A picture of Lucy making sticker pictures (100% unassisted from getting the craft box out of the pantry to applying pink sparkly glue to the paper).
At one point yesterday, I said, "At least it might make an interesting blog entry."
I said this to my friend, Crystal, after trying to explain some of the events (madness) that led up to me greeting her at my home wearing a shirt smeared with multiple kid messes and urine-stained pants.
Crystal's latest blog entry was her 100th, and she decided to write on a theme of disclosing "what she's really like." (Modest, creative, talented, curious, genuine, generous, fun, interesting...these are a few words that come to mind when I think about what Crystal's really like.)
In the same spirit of transparency, I'm going to write about yesterday. It started off normally... Did yoga (a little late in the day, but who's counting), did some laundry, spent some time on-line. In retrospect, I probably should have spent less time on-line and more time cleaning house or something else productive. Ah, hindsight. You're a fickle friend.
At about 10 am, Shawn arrived with his dad. He took less time acclimatizing yesterday than he has in the past (this is mostly time spent getting comfortable with the idea of a big dog in the house). While he was playing with some of Lucy's toys, Lucy heard him and called out from her bedroom, "Hello! Hello! Shawn, hello!" I have said before that Lucy is not easy to wake up. This is true. But it is equally true that once she has had enough sleep, she is at 100% upon waking. Apparently, the first thing Lucy heard yesterday morning was Shawn and she was stoked that he was there.
She toddled in with bedhead, in her pajamas, and didn't even pause to say hello to me. Don't worry, my feelings weren't hurt.
A bit later, Nicole was dropped off from school (let the wild rumpus start). Actually, they did have a lot of fun, but they weren't all that destructive--to a normal degree, I would say--they had fun (made a mess) in most parts of the house. This, with the initial degree of disorder--again, not terrible, but enough--made for a house that was
not company ready.
After lunch, I took the troupe to Costco. This kind of trip is never bad, but I do get a lot of practice with my negations.
"No."
"No, sweetheart."
"Not now, okay?"
"Not today."
"Maybe another day."
"Nope."
"Nah."
"Sure, where's your money? It costs ____ dollars."
After Costco and a couple of other errands, we got home. In my morning internet browsing, I came across
this recipe on the web. Something about the author's challenging tone and amazement convinced me to try making these cornflake cookies asap. These are basically a bunch of sugar and fat, but what other kind of cookies are there? I try to mitigate the badness by putting as much organic stuff into them as I can.
Post-Costco and other errands: Armed with a new jar of peanut butter and a box of cornflakes, I boiled the cup of o. sugar and (evil) corn syrup together, mixed in the o. peanut butter, then poured the whole mess over the cornflakes.
I can't remember who I was talking to at the time, no wait--I was chatting with my brother, having a conversation I was dying to have, making cookies with both ears tuned to the noises of the kids playing downstairs. To make it more complicated, I got the wrong peanut butter at Costco--the stir-up kind that is virtually useless without first putting in the mixing time.
This wouldn't be worth mentioning if my schedule hadn't been getting tighter and tighter. I had to drop off the kids at 3:30 pm, clean-up the house, change clothes, monitor Lucy's bladder output, read up on my visiting teaching message and get to Michelle's house by 4:00 pm. I had also scheduled a meeting at home at 4:30 pm with Rebekah and Crystal to discuss Rebekah's upcoming wedding and the photography that Crystal and I would do for her at said event. I thought I could do it. Maybe I could have.
Word of advice, if you happen to find yourself trying to mix up a jar of peanut paste and peanut oil (to get peanut butter, of course), it's best to give it your full attention. I was chatting with my brother at the time, typing with clean fingers only, of course.
I got peanut oil on a lot of surfaces that I didn't intend to (nothing was compromised), but I had to hurry--no time to clean up, as I promised the kids a treat.
By the time I had the cornflake/peanut syrup mixture in balls, the kids were upstairs to observe. With their supervision, I melted some chocolate chips and dumped (instead of drizzled) it over the cornflake balls. I would have liked to have been able to take my time with this to make the presentation better. I love to let kids help cook too; It's fun for them and me... Unfortunately, if we were going to get to Shawn and Nicole's house on time, it wasn't going to happen.
Against all odds, we were in the car and at Nicole and Shawn's house on time. (Of course, I had forgotten to bring Nicole's backpack, Shawn's change of clothes, and Shawn's special blanket--but we were there!)
We transferred the poorly-wrapped dozen of cornflake balls along with Nicole's birthday present (a flat of violets that she liked at the store) to the front porch, and waited. ..Waited... and waited. The idea was that a girl from the neighborhood was supposed to meet us and take over, leaving me free to go home and clean up, change, and take care of Lucy before 4:00.
She was late. (To be clear, I was in no way upset with her--these things just happen.) I got the kids back in the car and we set off in the direction of her house. I figured that something had happened and that if we didn't find her on the way, I would take the kids home with me and we'd make it work. No sooner were we in the car than we saw her walking toward us at the end of the street. I saved maybe 2 minutes by driving down the block to give her a ride.
