TROUBLE...

Our kids are not exposed to a whole lot of media. I don't read magazines, we don't let them watch anything else but pre-school shows on TV, and I really don't think they even know what a commercial is. Once again, my darling daughter has taken the opportunity to bring the whole "nature vs nurture" conflict to the forefront of my mind. She was preparing to go for a special date to the Ballet to see Peter Pan with her Nana and cousin Riley. After she got dressed up, she began to pose, and asked me to take pictures. It turned into an impromptu photo shoot. She wouldn't stop. I had an insane amount of pictures in fifteen minutes, and I quit shooting before she quit posing. Lord help us!!!

Vogue, baby!

Stayin' Alive!

SOOOO much trouble!

This is NOT coached, people

And I promise, she is NOT ALLOWED to watch America's Next Top Model

Or Canada's Next Top Model.

I promise.

Bak in the land of the living... mostly?

I am feeling well again! Yay! It was a very long 26 days, and my house may take that long to get back in order. Not that my hubby didn't do a great job... he did a fantabulous job. It's just that he and I see cleaning differently. He looks at the surface stuff. Like..."Hey, if someone comes over, would they notice that smear of jam on the wall? Yeah, it is pretty big, and awfully bright. I should wipe it off. *scrub, scrub* Wow. Three day old jam sure is hard to get off the wall. At least it is a smaller smear, now." Whereas I look at the deeper stuff. Like..."Hey. there is some jam on the wall. I should clean it so that we don't get sticky jam on our clothes if we brush against it. And, I don't want Seb to think it is okay to put jam on the wall. Oh, wow... look at the other crap all over this wall! I can tell how much the kids have grown! Okay, time to wipe it down!" See the difference? But her is the really cool part. our kids are clean, our laundry is done, our house is vacuumed, and everyone is healthy! hooray for spouses and not being sick!

Still Sick...

I am still sick. Working on Day 14 now. (not that I am counting or anything) So I have decided to write a list of beneficial, positive things that are happening because of this illness.

1. I have had to let go of my perfectionism as my kids have been "cleaning"up.

2. My girl can now handle cereal, milk, and snacks, as well as clean up the boy's food mess.

3. If the kids get too hungry, they can forage under the dining table and come up with a pretty good sized snack.

4. My core is getting a really great workout with all the coughing.

5. The butt dent in the couch is almost perfectly formed to my butt.

6. My children know the tv schedule from eight am 'til six pm, thereby showing a remarkable talent for memorization, and a good grasp of minutes and time increments.

7. Our sheets are really soft from use. Lots of use.  (laundry guy has been working 'til eight every night)

8. Seb has been broken of the whole bedtime-story-twinkle-twinkle-frere-jaques-are-you-sleeping- bedtime routine thing.

9. Out of desperation, Maddy now reads her own bedtime stories. And sometimes Seb's.

10. Rinsing is pretty much as good as showering. 

11. My kids have mastered the multi-tasking necessary to eat and watch tv at the same time.

12. Plants can survive and make a come-back after twenty days of no water. But just barely, and I do NOT recommend this. 

13. Yet another housekeeping day has passed us by with no housekeeping (except watering the plants... their gasps and death cries were getting to me) and I have not lost my mind and freaked out yet, thereby demonstrating my innate patience and flexibility as well as my ability to rise (or lie down) to the occasion.

Here's to health!

An Evening of...er... Culture?!

We just had the best family evening.... I had to share it. I have no pictures, because we were all too busy rockin' it out, and laughing our faces off. It started after the kids showers. We had been listening to classical music throughout dinner (which actually helps to slow our eating down so we listen to our bodies better). Anyhow, Seb came out of the shower first, just as Beethoven's 5th symphony came on. He looked at me with big worried eyes, and whispered "That's the bad guy!" He listened with breathless anticipation, and his little eyebrows went up and down as the tension in the song built. I was totally engrossed in his facial expressions, which were completely connected to the song coming from the speakers. What an amazing moment! When the song changed key, about 150 seconds into it, he looked at me, big eyed again and whispered "What's happening now, Mommy?" I asked him what he thought was happening, and, again in a hushed voice, he said "The rocks are falling down on the bad guy Mommy!" A few minutes later, the "bad guy" part started up again, and Seb yelled "Oh, no! He escaped!! I have to sword him". He proceeded to jab the air around him with his plastic screwdriver. I was totally entranced. Anyhow... then Dean showed up, and with his arrival, all the culture went out the window.  He asked for 'Thunderstruck' by AC/DC. So we taught the kids to do the headbanger thing, and Maddy really got into the whole flinging of the hair. We all giggled hysterically at Dean's air guitar, and Seb's drums. Apparently, Maddy and I were the headbanging dancers. Then we cycled through a few Def Leppard songs, an En Vogue song or two, and ended up back at the classical section, just to round our evening out. We listened to the bad guy one, and then the Sugar Plum Fairy Dance from the Nutcracker. What a fantastic concert!

Once upon a Kingdom...

Once upon a time, in a land really close to here, there lived a happy little family in a happy little house. The Husband worked hard at his job, and made just enough money to allow the Wife to stay at home, and hang out with the two Very Cool Kids. Their house was very nice, and the Wife and the Husband worked together to keep it clean and tidy. The Very Cool Kids helped too, of course, and the house was usually pretty clean and organized (thanks to the Wife's OCD and the Husband's anal retentive tendencies) Every Thursday was housecleaning day, and the Husband was in charge of vacuuming, washing the clothes and sheets, and all things to do with garbage and the kitchen. The Very Cool Kids were in charge of their bedrooms, with the Wife's supervision, and the Wife took care of everything else.

