy a huge thing of toilet paper and I was happy to buy a huge thing of toilet paper because I am tired of always running out. Wednesday night we had church. Thursday I watched Jr and we had school conferences. School conferences times three. And today, oh today, we had a day off!

I talked with Jr on Wednesday and again on Thursday to remind him that Auntie would really appreciate a day of sleeping in. When he arrived on Friday he smiled big for me and his cute little dimples did still make me melt but I reminded him we had a deal. I made up his bottle and he sure enough kept the bargain and slept in. So, after making lunch for my hubby, I returned to bed where S4 woke me up to let me know he had peed the bed so could he please sleep with me, S3 woke me up to ask me if he could have cereal or if I would make him breakfast, S2 wanted to watch tv and S1 let me know he was headed out hunting. So, yes, I slept in. No, I didn't really sleep much. But I was in bed and never got up till quarter after seven. Bliss!

After making the boys a big breakfast, to which they thought they would starve before the bacon was done, I began to conquer the mountain of laundry. Literally a mountain of laundry. I could not see out my window it was so high. That is just sad. Anyhow, after hours of reminding myself I had said I would not do this to myself again, I have it all folded and I have been told it is all taken care of upstairs too. I have not wanted to check, I prefer to believe them right now.

It's fun to have this day off of school. It's a 'bonus' day, you can just feel it. S1 has spent a good portion of it hunting or practicing his aim. S2 has been playing ball with anyone who will play and practice if he is the only one who will play. S3 has wandered around playing on the swings, playing in the sandbox, playing with S2.... S4 has been faithfully practicing his lassoing. He has successfully lassoed a “metal stick” (fence post) and S3. S4 considers this great success.

Right now all the boys are playing baseball. It's fun to hear the ball hit the bat and hear the boys laughing as they run around.

There is something to be said about a full day home where no one leaves the driveway. There is something healing in having a day of laziness. There is something that warms your entire heart hearing the boys laughter.

I want to bottle up the day and treasure it.

They are getting tired...and since all the laundry is folded (just had to add that big hooray there) there is a huge basket of socks to fold so I do believe tonight I will be making brownies and we can eat them with ice cream and watch a movie and fold socks as a family. Does that not sound delightful? Okay, you obviously can see I will have to bribe the boys with sweets and movies to get them to help me fold socks but it'll be so worth it to not have the boys looking for socks and underwear on Monday morning.

Sometimes, it's the little things that make life wonderful...like a day off and folded socks.

Beware of Monster Moma

I recently had two completely non related conversations with two people who don’t know eachother and yet both their recent conversations collided on me on the same day.

GD, a wise mentor dear friend of mine, told me I should write in my blogs about bad days too, things I am struggling with concerning the boys.

RC and I were swinging on our porch swing and we were talking about if we had someone who followed us around all the time, keeping us on our best mommy behaviors, what better mothers we would be.

Added to this mix, the rental house on our farm had the renter we have had decide to get out of her lease early and we were searching for a new tenant. It is very difficult to find a new renter to live so close to us, and I spent a lot of time in prayer and a lot of time setting things up to rerent the rental. We found a new tenant, a truly sweet woman, and her kids. All week we had been in talk with her and she was due to move in the day our other renter moved out.

Which leads me to the monster moma part and how all this comes together.

S2 was laying on the couch petting our lovely long haired cat when he informed me she had fleas. I freaked. I hate fleas. I called the vet and go the medicine to treat her and our dog. The vet assured me that fleas had suddenly invaded and they were bad this year.

S1, never have informing me or his Daddy this, goes on and on and on to my family how we have fleas and they are in his bed because the dog lays there and the fleas are biting them all the time in their sleep. Thankfully he tells this to my family only but I am still mortified and tell him this is not something you tell the world and if he had told me I would have washed their bed sheets and this I did.

And when I did, I realized how trashed messy their room was.

So, for one solid week they were told every day to clean their room. It was a rainy week, what else was there to do? When they were done, my husband and I would put up bunk beds in their room and I could sort their clothes for the upcoming (groan) school year.

A week later, their room wasn’t cleaned at all. Well, one shelf that I told S1 couldn’t have anything on it because we would need it for the bunk beds was expertly decorated with all his treasures. I was so discouraged over it all, I cried. I cried that the house was a disaster looking, flea infested place and that I couldn’t get our boys to clean. My husband didn’t know what to do with me. For the first time in the eleven year we have lived here, we decided to bug bomb the house.

I told the boys we did not need to share this information with people. I was mortified just at the thought of having to do it, feeling like a failure of our home. We chose a day when the boys had dentist appointments and we could spend the rest of the time at the park.

At the dentist, S1 informed the dentist how we were bug bombing the house and the fleas were eating his and his brothers legs and all over their beds.

If the ground could have swallowed us all whole, I surely wish it would have.

