General Ranting on Simplifying

Last night we checked “Dinner at the Pool” off our list of summer goals.

There are two other families in our neighborhood who recently (within the past year or two) had their third child.  All of our garages have been stacked with boxes to take to a thrift store.  I can’t even remember how many times we have loaded the back of the car with stuff we were cleaning out since Holly has been born.  We want to enjoy our kids and each other and be able to invite friends over easily and the excess stuff as become a burden.  If we have a thousand towels, we have to do more laundry and pick up more towels from the floor.  If we have thirty five water bottles, it’s water bottles spread all over the house (DRINKS ONLY IN THE KITCHEN!) and more dishes to wash.  If there are too many toys for the shelves, there are toys everywhere and we will all go crazy. 

We were already in simplify mode.  That seems to be the best way to adapt to a bigger family and really be able to enjoy it.  When the boys were doing vacation bible school, Holly and I went to the library one day.  I was able to browse through the shelves instead of either reserving what I wanted ahead of time or frantically grabbing and shushing before heading to the kids’ section.  I randomly picked up the book Zero Waste Home, and it was fascinating.  It’s a family of four (two older kids, probably in the 12 year old range?) who produce only a quart of trash a year.

As I’m reading the book, I get to the chapter on grocery shopping.  The woman brings a pillowcase to the bakery every week and gets it filled with ten freshly baked baguettes.  This is my wake up call:  their lifestyle is in many ways far superior to mine.  Regular sliced bread in a bag off the shelf or a fresh baguette?  So many things in their life were so easy that they had more time for fun things.

So we went to the splash pad earlier this week and I brought strawberries, a baguette, and a few hardboiled eggs.  Things I didn’t have to do: make sandwiches, eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, wash sandwich dishes.  The lunch was delish and everyone liked it.  I’m not swearing off peanut butter and jelly, but expanding our options is making things easier and better for all of us.

The fact that we have bread bags made out of cloth napkins might actually give me hipster cred as far as living in the suburbs go…but only if you close your eyes to the single serving formula packet next to it.   

I’m thinking good causes should plead their case to human nature’s selfish side, rather than human’s unselfish, for-the-greater-good side.  Breast feeding advocates try this a little by saying breast feeding is convenient, but that’s both a joke and a lie.  Who thinks it’s convenient to take off your shirt in a public place?  They should say that breastfeeding will make your hair so thick and beautiful that you can pretend you’re a popular teenage girl.  Reusable grocery sacks?  Obviously the primary reason to use these is environmental.  But appeal to the selfish:  Save Time and Get Your Groceries Unloaded Quickly!  If I ever forget my bags now, I pretty much give up because there’s no way I want to deal zillion plastic bags, multiple trips from car to house, then worry that someone is going to suffocate on one.  My own personal reason for buying less stuff is that I’m just sick of constantly picking up the stuff we have; I don’t want to do more of that.

I’m not going to pretend that I can get our family down to a quart of trash a year and I’m not taking every bit of advice in the book.  I’ve crossed over from talking about using cloth diapers to accepting that it’s just not happening here- I’m sorry, you beautiful earth- and mascara falls pretty high on the list of things I don’t want to give up.  But the book had some really great ideas and we are going to attempt something that seems obvious now, but never occurred to me before:  switching our kitchen trash can into a recycling bin. Most of what comes out of our kitchen is either compost or recycling anyway, so we’re going to give it a try.  We’ll put a small trash can in the kitchen and see what ends up in there.  Real reason:  Good for the earth.  Selfish reason:  Avoiding taking the recycling out to the bin in the sweltering garage multiple times a day.

I’ve mentioned it before- my grandparents had a bathroom sized trash can in their kitchen.  Maybe we can do that, too.

And cut.

Dear Casey,

Thank you for cutting my hair.

However.

It turns out your so-called “layers” really just make me look like I stuck my ponytail into a crocodile’s mouth and let him gnaw the bottom off.  The crocodile probably stared at you with an unblinking eye, gnawing away, while you sat behind me drinking a diet coke and doing nothing- similar to the time when I made the mistake of sitting in front of you in a canoe. 

I should have remembered the Great Midnight Haircut of ‘08 in your Virginia apartment.  I should not have accepted your confidence with a pair of scissors just because you get your hair cut every six weeks and “pay attention.”  None of that matters, because at a point in the future we’ll be back here again with my hair all over the floor and your unremorseful “oops!”

So please keep practicing – but not on me.

Sisters and Best Friends Forever!
Kelly

Girl Time

Rush and Tate have discovered the magic of time alone with their grandparents.  A vacation from the constraints of early bedtimes and boring nutritional meals, unlimited Disney Channel, probably a box of Nerds dumped into a 20 oz coke right before it’s time to reunite with their parents.  Needless to say, Holly and I had some quiet, quality one-on-one time last week.

For our first day together, Holly napped for hours at a time.  It was maybe her first time to ever have peace and quiet.  I finally pieced together the quilt I’ve been thinking about for years.  Ten years of Trent and my old blue jeans have been gradually building up in a Rubbermaid box in the closet, and they were paired with a flour sack to make part one of what will hopefully be the heaviest quilt ever.

Then came Day 2, when I remembered that I thrive with too much to do, rather than with too much free time. 

The day went like this:  Discount Tire (see Holly’s expression above for a summary), clean up various things around the house, make a holly headband for Holly…play Candy Crush, lay on the floor, zone out, and wait for Trent to come home.

