Laundry Salvation

So excited about my new laundry system.  Small, home-making victories that matter!!!!

I have discussed my laundry battles before. Some woes are perpetual. I think, however, that this time I have the upper hand with my clever new scheme. On the weird side....it involves five million laundry baskets....on the plus side, its a LOT more organized, somewhat perpetually caught up, and it makes me feel like a mommy-rock star!!!

 

 

I have baskets for sorting the laundry and all the dirties get put immediately into one of these bins as soon as they enter the basement laundry zone.  Ru has just started learning to load the washer or dryer and having sorted bins of dirties makes it a much saner process. He just stuffs the washer full with his chosen color (I sort whites, lights, darks and reds) and then I add soap or bleach and start the machine when I get a chance. 

 

After washing and drying, all laundry gets folded and sorted into the next bank of baskets, labelled with names. Each person has a basket, neatly labelled and they stack on top of each other for space saving convenience. Love this part. So soothing to go down in the basement in early morning before the house is awake or late at night when the littles are running around crazily with toothbrushes on the 2nd floor....and just have a little sorting binge.

Just me and the laundry...each thing in its bin, every one folded and ready for putting away.

Dee loves the new system and it is bringing out his inner organizer. He goes energetically down the basement to empty his basket every morning and tells me several times a week how much he loves the new plan. Cute little kindred spirit. I am a mess on the outside and full of spontaneous creativity but I have a strong inner craving for order and aesthetic smoothness. Dee and child-me are a lot alike. 

 

My Top Parenting Conundrums

Ah, the power of a list. One of the great things about making lists, especially bad lists...is that they later become records of things you no longer sweat over, a way to look back and grin because that list is no longer dogging your heels.
I like to make lists but I also like to keep lists so that they can be persued later, and generate smiles. One of the things that's so very infuriating about a current stressor you're dealing with is how it seems so overpowering in the moment. Don't you hate that? I do. The way that whatever-is-your-current-nemesis seems tower over the rest of life in a threatening way. I know full well that it really isn't half the big deal it feels but it really is hard to remember. One of the ways life can get overwhelming fast is with parenting conundrums. You know, whatever puzzle is currently keeping you awake at night...how in the world do you get your kid to______________??? Or to stop doing ____________?

I was just pillow-talking with A the other night as we were drifting off and I told him how helpful it is to me when parenting issues seem insurmountable and baffling to remember the last battle I conqoured as a mom and how truly hopeless I felt about that one too. I have done the cycle enough times that I now "get" that I will always feel like I'm on the brink of disaster about whatever issue I'm trying to solve...and then I'll get through it, somehow. And the other side feels really good to be on.

I thought it might be kind of fun to write down a list of the top things that are driving me insane with my kids right now. Then I can look back and remember how the things I never thought could be resolved mended themselves and you never know, maybe some of you have answers for me! There's power in numbers.

