Investments in Sanity
Recently I reconciled myself to the fact that I cannot keep up. I am but one woman, and the testosterone has so vastly overwhelmed me here in la casa that I decided in certain matters I need to tag in a teammate. Enter the housekeeper.
Now for every one of you that just thought to yourself anything along the lines of "really, she has time to blog but can't even clean her own house?" go away. Because until you've walked a mile in my chocolate milk encrusted flip flops, you have no idea. And really I think most of my readers will support me in this latest investment in my sanity. Because truly, the blog is a once a week thing. And the house, well it takes about 3.5 minutes for the house to be destroyed top to bottom, inside and out.
Take as an example a winter day. A snow day, as it were. And my cherubs decide that while I shovel our driveway, AKA the icy hill of doom, they will play outside sledding. Sounds picturesque, right? But wait. While I ready our necessary layers, the children decide they will look for the transformers underwear. No, they CANNOT wear the 50 other character pairs, and truly if one of them gets to wear Bumblebee one demands Optimus Prime. So they will find both pairs. Sure, underwear are always kept in the same drawer in each respective dresser. This will not, however, keep them from emptying all the drawers, then stripping bedclothes, before coming to me in a crying panic because they can't find them. So, one room down. Children's bedroom now impassable. Underwear? In the drier.
The underwear having been provided to the angels will cause a brawl over who now gets to be Optimus Prime. Because yeah, Bumblebee in cool, but we all know Optimus is the alpha. The silverback of the transformer troop. The brawl will must likely encompass at least two rooms, in which toys will be used as bargaining chips then dropped to the floor forgotten, chasing will knock over chairs, blood MAY be shed in small amounts, and someone will almost inevitably forget they needed to pee and have a "tiny" accident on the way in to the bathroom.
At this point I will give up on matching snow outfits, shove each of us into anything that even quasi-fits, and shove us all outside where I think the fresh air and tons of snow covered slopes to play on will run them down a bit. And it will. For about 20 minutes. I will shovel and just get into a really good groove before the youngest inevitably gets sick of the cold (he's my summer baby) and demands entry into the warm house.
Negotiating at this point is futile. Because he will tantrum until his booger icicles freeze his mouth shut, then just hold onto a leg and pull along behind me while I try to continue shoveling. And for all of you that have not shoveled snow, it's not easy. Snow is rarely fluffy and lovely when you are in it. Rather, it is like very cold, wet cement. So with sciatic nerves screaming for reprieve from hauling the three year old, I will take him back inside, take off the four hundred layers of clothes, turn on a movie, get him a drink and go back out to the five year old who is happily sledding so I can continue shoveling.
The five year old, though, cannot be satisfied with just one or two toys. So, odds are good he will have crawled in to not one but BOTH of the outside toyboxes to find something very interesting to play with in the snow. Ironically, he will eventually settle on a stick that falls from a tree and pelts me in the head as I shovel, but now the outside is equally strewn with toy debris.
As I make my way toward the end of the driveway (and don't be fooled, this takes well over an hour, closer to two, during which time my three year old will press himself against a front window naked to yell at me that he DID make it to the potty this time but his clothes are wrong side out now and he needs HELP) the five year old will tire of my company and go inside with his brother. But he will decide to disrobe indoors. This is a huge no no in snow situations, and means that the floors are now soaking wet and muddy and wet clothes are strewn about willy nilly. He will then decide they need snacks, and actually getting the snacks will entail dumping a huge box of goldfish.
So by the time I make it inside and the driveway is clear enough for us to go somewhere, the house is entirely trashed. And I am exhausted from the clothing, feeding, shoveling, and possible mini-concussion from the stick. But I cannot in good conscience leave the house messy. Because, and this is true folks, one time we left to go to a movie before we had the little ones and a bear attacked a mountain lion by our house. The mountain lion then, feeling a little pissy over coming out the loser in that scenario, jumped on the deck to attack my coon hound who proceeded to barrel through what I swear to all that is HOLY was a locked door when I left, and poo out of terror in the house. And our well meaning neighbors called 911 on our behalf to save our dog, so when co-workers responded they found our dog, who had jumped onto a counter to eat leftovers, and thrown all the ones he didn't like on the floor, and a fresh pile of dog poo. And that, folks, is emotionally scarring for this girl.
Thus, before we even go out I feel the need to clean. Sigh. So yes, this being a pretty common scenario with variables that involve swimsuits instead of snowsuits depending on season, it was time for help.
And the worst part of hiring a housekeeper? The initial tour, folks. It's like going for a haircut when you haven't been for a long time and you know the hairdresser is going to see your roots and your split ends and make the call to try to reschedule the rest of her afternoon because this is "going to take a while." Having some pretty raging OCD, I thought I had done ok at least straightening before she came to survey the damage. But her sharp breath intake and "oooooooh, well that's going to take a little elbow grease" type statements as we did the walk through were humbling.
Knowing that my family can be...challenging, I try to find very special people to work with us. I hired a retired parole agent as my kids babysitter. And I picked a part time daycare provider to clean the house in hopes that she would, somewhere along the line, have dealt with worse.
Last week was her first day. The house looked fantastic and I could not have been happier when I came home from a 10 hour work day followed by swim lessons to shining floors and counters. I was feeling mighty good, in fact. See? It wasn't that bad? And then the phone call. Yes...she'd be back. Next time with stronger cleaning agents so she could actually make a dent in the bathtub.
