The couch and Captain America

I really, really don't know where in the heck kids get stuff sometimes. They say stuff that leaves you wondering 1. where they learned that because you certainly haven't talked about having 2 heads, for example, and 2. how they though of that.

This morning I overheard George say to his sister (I think they were playing mommy/daddy/baby - nothing weird just normal role playing) "When I'm a daddy I'm gonna sleep on the couch a lot."

Huh?

We don't have a couch, really. We have a love seat, and love seats are not really suitable for napping. (Ok, we do have a couch, but it's not in the main living room of our home and doesn't get used much, unless you're counting it acting as my laundry folding central.) Once in a great while the hubs will throw all my laundry to the floor take a nap there, but napping with small children running around is a dangerous gamble. More than once (back when we had a couch) he found himself a human trampoline, smacked in the face by a toy. That's if he can get to sleep due to all the running and screaming. And daddy has never had to "sleep on the couch" due to marital discord. That kind of thing rarely affects his ability to sleep. So, sleep on the couch a lot? Huh?

Then I heard him say "When I am a daddy I'm gonna be Captain America and I'm gonna be the real Captain America."

Ok, so Captain America I get, as he and Kong just watched that movie. But what does that have to do with being a daddy? Maybe I need to watch that movie.

Ah yes. Life.

One thing about having a house full of children is that it is never quiet. Rather, it is rarely quiet. Exceptions are when everyone is asleep, they are really engrossed in a new movie (which doesn't include Boots as he's still too young and hasn't discovered the allure of television), or something very naughty is going on.

Many mothers find the quiet of the early morning their best/only chance at "me" time. We like to think we can enjoy it after they are all in bed, but most moms I talk to are so tired by that point that it's not productive or quality time, and they would be better off going to bed themselves. I, however, am not a fan of early rising. But I may be getting there.

Having a teen in the house, combined with longer daylight hours (and lets not mention my inability to have supper on the table any earlier than 7pm - hey, we're on the European schedule, ok? lol) has shifted the wake times of our children to 9 pm or later, and of myself to around midnight. But the wake up times don't seem to be as affected. Koko is definitely my early bird, and Boots seems to like to follow that trend also. Problem with him is, he can't be left unattended, as tested by my having to go outside to get him a few times, in my underwear, at 7am. Good thing there's not much traffic on Main Street at 7am.

This a.m. arrived like most others, earlier than my tired body wanted, with a dangerously naked-butted child calling out for a diaper. (Which in case you don't get that means, I had better put one on him or bad things will happen.) So up I jumped, er, slithered. Koko was quick to join us, and the three of us enjoyed a rather quiet breakfast. It was then I suggested yoga. Koko has an interest in yoga, for some reason, so she was gung ho. Even Boots, never wanting to be left out of the action, joined in.

As the yoga session went on, Boots, not surprisingly, lost interest, and Koko found it not as stimulating, and a little more challenging, than she had thought. George and Cheeks had also descended, and sat watching, less than enthused, as the movie Fly Me To The Moon seemed a much better idea. Mommy, however, pursued.

And as fate would have it, when a parent tries to do anything uninterrupted, a conversation, balancing the checkbook, or a prenatal yoga relaxation video, things will not go their way. George kept insisting to me that I should be done. Koko was almost literally climbing the walls in the next room, and Boots was emptying the contents of my purse, applying as much lip gloss and mascara to his body as was though humanly possible. But Mrs. Bananas carried on, doing her best to ignore and/or manage the chaos around her.

At the end of the video, the narrator was telling me to "inhale and let all your tension release." It was at that point that Boots was pushing the panic button on my car keys, and George was talking about farts.

Ah, yes. 

You can either laugh or cry. Today I chose to laugh.

Next time, I will choose to do yoga after everyone is in bed.

Temporary

CLEARLY, I'm doing a bit of revamping. A task I should have chosen to start before I was already half an hour late for bed. Maybe I'll wait for the more tech savy teen to help. So for now, you'll have to suffer thru bad color text and poor column alignment. Thanks.

Arrival: 3:58 CST

And she's arrived. :D Ahhhhh.... Oh, happy day.

Not that that means a mom can rest, cuz really, do moms ever really rest? I don't think so. But I rest happy knowing she's here and the "welcome home" preparations can no longer be... well, prepared. So to breathe.