We went to the park, S1 informed the entire park population that we were there because we had bug bombed our house.

I was seething.

When we got home and the fleas and all other bugs were in deed dead and the house aired out, I took on the task of cleaning all that we had left out and all surfaces to take off the residue. In the boys’ rooms, you could not even see the carpet and I had decided to take away all the boys toys. If they can’t keep their room clean, if they can’t even begin to clean their rooms after a week, why should they have all their toys to play with? My husband and family and GD all agreed it was a brilliant, although painful for me to live thru, plan. I remade their beds with clean sheets and blankets and then called it a night.

So on the fateful rainy Thursday morning following the awful bug bomb day, I decided to put the plan into action. It’s a watch Jr day that day but I figured the boys could get a good start, I’d help them finish and we would be done quickly. I tried to think of ways to explain this to them as firmly and sweetly and as ‘learning experience to help you grow into strong men’ as I could.
Jr had a the first fussy day he had ever had, all out screaming before he fell soundly asleep. By nine in the morning, I was a cup and a half into my second pot of coffee, and headed upstairs to see how the boys were coming along. They were all on the only made bed up there playing with trucks.

I snapped.

“YOU WILL CLEAN THIS ROOM RIGHT NOW! YOU ARE GOING TO BOX UP ALL YOUR TOYS BECAUSE THEY ARE GONE NOW! AND THERE HAD BETTER BE BAGS OF TRASH YOU HAUL OUT OF HERE! MOVE IT! MOVE IT NOW!”

As they began to hustle, our dog began to bark and I looked out the window to see a car in the driveway.

Our new renter.

The night before, our old renter had moved out and the new renter was there to clean the house. I had never heard her pull in (how could I when I was yelling?) and because all the windows were open to air out the house, she was directly under the window and had heard every word of my awful rant with the boys.

I really considered hiding, but, let’s face it, she obviously knew I was there. And S3 and S4 were downstairs already with the first pile of dirty laundry. They were ‘moving’ just like I had ordered them to, and in doing so were talking with our new renter, J, already.

J said she understood, she had kids of her own, but still, I felt awful. If I would not have talked to the boys that way if I had known she was at the door, why did I do it in the first place?

I got J in her new home, downplaying it all best I could, and went back to help the boys. What a mix of emotions that was! They had a constant armful of laundry headed downstairs to be washed and then we began to clean. S4 thought this was just the best fun, moma helping him clean his room. He and S3 found a million long lost treasures that they thrilled to be reunited with. S3 kept peeking in on his older brothers and seen we were getting more done than them and kept giggling “we are beating them! Our room will be clean first!” S2 gave me hugs, lots of hugs and made me three yarn bracelets throughout the day without ever really saying a word to me. S1 sat on his bed, tears and snot running down his face, looking purely miserable. He and S2 piled their dressers high with treasures, until I stressed again EVERYTHING but bedding, alarm clocks and things on the wall were going to be packed up. Then I got questions like…

“What about our coin collections?”
“Nope, pack ‘em up.”
“What about our wallets?”
It would be cruel to keep those. “You can keep them.” Quiet cheers from them spurred them on to ask a million other “can we keep this?” questions. All to which I gave a “don’t ask me again” toned ‘no’.

Finally, S2 in a very small voice squeaked out “even our Bibles? Will you make us pack those up too?” They got to keep those too, as if we would pack them up!

In the end, we had six bags of trash. All their toy boxes were filled to over flowing and moved into the room we have just for storage and toys. When they go back to school, I will sort thru the toys, throwing away the broken ones and we plan to let them have one toy back regularly when they have made their beds and done required chores around the house. After I get the carpets cleaned, S3 and S4 will get some of their favorite toys back, at five and three they don’t understand why they were boxed up.

But this morning, the day after the awful day, they spent the morning out in the sand box playing making roads. When they got a brief little rain shower, they went upstairs where they were able to wrestle and play.

And in case you think I was exaggerating over the mess of the room, here is a photo of JUST the clothes that were on the floor, this isn’t including toys and blankets.

This is the laundry I had washed already.

This is the laundry I have yet to wash that is just normal every day wear. With the rain this week, I can’t use the clothes line and so the wash is going constantly.

I don’t know how long it will take J to forget her first glimpse into our ‘regular daily family life’ but I hope she realizes I am not the ‘moma monster’ of that moment regularly. And because this is a truly ‘bad moment’, I decided to share it like GD said I should. And because I wish I would have had someone following me to remind me to keep my mommy p’s and q’s like RC and I had chatted about, I decided to add that bit of advice to.

And my sister, DP, who heard this happened, groaned in pain for me and then started laughing so hard she couldn’t hardly stop and my husband called regularly just to see if I was okay to talk or if I was too busy yelling at the boys.

There’s my monster moma story for you.