Dirty house

My house is a mess.  It is always a mess.  No matter how much I clean and pick up crap, it is still a mess.  I really don’t know how people with children EVER have a clean house.  I also refuse to be a maid and waste my free time or time with my kids on constantly cleaning.  I do clean up the kitchen almost daily, usually after dinner and a little between meals but other than this I only clean once a week.  Thursday is my downstairs cleaning day and once or twice a month I clean the upstairs on a Saturday or Sunday.  No one sees the upstairs, right?  And, no, don’t come over on a Wednesday.  The reason I picked Thursday for my cleaning day is because that is one of the days the two big kids are in school so I only have Allie.  I used to put her in hourly care every Thursday but I haven’t in a while.  I just clean around her and then clean some more when she naps.  I hated the thought of paying for childcare just to clean my house.  If I am going to put her in childcare, I am going to do something good like grocery shop kid free!  I am also not a ‘deep’ cleaner.  My cleaning routine consists of general pick up, vacuuming, dusting some key pieces, cleaning the downstairs bathroom, kitchen, and if time permits, steam cleaning the floor.  This is good enough for me and when my kids see the house clean they say “mom, the cleaning lady was here”.   When I worked full time, we had a cleaning lady.  I told them that “now, I am the cleaning lady so you better pick up all your stuff!”  Even though I say that I don’t deep clean, don’t want to be a maid and won’t give up my free time… every now and again I scream at my family for being such pigs and go on a cleaning bender.  Today was one of those days.  I decided that the rugs were filthy and needed to be shampooed.  In order for me to do this I had to pick everything up and vacuum before I could shampoo the carpet.  This somehow led to an all day cleaning binge.  I even started cleaning the upstairs so it would be ready for the shampooer.  The carpet shampooer was too loud to run during Allie’s nap so during this time I scoured the kid’s bathroom.  It is possibly the grossest room in our house.  There is toothpaste sprayed all over the mirror from their ‘spin brushes’, toothpaste and liquid soap all over the sinks, hair covering everything, a ring around the tub and pee all over the toilet (I said earlier that I only clean upstairs once every few weeks).  After I took on this humongous task, I was ready for a break.  I lay on the couch for an hour and surfed the internet for an hour and then decided to tell you all about it .   (the picture is the after shot.  See, sparkly clean and worth all the scrubbing.  Yes, that was my sarcastic tone) 

uncooperative kids

One of my kids, not cooperate… NEVER!  So we had our ultrasound on Wednesday morning and had no idea what the sex of the baby was.  The ultrasound tech was awful so it was not a great experience overall.  I only got a few glimpses of the baby and never got a picture.  All of you moms out there know this picture is like gold, a first glimpse of your sweet baby in a grainy black and white looking like an alien.  I did not care about any of this; I just wanted to see all the parts.  I cried later because I did not get to see much and blamed it on the pregnancy hormones.  I went in this morning to my regular OB appointment.  I told them about the experience and my disappointment (and about the crying) and one of the great docs there did another ultrasound for me.  It was awesome!  In the previous 3 babies I did not see all of this stuff.  I could see the umbilical cord twisting around, hands, fingers, toes… but no clear shot of the ‘goods’.  We are about 90% sure it is a girl but there is still a tiny bit of doubt.  Again, of course it is my child and would not be 100% cooperative. 

Speaking of uncooperative children, my other 2 are on the road to better behavior.  They have been bad lately.  I say bad but it is a whole lot of little stuff, nothing too major.  They have been breaking a lot of our ‘rules’.  An example of our rules are:

Don’t hit or kick

Say please and thank you

Pick up your toys

Brush your teeth

Let the dog in and out

Not anything complex, just typical 3-5 year old rules.  Can they follow them… NO.  What do you do when you need some parenting advice on matters like this?  You post something on Facebook, the Queen mum of internet advice, and get responses from all of your friends.  We have decided to do a reward system for them.  We sat down and I had the kids make the list of rules they had to follow and that in itself has helped for the past 2 days.  Every time they follow the rules they get to 'feed the fish'.  The stones they put in the fish can be traded in for rewards.  Rewards can be a trip to Gigi’s house, a toy from the store, etc.  Last night was the first night of the fish.  I took all 3 kids by myself out to dinner and they were unbelievably well behaved.  I almost thought I took the wrong kids out to eat.  I will keep you posted on how it goes. 