Then one day, the Wife was afflicted with a horrible disease! She somehow contracted Streptococcal Pharyngitis!!! (AKA Strep Throat!!!!) She had gone to bed the night before feeling up-beat, and prepared for her meeting with the Girl Very Cool Kid's principal. When she awoke in the morning, however... the feeling was more beat up, than up-beat.  She went to the meeting anyhow, and proceeded to suffer through the next three days. Mostly quietly, but apparently her nightly tears of pain and anguish were waking up the Husband. He insisted she go to a local Doctor, and get some answers. Well, a few days later, the answers came back. She had Strep Throat. And boy, was it painful. The Wife took some time to rest, and as she did... the house fell into disarray...

The good news is that all this laundry is clean. the Husband was certainly keeping up his end of the chores around the place. But the Wife, sadly, was unable to. *sigh* And this pile of laundry was still growing. And growing. Because the dedicated Husband had forgotten that he did not fold and put away the clothes. He almost NEVER folds, or puts away the clothes. He will happily do lots of things, but folding, and putting away clothing are not two of the things he enjoys. At all. In fact, he would rather slay many many foul smelling dragons than fold laundry. Or put it away. That is the Wife's responsibility. And she actually, oddly, likes it. But the Wife was just too darn sick to help out. Then one day, she thought to herself (in a very raspy voice) "I just can't handle that big mess! Why, the Very Cool Kids have no socks, and I am totally out of underwear!!" She was trying hard not to notice that the Husbands socks and underwear had magically made it to his drawers, along with all the Husbands other clothes, but it was tough. So, the Wife sat down on the couch in her nice fleecy robe (going commando, because all her clean underwear were in the pile of laundry that had grown to mammoth proportions) and began to fold. The Husband (possibly feeling shamed by the Wife's self sacrificing ways) offered to fold the towels and rags. And so he did. And so she did. And so they did together. And this was the result.

Order restored to the kingdom once again. Phew! Oh, and BTW, the Wife put all the clothes away. She is really amazing!

Sporadicaus Blogus, again.

Hi, Sporadicus, here. I just removed all the sneaky permission things from my blog, and sent out an email to a bunch of people, telling them they can check out the C-O Gong Show. Now I am having an anxiety attack about it! What if I don't write enough stuff? What if my stuff isn't good enough? What if my pictures aren't taken on the proper aperture setting? What if my nose falls off, and I CAN"T TELL IF I AM STINKY????

Okay... I am back to reality here, and I just want all my loyal readers, all five of you, to know that I am Sporadicus Blogus. It may be weeks before I write anything else. It may be an hour. It may be hysterical, it may be sad, it may be one line. One day, I may just toss my computer out the window after desperately trying to figure out Photoshop. Then the blog would probably stop. At least while I was institutionalized. 

Anyhow... by reading this blog, you are agreeing to all my terms and conditions. So... thanks for reading!

A Slightly Nuttier Day Than Usual...

Today was an epic battle in my kitchen. And this time, it wasn't me versus anything.... Nope. Today was the day..

VS

Yup... that's right. The battle between Goo Gone and Peanut Butter was decided today in a thrilling match. What for you ask??? Cleaning! What else? Do you think I would feed my kids PEANUT BUTTER??? Kidding. They actually love peanut butter, which is good, because they eat it at least twice per week... anyhow, back to the battle...

I decided today that I would try to clean the sticky adhesive residue off the kitchen floor. (See, we are pulling up the lovely peel and stick tiles, because underneath is this fantastic retro flooring that is kind of yellowy cream, with brown. Sounds ugly, but it is very retro, and I like it! Okay... back to the point AGAIN) Anyhow, in our ([my, actually], obsessive) quest to live more naturally, we really try not to use toxic chemicals in our (my, actually) cleaning. So I thought I would see what would work on the floors. And I remembered that peanut butter will often remove gum from hair. Naturally, my brain jumped right to "Hey! Let's spread some all over the floor!!!" So I picked a few sticky tiles, and spread the P.B. on a few, and spread some Goo Gone on a few more. After swirling the Peanut Butter around, and making some pretty designs with my finger tips, like little hearts with Dean's and my initials, and the kids names and some flowers, I decided that I should probably clean it up. So I scooped up all the excess PB, and carried it to the sink. Then I used a damp cloth to pick up the rest, then a soapy cloth to do the final rinse/clean off. After drying it, the looked great, felt great, and even smelled great! Then I moved on to the Goo Gone portion of my experiment. The Goo Gone smells pretty pleasant, very orangey, which is nice, and sprays on well... you don't have to spread it. Then I started scrubbing. It took more work than the peanut butter, but I think the glue may have been thicker in a few places. Anyhow... in roughly the same amount of time, I stopped scrubbing, and started the clean up. Three wet, soapy cloths later, I still have one more to do... Goo Gone is oily, and does not come off easily, especially when mixed with gooey peel and stick adhesive. So... I thought it was going to be a draw until clean up started... but then... PB kicked Goo Gone's butt. Anyhow... I have to go clean off the rest of the Goo Gone, and go to Costco to invest in a giant tub of Peanut Butter. (oh, incidentally, Goo Gone is really expensive... the bottle in this picture was roughly 10.00, and the PB cost 6.00. But I am not planning on continuing to use the organic one on the floor! THAT WOULD BE WACKY!)

So anyhow, next time something is sticky and icky, grab the Peanut Butter, and give it a rub on the sticky bits. Woohoo! No chemicals!