What a day I had. . .

What a day I had! It started out really well, too. I woke up an hour early, which is a great way to get a jump on my really busy days while we are getting ready to move to New York. Unfortunately, I rolled over and went back to sleep just for five minutes, and woke up just a bit later than I wanted. Of course, I had someone to meet at school, so I really needed the extra time I had chosen to snooze through.

Oh, well, past time to get the kindergartener up and off to school. Which is a fabulous thought for me, but not his highest priority on a morning where he hasn't had enough sleep. See, he woke me up twice in the middle of the night screaming, "Daddy is calling! Get the phone, Daddy is calling!" This is his gentle way of letting me know that he is not happy about daddy being in Boston while we are getting ready to move. On second thought, maybe my day didn't start out quite as well I would like to believe.

I finally pry the little monkey out of the nest he has made of sleeping bags and blankets on the floor of his big brother's room and convince him to drag his tiny hiney down the stairs. Unfortunately, he headed straight for the couch and tried to fall asleep again. Only the dire threat of grounding him from his beloved Pokemon cards can move his weary little carcass from my couch to the table. He does manage to drink his vitamin-laced orange juice and eat a little something, while I wake up big sister for back up. I pack his lunch as sister reminds him to use the potty and coaxes him into his school clothes. Things are looking up when he finally catches his first wind and dashes to the car.

I make it to the school parking lot in time to exchange a child for a puppy we bring home for some big-house-large-yard time. He loves to play with our dog and they both have a great time racing around and generally making messes and nuisances of themselves, which reminds me why I have sworn to have only one large dog at a time. Puppysitting is great, but I just don't seem to have what it takes to handle two big dogs, three small, medium, and large children, an out-of-town husband, and a cross-country move all at the same time. So much for my adventurous spirit.

I am busily at work ridding the house of as much unncessary junk as possible before the move (as opposed to all the "necessary" junk, like Pokemon cards...no offense, Dawn Meehan), when my oldest child informs me that the dogs have tromped something vile, messy, and smelly all over the family room, and he sprayed it down in defense of his nose. Sensing danger at it's highest level, I inquired as to the nature of the spray he used. He responded in a tone that implied I was one step below the mental might of a kumquat, "That orange spray cleaner." Has anyone else had a child spray down the carpet of an entire room with orange oil furniture polish in an attempt to clean a dog mess? I didn't see red, I saw stars and fireworks, and the universe explode, and everything.

Yes, my oldest is still alive, but was quite tired after an hour or so of scrubbing down my carpet with Dawn dishwashing soap. Only time with tell if my idea worked, but it was the only handy surfactant I could think of that might do the trick. After all, "Dawn gets grease out of the way!", right? Hmmm.

Unfortunately, the house still looks like it is inhabited by a pack of wild hyenas, which is not necessarily an inaccurate description of my youngsters. It seems like every room I "sort" is hit by someone carrying the "Cyclone Energy" card my youngest keeps flashing around. Does anyone else find it extremely entertaining that his favorite Pokemon card is the one that best describes his personal habits? When he finds a "Contrary Energy" card we will have him completely profiled by the makers of Pokemon cards and artifacts.

I did run away for an hour of adult conversation with a friend of mine over dinner. I feel quite sorry for her; I am sure that a maniacal mom who covers the same ground over and over gets pretty boring. "I can't believe what the kids did today! What 'til you hear this one!"

Well, I'd best get back to work. I still have a long way to go to meet the goals I set for today before I can hit the sack. It'll be fun!

Tidy-challenged

Well, life got a little more interesting this week. The DH (darling husband) has moved on ahead of us and is in Boston as a fun little prelude to our trek north to New York. It cracks me up that we got married in Colorado, spent our honeymoon in the middle of the Mohave desert, moved to Maryland, moved to Idaho, moved to Texas, are moving to New York. . . kind of like having a root canal year after year. With no anesthesia. And a dull, rusty drill. Well, maybe not that bad, but I'm not looking forward to moving the kids again after just two years in Texas. They take comfort from my saying I moved all the time growing up as an Air Force Brat kind of like I took comfort as a kid from my parents telling me they had to walk to school 10 miles and it was uphill both ways and the snow was always four feet deep.

The two oldest are supposed to be helping me to get the house ready to move, but so far their interpretation of help is to empty everything we own onto the floor so it's easier for the packers to see. . .Does home owner's insurance cover packers tripping on our junk, or is it workman's comp? Do they charge extra if we leave it all inconveniently tucked away instead of solicitously strewn about in plain sight? And do I have to pay extra for 3 cartons large enough to each fit a child, a week's worth of provisions and a Nintendo DS?

