Mopping up the remains of my mind.

Mopping seems to be the most futile of domestic chores. At least I feel like making dinner and washing the dishes serves some useful purpose, but mopping feels like it is truly a waste of my time. Washing toddler clothes feels somewhat pointless when they are just going to wear all 17 different outfits again tomorrow and somehow get tomato sauce on all of them (even though they didn't have tomato sauce at all that day), but at least that keeps the tomato sauce stains from growing into some sentient being and taking over the earth. Cleaning a toilet that is mostly used by boys feels futile, but then I remember that if it keeps our indoor plumbing from smelling like a long drop then it's never futile. Mopping just tips me over the edge.

I harp on some nights about how I love to cook, I just don't like to HAVE to cook so the drudgery of preparing 3 2 meals (I don't serve up breakfast, they get their own while I sleep... it really is as wonderful as it sounds) and snacks for my family of 6 every day can feel like it's futile and leaves me trapped in a never ending cycle of cooking and then cleaning the dishes just to dirty them again.

But mopping. Mopping. Mopping the floor is a genuine waste of my time. Sweeping I can see the point to, but mopping, unless there is a large spill or an obvious large sticky patch, makes me want to cry.  It's not that it's hard, it's just that it's pointless!

I mopped the whole house, for the first time in a LONG time (I have done here or there as needed often enough to not have the white tiles turn grey) the other day as I was stress cleaning while trying to decide if Lion had a broken arm or not (he didn't). Within an hour, there were at least 3 patches that a more mop-loving mother than I would have re-mopped. I just used the wet rag that one of the kids had wiped up a spill with to then wipe over the bits that "needed" mopping. And this is precisely WHY it's so futile. I live with 4 mess making creatures. If you see a tea towel, rag or old cloth nappy on our floor it is because it is our current "mop". The kids spill so much water just pouring drinks that there is always a wet cloth somewhere nearby so if something sticky is spilled then I just grab that, wipe it over, and that's the cue for it to go in the wash and we wait for the next water spill to find out what our next "mop" will look like.

All of that aside, the real kick to my mop bucket (I don't use a mop bucket, I have a microfibre mop and a steam mop) came the next day when the kids who had been refusing for days to weed the side yard suddenly decided that now, while I have shiny clean floors, on the muddiest day of the year, is the time to get in and do the job they've been asked to do... but to walk inside 2984757 times while they are doing it spreading wet mucky garden junk through the house every time they did.

I love those kids.

But I think I need to teach them to mop.

Just kidding... cleaning up after a kid who has mopped is probably worse than mopping myself in the first place!

What's a chore you feel serves no purpose?
Or one that you feel the returns are hardly worth the amount of effort required.

Trying... very, very trying.

I may have flipped out at my children this morning.  No screaming (my head hurt too much to do that to myself) but I did use *that* voice.  You know the one.  Even if you aren't sure I bet your kids know it when you use it. Anyway, I threatened them with "No Wii. No Computer.  No Board games. No Asking to borrow the iPod... until you clean up this mess!"

The mess I indicated was an assortment of junk spewing forth from every corner of the room and my pet hate... their kids chairs that they had simply tipped over to get them out of their way rather than putting them back at their table.

They are still at the stage where a big cleaning job is too daunting and they can't do it without smaller instructions so I gave the big boys a job each to get started and asked Monkey to grab his brothers uniform off the floor (because you cannot stay in your clothes any longer than is absolutely necessary so you dump them on the floor) and put it in the bathroom.  He grabbed the shirt and wandered off towards the bathroom, I knew the door was closed and he couldn't open it but figured he'd do what his brothers do and just dump it outside the door.  A few seconds pass and I can hear sobbing coming from the other end of the house.  I go off to investigate and find Monkey sobbing to himself about the closed door and desperately trying to feed the shirt inch by inch through the gap under the door.

Of course, if he wants to finish a job properly then who am I to discourage that!  I opened that door and he put the shirt in the hamper and trundled off to find some more cleaning to do... until he got distracted.

Isn't he all grown up?  This is a shirt that Dragon picked out for his second birthday and wore it every chance he got, we had to FORCE him to pass it on to a friend once it was starting to get a bit risky trying to get it off at bath time.  Now it is Monkey's shirt.  He doesn't have the same attachment to it but I love seeing him in it.  He was being rather a comedian on the day this was taken... the phrase of the day for him was a giggled "I jus' jokin' you" accompanied by this funny face.

