The Life Cycle of Laundry

We have an established pattern around this castle with our laundry system.  It goes as follows:

1) I wash everything in the whole house that can be balled up to a size smaller than the circumference of the washing machine door.
2) I keep up with regular, follow-up loads for a period of time. 
3) One terrible day, I wake up and discover that the dirty laundry has bred during the night and there is a Mount Clothes-erest in my laundry room. 
4) I spend a whole day doing laundry, thus starting the cycle all over again.

Today was the end of a cycle, meaning that I spent from sunup until now (well, whenever that last load finishes...) washing every textile in this house.  This day in the laundry sequence always makes me extremely grouchy - not BECAUSE I'm doing laundry, but because of what I FIND in the laundry.  Today's treasures included Dora the Explorer knee pads, 4 stuffed animals, a set of sheets that I had washed, dried, folded and set out to be put on the kids' bed, but had been returned to the hamper instead, and best of all: an entire bag of clean clothes that the kids had left at my mom's house, and she had washed and returned.  An. Entire. Bag. Of. Clean. Clothes.

It doesn't matter if it WAS clean, it just sat in the laundry room for a week in a pile of dirty clothes and now I have to wash it all AGAIN. 

The best part about spending the whole day doing laundry is that you have no evidence of anything being accomplished when you are done.  All of your hard work is folded up and put away in drawers or hung up in the closets.  Today, the rest of the house looked like a disaster response team should be called in because I pretty much ignored all of the other messes the kids were making all day while I was folding clothes.  I surveyed the remnants of a blanket fort, the knee deep pile of toys in the kids' room, the stickers all over the couch, and the trail of crushed pretzel dust from Jace driving her tricycle repeatedly over a rogue pretzel in the kitchen floor that had missed the dustpan in a maintenance sweep earlier.  Hmmm...I decided to call and prepare the hubs for this before he got home.  I wanted to save him from himself, and eliminate the risk that he may walk in and say something really stupid like, "Hey, this place is a wreck - what did you DO all day?!" 

"Hey babe, FYI the house is a wreck, but I got ALL of that laundry done!"
"That's cool... Wait, the house is so bad you called me?!  Do I need a hazmat suit or something?"
"Not quite."  (I described the scene.)
"Oh, well I'm not going to be home for like, an hour so...."
"Stop.talking.now.I.don't.want.to.have.to.kill.you.in.your.sleep...Ok.love.you.byeee!"

Phew.  Good thing I called him.

There's another phone call I need to make, though.  I need to call MY mom.  The woman who did MY laundry (and four other people's too) for 17 years.

I need to tell her THANK YOU for the following:

-every stain she removed.

-every tube of chapstick, balled up piece of paper, and handful of change that she rescued from our pants pockets (or rocks, dandelions, Barbie shoes, chunks of dried Play-doh...).

-every shirt that she turned right-side out to fold (especially the long-sleeved ones).

-every clean item that she probably washed about 3 times before we actually put it away or wore it.

-every wet towel she found in the floor...or on the bed...or behind the door...

-alllll of the socks that she ever unballed before putting them in the washer.

-every missing sock she found in a random place around the house while cleaning, and returned to it's home - clean - without anyone even noticing.

-actually, for just even allowing us to wear socks....because I'm seriously thinking about banning them altogether in this crash pad.

-anything she ever had to "sniff-check" to see if it was really dirty, or just got thrown in the floor.


Ok, the last load is done!  Now it is time for me to make my traditional declaration - the avowal that I make at this juncture of the laundry cycle each and every time:

I will NEVER let this pile get this big again. (HA!)

Also, I hung a sign on each of the dressers that says "If you unfold/remove any of the items in these drawers for any reason other than to put it onto your body and wear it for an entire day - I will cut you."


♥M

Terrible twos...threes...fours?!

