Friday, April 13, 2007

I hate ironing

Last night I got to help the children pick outfits for spring school pictures. Yes, the spring photos, because they have changed so much since fall photos (I really am tempted to ask the school what percentage they earn from the photos). Seneca wanted to wear a skirt, she doesn't own one that is long enough except for her uniform skirt, so while she pouted I went to find appropriate items for Diezel. His only request was to wear jeans so I found a nice soft t-shirt to go under the sweater I wanted him to wear and told him he could take the sweater off after the photos. He seemed agreeable so off I went to appease Seneca.

Her and I finally agreed on a orangish/tye-dyish dress with a bright turtle neck underneath. We even managed to locate a pair of off-white tights with no holes. I thought we were on easy street until I used my critical eye to view the ensemble with an outsiders eye. Wrinkles. Damn wrinkles. I do own an iron for the purpose of ironing my quilt blocks but even during those projects I seriously debate on whether or not I want to go through the effort.

I was being lazy, as I always am with an item that needs to be ironed, so I hung the dress up with the hopes that overnight the wrinkles would straighten out. I made it back downstairs and thought I would try the old "steam it in the shower trick", although this has never worked for me I thought it would be less intensive than getting out the iron and board. By this time I could have ironed half my wardrobe (please note there are no items in my wardrobe that need to be ironed) including her dress. Instead, I finally decided to be an adult (read:my mother) about the situation and lugged out the iron and my mini ironing board (I would never own a full size one) and just did the deed.

It helped to know that I could finally block out the scarf I knitted at the same time, without that scarf in back of my mind Seneca probably would have had a wrinkled dress in her spring pictures. Gosh, is that selfish or what? My quilts and now scarf are all finely pressed but my kids are a rumpled mess. I guess I could be the polar opposite, one grandma used to iron her sheets and my other grandma used to come over and try to iron our jeans. I guess evolution is at work here, survival of the fittest: the fit do not iron unless absolutely necessary!

Friday, April 6, 2007

Conquering Easter Eggs

Ah, it is that lovely time of year when I venture to the store to buy white eggs (the kids don't like the result of coloring our home-hatched brown and green eggs) so the kids can bicker and cry with Dudley. It truly is nerve racking and this year I thought I would make it go a little easier by having a bit of wine with our egg decorating, but darn it, I had a doctor's appointment scheduled later in the day and didn't want to make a bad impression. Of course I could have put the event off until later in the day, but after the 99th time of "Are the eggs cool enough yet?" I rolled up my sleeves and dug in.

For those of you who tend to skip the directions on these boxes of hell, please note that:

THIS KIT IS INTENDED FOR COLORING EASTER EGGS, AN ACTIVITY FOR WHICH ATTENTIVE PARENTAL SUPERVISION IS RECOMMENDED.

Oh, so now it is not good enough to be a parent who is simply supervising, I must now be A-T-T-E-N-T-I-V-E. Let me tell you how I glad I was that I skipped on that wine before starting-can't have mommy passed out in the egg dye just passively supervising.

Somehow we managed to color all 30 eggs with 3 different "kits" and no major fallout. (I won't go into detail about the 3 eggs that cracked because I said no MAJOR fallout) The kids even decided to share kits. Wow. You should have seen me puff up my attentively supervising feathers when that happened. I was the whip, I could do this! Yes I did! Of course the pink dye didn't turn out right because in my efforts to be efficient (somehow my efficiency always bites me in the ass) I added vinegar to that bowl when the package specifically states DO NOT ADD VINEGAR TO PINK TABLET. So I wasn't as attentive as I thought. At least I found out why to not add the vinegar to the pink tablet. You too can find out why by adding vinegar to your pink tablet! My lips are sealed about what happened, just note that the kids didn't think anything of it. They were just thrilled to have me ATTENTIVELY coloring eggs without having to raise my voice. I don't think I've had another day this successful since I discovered my current running shoes over 10 years ago, ah, I think Easter is my new favorite holiday.

Thursday, April 5, 2007

Is it REALLY spring?

I was just starting to recover from running this winter where the wind chill put us at negative 25 degrees and now it decides to snow on April 5. Just in time for Easter. What? We didn't have snow for Christmas but we will be hunting eggs in piles of white fluff! My chocolate egg stash in the ever-sticky minivan will be frozen. And let me point out that this is not the stash for the kids Easter baskets, but my stash to sneak while I'm trying to keep my sanity going from one activity to the next. Now don't get me wrong, I love frozen chocolate when appropriate and expected, but this is not what I consider timely.

Knowing what is going to happen or having an expectation of what is going to happen in the near future is very important to my mindset. How I ended up with four kids is so beyond me, especially because I can't predict more than one minute henceforth. If SPD had been a recognizable disorder when I was a child and my mother went through the proper channels (most assuredly unlikely as she didn't think it odd that I wore sweat pants or worn out corduroys for the first 10 years of my life) to get me diagnosed, maybe, just maybe, some wonderful therapist would have gently suggested that someone with my degree of sensory defensiveness should not have children, ever. Unless of course I was capable of producing sticky hating children too. And what are the odds of that, especially with a husband who is capable of wearing LONG underwear in July and socks with seams that would send me into convulsions.

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Note Notation Notion

"You will make all kinds of mistakes: but as long as you are generous and true and also fierce you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her." -Winston Churchill