Will We Make It?

That is the question of the day...will we make it in time for our trip? We have a lot left to do: finish weeding, Preen the vegetable garden, mow lawns one more time, make packing lists, pay or schedule all bills, plan clothing to take, wash clothes one more week, clean the house again, and finish cleaning the bathrooms. We have gotten a lot done, so that is good. I've finally started the front flower bed, having yanked all the brambles from the beds around the house. DH weed whacked the overgrown driveway and all the other bits around the property, so he just has to do a good mowing before we go.

Keeping the house in a reasonable state of cleanliness is the major issue. The kids are getting in everything, and my normal vacuum & mop schedule is out of whack with how fast they are dirtying the house. DH suggested that we get rid of some of their toys that they don't play with. I agree whole-heartedly, but it will have to wait until we get home. I don't need another task on my plate! Toys are everywhere, books are everywhere, and DS has decided DVDs are great toys...no! So I am playing DVD police because we have open shelving and I don't want to spend the money on a pricey new closed storage cabinet. Trying to get him to comprehend the meaning of "No" is occupying a large amount of my time.

Plus we have to finish cleaning up under the kitchen sink...the new cabinet floor is in, but we are still having some mildewy smell. Yuck. I think we are going to end up taking out the new floor, ripping out the drywall, installing new drywall, and then re-installing the cabinet floor. Because, you know, EVERYONE wants to be doing a project like that a week before their vacation!

We are at that stage where it is not close enough to our departure to really get excited, but too close to ignore some of the prep work, if you know what I mean. And it's just adding more to my day than I like, especially with our current heat wave. I just want to park in front of our portable air conditioner for the vast majority of the afternoon and call it good...unfortunately, life demands I spend time folding clothes in our bedroom (the hottest room in the house) and keeping our children from attempting to stick their fingers into the fans.

I am sure it will all get done, and we will be happy enough with the results. Our house will hopefully be mostly clean when we leave it, and that will make life a bit easier when we return to it, horribly jet-lagged and cranky. Tell me, why do we go on vacation again?

The Power of Food

It's amazing to me the difference that the food I eat makes on my mood and ability to get things done around the house. For the past few days, I have really made an effort to eat healthily and think about what I'm putting into my mouth. I limited sweets, ate more vegetables (mainly salads, but I jazzed up the lettuce with shredded cabbage & carrots, etc), more fruit, and drank more water. We are out of soda, which is a good thing--when we have soda, we drink it. And however much the Coca-Cola™ company might wish to persuade me that their Diet Coke Plus® is a healthy option now that it has added vitamins, I'm pretty sure its nutritional defects are still far outweighed by the pluses of plain water or milk. I haven't even been drinking coffee. I've been alternating blueberry-banana yogurt smoothies with flaxseed and oatmeal for breakfast on alternate days...and I mean real steel-cut oatmeal, not the instant pre-sweetened stuff. I've even foregone desserts a few nights after dinner. And I have felt GOOD!

Over the past few days, I have also been incredibly productive. I've cleaned out brambles from flower beds outside (a job I have been putting off because I was dreading it, and I just felt like doing it on Tuesday and went to town while DS was napping and DD entertained herself with the flowers in the yard). I folded 13 loads of laundry and put it all away. I re-installed the bit of cabinet face on the underside of the kitchen cabinet with the new floor, so it looks tidy again. I fixed the two broken towel racks in the kids' bathroom. I hand weeded around all the tomato plants and onions. I tidied away all the kids' toys in the living room, re-organized DS' room, vacuumed & cleaned his floor, then vacuumed and cleaned the living room, dining room, kitchen, and den. The floor cleaning was this morning, however...then I got pooped.

What did I have for breakfast today? Multigrain Cheerios with vanilla soymilk. Okay, but I didn't feel as full or jazzy...probably why I pooped out and didn't clean the birdcage or the hallway floors. Enter lunch--Costco pizza & a mix of Sprite and zero-juice lemonade. Erg, I did NOTHING except put the kids down for their naps, and then be incredibly cranky with DD because she wasn't going to sleep. I even napped myself for about twenty minutes. I just didn't want to do anything. Go outside into the garden & pull a few weeds? Nah. When the kids got up, I just couldn't deal with their energy! A somewhat interesting errand, finding a few more summer clothes for DD, suddenly got bumped up the priority list so I could occupy myself & them for an hour or two. When we got home, we all had some Cool Ranch Doritos for a snack (a food item that is verboten around here for the very good reason that they contain MSG, which gives me headaches...but I gave in to myself reminiscing about their good taste & bought a bag the other day). Sure enough, I could feel a few twinges later from the handful I consumed.