Why do two-year-olds get such a bum rap?  The phrase "terrible twos"  is just inaccurate.  For one thing the "terrible" behavior starts well before 2 years....and it definitely lasts longer than 3. 

I have to tread lightly when complaining about my kids and the stuff they say because it's not like I can blame it on anyone else.  Between the hubs and myself there's no hope for them to escape their genetic predisposition to eventually mature into some curious combination of sass and smartass.  Usually, I get a real mirror check by way of hearing something outrageous cross their lips.  (Jace to her sister: "You are acting straight up ugly!  Carry that to another room, girl!"  Daire to Jace: "I'ma get you BUTT!")

I'm so used to the dramatic scenes of these two tiny females that sometimes, even in the midst of full-on hysteria, I can maintain a single train of thought about whatever it is that I continue doing.  Now, before you think I'm totally heartless, I'm not talking about when they are physically or emotionally hurt.  There's a big difference between being hurt and having a tantrum.  Boo-boos get kisses and hurt feelings get heart-to-heart talk-time (on a preschool level....this usually involves 4-5 interruptions of "Hey, guess what?" before we're "done".)  Tantrums get squat except me stepping over you to go about my business.

A good example would be this morning-  Daire wanted my makeup while I was getting ready for work.  I told her no.  She cried.  I offered to put lip gloss on her.  She threw herself in the floor.  I offered to let her put the lip gloss on herself, but would only relinquish control of the applicator, not the actual tube of lip gloss.  She smacked the applicator from my hand and rolled around in the floor.  I picked her up and put her in time out.  She went limp and slid from the chair, into the floor and lay, spread-eagle, sobbing uncontrollably in the hallway.  30 seconds later she was back in the bathroom, doing pull-ups on the vanity and knocking whatever she could reach off of the counter.  I picked her up and put her back in timeout.  She flung herself face first out of the chair, into the floor and kicked her tiny legs until her shoes flew off.  The whole thing lasted a good 20 minutes and not once did she stop screaming at an unearthly decibel, "MY MAKEUUUUP!"

That, my friend, is a tantrum.  What. Is. The. Proper. Response. To. THAT.

I'm always reading these mommy articles, blogs and books looking for parenting advice.  I mean, my kids are awesome, but they do a lot of crap that makes me go "wonder how to fix THAT."  Y'know like TANTRUMS.  Let me tell you what TICKS ME OFF about all this great parenting advice - it sounds good until you use it.  Be real people, ALL kids are different and mine - yeah, they aren't following the little scripts that you wrote out for us to follow.  For example...

Advice: If your child does 'A' then you should respond with 'B.'  They will then do 'C' and everyone will be happy and bake cookies and play in a spotless playroom just like the one in the picture at the top of this article where the mom and kid are laughing together from having solved all their differences amicably and butterflies are coming out of everyone's butt.

Real life: My child does 'A' so I respond with 'B.'  Then they do 'G,K,L,Y,' and say 'V,R,W.'  Now I'm trying to figure out what page all of that is on and what I did wrong with my application of 'B.'  No cookies, no playroom, and no butterflies.

What IS the proper response to tantrums?  I mean, I guess I could prevent them by... I dunno, always letting them have their way, but I'm not really down with that... for a lot of reasons.  I'm more of a, "Hey, go cool off and get back to me" kind of mom.  But is that effective?!  I mean, my oldest is almost 4 and she regularly has these PMS-type emotional outbursts. ("How could you offer me Kix cereal instead of Honey Nut Cheerios?!  I will NEVER be your best friend AGAIN!!!"  Cue dramatic flop onto her bed and sobbing.) Sooooo.....does this just last until they're like, 30 years old?  Or is there a break somewhere between 5 and 13?! 

This is one of those nights where I call my mom and apologize for my childhood transgressions.


♥M

Thank You Letter to My Mom

I found this letter recently and thought I would share it.  I wrote this to my mom back when I was pregnant with kid #1, and thought the world should know what a great lady she is.  Also, it turns out that I can predict the future with frightening accuracy.