We've had a calm week of nothin' doin', and enjoying just that. My only venture to town this week was to hear a heartbeat. Oh what a blessed sound. Later, we had King Kong's (sorta) birthday celebration of Better Than Ssssssomethin' cake, post pork-chops-and-potatoes-supper. (He's a "no fuss" kind of guy.) Today, I finally got my floor mopped, and got a little tan reading a book at the park. Tonight we'll check out some fireworks and call it good. Maybe mama will spring for an ice cream. I figure we'd better do something before everyone gets over bored. Not that tornado sirens and power outages were boring, but that's not really the kind of excitement we (ok "I") were necessarily looking for. The littles don't like the dark, apparently. And the town's siren is so close it's practically in our living room. Sounds like it too. But we escaped any real weather, unlike other parts of the state.

Now that our Schweetheart is here, I can be more telling of our news of an impending birth and pregnancy woes, since she now knows and didn't find out over Blogger. It also may explain my bloggy absence, with all the sheer exhaustion I felt for months. Thank heavens it's finally waning. A mama can only do so much, and with chasing holy terror very active little monkey named Boots who insists on being clever and strong, thus making himself a master escape artist, blogging hasn't even been in my top 20. Even if I wanted to, I didn't have enough brain power to come up with a post that woudn't have just said "I'm so tired" 300 different times. Hopefully things will improve blog-wise. At least in frequency.

But now, I must go attend to the hunger cries of many monkeys begging for bananas.

Oh, and for those throngs of you (hahaha) who are desperate (yes, laugh some more) to know, the list of things to do keeps growing, but the room that was a disaster is now habitable. It got emptied, wall paper stripped, holes patched, one crumbly wall paneled, sanded, primed and painted, except for the doors and trim. The windows still need to be trimmed, something done with the floor and it needs curtains, but it has a bed to sleep in, a place to shut the door, if so desired, and rest her pretty little head. :D Other than bring another load to the thrift store, I think we can "rest" in what has to get done. For now. ;)

So, a certain someone is rather unmotivated. OK. That might be plural. (I'm tired and tending children is not conducive to accomplishing much.) Not to say that he hasn't done anything, it's just that he's not his usual supercharged, type-A self when it comes to projects. I am rarely supercharged, type-A. And, in being a bit more realistic about what we can accomplish, (and what we can afford to accomplish), we will not be totally renovating the gold bedroom. At least, not right now. We'll make it less scary more habitable, and work on it when we can determine the game plan. (I suggested draping the entire room in fabric (of which we have boatloads - see basement shelf pic - one whole shelf is fabric), kind of like a canopy. Hubs very kindly, uh, dismissed that plan. Guess he couldn't vistualize that hippy/ethnic image I had in my head.)

Or something like that.

What we have accomplished thus far, while far less than what needs to be done, is something.

• Clean new turtle tank, switch over. CHECK! Squirt is enjoying his new digs. And the new, bigger tank actually gives him room to swim. He's a happy turtle.
• Finish taking boxes from gold bedroom down to basement. CHECK
• Box up/chuck rest of stuft, take stuff to thrift store. CHECK (Just have one coffee table that won't fit in my van)
• Find/buy a bed. CHECK! (What's great about this is I didn't have to do a thing. Plus, it was FREE!. PTL!!!!)
• Declutter entertainment center (King Kong worked on it. It's about half done.)
• VBS/Soccer camp. DONE!

Hopefully, my plan is to get this stuff done, at minimum, by Monday:

• Clean the old turtle tank and take to thrift store
• Finish entertainment center
• Clean computer desk
• Paint bathroom shelves so I can put the crap back in the bathroom
• Clean off microwave stand
• Sort and store the clothes mountain from the gold bedroom (GB)
• Clean GB
• Fix a few of the major spots in walls in GB
• Paint GB
• Get the "new" bed. (Rain is complicating this)
• Hang curtains in GB
• Clean the house to sight (meaning so it looks good if you don't look too hard)
• Vacuum the van

All while still cooking, parenting, and doing the never ending laundry. No problemo. hahaha. lordy.

In other notes, my roof is leaking and my nose is not liking the mildew smell I'm sleeping with, I have a constant headache and need a MAJOR massage (not likely), and I had a GREAT time hanging with the bible study ladies out at one gal's lake home. Food, friends, a pontoon ride, and a bonfire (that wouldn't stay lit, but who's counting). And did you know that strawberry marshmallows are pretty good for smores? Who woulda thunk?

The post in which I step onto a soapbox for a minute or ten

How would you feel if your husband asked if there was anything he could pray for for you? If he asked you what was important to you, what he did that made you feel loved and valued, and then made doing those things a little extra priority for a few weeks? Made you supper? Would you get mad and think he was crazy for offering you some time alone? a trip to the spa? three minutes to pee and/or shower... by yourself? Personally I would fall over faint and pee myself in excitement that he finally got a clue. Or sing the halleluja chorus that God finally hit him with that bolt of lightening I've been praying for.