After dropping the kids off, Lucy and I got back to our house about 20 minutes later than I wanted to be. She was hungry, asking for a cookie (cornflake ball) and so I set her up at the bar with a (very messy) cookie and started cleaning up the mess I had made earlier. I was very nearly frantic, with nearly all of my attention and energy going toward cleaning up quickly...until I heard Lucy.
(Phrases like "I'm going pee" somehow penetrate any amount of preoccupation when you're the parent of a toddler.)
"I'm going pee. I'm going pee, Mom!" Lucy was doing her best to get herself to the bathroom and her best involved engaging her mother to quickly transport her to the potty. Despite my lightning quick reflexes (yeah, yeah--I'm poking fun at myself), we left a trail.
This, I had no time for. For good or ill, my pants and shoes soaked up a little of what would have ended up on the floor. I left Lucy on the potty while I crawled around the floor with my Method All-Purpose Cucumber-Melon cleaner, wiping up pee. I was very aware of the fact that I was already about 3 minutes late for my 4 o'clock appointment. This meant that I had to skip house cleaning, skip changing, skip reading and just go.
Once Lucy was finished, we got her dressed and into the car. On the way, I called Rebekah to try to reschedule for 5 or later. Again, not something I would recommend to anyone--using a 2 minute window to reschedule. This leaves little time for misunderstandings and no time for social niceties.
To make it worse, the cell-phone connection between me and Rebekah varied between poor to bad. I couldn't hear her. I didn't have time to hear her. It was the worst kind of conversation possible. There I was, arrived 10 minutes late for a 4:00 pm appointment. I felt like an all-purpose dolt--embarrassingly late for one appointment, smelling like pee and with a noticeably dirty shirt, trying to have a 10 minute conversation in thirty seconds (short shrift to everyone).
Rebekah mentioned Crystal, and asked if I had called her. I told her that I hadn't and when Rebekah said she would call Crystal, I was relieved. I hung up the phone and went inside, unprepared.
While I should have been listening and talking with Evelyn and Michelle, I was flipping quite noticeable through my magazine, trying to find something worth mentioning. Honestly, that magazine was FILLED with great material. I should have realized this earlier and just settled on the first thing I saw. Instead, I wasted about 5 minutes flipping and being rude (again). During the visit, my cell phone rang (embarassing), and I didn't answer it, even though it was Rebekah. I was trying to minimize the distraction that I contributed to the conversation.
Despite my general disorder (adjective, not noun), I enjoyed the time I spent with Michelle and Evelyn. It helped knowing that I would have at least a half and hour to collect myself before Crystal and Rebekah showed up at my house.
On the way home, I called Rebekah. This conversation was difficult, too. I couldn't hear her and was concentrating poorly--thinking more about cleaning up myself and my house. What I failed to grasp was that Rebekah needed me to concentrate and hear her. I realize now that I probably understood about a third of what Rebekah was trying to tell me. I knew it then, too--I know because I felt like a jerk again. This much, I understood: that she wasn't able to get a hold of Crystal, that she wanted to celebrate her mom's birthday that night, that she was busy and that she and her fiance, Jono, had discussed letting him take over more of the wedding planning to give her a break. Again, I probably missed a lot. The way I was thinking, though, was that if we could just get together, it didn't matter when, then we could make sure we understood each other.
I was relieved to be off the phone with Rebekah because I was having such a hard time hearing her and paying attention.
When I did get off the phone, I tried to call Crystal and she didn't answer. As I tried to figure out how to contact Crystal, I saw her pull up with her boys. Right on time.
At that point, I let go. I realized that in a certain light, my afternoon was actually pretty funny. I decided that I didn't have to clean my house, and that I was relieved to have suddenly been relieved of my half-hour of frantic cleaning. Talking with Crystal and enjoying her and her boys' company sounded much better.
I explained a little about the situation, invited her in, and had a great night. Rebekah had to work late, so Crystal and I got to meet Jono. It was a productive meeting, and the fact that my house was messy proved to be a non-issue (thank heaven for the study)!
I never really got around to cleaning up yesterday. After Jono left, Crystal, Jack and I hung out for a while. Lucy and Ben play well together and always have fun. While Crystal and I were downstairs, Judy (my fabulous mother-in-law) and Suzanne (fabulous sister-in-law) dropped in to bring over some luggage (we loaned these to nieces Mariah and Nicole for out of town volleyball tournaments), say hello, and to get started on Lucy's flower girl dress for Rob and Sarah's wedding.
I admit, when I heard Judy calling from upstairs, I momentarily panicked about the state of the house. That was before I remembered that I had decided to let it go.
While Lucy and I looked at the material for Lucy's dress (white dupioni silk) and considered the pattern, Crystal cleaned up some. I tried to tell her not to worry about it, but she did it anyway.
Judy and Suzanne stuck around to taste some Haagendaas Carmelized Pear Pecan ice cream that Brian bought for Judy (pear being a favorite fruit of hers), and Crystal left with the boys.
Brian got home. We fed Lucy cookies and ice cream (please don't report us) for appetizers. Brian wanted to go out to dinner (this may have been related to the fact that I had yet to consider dinner), and this is how I successfully avoided cleaning my house.
Fortunately for my mental health, I got it cleaned up this morning.