Ode to the loo.

Mummy McTavish's toilet was manky,

Each time she looked in there it made her more cranky.

It desperately needed a really good scrub.

What was stopping her? Her one year old bub.

He likes to follow her in there and sit

Not even worried by the smell of the....

(um, sorry, I can't think of anything that rhymes with sit)

Getting himself all icky and grotty,

From all the splashes where his brothers miss the potty.

(sorry if you are eating right now)

She wanted it clean, sparkly and shiny.

A nice little place to sit down her small little hiney.
(that's what's called poetic licence)

But cleaning in there is a mammoth task.

And baby free time seems too much to ask.

So there the loo sits all filthy and gross.

She's hoping the grott hasn't reached lethal dose.

So, because of the yuck-ness in the littlest room...

Imperfect McTavish is her new nom de plume.

But she's got running water for the porcelain throne

and while she longs for one to call just her own

She's happy with her lot in this life

A nanny, chef, cleaner, mummy and wife.

So, I tried to turn things around at the end.  I do desperately want my own toilet that I don't have to share with a bunch of males, but there's more important things in the world.  I do desperately want to be able to clean the toilet that I have to share, but it's just not worth letting Monkey play in there while I do.  So, perfectly imperfect me will leave it the way it is a while longer... and aren't you glad I saved you from the photos for this post?

Still playing along with Kate at Picklebums for her celebration of imperfection.  Trip the link-fantastic on her first imperfect post here.

I Spy... Imperfection.

All that stuff I posted Monday... yeah, I hope I didn't give the impression that I actually live that out.  I mean, I do live out all the imperfections, and more! But the praise... that is lacking.  That is what I SHOULD be doing, what I WANT to be doing.  I want to see this muddy gross mess...

sitting outside my back door from the boys playing in the rain and mud on Monday and praise God for the lovely early start to the wet season and the lovely green lawn that should be dead and brown at this time of year.  Instead I grumble.  "more washing"... "grass all through my washing machine"... "guess I'll throw in the incredibly sandy clothes from a couple of weeks ago that are still waiting to be washed because I don't want my washing machine filled with ick"... "I bet they've left something out in the yard that I wont find until it's sat there so long it's wrecked"...

Yep, before 9am I had all those grumbles go through my head.  I had others too about being the lowest priority in the family for sleep... about brothers frightening each other to the point of tears... about the lawn being too long because of all this stupid rain (yeah, I'm fickle)...

But I'm trying.  Lets see here... I have a washing machine that works well, I have enough clothes for the kids that using 2 or even 3 or 4 changes in a day doesn't throw things into chaos, I got some sleep which means we have come a long way from all our sleep problems of the past, I have 3 boys who are so loving and forgiving of each others annoyances, and that rain, it may have made the lawn grow incredibly fast but everything is looking fresh and clean.

Now, on to today's imperfection... This one glares at me like a giant witchy wart on the end of my nose.  This one takes up too much of my time.

This is the end of my kitchen bench.  It's always like this.  If you come over and it isn't like this then it's because I've hidden the majority of it somewhere.  Now, lets see what's there.
I see Lion's new RoboChamp Lego game (which is super fun and easy to play).
I see the resurrection eggs that the boys got to and took all the bits out and now I need to go through and make sure the bits all go in with the correct verses.
I see Lion with the Long Legs waiting to have his tail stitched back on... Again.
I see a couple of playgroup creations of Dragons.
I see a mug that originally had a bunch of spare change that I rifled through for tuck-shop money but now it has nikko pens, a tube of dettol cream, a peg, a paintbrush, a pencil that has never seen a sharpener and probably more.
I see an empty spice jar that I have been meaning to pass on to a friend.
I see Wolf's safety goggles.
I see colouring in sheets from church.
I see a roll of gaffer tape and a roll of masking tape... cleverly stacked and disguised as another pen holder.
I see some Christmas cake papers.
I see sleepy spray and sniffle spray.
I see a single baby sandal.
I see a stubby cooler.
I see blister bandaids.
I see a door stopper.
I see my pencil case.
I see a massive pile of papers, magazines, stuff, stuff and more stuff.