What is really striking is the difference in the kids. Still full of energy, sure, but DD was so naughty!! Was it just the naptime, or did the food make a difference? She has been SO GOOD the past few days, it really makes me think that junk food really is JUNK when it comes to bringing out the best in kids. And boy, it does make a huge difference for me!

Tomorrow I am back on the oatmeal wagon, and salad for lunch. I like feeling better, and I like being more productive. Junk food might taste good, but from what I experienced today, it is too high a price to pay. No thanks!

Well That Was a Surprise

100 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Superior Take the test!

Thank you Carol for the link...apparently I would have been okay in the 1930s! Actually I have always thought I would be rather like Little Sal's mother, given my gardening predispositions!

That Murphy

With our upcoming trip to Ireland (three weeks and counting!), you'd think that it would be the sole preoccupation of my time. You would be wrong. I would like to have it be the sole preoccupation of my time, such that I could leisurely make lists of what to pack, what to bring for the kids clothing-wise (what kind of weather to pack for? How much clothing is really necessary when we have a washing machine available at all times?), what we want to bring back with us (requests from friends, our own personal tea stash, assorted goodies, etc). But no, instead I am dealing with the House What Wants to Fall Apart and the Yard That is Weed Possessed Requiring Serious Intervention.

More house falling apart, you ask? Yes, yes indeed. Because after I fixed our shower, new pipe stems and all, DH discovered a "little leak" under the kitchen sink. A "little leak" from the new connection to the dishwasher, which had resulted in a slight drip and a sagging and smelly cabinet floor with mildew spreading across it! EWWWW!! We removed everything from the cabinet, got a fan going to air it out, and that succeeded merely in making our entire house smell like Mildew. We are on Day Five of the Mildew Smell, and I am thinking that if I can ever host a playdate again I will have to welcome our guests with, "Hello, please ignore the odor, this is the House of Mildew...no allergies in your family?"

DH has fixed the "little leak" with some teflon tape...I will spare you the ungenerous thoughts that rabbitted through my head on about Day Three of The Smell™, but suffice it to say after days of living in the house with the neverending funk, I am a wee bit testy about suggestions to make it smell better (no, Febreze does not work, and no, opening all the windows when it's FIFTY-SIX DEGREES OUT IN JUNE FOR PETE'S SAKE, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS STATE'S CLIMATE?? COLDER THAN SIBERIA, A NEW RECORD IN SEATTLE FOLKS...erg...*wipes foam from mouth* sorry about that...).

So yesterday, I took matters into my own hands after DH had casually suggested, after observing the SAGGING BIT in the back of the cabinet, that perhaps we needed to remove the bottom and replace it. One of our friendly neighbors stopped by for a cup of tea and ended up going home for her crowbar, and together we whacked out the entire bottom while my kids were napping (good sleepers, those kids). And we discovered a wet subfloor, and mildewy drywall and insulation around the copper pipes. Oh. Goody. Because I NEEDED another fix-it project, you know? Just to cap it all off, right before vacation. Thank you.

I pulled in our portable air conditioning unit, not because we NEEDED A/C, but because it has a dehumidifying feature and I wanted to dry out that subfloor, pronto! Voila, 24 hours later and we are looking good. My house still reeks of mildew, and I hustled down to Lowes this afternoon for a quart of odor-killing primer. It's waiting for me in the kitchen now, where I will prime it with a craft brush, because I'm too lazy to go find my painting frame and a clean roller when I can whip it out in twenty minutes with a foam craft brush that I can readily access. Technically I am supposed to use something to kill mildew on it, yada yada yada...but I sprayed it with diluted bleach yesterday, so I'm calling it good. I just want the smell GONE, YESTERDAY. We have plywood, we have a new $12 jigsaw (nothing but the best on our budget, I'm telling you), and I am going to cut out that new cabinet floor tomorrow and drill or nail that puppy in. For good measure, I think I will caulk all around the inside too. Because, you know, I'm DONE with the whole putrefying house smell. I cannot begin to imagine how the folks dealt with it post-Katrina.

And I haven't even discussed today's visit to the pediatrician, where DS was diagnosed with eczema (I see a diet journal looming in my future, along with copious quantities of Aquaphor and Cetaphil), and DD had a large splinter removed from the bottom of her foot. And I didn't mention the ticket I got while driving DH's car for expired tags! I'm thinking we need to plan out meals for the next three weeks, and no one leaves the house until we are headed for the airport. Provided, of course, that I can get our house to stop smelling like a bad episode of "Dirty Jobs".

