Basket Case

Well, it's happened again. In the afteglow of accomplishment brought on by dealing with a number of housework travesties last Sunday while both children were out of the house and in someone selse's care, I have managed to do three loads of laundry in three days; clean and dry, but not folded due to still-rusty time management skills or sheer laziness. Scheduling time to fold laundry around MaryJane's two-year-old shenanigans is certainly a waste of time since one of her greatest joys in life is throwing clothing around into great piles that she jumps off the couch into, so it would be a smart move to sit quietly on the bed after all the children have gone to sleep and fold the clean clothing, woudn't it? The only problem is that once folded, the clothing still needs to be put away and due to several logistical problems I find that all are drawers are full, no matter how many baskets of nice clean clothing are rotting away in front of the dressers. One problem is that MaryJane changes size and shape on a regular bi-weekly basis. Last week she grew and inch up and lost an inch around, which mean that all the pairs of Big Brother's pants that used to fit her are now okay in the legs and far too big in the waist instead of a tad long and nicely hooked onto her bottom. I have to keep them because like as not she'll put on two pounds this week and the pants will be okay in the legs and neatly buttoned at the waist, but I also have to either dig out Big Brother's old shorts so she will have some pants that don't fall down around her ankles or buy or make her something to wear in the interim, which then has to be washed and folded and put away into drawers already full of Okay-Bigwaist pants. Little Nigel is considerate enough to keep getting taller and thinner so his pants always seem to fit him in the waist, but the legs keep getting shorter and now that the days are cooling off he needs to wear long pants to school, but I can't get rid of the too-short ones because the kid goes through at least two pairs of pants a day between Little Boy Enthusiasm, Bladder Control Issues and Ketchup and I have Laundry Issues as it is. My friends know that kids do the Gumby act because they all have kids as well, so they shower me with "right-size" clothing bindles that may or may not be the right size, depending on how much milk Little Nigel has consumed this week, the phase of the moon, or the general build and/or elasticity of the former kid owners. Unfortunately, I am unable to participate in a full Clothing Swap because my kids are on the low end of the age scale and mostly gender reversed if there is a slightly younger kid in the mix somewhere. And then there is the Sock Problem. Socks are easily lost under couches, are great impromptu Cat Toys, get separated from their mates, drift to the bottom of the dirty laundry basket to be washed whenever they are finally unearthed in a great repository and almost never wear completely out, so we have hundreds upon hundreds of socks floating around, some in great boxes marked "Socks", that range in size from teeny-tiny pastel socks that my daughter wore when she was born to great, gray snakey monsters belongng to my husband. I'm afraid to say that I am not above pinching his socks on a regular basis, mostly because they are everywhere and I'm not choosy about matching if the socks in question are giant things that stretch up my legs and off my toes no matter what sock I choose. Besides, if I didn't steal his socks I'd just have to have socks of my own and do we really need MORE socks around here? He, of course, has to be picky about matching because the socks actually fit his feet and he wears shorts a lot so he doesn't want one sock stretched up to his knee while the other one crouches down by his shoe, so because of my Sock Thievery he has to go and buy new socks about every six months. There are still going to be new socks coming in unless I simply get rid of every sock in the place and start fresh with brand-new color-coded socks for every individual. I imagine that if I were to go on a Search And Destroy mission and gather every single visible sock into one giant pile and stuff it into a black plastic garbage bag and hide it in the shower we don't use, little shy socks would probably come creeping out from under the furniture to confound me as I discover their little lint-covered forms languishing by the air vent in the mornings. I myself have a very limited wardrobe, as does my husband, but I can't bring myself to get rid of the boxes of maternity clothing because the last time I did that, I was pregnant within six months and Pregnancy Superstition is a force still strong wthin me. My husband has a number of incredibly cool threadbare t-shirts, some of which I dyed for him and some of which bear never-seen-before-and-never-seen-again logos or phrases, so nobody really wants to shag through them throwing or giving them away. We also have a number of souvenir t-shirts from our honeymoon in Amsterdam that are either overtly obscene or have large marijuana leaves on them. Those shirts go in the You Can Wear It At Home But Not Out category. Sometimes I will forget myself in the flurry of getting ready to go out somewhere and end up pushing a basket down Aisle 9 of H.E.B. wearing a t-shirt that screams STONED AGAIN! so I really should just get those shirts out of the clothing rotation, but I really enjoy washing out the dog buildings wearing a shirt that has the word SH*T printed on it in seven languages and twelve fonts.