A lesser woman would feel embarrassed or defeated. I choose to feel vindicated, because she could't do it either. Of course I chose to feel that after crying a little into a glass (or three) of wine. Next to be tagged in? The therapist.
Now for every one of you that just thought to yourself anything along the lines of "really, she has time to blog but can't even clean her own house?" go away. Because until you've walked a mile in my chocolate milk encrusted flip flops, you have no idea. And really I think most of my readers will support me in this latest investment in my sanity. Because truly, the blog is a once a week thing. And the house, well it takes about 3.5 minutes for the house to be destroyed top to bottom, inside and out.
Take as an example a winter day. A snow day, as it were. And my cherubs decide that while I shovel our driveway, AKA the icy hill of doom, they will play outside sledding. Sounds picturesque, right? But wait. While I ready our necessary layers, the children decide they will look for the transformers underwear. No, they CANNOT wear the 50 other character pairs, and truly if one of them gets to wear Bumblebee one demands Optimus Prime. So they will find both pairs. Sure, underwear are always kept in the same drawer in each respective dresser. This will not, however, keep them from emptying all the drawers, then stripping bedclothes, before coming to me in a crying panic because they can't find them. So, one room down. Children's bedroom now impassable. Underwear? In the drier.
The underwear having been provided to the angels will cause a brawl over who now gets to be Optimus Prime. Because yeah, Bumblebee in cool, but we all know Optimus is the alpha. The silverback of the transformer troop. The brawl will must likely encompass at least two rooms, in which toys will be used as bargaining chips then dropped to the floor forgotten, chasing will knock over chairs, blood MAY be shed in small amounts, and someone will almost inevitably forget they needed to pee and have a "tiny" accident on the way in to the bathroom.
At this point I will give up on matching snow outfits, shove each of us into anything that even quasi-fits, and shove us all outside where I think the fresh air and tons of snow covered slopes to play on will run them down a bit. And it will. For about 20 minutes. I will shovel and just get into a really good groove before the youngest inevitably gets sick of the cold (he's my summer baby) and demands entry into the warm house.
Negotiating at this point is futile. Because he will tantrum until his booger icicles freeze his mouth shut, then just hold onto a leg and pull along behind me while I try to continue shoveling. And for all of you that have not shoveled snow, it's not easy. Snow is rarely fluffy and lovely when you are in it. Rather, it is like very cold, wet cement. So with sciatic nerves screaming for reprieve from hauling the three year old, I will take him back inside, take off the four hundred layers of clothes, turn on a movie, get him a drink and go back out to the five year old who is happily sledding so I can continue shoveling.
The five year old, though, cannot be satisfied with just one or two toys. So, odds are good he will have crawled in to not one but BOTH of the outside toyboxes to find something very interesting to play with in the snow. Ironically, he will eventually settle on a stick that falls from a tree and pelts me in the head as I shovel, but now the outside is equally strewn with toy debris.
As I make my way toward the end of the driveway (and don't be fooled, this takes well over an hour, closer to two, during which time my three year old will press himself against a front window naked to yell at me that he DID make it to the potty this time but his clothes are wrong side out now and he needs HELP) the five year old will tire of my company and go inside with his brother. But he will decide to disrobe indoors. This is a huge no no in snow situations, and means that the floors are now soaking wet and muddy and wet clothes are strewn about willy nilly. He will then decide they need snacks, and actually getting the snacks will entail dumping a huge box of goldfish.
So by the time I make it inside and the driveway is clear enough for us to go somewhere, the house is entirely trashed. And I am exhausted from the clothing, feeding, shoveling, and possible mini-concussion from the stick. But I cannot in good conscience leave the house messy. Because, and this is true folks, one time we left to go to a movie before we had the little ones and a bear attacked a mountain lion by our house. The mountain lion then, feeling a little pissy over coming out the loser in that scenario, jumped on the deck to attack my coon hound who proceeded to barrel through what I swear to all that is HOLY was a locked door when I left, and poo out of terror in the house. And our well meaning neighbors called 911 on our behalf to save our dog, so when co-workers responded they found our dog, who had jumped onto a counter to eat leftovers, and thrown all the ones he didn't like on the floor, and a fresh pile of dog poo. And that, folks, is emotionally scarring for this girl.
Thus, before we even go out I feel the need to clean. Sigh. So yes, this being a pretty common scenario with variables that involve swimsuits instead of snowsuits depending on season, it was time for help.
And the worst part of hiring a housekeeper? The initial tour, folks. It's like going for a haircut when you haven't been for a long time and you know the hairdresser is going to see your roots and your split ends and make the call to try to reschedule the rest of her afternoon because this is "going to take a while." Having some pretty raging OCD, I thought I had done ok at least straightening before she came to survey the damage. But her sharp breath intake and "oooooooh, well that's going to take a little elbow grease" type statements as we did the walk through were humbling.
Knowing that my family can be...challenging, I try to find very special people to work with us. I hired a retired parole agent as my kids babysitter. And I picked a part time daycare provider to clean the house in hopes that she would, somewhere along the line, have dealt with worse.
Last week was her first day. The house looked fantastic and I could not have been happier when I came home from a 10 hour work day followed by swim lessons to shining floors and counters. I was feeling mighty good, in fact. See? It wasn't that bad? And then the phone call. Yes...she'd be back. Next time with stronger cleaning agents so she could actually make a dent in the bathtub.
A lesser woman would feel embarrassed or defeated. I choose to feel vindicated, because she could't do it either. Of course I chose to feel that after crying a little into a glass (or three) of wine. Next to be tagged in? The therapist.
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