Update

All went well, DS is napping now with his capped & fixed teeth. Hopefully he will be back to normal by this evening. Thanks for the prayers!

Dental Caries

Tomorrow morning bright and early, DS is going to be put under general anesthesia to have his eight cavities filled. *gulp* I am normally quite a relaxed person when it comes to medical procedures involving my own person, but start involving my very young children and I become a nervous nelly. In this case in particular, since our son has never had general anesthesia for anything and it worries me, you know? Similiar to the time for ear tubes...very routine...about one hour...all very reassuring to the rational brain, not so very reassuring to the emotional brain. I know lots of moms whose kids have been under general anesthesia, so they are helpful with their support. Still, it's the first time for one of my babies, and well, I'm nervous.

So keep him in your prayers tonight & tomorrow, please? And myself & DH, who will be nervous together in the waiting room. Thanks.

The "Never Good" Smell

There are a few smells that instantly tell you something is wrong...wrong in the way of, "I'm going to be losing a lot of sleep tonight" (vomit), "This is going to be a messy/ugly job" (dead smell in cluttered shed), or "I'd better find that before the house burns down" (burnt/burning plastic).

The night before last, DH got up to get DD back to sleep when she started crying sometime close to midnight. He smelled...something in the air, but couldn't quite figure out what it was. It was bothersome enough though that he got up again, about half an hour later, to see if he could figure out what it was. It smelled like...burning plastic? His nose got desensitized, but he ruled out any electronics. He came back into our room for a few minutes, then checked again...the dishwasher. Which had completed its cycle and was just cooling down. Hmmmmm. He found a bunch of what looked like green mesh in the bottom. Odd--maybe a kids' toy that DS put in, and we didn't notice until it burned onto the element? It being past midnight, he just turned it off and told me to check it in the morning.

Well, I checked. The green "mesh"? The molten remains of a sippy cup lid, whirled around the dishwasher by the arms. A ceramic plate, covered in the drippy remains of a spatula. The plastic surround of our cheese grater, completely deformed. All sippy cup lids were melted together, and the plastic insert for our blender lid was misshapen. All stuff which we had washed many times before without any issue. Yep, our dishwasher was toast. The thermostat was shot, the cost to repair it nearly that of a new unit.

I spent the day hauling the kids to every appliance store in our area, checking prices and figuring out what we needed in a new dishwasher. We raided the emergency fund to the tune of $500 (I'm including the cost of a Red Robin dinner to appease DD after about four hours of appliance shopping, plus the Dora the Explorer decor from the clearance rack at Lowes) and DH spent about three hours, cussing and sweating, installing the new one. Our neighbor's brother works at an appliance wholesale parts store and he came down and helped remove the waste line with a special set of pliers, but it was all up to DH when it came to cleaning up the MOUSE DROPPINGS GALORE (hantavirus, anyone?) with diluted bleach and sealing up all the holes & cracks behind the cabinets with steel wool & construction adhesive while I ran back to Lowes to get a universal water line hook-up kit for the new dishwasher. Yeah, honey, that's the price you pay for having a Smirnoff Ice after getting the old one out. Too bad sweetie!

He's gotten the new Whirlpool installed now, with its shiny new stainless steel front. He had asked at the store, "Why can't we get a black one? It's cheaper. Do we really need a stainless steel one?" I explained that if we ever had to sell the house in a hurry, for whatever reason, then with a black dishwasher I would feel compelled to remove the (crappy) Kenmore stainless steel fridge and replace it with our black GE Arctica fridge that is currently in the cottage...and if he was willing to sign up for that little job if we ever have to sell the house before completing a kitchen remodel, I was happy to spend $50 less and get a black dishwasher. He said, "But the range is still almond bisque." I explained that if we did in fact have to sell the house in a hurry, the almond bisque range would be removed, in favor of a stainless steel range for about $500, to match the fridge, which is right next to it. He opted to spend the $50. Wise...very wise.

From whatever combination of factors (the disruption, the total deviation from routine, etc), both of our children were constantly popping up last night. Sleep deprivation is never kind, but it is especially unkind to the logic and reasoning centers of the brain. Sometime at around 4 am, after DH got DD to be quiet AGAIN and go back to sleep, he decided that the drip in the shower was "bothering him". This would be the drip we've had in our shower for over a year...the drip I mentioned when it was 'bothering' my sleep and nothing was done about it, and I just learned to live with it. Even sleep deprived at 4 am, my rational brain clicked on long enough to think, it's just because you're tired and your brain is rebelling against another attempt at sleep. I didn't say it, though--one of those 'poke at the bear' dilemmas. Well, I am paying a price for that. DH came out and said, "It's stopped. But the cold water knob is spinning freely now." Oh goodie. Because that is exactly what I want to do today, drag our kids to the big box home improvement store again and also try to find out how to fix the knob online. Yip-pee. *eye tic*

Murphy, go home!

