Less is More, It Just Is.

Tonight A and I are going out for the night, just the two of us, our last date night alone before the zaniness of family travel and other celebratory activities hit us full in the chest. I'm not sure if that's what's doing it or if is intention to focus on what matters in the middle of this holiday season, or even just new thinking about the coming excitement of New Year's Resolutions and the clean slate that is a crispy new January.

Suddenly I'm thinking about all the new toys and sweets and "stuff" we'll be bringing home for our little ones and I'm feeling the unstoppable urge to purge. Time to go wildly through our goods and take boat loads of things to Goodwill! Time to create empty, clean spaces! Time to set things in order in our house so that we return from Michigan to a calming space instead of insanity!

I am remembering that the things children like best are the simple ones....the ones that don't cost much or anything at all. Cookie cutters, shiny pebbles, string, the wrapping paper...you know. Am off to sort the playroom, to vacuum all the corners and to take bags of stuff, stuff, stuff to the trunk of our van for a thrift shop drop-off.

Less is more. It just is.

Simplify for Peace

Image via WikipediaThank heaven for all you kind people and your very boosting, sweet comments. You are all so encouraging, you have no idea. And thank heaven for friends who say things like "Just focus on survival right now...eat, something....not perfect, from scratch, gourmet meals....sleep, get the laundry clean, don't sweat the perfect folding. Keep your standards sane."

I like the idea of lowering my standards from time to time. When I am full steam ahead and brimming with energy high standards can keep my sails trim and keep me on course but when the stock is plummeting and my sanity is ebbing away low standards can be a forgotten but very, very useful idea. I am giving my menu plan a second look at considering what very simple maybe even (gasp!) pre-fab meals I can have on hand to cut down on my end of the day meltdowns. I am considering a paper plate rule at breakfast and lunch to keep dishes at a minimum and I have had a good heave-ho rummage through the toys to organize them again and trim, trim, trim the stock. Nothing makes me feel as good as a good purge of our toy collection. I've done it before, and it always feels just as good, every time. I love throwing out the broken ones and culling the ones they never play with and putting all the markers in a baggie together and finding a spot for all the hats...etc. I must have simplification, at whatever costs and in whatever way I can devise.Image by mightymoss via Flickr

I have given my solemn word to A that I will not spend money on more stuff for the house as somehow we managed to go over our budget in that category but oh, I am dying for bins and shelves and racks and other organizational systemy things. I want metal shelving in the basements for storing out of season clothes on, and the camping equipment and all the empty canning jars. I want a labeled basket for the library books to live in and little separate containers for the mittens and the winter hats. In the meantime, am trolling Craigslist free section because you never quite know what you'll find. Maybe I'll will some bins and shelving my direction by sheer force of determination.

Until then...I am writing a list of all the things I could do to make my house more livable and my life more heavy with peace. Got any brilliant ideas?

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Spotlight on the Playroom

Whole lot of paint on my fingers and toes lately as we start to really get into Remodeling Land.

Little mini-tour of an evolving room in our house today. I have shown you bits of the playroom before, but today you'll get a little glimpse into its hopeful future too. Right now, we are mostly calling it "the playroom" by default because it is the place where all the toys and many of the kids books live, but it will also be the room where we will homeschool.

The walls are all faux-wood paneling in a dark brown which makes the room feel very close and cave-ish. But, that is changing! We are now halfway through painting the walls with a gallon of flat white paint that, believe it or not, I found in the basement. (How fabulous is that?) The beauty of knowing that everything will be eventually getting painted and that the floors will eventually be refinished is that kids can paint too! No worries about "messing it up" really. The boys think that's the best thing ever.

Finished walls...just trim left.

Art hanging finally! Love that purply watercolor on the right...Dee's work.

Kid measuring chart, a cool housewarming gift from the next-door neighbor

Where I've stopped at the moment...and you can see our new stand globe, the recently hung curtains and our two free chairs that will belly-up to the table I'm still looking for.

I got a gallon of soft periwinkle blue ('Blueberry Buckle') for $5 in the reject paint section and slapping that on some or all of the walls will be the next step. I think once we've opened the space and made it more breathable with the white its going to be fun to add a little character and homey love with a touch of color.

Found this old metal tray and the two wooden crates below it at a free neighborhood swap. Am planning to have Dee help me organize the rest of the Matchbox cars in it.

Other ideas on the way include:

• A thrifted heavy, very large baroque style frame, painted gold mounted on the wall, around a chalkboard, right at kid level. Something like what this woman did.
• This giant zebra rug, made with just glue, scissors and felt
• A big, sturdy table of some kind that I am hoping to find for free on Craig's List or else curbside
• Some of these nature posters
• A cheap cd player/tape player for listening to books on tape or music together
• A frame like this, and a rotatable set of "The Great" artist's works to put inside
• A simple, big  wall clock with hands and numbers
• And...one or both of these very cool cupboards which the sellers left down in the basement 

My Inner Neat Nick

I am not pregnant, but I have a few friends who are at the moment...among them one of my sisters (Hi Doubleddog!!! *waving*). And the other day a few of us were sitting around sympathizing with one very pregnant pal over her irresistible nesting urges.

"EVERYTHING must be done now. It is really important. It will not be okay if we plan on doing it later and I think I'll cry." 