*******************

Dear Mom,

        Do you remember that curse that you put on me?  The one where you said that “one day” you hoped I’d have a daughter and she’d be just like me?  Well, I am beginning to fear that that day is dangerously near…

       Before Jace arrives and I can only think to blame you and the curse for my reaping of what I have sowed, I wanted to tell you all of the things that I feel you deserve thanks for.  The things that you may not have even known you were doing for me or dreamed that I would one day appreciate.  This is my Thank You letter for you being such an unbelievably, undeniably, awesome mom.

        Thank you for telling Grandma and Grandpa that you really didn’t think it was in our best interest that they show up every Christmas with three trash bags full of presents each.  Thank you for not paying my cell phone bill in high school, not buying me a car when I turned 16, and not paying the insurance on the one I eventually saved up for and bought.  Thank you for not paying my college tuition or for my apartment rent.  And just when you may be starting to think that I’m being sarcastic - thank you for making me earn the things I had; which in turn taught me to appreciate them even more.  I like to think that by you not spoiling us with “stuff” and “things,” that I, at least, did not turn out to be a monster.  I will not speak for my siblings.  (Just joking...)

       Thank you for teaching me to work things out on my own and to stand up for myself, rather than to blame others or point the finger every time I had a problem.  Thank you for refusing to buy into pity-parties and instead, always encouraging me to find the silver lining, to look at things a different way, or to just push through.  Thank you for not teaching me to respond to ugliness with more ugliness.  Thank you for teaching me that if someone was mean to me, to feel sorry for them, rather than to be like them.

       Thank you for not letting us have friends over until we cleaned our room.  Thank you for going in after us and pulling everything back out from under the bed and making us do it again.  We insisted you were evil, but “Do it right the first time” did eventually stick.

 Thank you for not letting our friends come over if we fought with each other either.  Raven, Josh, and I are probably closer than any other siblings we’ve ever known and we only have you to thank for our special bond and genuine friendship. 

       Thank you for being my biggest cheerleader, even though I rarely made a basket on the basketball court, usually watched the ball sail by me on the volleyball court, and mostly just got beat up by my sensei in Karate class.  Thank you for teaching me that it was okay to fail the first time; as long as that wasn’t the last time I tried. 

        Thank you for making me change my clothes before we left the house when I tried to mimic fashion I’d seen on MTV.  Thank you for not letting me wear blue eye shadow and red lipstick.  Thank you for not letting me date until I was 16.  Thank you for giving me a curfew.  Thank you for always making a point to speak to my friends’ parents when we made plans (even if I did accuse you of being “the only parent on the planet that does this to their child”).  Thanks to your guidance and wisdom, I made it through high school with a clean reputation, no chips on my shoulder, and a strong moral sense of right and wrong, all fully intact…I sincerely apologize for college. 

       Thank you for helping me to become the adult that I am.  I know that it’s got to be weird to see your baby girl grown up, graduated from college, teaching school, married, with a house, two dogs, a cat and a baby girl of her own on the way.  I can’t wait for Jace to get here, and not just for me, but for you - because I can only imagine that after the sweat and tears that you have invested in my childhood, you are greatly looking forward to the sweet revenge of being Grandma!

       I can only hope that I’ve made you proud here and there along the way, and that I can continue to do so.  I am sure that the biggest Thank-yous of all are still to come, as once again (or rather, still) you will offer your guidance and wisdom as I try to figure out being a mom myself.  You’ve always been there, and I know you always will.  Actually, the only thing I could think of that I’d rather be than your daughter, is your grand-daughter, because I am imagining that there will probably be a whole different set of rules for her…

 

Finally, I truly hope, Mom, that I can do you the ultimate justice of being just like you.  My wish is to be as great of a mom to Jace, as you were to me.  I love you.

 Your Grateful Daughter,

 
                         ♥M