Bedtime Battles

As I said last time, our DD is having a lot of trouble with bedtimes recently. We thought we had gotten past the tantrum stage, but they have come back in full force at bedtime, and then some. It has been incredibly frustrating for my DH, who is the bedtime parent for DD. Usually I am putting DS down at the same time, and since he's still nursing that leaves DH as the bedtime story reader for DD. Over a few months DD has finagled her bedtime routine to include several add-ons with DH..."nighttime dollies", where they each play-act with a doll on various subjects, and which can take 15-20 minutes, tucking in, finding of ALL the appropriate animals, placing the animals in her hand, in various places, turning on the glowing animals, handing her water cup to her, and then finally singing a lullaby. So what started as a quick ten minute tuck in, story reading, and then nighttime kiss has turned into a routine that regularly takes 30-45 minutes.

Needless to say, DH and I were not best pleased by this turn of events, but DH tolerated it because she wouldn't fuss and would settle down and go to sleep. Lately, though, DD has insisted on all of the above, and at the end of it she STILL throws a crying fit. It has been escalating and escalating, and the day before yesterday DH & I talked about it when we went to bed. We decided that we needed to try ramping her down more before going to her room for bedtime, and that what we were doing wasn't working. However, last night while I was putting DS down, I heard the same pattern of behavior from DD, and the same responses from DH. From my perspective, DH got into the "I'm going to win this no matter what it takes" mindset that afflicts all parents at times, and it was not helping the situation. DD was ramping up more and more based on DH's responses, and it was to the point that she was in danger of throwing up from crying so hard and having such a meltdown.

So, I intervened. Now, I knew that in doing so my DH was going to feel undermined, and I knew that DD was going to view me as the 'savior' in the situation. It is a measure of how bad I felt the situation was, that I did so anyway. While DD was temporarily happy for my intervention, she quickly learned that I was not any less serious about bedtime behavior than Daddy. I used a completely different approach, where I was unemotional and quiet. This helped her to calm down, and as I explained the consequences of her behavior, each time she had another crying jag I gave her a bit of time to cry but then told her to nip it in the bud, or she would lose something. She only got one bedtime story, and she didn't get any nighttime dollies or lullabies. And when she broke the rules by not being quiet, she lost a toy--permanently. It's going to Goodwill today. She was very upset about that.

I don't know if this new approach will work, but we have to do something different. We don't care if she goes to sleep right away--we just want her to stay in her room and be quiet until she does go to sleep. Nighttime is the only time each day that DH & I get together sans kids, and we are going to enforce it, period. All of our friends with three year olds are struggling with the same issue, which is something. We are each trying different things. The spanking for disobeying was not working to curb the behavior, and even the points for good behavior system was failing abysmally during the last week. So now I am going to do the bedtimes, and DH can take a breather from the emotional aspects of it. I think DD has been playing the guilt card with Daddy, and she can't play that with me. I'm home with her alllllll day, so there goes that excuse. I am hoping that she complies with the rules so that Daddy can do bedtime again, because I think she needs that one-on-one time with Daddy. But, a break will hopefully help DH to step back a bit, and it will help DD get with the program.

DH & I talked about it after DD was finally in bed and staying there, quiet. He did feel undermined, and I understood that. We had a good talk about the "ramping down" strategy, and my perception that it was totally abandoned at the first balk from DD. And how I perceived that he was too entangled, and a fresh perspective and pair of hands was needed for a short time. That happens in parenting. DH has called me on it several times when one of the kids is playing me. He only wants me to talk to him in private, away from our children. I completely agree--but, if it's a situation that is escalating, escalating, escalating, and one of our kids is about to make themselves sick...well, then somebody has lost perspective. Last night I think DH lost perspective, and I called him on it. I hope he will do the same for me, as he has done in the past. Even if it means a bit of undermining in front of one or both children. Because at the end of the day, we both want our kids to be healthy, well-behaved, and well-adjusted. And when a parent loses perspective and gets into "battle mode", it's not helpful for the parents or the kids. And yes, I will be mad, just like DH was mad. But that undermining is temporary, and we can deal with it. DD does not have the emotional resources to deal with bedtime being such a battle that she is about to throw up because she doesn't feel like we are hearing what she's saying. It's a very fine balance, and I know we don't get it right all the time. But when one of us knows the other has lost it, we should certainly call each other on it. At least, that's how I see it.