Dusting Off Some "Me Time"

The weekend here was positively glorious. Sunny, with a gentle warm breeze, sapphire blue skies dotted with whipped cream clouds, and my favorite temperature. 82 degrees. Surely you're not surprised that I have a favorite temperature?

Mac Daddy took the boys to the park to play some baseball Saturday morning. They gathered their gear, a cooler of snacks (that I admit to checking on the sly to ensure Mac Daddy packed the right stuff), and sunblock, thanks to my nagging (no word on if that was actually applied). Hugs and kisses, smooch smooch goodbye. Off they went, downright dancing down the sidewalk. My three boys, to whom I owe all this dirt and noise.

And then I clutched the powder room pedestal sink to keep from falling to my knees onto the cheap plastic stool and wept. Fat monsoon tears that I didn't even bother to wipe away. I gripped the sink to keep myself from giving in to whim and bashing the weathered pewter mirror in front of me. I stifled the bellowing scream bubbling up in my gut and let a snarl escape instead, a rather unfulfilling impostor.

No park for me. No breeze was to grace my face. I stayed behind at home.

Ah, the house to myself. Just me. Unplugged and Twitter free. Illicit, decidedly un-kid-friendly lyrics cranking at rock star decibels on the iPod, hot, strong coffee in my favorite travel mug and another full pot in the French press.

And me, hair swept back in a blue bandanna fished out of the dress up box, tattered purple tank tank top, supremely comfortable baggy jersey knit shorts, not a lick of mascara. Just me.

And a dustpan.
Broom.
Mop.
Murphy's oil.
Vacuum.
Sponges.
Rags.
Toilet bowl brush.
Stainless steel polish.
Method cleaner.
Dustbuster.
And those damned yellow rubber gloves.

You see, the only "me time" I get in my house is when I'm cleaning. Forget what I said before, now I regret firing my cleaning lady. First of all, cleaning my house makes me utterly irascible, while having a clean house makes me deliriously jubilant. The stream of pee around the bathrooms, thanks to two little boys and one big man, with poor aim, is enough to make me gag. You should hear me yell when I catch Bird leaning back to pee so he can (somewhat) aim and watch Kim Possible at the same time. He misses. Every. Single. Time.

And then there's all the dust bunnies.
Hair.
Fuzz.
Crunched leaves, twigs, and other signs of nature.
Sticky floors.
Crumbs.
Dust.
Fingerprints.
Hand prints in the least expected spots.
Toothpaste goop.
And all the usual suspects.

I. HATE. To. Clean.

The proverbial silver lining is this: I am all by myself when I am cleaning. That alone makes it more bearable.

No one is there to tug on me. I can pee in peace, whether the door is shut or not (and for the record, I have no issues with aim). I can eat three popsicles in one sitting, one in every flavor. I don't mentally tally up the constant chorus of "Hey, Mommy" in my exploding head. I don't have to endure knock-knock jokes or the Dragon Tales theme song. I don't have lunches to prepare or LEGO fights to mediate or bottoms to wipe or time outs to impose. There is no whining, bickering, yelling. The banshees have left the building.

And I am alone.

Me time.

Problem is, me time is not the same as time for me.

I suddenly don't feel so guilty about ignoring my family all day Monday while I curled up in the rocking chair on the front porch, with the ceiling fans on so I too could feel a breeze in my hair, to indulge in Twilight.

Sometimes I miss my little one bedroom apartment on Excelsior Boulevard. The one where I had a God awful floral wallpaper border in my nauseously girly bedroom, battenburg lace curtains, umpteem throw pillows on my bed, two walk-in closets, a tiny balcony covered in AstroTurf, a wall of mirrors in the bathroom, my very own stereo, even though it was just a little Bose shelf unit, and wall-to-wall carpeting. The same apartment where my Sunday paper was stolen on a regular basis. The same apartment that smelled ever so faintly of a potion of cat piss, stale Swisher Sweets, and bleach. The same apartment where doing laundry in the basement required a chaperon. The same apartment where I was alone but never lonely. Alone. By myself. Doing whatever the hell I wanted.

When time was all about me.

Rubbers Again

My sons are wondering what I'm up to with rubbers on my hands. Check out Deep South Moms to find out why.

Children = Entropy

This is why I don't have more than 2 kids. This is how my living room looked after 2 five year olds and 2 three year olds took over and held me hostage in the bathroom. They could have at least banished me to the kitchen where there was wine.

