One Perfect Mess

Archive for November, 2010

Ever look at the whiskey on top of the fridge and wonder if it would be any good over your cereal? This morning I woke up suddenly while right in the middle of a dream. I have a hard time getting with it when my head is still half dream and all I wanted was a few minutes in bed to pull myself together. Both kids threw a massive tantrum when Andrew made them leave me alone and after about three minutes of screaming and banging I gave up and got out of bed. I put the screaming Weebles in time out until she could calm down and in the meantime Andrew discovered the Peanut needed a diaper change. I hastily took him and plopped him on the changing table. As I yanked off his PJ pants poop flung across the room and all over Andrew. Well how do you do there chaos? I was wondering when you would show up today.

Andrew headed to the bathroom to scrub himself off while I started cleaning off the Peanut. Hmm how in the hell did it get all over his feet? I took off his diaper expecting more of the same and found.. nothing? Huh?

“ANDREW? Whose poop is this?”

“WHAT?” over the running water

“WHAAA WHAAA WHAAA” – Weebles

Hmmm… I finished cleaning up the baby and put him down and headed out into the living room. Poop was everywhere. What in the… “WHAAA WHAAA WHAA”  Right, off to get the Weebles. Calmed her down. By that time Andrew was in the living room working on a clean up strategy. We’re guessing it was the elderly cat… but really, does it matter? Poop is poop. And hey, my carpets got shampooed before 8 AM! That has to be a new record.

Goals for today:

Baste, quilt and bind the set of 8 placemats I started yesterday

Finish up the Christmas tote I started late last night.

Packing list for Disney

I’m sorry if I woke you with my screaming. Holy bleeep bleeepity bleep! How is it November already?!? I am not ready. November sees us gone for four straight weekends.* I like to “go big” for holidays and that entails a lot of planning and work. Planning and work that take a whole ton of energy… energy that I simply do not have. Ugh. But the thought of cutting back on the holidays just isn’t an option. I want my kids to grow up on one of those houses where everything is decorated, there are tons of twinkle lights outside and packages are all wrapped in coordinating wrap with fancy bows. Where can I hire a fictional mom to pull all this off? Rationally I know that they don’t care. They just want to be with their mom and dad, to have Santa come visit them and to negotiate as many treats as possible. But to me, it is important. When they are thirty I want them to look back on their childhood and remember a storybook experience because it isn’t something that I had. Growing up we always packed up shop and went to my maternal grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sure there was a tree, and Santa came, and everyone wanted me (the only child present) to have a nice Christmas but there weren’t any readings of the Night Before Christmas, no tacky outdoor lights, no leaving cookies and milk for Santa. And when my grandmother died when I was a teenager holidays for my family just… stopped. Clearly we had them for her benefit because nobody bothered to put up a tree, or cook any food, or put any effort at all into gifts after she was gone. That is, until I was old enough to do something about it. Now I put up the tree, I cook all the food. I buy all the presents, and I mean ALL of them. For my mom to give my dad, for my dad to give me, for my cousin to give my uncle and so on and so forth. They are going to have a Merry Christmas dammit or I will die trying. The only part missing from this equation is the happy mom. When my grown children look back on these Christmases with all the trimmings will they remember them with happiness or just remember how insane Mom had driven herself to pull it off?

*Would be robbers. Don’t bother, really. You shouldn’t waste your time. A.) We have housesitters B.) We have vicious cats that pee on things C.) Everything valuable we have (ie our kids) will be with us so there is nothing here of any value