Such thoughts I have as I am trying to sort through years of debris. I know of people who actually throw out everything not nailed down, sometimes even before their family members are finished with the items. Like the current newspaper, that morning's breakfast, or the cup of coffee in their hand. . . I am tidy challenged, and sometimes I think I really can't blame it on the kids. I just believe there are so many more interesting things to do than housework; ice skating (today's field trip), grocery shopping, cartwheeling through hot coals, trimming the five-year old's finger nails. . . just about anything is better than housework. I am sure it's just an attitude thing, but after three kids and the same messes day after day, and the same monotonous tasks hour after hour, it takes a better imagination than mine to make housework interesting and rewarding. Maybe I need to set up one of those token economies for myself. . .wash three dirty dishes, win a free Kewpie doll or something. Mmmm.

Anyway, as a tidy-challenged person, this moving thing is the pits. We have enough to keep us busy around here without trying to stuff everything we own into boxes and figure out what's in them after we've moved. I hope they don't mind the puppy mud on the baseboards. Maybe we'll even have the amount of stuff we own thinned down to what actually fits into our house by the time the movers really get here. Just because I'm tidy-challenged doesn't mean I can't be an optimist!

Uh, oh, here we go again!

Well, things have been a little crazy around here the past few days. My darling husband, hereafter known as the dh, has decided to move the whole blooming crew to New York. Quite a change from Texas. He was very considerate this time: every other move has been on short notice (2 weeks or less), I've been pregnant, or receiving life-changing medical diagnosis on a child. Why New York, you may ask? I am convinced it's because he grew up in the mountains of Colorado and misses the snow. Snow is a rare commodity in Texas for some reason. I am frantically trying to find down coats and snow boots for three growing children in a climate that hasn't seen snow since the ice age. I am sure excited about this move.

On the bright side, at least we don't have to worry about moving or finding homes for pets this time. When we moved to Texas from Idaho, we had over 65 Peruvian guinea pigs to find homes for. Most people don't really need 65 guinea pigs, but I had two home school kids who decided to make their 4-H guinea pig project my life's work. Actually, half of them were mine, because baby Peruvians are the cutest things going. Any idea how much it costs to feed, house, and clothe 65 guinea pigs? Not to mention vet bills, because we were the bleeding heart breeders who couldn't bear to let anyone go without a fight. Which is how we got Junior Barnes, the $100.00 baby. I got up every two hours every night for two weeks to hand feed that baby, because he was so big he almost killed his mother being born and she was too tired to care for him. And we had to take them both to the vet (the only one in Idaho who even had a clue about caring for guinea pigs), pay for kitten milk replacer, syringes; we stopped keeping track after the first $100.00. I sold him when he got big and strong for $10.00. Not the best investment I ever made, except that he was such a cute little rascal, and awfully sweet. We had some of the best show pigs in Idaho, thanks to the great advice from knowledgeable friends. You didn't know there were guinea pig shows? Neither did I, until I went down the street and viewed the caviary (thats guinea pig facility in fancy show-talk, because guinea pigs are called cavies) and fell in love with the ones that had such long hair you couldn't tell which end was which.

One little guinea pig was what I bought my son for his eigth birthday. Sweet, cute little Amaro, who 4 1/2 years later is still going strong. Only one. Until 5 year old sister wanted one, too, so we got a girl, because the babies are so cute. And then we went to our first guinea pig show, and brought home a couple more for 4-H. And Amaro was a daddy not too long after that, producing our first grand champion (yes, there are guinea pig grand champions). By the time we were at full tilt, we had tortoise shell and white, black and white, roan, blue, dilute, and almost every other color of Peruvian guinea pig, with at least 10 that had to have there hair done every two days. Show Peruvians have coats that are conservatively at least 10 inches long or more, and if you don't keep their hair rolled up and tidy, they chew, pee, and poop on those beautiful coats hourly. If not more. I have to admit, I loved playing guinea pig beautician, like having one of those oversize Stylin' Barbie head sets or something only cuter.

Of course, when we moved it was a herculean task to place all those pigs, and if it wasn't for a dear friend who housed and cared for about 30 of them until their new owners could pick them up or arrange delivery, I would still be paying "pig support" back in Idaho. Since they were such good quality show cavies, it wasn't hard to find people to buy them, but they still traveled to places like Oregon, Utah, and Arizona, so it was time consuming to make all the travel arrangements, etc.

This move all I have to worry about is the service dog for my 5 year old son. Remember the "life changing medical diagnosis" comment a few paragraphs back? My youngest is autistic, diagnosed formally the day the packers arrived in Idaho, allergic to everything, and has a service dog now, named Willis. And today is the day I received notice that he tested positive for celiac disease. Not only do I have to get a house ready to sell while the dh goes on ahead and leaves me to single parent, but I have to radically change the diet of an autistic child at the same time I am moving him. I just know God has a sense of humor. If I wasn't so panicked, this would be really funny. I mean, this kind of thing just doesn't happen to real people, does it? At least I'm not pregnant. When we moved from Maryland to Idaho, I was seven months pregnant. That was really horrible. And great for another story; the airplane ride to Idaho will go down in annals of truly terrible, horrible, really bad days.

Well, I'm out of whine time for now.