It's hard.  Wolf says I have Flat Surface Syndrome.  I can't have flat surfaces around or I freak out and fill it.  Then, once it's full I fill it some more and some more and some more until it's overflowing.  I try to work through it and clear some of it away but it seems that as far as I get through is to make what's there into piles of like items and then my plan falls apart.  I hate seeing this every day.  I hate searching through it for my sunnies, keys, whatever I have put there and need again later.

So that is my imperfection... one of them... one of the many.

Anyway, I skipped a day but Kate at Picklebums didn't... go here to find her post from today and check out her post from yesterday too.  But the biggest celebration is happening on her post from Monday with the links to all the imperfect people piling up... kinda like my bench, only in a far more organised manner.

always look on the bright side of life....

I try to be an optimist.  I really do.  Wolf is as pessimistic as you can get most of the time so I need to balance it out.  I am optimistic in believing the best of people until they prove to me otherwise.  I am optimistic in believing that each day will be a good one until it falls in a heap around me.  I am optimistic in believing that my children will one day grow into healthy well balanced human beings... though my optimism is fading fast on that one.  I am optimistic that the clouds will part for a picnic or outdoor event.  I am optimistic that my kids will use their brains and think things through before they do things.

It appears that this last little bit of optimism is poorly placed.

Dragon yells from the top of the cubby house "Muuuuum, I need to do a weeeeeeeeeee!!!"  Mum, not wanting to get up (and not particularly wanting to go and get the boy who turns to stone and cant get himself to the toilet the second he needs to wee but can happily wander through the empty house to the toilet all by himself if it means he can stand at the door and whinge and nag and rob me of my minute of me time) just calls out "well do it" thinking he'll at least get down from the cubby house and come to the door for me to escort him to the loo or will pee against the back fence or something... nope.  I said "well do it" and so he did.  All I can say is I am VERY thankful that his little brother wasn't in the sandpit underneath him at that point!  That was the shove I needed to call inside time and pray that it rains tonight to wash everything so I don't have to flood the sandpit and hose the cubby house.

I am starting to wonder what does go on inside that little noggin of Dragons.  As much as I wonder, the glimpses that I get make me think that it's probably better not knowing...

The other day he was told if he had a nap we could go to the shops in the afternoon.  I went over it a few times, he decided he didn't want a nap and I asked him what that meant and he told me clearly that we wouldn't be going to the shops in the afternoon.  Later when he had a meltdown because we weren't going to the shops I simply told him "You knew the rules" to which her replied "But I doooooon't. My mind has rand away".  We're a good pair then because I lost my mind a long time ago, buddy.  Yours is probably nagging my mind while it tries to have 2 minutes alone to use the loo...

Today he had clued on to the fact that we do something special for lunch for birthdays and Monkey is too little to tell me what he wants to do for lunch so Dragon decided Monkey wanted to go to McDonalds.  I told him we needed to go home for nap time first and he needed to be a good boy so I would know that he would behave at McDonalds.  He told me repeatedly that he was being good and would continue to be good because "Da good man inside me is fightin' wid da bad man inside me and da good man is winnin' and he's flicked da switch dat makes me be good.  Oh, and I left my naughty voice at playgroup."

Also on the way home this morning Monkey was getting upset in the car and Dragon leans over and in his sweetest voice tries to calm his little brother down with this gem... "it's okay little brother, we wont throw you out in the skip".  We had a skip bin here for a week to get rid of some stuff and the threat of being thrown in the skip was bandied about in jest a few times.

Lion thought the skip getting unloaded was great fun, Dragon knew what we wanted to throw out and just about missed seeing the skip getting unloaded because he threw his life on the line and jumped up on daddy's old recliner and plastered himself against the back to stop the skip man from taking it away.  We had to explain that we had time to "say goodbye" to the stuff we were getting rid of because the man is leaving the skip here and we would fill it up for him to take away in a week.

I think they had enough fun with the recliners before they went.  Wolf was sad to see them go and honestly, the one in the baby's room was great for feeding in (once I got my pillows stuffed in all the not so well stuffed spots) but the arm was disintegrating on Wolf's chair and the springs were poking through and it didn't recline really well anymore... it was time to say goodbye.

I had another story of my kids cuteness to share but this is getting too long... so I'll save that and all the fun of a 1st birthday needs to be shared as well... stay tuned.