My hubs is a good man, but he is rather clueless in the "how to pamper your wife" category.

So there's this blog I read. I'm not sure why. I think the swearing is a bit much (an f-bomb better have good reason, imo), I don't really relate to her as a person/mother, and a miriad of other things. Maybe she's funny? For some reason, I keep reading. This may not last long.

Today's post was a very sarcastic response to some other blog post challenge. I'm not a person who thinks everyone must agree, that one thing is good for all people. I have my reasons for my beliefs/values/opinions, you have yours. Fine. As long as you can be civil, we can remain friends. We can even talk about it.

This is so. not. civil. Frankly, it got me riled. Well, mostly the comments did. (Not too bad, but certainly irritated enough to write my own post about it.) Her post was not nearly as offensive as her commentors.

(Recap, if you don't want to read those other posts, the challenge was from a biblical standpoint of loving and honoring your husband by fasting and praying, asking and doing things that are important to him, cook his favorite meals, talk of the future and support his vision, show him respect. The response was a sarcastic "oh yeah, that'd be great!" followed with comments of followers who mocked it.)

I hate, loathe, abhor the misconceptions people have of Christians, of what the bible says, and the attitude that I'm an idiot for believing in it. Cuz peeps, I ain't. Then there's the lovely set who "listen" and only hear what they want to hear, then criticize and mock, out of their own ignorance, again with the stance that I'm the moron.

The "I just threw up on my mouth," "My husband would admit me to a mental health hospital if I started doing these things," "If I asked my husband how I could best serve him I don’t know what would come first, a crack about oral sex or him questioning my sanity. Um, yeah. My husband prefers being married to an equal, not a servant," or calling it "disturbed" are bashing comments. Not for you? Fine. But now you're being judgemental and ridiculing someone else's convictions, about making her marriage better, for heaven sakes. If I, as a Christian, were to come on your blog and bash your tales of husband bashing or comment on how much you suck as a parent, there would be lawsuits and attacks faster than you coul blink. I was personally offended by reading those things.

Submit should not be a dirty word. We ALL do it. If you have a job, you submit to your boss and his/her way of thinking. If you are even a semi-law abiding citizen, you submit to the laws of this country. It means to be willingly under authority. It is not an invitation for your husband to abuse you, it does not mean you can't think for yourself. Nor does it mean he has all control. Really, it's a relief. You're taking all that stress and responsibility off your own shoulders, and saying, "you know what babe, I'll let you take care of those decisions." You'd have to be stupid NOT to want to do that. Sure, sometimes you are not always going to agree with how things are done. Sometimes, the wrong (gasp, oh yeah) choice will be made. But hey, we ALL MAKE WRONG CHOICES NOW AND THEN. Only this time, you're not the one to say, "dang, I screwed up." You're not the one who looks bad. And you still have a voice. You can still express your opinion about how you think things should go. You're just leaving the final decision up to your husband. You trust that he is going to make the best decision he knows how for your family.

And since when is giving your husband a little extra love, support, encouragement, and/or pampering "serving" him like a slave? Don't you love him? Don't you want him to feel loved by you? HELLO LADIES! Good secret of how to keep your man... Let him feel respected and valued by you! Followed with plenty of, ahem, lovin'.

We have some friends who recently witnessed a situation where a husband asked his wife to heat up some cold chicken from the fridge for him. Our friend's wife was essentially outraged. Her opinion was that this request was absolutely disrespectful to the wife and the husband should get his own damned chicken. Apparently, she has gone on and one about this for a while. Her husband, however, is getting his feelings hurt. He does a lot in their home - takes the kids, cooks, works, buys her ridiculously priced jewelry (considering their economic status), does whatever she demands asks. I feel bad for the guy. I would get my feelings hurt too. The thought of, am I not good enough, does she not love me enough to want to do something nice for me? I imagine would come to mind. Maybe not. I'm not a man and couldn't even try to think like one. But men like to be pampered, too. They like to know their wives are caring for them, as much as they are caring for the kids, tending the house, and painting their toenails. They like to feel like they are the king of their castle, sometimes. Don't you want to feel like a queen?

So going the extra mile for your spouse is not "one sided" because you are forced to. It's because you want to. It's not an indication that you are cuckoo or stupid or whatever. It doesn't mean that you are not "equals" as so many feel it's important to be. It just means that you are going the extra mile for the sake of someone else's happiness, which could lead to some happiness recieved on your end.

PS. No one's asking you to subscribe to biblical principles if you don't agree. They work, but you can run your marriage however you like. Just don't bash the way I might want to do things. I'm not married to you or your husband, so you can do whatever you like.

