While in Sunday School after Liturgy last week, Maria (age 6) was asked to draw a picture of how she helps out around the house. She drew an angry little stick figure putting toys into a toy box. Next to her was a taller, angrier stick figure. When asked to explain, she sweetly explained that the smaller figure was her, helping to clean the house even though she hates to do that. The taller stick figure was Mommy, who likes to get mad and say bad words when everyone is cleaning.
Her teacher LOVED it.
Louis (age 2) finally sleeps in his own bed at night. Well, he starts out in his own bed, anyway. A couple of nights ago, I was going to roll over when I felt him wedged up against my back. What's more is that his feet were tucked into the back of my underwear. How he managed to get them there without me waking up is something that truly baffles me.
Being pregnant, my body is doing all kinds of crazy, hopelessly unattractive things. Recently, a long, blonde hair made an appearance on my upper lip. The kids noticed it while I was bathing them, remarking with profound, giggly sympathy, "Everyone is going to laugh at you!" It has since been removed...
While in Liturgy every Sunday lately, Louis has greatly enjoyed trying to visit the pew in front of us by sliding across the floor underneath the pew itself. When caught by his father, who literally has to drag the boy out by his ankles, Louis breaks into a chorus of "HOWP!!! HOWP, MOMMY!!!" (That's how he says "help.") After communion, he's nice enough to ask us, very loudly, "ALL DONE JESUS?! ALL DONE? GO BYE-BYE?" It's one of those times I'm beyond grateful to our Church community for being absolutely amazing about children and their antics. They seem to really enjoy watching the younger families scramble to maintain composure.
On to our cleaning efforts:
I must have a clean house as holidays approach. It is the world's worst distraction to have clutter and disarray when there is so much else that needs to be done. I crank the Mumford and Sons and, recently, the Huey Lewis (nostalgia for road trips with my parents and siblings, and Saturday mornings with my dad making pancakes in his skivvies) while tackling the "snow globe effect" that hits my house almost daily (you know, like someone picked up the house, turned it upside down, and shook it violently before placing it right-side up).
Alas, we have made headway.
Behold, the boys' room:
The "before" panoramic shot.
The "before" shot of shame.
The glorious "after" panoramic.
Fear not, that giant basket laundry has since been resolved as well.
The "before" closet shot.
Heaven help me.
The "after" shot, in which I gleefully mention that a good deal
of the "before" shot ended up in donation bags.
(This one task took me nearly 3 hours to complete.)
The "after" shot of the toys/books area behind their door.
I forgot to take the "before" shot, but just imagine that
a toy store and a library got black-out drunk and threw up in this little area...
and all over the rest of the room...
And on to the girl's room:
The "before" panoramic shot, which doesn't include the Mt. Everest
of dress-up clothes and actual clothes that I had to scale to get into the room.
The "after" of the former home of the Mt. Everest-of-clothes.
The "after" panoramic.
I feel the stress melting away!
The End.
(Courtesy of Louis)
Hopefully, in the next few days, I will have more pre- and post- cleaning pictures, as well of a few snaps of completed Christmas gifts. My current project is a matching scarf for the Hello Kitty hat and some coffee cup "sweaters" for the white elephant gift exchange at the company Christmas party, like so:
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