Guess what we're doing today?

14 empty baskets all in a row...

If you guessed cleaning the playroom then you are absolutely correct...

Uh, yeah, things have gotten a little wild lately...

Pray for us, it's never a pleasant experience.

How do they know?

I just mopped my tiled floors for the first time in a VERY long time.

I was feeling pretty good about it.

It was an up-hill battle with Lion hovering behind me the WHOLE TIME.

I finally had them finished.

Dragon woke up from his nap and the boys had a couple of lamingtons each.

Dragon came to tell me something and stood in the middle of my sparkling white floors and made some gesture that knocked some coconut off his shirt.

He was so intrigued with the snow-like coconut falling to the clean floor that he kept going until he had knocked it all off his shirt and was standing amongst a little coconut ring on the floor.

I.love.this.boy.

What a Turkey!

I am feeling a little frantic at the moment but I am sweating like a pig so I am taking a break...

From this.....

it was just too much to bear in full colour, so I muted it a little to lessen the impact...

Really, it's not as bad as it looks, there are a LOT of dishes there from cleaning out the fridge for bin night and boxes that were supposed to go to kindy this morning, and footballs, and miscellaneous kitchen appliances... and I'm just making excuses, it's horrid. It's not this bad anymore, I couldnt post this picture until I had at least made a dint in it. And if I had pushed the dishwasher drawers in and closed it up it would have looked better... really... it's not that bad...

I need to get it clean so that I can start cooking for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. Yes, I know that we will be 48 hours late but guess what, we dont get a holiday to cook here!

It all started so innocently... I get a craving for pumpkin pie at this time every year... I love it, pumpkin is my favourite vegetable and to be allowed to make something sweet from it makes it even better (but I can give you some fantastic recipes for savoury pumpkin dishes that even the kids will eat). So I suggested to Wolf that I make a pumpkin pie. He thought that was a great idea "as long as I get some turkey". Fair enough, "we'll have a little thanksgiving dinner" I say meaning turkey and roast veg for dinner and pumpkin pie for dessert. He hears "I'll do you a thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings like your mum and grandma did for you at home".

So now I am roasting 2 turkey hindquarters, baking a pumpkin pie, doing corn on the cob, some noodle thing, potatoes, beans...

I have never roasted turkey that didnt come rolled and in an alfoil tray with instructions on the box... I am hoping it works out for me. This noodle thing... I think the message was that I should cook it with the gibblets. My hind quarters dont have gibblets so I'm just gonna improvise... (um, that should be "the hindquarters I bought dont have gibblets")

Still, we have plenty to be thankful for... Wolf's mum doesnt have asbestosis(original diagnosis here and update here)... Our kids are healthy... We are healthy... We are getting rain... Even with the "childcare crisis" here Lion has been approved for two days for pre-prep that work great with our schedule... With all this rain we will most likely have at least another summer with no construction behind us (bet the developers arent so thrilled about that though)... It is looking like a good rainy summer so hopefully we will have a great summer veggie patch (thankful for it before it even happens)...

So as I go off to keep cleaning... pray for me... actually better still pray for my poor family who has to eat whatever I churn out and pretend to like it.

And email me your pumpkin pie recipes... please... my email is in my profile on the left hand side.

I'm done saving the planet

I've had it, I'm finished, I'm not saving the planet anymore.

Well not with my dishwasher anyway.

It all started after we made jelly... Dragon was a little baby and Lion and I were making some jelly for dessert, I let Lion eat some straight jelly crystals, he loved them! (yeah, so I wasnt that surprised that he loved them) we had finished and had put it in the fridge and were cleaning the kitchen... Lion loved to help and with only one child helping at that time I acutally encouraged it... We loaded the dishwasher and Lions job was always to close the detergent cover after I put the powder in... we had never had a problem... until that day... Lion thought the powder looked just like jelly crystals so as I put the container up he quick smart shoved his finger into the detergent and then popped it in his mouth... I think our looks probably mirrored each others... his horror that it wasnt jelly crystals... and my horror that my baby had just shoved a mildly corrosive powder into his mouth! I pulled his finger out, got him to spit, spit, spit, rinse, spit, rinse, spit, bad mother, bad, bad mother... nothing wrong with him, he didnt get enough to do any damage, but I was so worried... I just didn't want to do that again... So I started looking for something good for us and good for the environment and I found TriNature...