**and she steps down... for now**

Also, I'll just leave you with this site.

Love and Respect.

Gold

You'll see what I mean.

Just to show you what work has been done...

My hubs built a nice shelf a few weeks ago, to hold all the "gold bedroom" crap. The gold bedroom is also known as The Storage Room. Because clearly a huge basement is not enough space. There are boxes and boxes of fabric, knick knacks, wedding presents we have not used/opened (because people with four children hardly have time to bust out the cool hand-blown glass pitcher and matching goblets. Nor do we want things like that broken.), and the assortment of keepsake stuff that realistically needs to be gone through and chucked but I don't have time for nit-picky stuff like that at the mo.

So the shelf is 8 feet high, 8 feet wide, and 2 feet deep. It's a good shelf. Sturdy. Should hold lots of stuff.

Yeah, this is basically just from one corner. This corner:

I moved that stuff there, as I was sorting. It was a cleared corner. Beforehand it was a lot higher.

Not much room left, and I still have the closet to clear, and other stuff to sort and downsize.

But, it's progress.

You see why it's called the "gold bedroom", right? Yowza!

list

AHHH!

Ok. Deep breath.

THis is my to do list. (**I will be adding as I think of stuff) Here, because I need to write it somewhere I won't lose it, bury it, it won't get spilled on, colored on, cut up, or.. well, you get the picture.

And besides, maybe you'll pity me enough to offer some help. (Nope, done with all pride that I can do all things myself, here. I'm desperate.)

Oh, and I have 6 days to do this.

• 
  
  Clean out the new turtle tank, set it up and switch Squirt over, then clean the old tank
• 
  
  Vacuum the van
• 
  
  Declutter the computer desk
• 
  
  Declutter the top of my entertainment center
• 
  
  Declutter the top of the "microwave stand" (which doesn't have a microwave on it, just crap)

And by decluttering, I mean deal with all the odd and ends that don't really have a place so the get dumped there, find a home for those things (hahahahahahaha), and sort/file/throw paperwork that includes all the kids school papers that have barfed themself ALL OVER MY HOUSE and figure out where to put the few that I save. Really, this is my task.

• 
  
  Clean the fridge, as in, wash it out (remove the shelves, drawers, etc. you know... clean it)
• 
  
  Clean the rest of my house as necessary (wipe down floors/windows/table/chairs, put away laundry, sort/organize/put away toys (last minute), clean bathroom)

Gold Bedroom tasks:

• 
  
  Finish taking boxes down to basement
• 
  
  Box up and/or chuck the rest of the random crap
• 
  
  Sort the mountains of unboxed, need-to-be-stored-or-thrifted clothes
• 
  
  Strip wallpaper (not hard, most of it is peeling off and can be literally pulled off in large pieces)
• 
  
  Sand/scrape any remaining trim/baseboards and door (long and painstakingly awful task)
• 
  
  Fix walls or decide to panel (oh gawd, yes, I said panel. ugh)
• 
  
  Paint or at minimum prime
• 
  
  Do we carpet?
• 
  
  Clean it out (dust, garbage, etc)
• 
  
  Trim windows
• Make/buy/hang curtains
• 
  
  Buy or find a bed

Can possibly be done the following weekend:

• 
  
  Get armoir from friend
• 
  
  Paint Jay's dresser for R and switch out for armoire
• 
  
  Paint the second coat on Dillon's dresser
• 
  
  Paint the bathroom shelves

And other chores:

• 
  
  Get more sand for sandbox
• 
  
  Plant some semblance of a garden (a couple tomato plants and maybe a cuke bush?), some flowers might be nice, too
• 
  
  Do the VBS/Soccer Camp shuffle and bussing
• 
  
  Create meal plan and schedule for kids to incl chores and time for working on academics (as highly recommended by the teacher)
• Switch out shelf in bathroom closet for new shelf
• List other fish tank on Craig’s list
• List old lamps and stuff on ebay
• Make and hang curtains for Master bedroom
• Make/buy/hang curtains for girls’ room
• Hang pics in girls’ room
• Buy George new bedding
• Paint/decor boys’ room

All of this should be easy to accomplish in the hour a day (provided D naps that day) I have "available" to do it, right? Watching 4 children, attending to all their hunger pangs needs, wants and desires.

Not stressful. Not at all.

I do take volunteers. Consider it community service. It would be greatly appreciated. I'm not joking.

THIS IS MY PLEA FOR HELP, PEOPLE!

I'm sorry, so very sorry, my dear, if you arrive and the house is a dung hole. We love you, despite our slovenly ways. Um, and we would like news of the, uh, verdict. Thanks.