My Top Parenting Conundrums

1. Trying to get Ru to keep his pants dry.  It's not a capability problem, and it's not an issue when we're out and about, just when we're home but I'm pulling my hair out and losing my mind trying to keep up with his laundry, sometimes I'm making him change his pants and undwear three times a day. When I ask him why he's wetting he tells me that he is too busy playing to go to the toilet, and that he "stays dry when we go places." Argh! I have talked until I am blue in the face and am clearly not getting through. Am considering giving him a limit for how many outfits he gets in a day and then making him wear his pajamas the rest of the day if he runs out of clean options. Am still puzzling over a solution.
2. Teaching Nib not to take bites out of fruit at random. We have a low fruit table, well within the reach of children and the boys are allowed to snack on fruit sometimes and also to pick fruit to each at meals. We want healthy food to look alluring and we like stocking enough produce that the boys can "graze" a bit on fruit. That said, part of our philosophy involves even allowing this fruit to be within reach of the baby's little fingers. Nib likes fruit too and Nib has learned about picking out his favorites for snacking but he doesn't know about asking first and he also doesn't remember to eat only at the table. I keep finding peach pits hidden about the house and coming upon him sitting on the floor with juice running down his chin. I keep telling him firmly to ask Mama first and the big boys keep and eye out and remind him too but in the meantime it feels like it will never. I realize this is problem of my own creation and that most American moms would never dream of leaving fruit down where their baby can get it and assume they can teach him to ask first but I truly believe it will work. That said, I also am finding this tiresome and would sure love it if he'd "get" it.Until then, the baby gate is coming in handy for making sure he doesn't jet away out of the room and make a beeline for the fruit table.
3. Teaching both older boys to be socially polite. They used to be! I swear they did but somehow there was some kind of a hiccup and suddenly they're self-conscious which ends up equally socially awkward. They reply to greetings in public with mumbled replies, horrible faces, absurd nonesense or even snarling and tears. I am not sure how in the world to get them to remember their pleases and thank yous and learn to look people in the eye and smile when they arrive someplace. Argh! I keep reminding them before we go inside a business or enter a friend's house and we do some rehearsing scenarios at home, and of course I try to model social warmth myself. So far...we're still striking out a lot of the time. Boy, would I ever like to win this one.
4. Teaching Nib not to sel-injure. When reprimanded for something, or told no about something he wants, he's taken to trying to slam his head on the floor. It's all quite distressing, and although he's clearly communicating his upset (what he's after, I'm sure) we're worried he'll hurt himself or develop a bad habit of violence for expressing unhappiness. We're alternating between scolding him firmly, stopping him physically by grabbing his head or picking him up and warm, soothing words to calm him and help him feel that life is still worth living. We're clearly not sure how to handle it since we're waffling all over the place with method and he's still doing it so we haven't solved it yet.
5. Wheedling. Ru is the biggest culprit here. When we tell himself something he doesn't want to hear or he asks us if he can have five candy bars at the grocery and he doesn't get the answer he wanted...he wheedles. Instead of taking our answer respectfully and dropping it he figures if he asks over and over and over he'll eventually get the answer he would like. Infuriating! I have to really watch it to nip this in the bud with him or else I can quickly steam-train into an emotional wreck after he hammers me with "Please, please, please, please!!!" and a few whines thrown in for good measure. Another little twist on the theme is when he wheedles and I say to him, "You were given an answer...what did I say?" And he replies..."You said yes?" with a wickeded little sneer. Oooo!!! That's a bad one. So far I'm emplying time out and firm scoldings when he wheeldles and am not making any firm headway. Anyone have a brilliant solution?

And if any of you want to share your own personal headaches at the moment, then I'll know I'm not alone and when we're down the road a couple of months we'll be able to look back together!

Thinking About Style

Am thinking quite a lot of about dress and clothing and beauty and fashion tonight. Truth is, I am kind of a closet fan of fashion design. I still feel pretty wanna-be about my stylishness and ability to put outfits together that feel like art. I don't want to be runway and I care not two figs about labels as-such but I think beauty is perennially attractive and the idea of "creating" is madly magnetic to me.

I think that's what is a good bit of the allure for dressing well to me. It is almost a kind of sculpture or something. I was talking to Penny about the topic when she visited this summer and she mentioned that she thinks of it as a branch of her interest in theatre (an interest I share), a kind of everyday costuming. I think that's very fun and I'm not sure it is what drives me but it gets at a bit of the right idea.

I aspire to be considered a clothes-horse who, able to whip up wear-able beauty from any available discarded textile but, I am finally over being scared to be edgy and feeling ridiculous whenever I wear anything more interesting than khaki or blue jeans. I don't feel tied to any particular era, to trends of "the now" or to romantic old fashioned sensibilities although all of them are interesting to me.

I feel like I'd like to consider most anything and try all kinds of interesting new outside-my-box options. That said, it's not a particularly big box. Remember that khaki and denim. I spent years of my life in very pedestrian dresses and blue jeans with t-shirts. It is fun to realize that the world, even the world of dull old me, can be more lively and exotic and colorful and surprising.

I have an upcoming fashiony blog idea that I think I'll be playing with soon. In the meantime, here are a few of the things that inspire me stylistically things I look for when I walk into the thrift store, and often my favorite finds.

I love: chokers, batik prints, ultra-long and full skirts with slim waists, stripes in bold nautical colors, sequins, feathers, navy blue, faded flowered calicos, wide leg pants, Indian styling, cotton, linen, little cap sleeves,  shimmery fabrics, ruffles, rows of tiny buttons, pearls with peels and scratches, turquoise anything (the color and the gem), soft baby-chick yellow, headbands, ballet flats, comfortable heels, fawn colored leather, metallic stripes, short swishy skirts, demin, jersey knit, and anything handsewn.