You know, that sort of thing. And I we all ended up in stitches laughing about how dire the whole thing feels and how ridiculous it sounds out loud, especially when you're not pregnant...and also how fabulous it is to know that other people have been the same sort of mutant life-form you turn into when you're making another small human. Golly there is hope in solidarity. Such a great word.

And then tonight A and I went out for dinner and I told him that although I'm a mildly messy person and not very organized about my housekeeping systems and methods I recently put my finger on the fact that disorder really bugs me. On some deep psychological level that is not very overt, I come undone and begin to unravel at the seams. Its just like how some people get grouchy when they're too hungry. I do that when there are too many dirty dishes and none of the toys are in the toy box anymore and the floor hasn't been swept in four days. I am not sure if this is a new part of me emerging as I become neater or if I've always been this way and just noticed, but I've found that if I notice I'm feeling ultra-grouchy and snappy and think about why, sometimes I realize that I think the house is driving me nuts. And then, if I find a little space to work on the house, I magically feel better.

And yeah. Its a tiny piece of that same mania that I feel when I'm at the end of a pregnancy. Except I don't feel that way all the time, around the clock even at every potty break in the middle of the night. I just feel that way when things get too out of control. But, yeah...its the same feeling.

And then today, while blog browsing....I bumped into a cartoonist's blog and they had this fantastic entry that made me giggle, but my favorite part was this drawing which perfectly captures "the feeling."

Occasionally, this beast is me. I feel it coming on.

I'm A Mean Mommy

 Wrapping paper tube...top notch toy.

S

 So, remind me again...WHY we have all of this?

I've been mean before... haven't we all? But, today I tried out a new form of evil. I did something other moms have recommended to me that I considered all my childhood to be one of the most hideous and invasive forms of parental control. I packed up most of the toys and put them away.

I know, I know. The toys belong to them! They are their own personal little possessions. What right do I have to just abscond with them to hidden closets and bar the way with my own body? I don't know. I'm not sure I do have a right but, I'm not sure I care either. Maybe its not forever, maybe it is...maybe its just until my mom arrives to help take care of us while we all bask in baby-glow. I really have no idea. But I do know, I can't handle the mess much longer and at least downstairs, most of the mess is toys.

I posted a short bit ago about how in the world to go about getting the boys to clean up their toy mess periodically so that I wasn't always pulling my hair out. For me, at the moment, I think part of the answer is just...eliminate some of the stuff. I've always believed children (and all of us) were better of with fewer high quality possessions. "Stuff" suffocates, you know? Pretty soon we have no idea what we have anymore and we're so occupied with picking it up, washing it, organizing it and finding all the gol darned things that there's no pleasure in the having any longer. I've always been pretty hardcore about sorting the toys and taking out broken items and things no longer played with and stuff I don't want in my house and just culling it out but, this is different. This is just a selfish move, for my own sanity because at this point in life, I can't handle my children having free access to this many playthings.

I cannot seem to keep even sort of on top of all the toys that keep getting thrown hither and yon. The small stuff drives me nuts the most...all those Duplo Legos, building blocks, golf balls collected at a recent showing near a golf course, and Tinker Toy bits thrown EVERYWHERE. Urgh. So, I put them all in bags and boxes and in just a few minutes I'm taking them off to storage. I left out a few big balls, the playsilks, one guitar, all the books and two stuffed animals...I think.

I must find a way to stop blowing up about the state of the house and stop crying every night when its time to go to bed and yet again I no energy and the house looks like The Times Square Bomber got away with it at our place. Toys are not worth this much emotional expense.

Not to mention...its May! There's an abundance of sticks and leaves and worms and dirt outside our backdoor that require no more clean-up than a dusting of the hands and a trek to the bathroom sink for a good suds after an hour or two.

Sanity requires a move occasionally and if that makes me a mean mommy....I'll be nice mommy sometime soon when I can handle it.

A Typical Homebirth Midwife Appointment

Today a photo-journalism style post covering our latest midwife visit. We homebirth, (at least we aim at homebirths) and so these our photos of my regular appointments with our assistant midwife at the office where they see all their clients. The 35 week visit will be in our home to go over supply checklists, make sure the midwives know how to get to our home smoothly and touch base about all the mechanics of how we will lay out the birthing care in our particular home space. But, for now, its simple blood pressure checking, baby feeling and heartbeat listening as well as a lot of chatty conversation about pregnancy, birth, babies and the female body.

Blood pressure...looked just great! (Ru squeezed the bulb for the midwife)

Boys looking on

Pull away shot of the whole lovely "clinic" room where

our practice sees all clients. So pretty and warm and open. 

(small bathroom and waiting room just out of the frame

to the right)

Up the shirt and down the skirt to find the belly under it all

Midwife, feeling the baby...nice size, good reactive movement, and yes, head down!

 

Listening to that heartbeat, clear and strong

Ru, playing cars at our feet.

This is the sort of thing the boys do during most of the appointment

The midwives have the best toys!

I listen to Baby, very clear and strong.

Ru has a go...

....and Dee too...getting tips from the midwife about what he's supposed to be hearing, "Bum bum bum!"

And finally the Daddy/photographer takes a break to listen to his youngest child drum away.

Good times. So, that's what happens at a typical midwife appointment. Minus the part where we sit at the desk together and chat and laugh which isn't nearly so interesting in photos. Thanks for coming along!