I really liked it, they claimed that it is edible (not tasty but wouldnt hurt you) but I only had a sample size pouch and I could only get it mail order... I kept looking and I tried Neways...I tried their recommended amount... I tried more... less... it didn't work... my glasses were cloudy, it was leaving a residue on EVERYTHING... I was not really impressed with it so I kept looking and I found Natural Instinct...At first I was happy, I found the right amount for my dishwasher and it was all going fine... then I started noticing a residue building up on my glasses, then some plates were starting to get a residue, then the inside of the dishwasher was starting to get yucky, I tried to clean it but it didnt want to be cleaned... I asked my sister to bring "dishwasher cleaner" when she came round one day meaning those nifty little stinky things that clean the dishwasher on an empty cycle... She brought around these...I could see the difference on the first wash, my dishwasher looked cleaner and my glasses and plates were deffinatley cleaner... They are tablets so there is no powder to eat... each one is wrapped in a special "hydrofilm" that dissolves in the dishwasher so you dont even need to unwrap the tablet (I was about 4 tablets into the box before I realised this). My glasses sparkle, there is never any residue left on the plates. I really noticed it this morning when a glass that I obviously havent used for a while came out of the dishwasher and I had thought that it was a cloudy glass (it's that coloured mexican glass type stuff) and it wasnt, it was crystal clear!

So there you have it, I'll compost, recycle, reuse, but I wont be using nature friendly dishwasher stuff.

file under: Are you sure that's what you mean???

I have been going through my glory box that my grandma gave me when I turned 16 getting out stuff for this carpark sale. No, it hasn't been packed up for 10+ years, when we got married out came all the stuff that we would use and in went all the stuff that we didn't really need or had no place to display. I have been pulling interesting things out all night, not the least of which was my wedding jewelry which went missing within 24 hours of our wedding and hasn't been seen since!!!! 7 and a bit years and it turns up less than a week after when it would have been really useful, Murphy and his law!

And then there's the small stuffed turtle which Lion INSTANTLY fell in love with. It even talked on the phone to Grandma when I rang her to let her know that I found my jewels.

He was supposed to be sleeping with it while I keep pulling out stuff but I unwrap one newspaper bound item to find a ceramic horse that my grandma painted for me when I was little and I hear a little voice call...

"Is that another stuffed-up animal for me to sleep with?"

But does it work???

When I find something that works, I like to share it. Likewise when I find something that doesn’t *cough netipot cough cough* I share that too. I have recently found the Method cleaning products. Mostly I don’t use a lot of sprays and stuff and I try and enjo where I can but the bathroom has been the bane of my existence. Soap scum on the glass screen just annoys me so much and nothing seems to work other than scrubbing at it with yucky chemicals which then will end up in the kid’s bath water. In comes "Daily Shower Spray" This stuff claims that all you have to do is mist it over the surfaces after your shower and it will just dissolve the grot away for you. Just like that, no scrubbing, no yucky chemicals, no work at all! I have been using it for a week now and it is working!!!!!!!!!! It’s working I tell you, working!!! The spots with the least build up have become cleaner and cleaner and the spots that are a bit worse are showing improvement (sounds like a kids report card). Oh, I like this stuff.

*to be fair to the neti pot I have since read the novel sized brochure that comes with it which seemed to actually be trying to sell you a different product and giving information about a different product but I’m guessing that it’s all roughly the same, it says don’t use it if your nose is blocked, wait for it to clear or use a spray or something to clear it before you neti pot it. My nose is never clear and those sprays don’t work most of the time. Wolf can have it.

I MUST ADD... please dont think for a second that because I am touting the wonder of this cleaning product that my house is clean. It is not, I am quite possibly the worst house keeper on the face of the earth!! Please dont EVER look in the background of our photos. My house is the one that must exist because without it no one would think there was anything special about the "Home Beautiful" magazines:)

So how do you clean your kitchen table???

Cleaning the BBQ

Dragon and Lion helped Wolf clean the BBQ the other day. Lion kept reasonably clean because for the most part he was just watching. Dragon is hands on, he got right in and was practically licking the BBQ plate clean. You can’t see in these photos but he has a dark smudge right around his mouth.