My friend Caroline posted on Facebook about how her kids schemed every night about ways to wreck her clean house. A commenter left a remark that children equal entropy. I failed physics and pretty much every science class I ever took (I am really the only Indian in the whole world who is bad at math and science.) so I looked up the definition. Entropy: a measure of the disorder of a system. Systems tend to go from a state of order (low entropy) to a state of maximum disorder (high entropy). Mac Daddy and I = low entropy. Add children to the equation, FOUR of them, and you clearly have high entropy. They can't help it; it's a physical law just like gravity.

Oh hell, let's be honest, it doesn't take four kids to wreak such havoc. One can do that in a matter of seconds with the right super hero powers at play.

Tell me something I don't know!

You must read this before you continue.

Is this really what researchers need to spend their grant dollars doing? The next thing you know some fancy pants PhD from MIT is going to tell me that the latest research shows that college fraternity parties encourage binge drinking among 19-year old boys or that the more often a teenage LiLo wannabe wears words across her ass the less likely she is to get a BA in Economics.

Of course men create more housework for women! The male researcher should have just asked his wife. Or his mother. In this case, a focus group of one would have been sufficient to draw conclusions. Here's my favorite quote from Frank, "And the situation gets worse for women when they have children." No shit. Allow me to gather myself and readjust since falling over backwards from my Aeron.

Let's start with the little details of oh, say BIRTH. We do the hard work (as they say, it ain't called labor for nuthin'). The problem is that labor doesn't end when the nurse lays that writhing miracle in your arms. The fun just begins. We get to wear a diaper for weeks while trying to feed a child who gnaws on our nipples for hours a day. And never mind the juggling of other little ones running around, remembering to take the Lean Cuisine out of the microwave so we can get some much needed nourishment to keep the milk flowing, change some diapers, throw in laundry, and find time to sneak in a shower. Oh yeah, and then we're supposed to pick up our husband's strewn shoes and socks and briefcase to clear a path to the stairs and help him find his keys that he refuses to hang on the conveniently located hook by the front door.

Harumph. Frank, may I suggest you go research something more meaningful, like why women still think Republicans are helping our cause.

An overdue girls' weekend, but first let me get the house in order...

So I'm heading to the beach tomorrow for a much anticipated (and after today's whine fest with no nap for Bird or Deal, a much needed!) girls' weekend. That means no husband, no kids, no cat, no relatives, no neighbors, no one I have to be nice to. My girlfriends usually bring out the best in me and won't care if I'm a wee bit bitchy anyway. If I complain too much they'll just pour me another margarita and ignore me until I can get back to important things like what color to paint my toenails.

This is so going to be Shag relived. However, this time daddy's bourbon won't be off limits, there will be no colonial homes to tour, and sweet potatoes like Jimmy Valentine won't be making out with any of us. There will, of course, be plenty of beevo.

Whenever I leave Mac Daddy with the kids I feel an overwhelming need to prepare the household for any possible thing that can go down. And by leaving, I mean for a night, a weekend, or a couple hours for a lousy tennis lesson. Being the guilt ridden mother/woman/wife that I am, I feel like I need to do whatever it takes to make Mac Daddy's life easier in my absence. Laundry (washed and dried but admittedly not folded and put away), fully stocked fridge (with fresh ice for the Elijah Craig that Mac Daddy will surely need at the end of every day), at least one meal prepared, fruit washed, clothes set out, and fresh towels hung. Would it be overboard to program the coffee maker so Mac Daddy can wake up to some French Roast brewing (organic and fair trade, natch)?

OK, so the clothes bit is just so Bird and Deal don't look like total ragamuffins while I'm gone. One time Mac Daddy took the kids to work with him when I was sick, and Deal's outfit was on backwards. Mac Daddy never stopped to wonder why all that extra fabric was hanging in the front while the back pulled tautly over a size 4 diaper.

Other than some poor judgment in the fashion department, Mac Daddy is perfectly capable of managing our household and the boys. In fact, between you and me, he really does more than I do. Mac Daddy is not of those (lame) guys who calls caring for his own children "babysitting." Before we were married Mac Daddy kept a perfectly tidy house, cooked for me, and even invested in furniture that didn't require assembly. So why the need for me to stress out and get everything in order?

I recall the time when my parents were separated and my mom used to travel two hours each way on weekends just so she could cook a week's worth of meals for us. I have no idea how long this arrangement was in place but I do know that those weekends were pretty damn long and chock full of anxiety. I also recall our fair share of Stouffers frozen lasagna and baked apples on the table. I'm sure my folks did what they thought was best for us, and I give them a lot of credit for making it work. At the end of the day, my brother and I turned into pretty good citizens and stewards of our legacy. We have our parents to thank for that. Perhaps it is this act of sacrifice of those weekends so long ago that drive me to get my house in order while I'm away.