easy breakfast

I said yesterday that I give my kids processed food for breakfast.  Mostly packaged muffins, cereal, mini bagels, toaster waffles, ect.  I would have NEVER done this when I had just Addison.  She ate all homemade, organic, food from baby food on up.  Then I had Drew.  I made some of his food but he still ate organic jar food about 40% of the time.  Now I have 3 kids, a carpool, a part time job and poor Allie gets jar baby food 100% of the time.  Maybe 50% of it is organic.  Does this make me a bad mom?  I vote, no.  To me it just means that something has got to give and I made the choice that it was breakfast for the kids and jarred baby food for Allie.   Here is Addison eating her muffins and yogurt.

Here is the other thing about the 3 kid mom in me…  Up until 2 weeks ago almost every breakfast Allie ate was in the car.  She was not hungry enough after her morning bottle to eat before we left for school and I went to the gym every morning after that.  So in between school drop off and the gym, I would feed Allie in the parking lot of the gym.  I am sure others out there would think this is horrible but you do what you gotta do.  I am sure once the 4^th comes there will be lots more car feedings, instant breakfasts and other ‘convenience’ things.  I am okay with this.  I cook them a homemade dinner every night that we sit down at the table to eat as a family.  If this is the trade off, so be it. 

morning person

Saying that I am not a morning person may be the understatement of the year.  I HATE mornings.  I have always hated mornings.  In high school my mom would literally drag me out of bed.   Small children, my small children included, LOVE mornings.  And there is the rub.  In the days when I just had Addison we would hang out in our pajamas all morning and change whenever we felt like it.  Some days that was not at all.  Andy was deployed so this was more days than not.  Then the pre-school days crept up on me.  Addison was in pre-school and I went back to work.  I had to get myself and two kids up and dressed and out the door all before 9 o’clock.  This is still the case today minus the fact that I have to look presentable.  I get up, throw something on, pull my hair into a ponytail and if I am lucky enough to have 2 extra minutes, brush my teeth.  You can’t do this with kids.  You actually have to feed them before sending them out into the world.  Who knew?  Coffee is enough for me, why not them?  So here is our current morning routine:  We get up at 7:30 (or whenever the first child harasses us enough to get out of bed).  I know, this is not nearly early enough to get 5 people ready, fed and out the door by 8:30 (my goal, but this is rarely achieved).  We go downstairs, get the kids something to eat (usually processed food on school days because it is so quick and easy), I make coffee for me and a bottle for Allie.  I change her diaper while she drinks her bottle and then I let her lay there and finish while I feed the dog, get the kids a yogurt or something else small to eat, etc.  This brings us to 8 am where I am yelling at them to run upstairs and get dressed.  They run upstairs and start playing.  How dare they?  Don’t they know they are supposed to be getting dressed so we don’t have to speed on our way to school?  I then wrangle the baby and head up the stairs to start yelling at them to get dressed.  I think on a miraculous 2 occasions we actually picked out our clothes the night before so this process would be faster.  We have yet to maintain this routine.  We brush teeth, comb hair and get ready to head back downstairs.  Did I mention that I am still in pajamas so now I need to get dressed too before flying out the door.  Thank God that during this time Andy has packed the backpacks, snacks, etc.  The kids go downstairs to get on coats, gloves, hats, boots, backpacks and anything else they may need and start getting in the car.  I am still trying to get myself and/or the baby dressed at this point.  The two of us then head down the stairs and throw coats on.  As they are all in the car I actually get to use the bathroom for 30 seconds.  I then decided that the 2^nd cup of coffee is more important than the extra 1 minute and make it and run out the door.  I am sure there is a lesson here, but I don’t know what it is.  Better time management?  Get up earlier? Pick out clothes the night before?  Get dressed before we go downstairs.  I don’t know.  I do know one thing… I will NEVER voluntarily get up any earlier than I absolutely have to!  I also know that I will be the mom in her pajamas at the bus stop one day and I am okay with that J