Ode to a Clothesline

Well, hello world! Here I am typing away for what somehow feels like the first "real" time in my new house. The office where I will be rattling off my posts is a real place with our big desk all moved in and the computery types all humming away with their cords sashaying in writhing company behind them. The room has a door to shut when A works from home and there is even a closet where we can hide papers and electric bits we don't want the children to find! We will someday have a little loveseat here so that A and I can snuggle while we watch Instant Netflix movies at night after we put the kids down and we are also searching for a swank metal filing system to hold all our important papery bits but for now its the desk, the chair I'm sitting on and a lot of dreams. But, it will be a fine place to write...dreamy places are the best for writing.

I never really meant to go on about the office. It just happened. What I really meant to tell you all about was my new clothesline!!!! YAY!!!!!

Four cheers for A who got all handy this weekend and cleaned a gutter, mowed the lawn and hung my clothesline for me. I am so very happy, and wow did he please me when he did all that stuff for me. I would have been forever doing them myself.

It is deluxe to have my own line for hanging out clothes in the summer when there is still the occasional hot breeze and loads of sunshine to freshen all the baby things I'm planning to pin up. I think I looked out the window about five times an hour today just to make sure my first load of wash was indeed still out there flapping, picturesquely in the wind. Twenty shades of fabulous. Nothing less.

Now I need to make or buy at an estate sale a pretty old peg bag for my clothespins....and uh...buy more because I didn't get enough to do a whole line of clothes. Heh.

One of the most exciting things about buying an old house is all the little quirky bits you discover as you live in the home. I have to admit this is also one of the "too exciting" bits occasionally. In our dear house for example, the dryer is not vented to the outdoors, it just blows directly into the basement which means: 

1. The basement is often the hottest part of the house.

2. There are wads of lint coating the wall behind the dryer and all the floor and floating about waiting to leap into our lungs! Yay!

3.The basement is extremely humid...not good for basements anyhow as they tend to get moldy but especially bad if you're trying to dry your clothes. They never get dry.

Did I mention that I love my new clothesline?

Scribble Shirts

Today, I had a little help in the form of a fabulous mother's-helper from church who brought her freckled brightness to our home and played endless games with two bouncing little boys so that I could multiply my hours and get astounding amounts done. There is fresh clean laundry...there are matched socks...there is even warm banana bread...and there were even naps for all three of my sons!

Muh!!!! Is she cute or what?

Heavens!

With all this fabulous bounty of energy and productivity I thought it was a good time to squeeze a little sewing project into our lives. Its been about forever and a day since I had a needle in cloth and I miss it. In our new house, I'm hoping to set up the sunroom to be a delicious Carlie Oasis where I can lay out patterns and cut them, water ridiculous amounts of plants, set up my easel and pose subjects for blog photography. Plan to come visit and check it out sometime...but yeah, I digress.

Anyhow! I decided to launch into a sewing project I'd been toying with a formulating slowly in my mind for a while and suddenly, once I'd decided I was sewing something, the idea gelled completely and somewhat instantly and there I was with a plan!

See, Dee has too few t-shirts for wearing in this hot weather (like four? which all end up in the hamper far, far too quickly) and he has too many of these plain white undershirts...

...enter semi-obvious "Plan"....make some of these undershirts into legitimate shirts via decoration of some variety.

I pulled out one of my fabric scrap bags and let Dee choose his favorite (bright red, what else!), cut it into squares and handed him an ink pen. He drew the scribbles of his choice and then for fun I did one and lent the pen to Ru to do a square of his own to decorate a plain tee that he had in his bottom drawer. Why leave anyone out?!?

Then, I took their pen marks and embroidered on top of them (thus to make them show up and make them more decoratively permanent. For Ru's more representational art I included a little title (Balloons with a Seatbelt, for those who wonder!) and also embroidered the date (an oversight I mean to correct on Dee's) and then I zig-zag appliqued them to the shirts!

Voila! Instant t-shirts, instant sewing project and instant artistic coolness in our ultra-productive day!  

Yay sewing!!!