But here's my question: Do any husbands out there feel the need to do the same when they leave the roost? Mac Daddy, fabulous and irreplaceable as he is, has never left me with a gallon of milk and dinner prepared before he heads out for a business trip (aka boondoggle). Oh wait, there was that one time he had dinner delivered as a surprise. He would totally call me on that one lapse so it's a good thing it just struck me. Emphasis on one time...keep in mind that he travels an awful lot.

Do daddies out there leave a weekend's worth of clothes laid out, a fully stocked diaper bag, emergency diaper bag in the car in case daddy forgets the one at home, beer and juice boxes in the fridge, and a nutritious dinner that includes no trans fat or high fructose corn syrup ready to heat and serve? Does anyone out there think about ways to make a mom's life easier?

I guess that's Luca Pachina's job.

The Life of Sisyphus

Remember Sisyphus? That cunning heel who was hauled off to Hades for a being a cheating trickster? His punishment was worse than languishing in August in North Carolina temperatures in Hades. Sisyphus is the guy who worked for eternity pushing a massive boulder up a hill only to watch it roll back down again. Eternity is a long freakin' time. Like in forever. Always. E-T-E-R-N-I-T-Y. Imagine this: Roll the rock. Sweat. Cuss. Growl. Cuss some more. Feel sense of relief upon getting to the top of the hill. Wipe brow. Try to rest on a burned out stump somewhere. Think for a narcissistic moment that your quads and biceps will be chiseled after all this. Bask in glory for a fleeting millisecond. Rock rolls back down the hill. You look after it, feeling forlorn, worn out, pissed. Cuss. Cuss. Cuss. And so it goes on for Sisyphus...

I'm beginning to think that the routine of parenthood is a lot like the life of Sisyphus, minus those nasty images of hell and the punishment, of course. That's not to say that life isn't hellish at times, beause it most definitely is. I just feel like as soon as I get the rock to the top of the hill the damn thing rolls back down. Literally two minutes after the cleaning lady has left, the house is a minefield of Matchbox cars and Happy Meal toys. Damn Mac Daddy for getting all those free toys at work and feeling the overwhelming urge to bring them home. I don't even get a chance to breathe in the delicious just-cleaned-smell before I'm busy wiping up spilled milk that Deal literally cries over. He gets further agitated when I laugh at the ridiculousness of it. And for the record, Bird and Deal are not wholly responsible for the mess. I mean, does Mac Daddy not understand what the hooks in the mudroom are for (one specifically for keys)? The back of the kitchen chair and somewhere in the vicinity of the phone are not the appropriate places for storing his coat and keys (especially when the coat is suede and the keys are in tauntingly close reach of a 2-year old). Argh.

A Day in the Life of Sisyphus at Chez Dirt & Noise:

Clean up a poopy mess in Spiderman underwear that are now deemed unsalvagable. Potty training Deal is a whole other blog post that I can't bring myself to deal with. Pardon the pun. Bathe Deal since he is coated in poop. Find change of clothes that fit his ever-growing frame.

Help Bird wipe his bottom and fetch him dingleberry-free change of underwear. At least the Superman ones he had on are salvagable.

Cat throws up in four different places upstairs. It becomes a game to find the Casey puke without stepping in it. Clean it up while keeping kids and cat away from the yuck. (Incidentally, we found another pile of puke weeks, yes weeks, later caked on the floor of the guest room. Don't worry, Mom it wasn't while you were here.

Disinfect tub. Toss in a load of laundry. Throw what was in the dryer onto the pile of laundry the size of Grimace on the guestbed.

Speed shower. Wipe on Lash Exact black mascara (the BEST!) and Smashbox lip gloss so I can feel like a real human being.

Clean up toys that littered my room in the three minutes I was in the shower.

Remake the bed that Bird and Deal were wrestling on after throwing toys on the floor got boring.

Gather the troops to go on an adventure. Get downstairs, put on shoes and coats. Forgot to brush teeth.

Back upstairs.

Brush teeth while wearing shoes and coats despite the boys' lack of mobility bundled up in a down coat.

Trek back downstairs and get the bag of snacks and tricks ready.

Feeling pretty good now, just like Sisyphus must have felt as he approached the top of the hill.

"Moooommmmmm! Casey pooped in the living room! And the playroom! And in another place in the playroom!"

"Change me, Mommy. I'm poopy."

And so it goes, the damn rock rolled back to the bottom.

Cuss. Cuss. Cuss.