All three kids are back and today I made a baguette from scratch before lunch.  Back to being busy enough to actually get some things done.

Satellite Banks

A bright green lizard with a crooked tail lives on our front porch.  His name is Satellite Banks.  Can you see him?

Does Not Compute

When I was in first grade, the teachers determined our reading level then passed out books to everyone according to their level.  I opened my book to the first page, and tried and tried to read it, getting silently and increasingly panicked and thinking the seven-year-old equivalent of oh shit, I am in way over my head.  As it turns out, I was trying to read the copyright page, miniscule print and gibberish information.  I thought reading just got really, really difficult in first grade.  I finally turned the page, found the normal first grader words and font size, and continued on with my life. 

Right now, in everything I do, my brain in stuck on the copyright information page.  Not so much the in over my head part as just the general bewilderment and complication of basic tasks.  Last night I tried to learn a new card game, and even as asked repeated questions about the basic rules, I could feel that it wasn’t taking.  It’s like that with everything, everything right now.  It’s having a child younger than a year old, focusing all my brain cells on nurture and survival.  It might be compounding though, not just Brain Power – 7 month old, but (Brain Power – 7 month old) (–(# of children)) + caffeine – hours up past 10 PM. 

If your brain is feeling sluggish, try to describe it in terms of a mathematical equation.  That will make it much, much clearer.

I’m spending all my wind down time of elaborate embroidery projects that go no where.  If you thought you were getting a handmade Christmas present this year, you’re probably not, but not for lack of trying.

Being a mother of young children is going to be the great weed-out of friends who aren’t that into me.  I didn’t return your text or email or facebook message, invited myself to your house for dinner, didn’t bring anything, did bring a handful of children who will very likely jump on your couch* and eat all of one item in your home that was not offered to them, like a box of cereal or the contents of your fruit bowl.  If you come over here, I’ll forget to get any drinks besides water and will have to vacuum while you are here.  If you’re reading this right now and thinking, “Ooh, that’s me!  She vacuumed last time we were there!” it’s not just you.  It’s a lot of people.

I’m just hoping that the friend thing is like waiting tables.  I always got better tips when I was so busy that I neglected most of my tables and just barely got their drinks refilled.  Maybe people are going to like Incoherent Kelly better than than Regular Kelly.

And if not, at least I know the friends that are still friends with me in ten years are my real friends. 

 

*There is no legal punishment that will stop kids from jumping on couches.  Tate broke his leg jumping on a couch and could not walk for weeks- didn’t even phase him.

Foil and Paper

If Trent is working late, there are two main courses of action available to the rest of us.  The first is dinner at 4:45, early baths, early books, all kids in bed by 7 PM.  The second is to start a major project at 5 PM on the kitchen floor using acrylic paint.  Strangely enough, both can be routes to a successful, tear-free evening.

Rush will be the first one to tell you that he’s, “really into art.”  I picked up a book of projects for kids at the library last week and he immediately found a service station/gas station for matchbox cars that can be make with stuff gathered from around the house.  After their initial evening painting of cardboard boxes, they spent the following day in their pajamas building the service station and playing with it.  I’m not sure there has ever been one thing that held their attention for such a long, interrupted stretch.

When I was growing up, our family got together with another family, the Swans, pretty much every Friday night.  The parents would play cards at the kitchen table the the kids would play Nintendo or Sonic the Hedgehog on their Sega, watch Willow, or split up into pairs by age, as we were both three-kid families.  Katie and I were the same age, girls, and friends, so we were generally able to entertain ourselves.  I’m pretty sure my sister and Cory, the middle child set, typically ended up sitting around awkwardly listening to a Queen Greatest Hits cd.

Faced with an endless stretch of Friday nights, Katie and I eventually made a list of goals to accomplish.  If only I could remember all of them…the two standouts were Make Hats Our of Aluminum Foil – done- and Build a Dream House for a Bug.  We spent weeks of Friday nights working on a small house made of paper and cardboard, complete with rooms and furniture.  It was probably about the scale of a house for a larger insect, like a grasshopper. 

When I was hot gluing all the pieces of Rush and Tate’s service station together, I was reminded of the Bug Dream House.  And by reminded, I mean I really enjoyed working on that service station and I could have sat at the kitchen table building cardboard ramps long after the boys had moved on.  And then the next Friday night I could have worked on it some more.

As for the foil hats, some habits die hard.  I attempted foil hats as a distraction on our Tennessee road trip last summer, and they are thus far the one true road trip bomb.  Not only did they not entertain the boys, but in fact annoyed them to the point of crying and screaming.

Katie and I were probably in 5th or 6th grade when we were making our architectural masterpiece a reality and wearing our foil hats.  Lesser women might look back and be embarrassed, but not me.  It’s my dreams for my own children.  I look around sometimes and see people already trying to maneuver their kids onto the queen bee popularity track.  Sometimes I want to sneak another woman to the side of the playground and say, look, your little girl is never going to be Regina George.  Can’t you recognize that she’s too sweet and kind and gentle?  Just let her be.  Kids, keep out of trouble and have fun with your friends.  Be confident.  Build things on your bedroom floors.

I Scream, You Scream

The recent (months ago, but this calendar year, so yeah, recent) buzz was that HEB Creamy Creations vanilla ice cream is equal to, if not better than, Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla.  *Taste test!*

Our verdict:  Hmmm…secret.  Isn’t it worth it to taste it on your own?