A Mighty List

I used to love making lists. Unfortunately, once the list is made my brain seems to think that that's enough effort and tells my body to go watch television. Don Aslett maintains that a list is an invaluable part of actually getting stuff done and he himself carries around a megalist of projects in no particular order of importance and his brain stays firmly on track, working on projects as time and circumstances allow. The FlyLady maintains that megalists are absolutely doomed from the outset because there are a lot of folks like me out there whose brains like the act of listmaking but once made, the list assumes a portent not unlike contemplating the construction of a pyramid and is hastily abandoned in favor of doing absolutely nothing. Most of what I have to do during the course of a day is directly related to whatever my two-year-old daughter MaryJane needs or wants or doesn't want in many cases. The other day I had only my son in the house and he's five and can do things like go to the bathroom all by himself and amuse himself and I found that I got about three times the work done than I usually do, so I realize that MaryJane's current need levels are certainly affecting my production levels. I think that a successful list for me would have to take into account Scheduled Crap, like what time Little Nigel is off to school and what time he gets home. But it would also have to accomodate Unscheduled Crap, like Cleaning Up Ten Thousand Shreds Of Paper Towel That The Cats Created During The Night. Unscheduled Crap always has to be taken care of immediately before it drifts all over the house or starts to smell or dehydrate so the Scheduled Crap gets put off or rushed through and the results of dealing with any and all Crap are typically D+ work. By the time 8:00pm comes and all the tiny screamers have passed out, I am left looking at the Shreds I Missed, Dishes That Got Passed Over In Favor Of Shred Gathering and Things That Never Got Put Away That Could Get Shredded During The Night and all that, plus the ever-present-and-apparently-unshiftable Eau De Colon that permeates the place due to MaryJane's potty-training activities, sends me straight to the television. I am well aware that most of these irritating realities are as malleable as MaryJane's Play-Doh and could be changed, but it feels like I'm trapped in a Rubik's Cube of diapers, Convenient Shreddables like Little Nigel's school papers or rolls of toilet paper from the giant package that my husband so thoughtfully purchased and lugged home but won't fit into any cat-proof cupboard, Last Week's Laundry, This Week's Laundry and Next Week's Laundry, which will doubtless contain a number of Emergency Pee-Sopping Towels and other Things That Smell Like Pee thanks to both of my children, one of whom is learning to use the potty and the other of whom has less-than-perfect aim and is a heavy sleeper. I managed to locate and deal with All Visible Shreddable Objects the other day when MaryJane was off with Grandma and I truly thought that I would wake up to No Shreds, but somehow the cats managed to open a cupboard door and knock my son's little package of Starbusts onto the floor where they proceeded to Shred the package and chew all the paper-covered Starbursts into Little Gummy Wads so I woke up to Shreds, Little Gummy Wads and Tear-Stained Son, who encountered the Little Gummy Remains of his special candy before I did. Between Shreds, Wads and Tears, Little Nigel was almost late for school, went there sans underwear and I forgot to put a spoon in with his lunch yogurt. Our television service went out last week due to a broken satellite reciever box and I managed to get that completely fixed before CSI Vegas premiered last Thursday, mostly because it was a straightforward problem with almost no Unscheduled Crap aspects, but I was certainly motivated by my Inner Agenda which regards Loss Of CSI Vegas as a problem of greater importance than Things That Smell Like Pee. Besides, I only have one satellite reciever box and seven hundred Things That Smell Like Pee and they aren't the same seven hundred Things as they were yesterday. Both Don Aslett and The FlyLady would tell me to Schedule Time For Things That Smell Like Pee and of course they are right, but the Things range from the Logical, such as the bathroom floor around the toilet which is hosed down daily, to the Absurd And Hard To Find like the pants that Little Nigel accidentally wet while struggling to remove them first thing in the morning and then stuffed them into a drawer in his room out of sheer embarassment. It took me three hours to locate that particular Thing That Smells Like Pee and I have taken to burning a lot of incense and watching television programs featuring people who look as though they have never smelled pee in their lives.

Anger Management

These days I seem to get angry very easily. A lot of the time I'm angry with myself for doing stupid stuff and then having 20/20 hindsight, but ever since I took the phrase "should have" out of my vocabulary it's easier to get past it. What isn't easy to get past is having to sit there and listen to other people's stupid crap and not just call them on it and let them know that they are not fooling anybody because that's not socially acceptable. People like to justify their stupid crap in more ways than Dr. Phil can count. I have a sort-of friend who weighs about 400 pounds and she is constantly complaining about her back problems and knee problems and I find it really hard to be sympathetic; in fact, I find it really hard to stop myself from just telling her "Of course you have back problems--you weigh 400 pounds!" I have broached the subject of weight loss with her, and I was treated to a Victim Culture 101 lecture series about her bad knees so she can't exercise (ever heard of upper-body workouts like the paraplegics do?) and her lack of lower intestine making it difficult for her to find a diet that fits with that condition (bet she hasn't even tried). Really, it takes all my self-control to stop myself from suggesting that she eat a fresh green salad and take a walk around the block instead of eating eight pounds of Danish Wedding cookies on a daily basis. Not too long ago a British journalist caught worldwide hell for publishing an article that stated that there were some aspects of motherhood that she didn't enjoy. Well, DUH! Of course there are aspects of motherhood that suck and pretending that those awful jobs are fun-fun-joy-joy fantastic is just a load of horse pucky. Anybody who says that they LOVE changing a diaper that is filled with toxic waste is lying. I applaud that journalist for being honest.