The ABC's of me

In addition to my family, I thought I would give you some background on me.  I went to Penn State (RIP JoePa) and while I was there, met Andy.  This is a story for another day so I will skip it for now.  After college graduation I took a HUGE leap of faith and moved to Ft. Sill, OK with Andy.  We were not married, not engaged, just living in sin.  After about a year we got engaged.  Less than a year later, broke up and less than a year after that, were engaged again.  Whew… that was a crazy time.  We were young and had no clue what we wanted from life or each other.  We got married the following September and Andy deployed that February.  We did not know this was coming when we got married.  It was a huge change that neither of us was ready for.  Again, this is a future story so we will put it on hold for now.  I am a licensed nursing home administrator and worked in a nursing home or assisted living facility the entire time I was in OK.  Sometime in here I started graduate school at the University of Oklahoma for my Masters in Public Administration with a focus in political science.  I started off wanting my MBA but thought that was not a practical degree for an Army wife so I changed to public admin thinking that I could get a government job that would follow Andy’s career around.  Funny what you think before you actually know what the future holds.  Andy came home, I finished graduate school, he went to Ranger school and we moved to Ft. Drum in the following year. 

While at Ft. Drum we had Addison and Drew and Andy deployed 2 more times.  Up until the point when I had Addison I was working full time at a nursing home in NY.  I took 2 years off between her and Drew but after he was born I was looking for something to do besides parenting.  Andy’s BN commanders wife at the time told me that I was ‘wasting’ my master’s degree and that I should be teaching at the local community college which is what she did.  I had never taught a day in my life and never in a million years thought this was for me.  She convinced me to apply and they hired me the following semester to teach 1 class to see if it was a good fit for me as well as the school.  Drew was only 3 months old at this point so it was a good transition as well.  The following semester I taught 3 classes and I have been doing it ever since.  When we moved to West Point, I started teaching my classes online.  I keep threatening to quit but they keep asking me to come back and I keep saying ‘yes’.  I SWEAR I am not going to work when we move to VA.  I will keep you posted. 

We moved to West Point in April of 2010 and had Allegra in January 2011 and got pregnant again that year.  More on my thoughts of West Point are to come.  I know this was the fast and furious version but I figure if you keep reading this blog that it won’t matter how short this intro was. 

Mama's girl

Another part of my not so perfect family is my mom, Gigi. Her real name is Teri, but almost everyone calls her Gigi, even my friends and their kids. She lives about 2 miles from us. When I had Addison, Andy was deployed and she took a job at Ft. Drum so she could be close to us and help me with the baby. Andy was apprehensive when he first heard my mom was going to come live near us.  I need to give him a TON of credit here.  If I found out that my in-laws were coming to live near us to ‘help’ I would have thrown a royal fit and threatened to move.  He has since learned that this was not such a bad idea.  She helps more than I can even describe.  She cooks, cleans, babysits and even helps keep my sanity (sometimes).  After selling our house at Ft. Drum in one month in the worst housing economy ever (a huge shock to us) we moved in with her because a house was not available on post.   Andy was deployed so it was just the kids and I (Addison and Drew at the time).  During this trial, we learned that we CANNOT live together but close is awesome!  When we moved to West Point, she applied for a transfer, got it, and moved with us.  So here we all are. 



Since we are not so perfect, there is a flip side to this…  She is not so perfect either and this leads to some bad stuff too.  Don’t get me wrong, the good FAR OUTWEIGHS the bad, but it is still there.  Just like the rest of my life.  She works full time and is tired at the end of the day.  Relaxing with 3 wild kids around is not always that easy.  On a bad day/week, she is really cranky.  Don’t go near her (maybe this runs in our family).  Gigi comes over almost every night.  Like I said earlier, Andy is gone most nights for work or school so it is nice to have her here.  I am sure she likes eating dinner with us instead of alone.  The kids also like her more than me.  This has been confirmed by all of my children.  Gigis don’t always follow the mom rules and this leads to my kids favoritism.  I am okay with this.  She is pretty awesome.

My family

Here is my not so perfect family.  Andy, my husband, well... he is pretty perfect.  Perfect for me.  He is a workaholic Army officer but great to his family.  He is not around much because of work and school.  He works all day and attends graduate school at night.  Addison, my oldest, is 5 and a half.  That half is pretty important to her.  Don't leave it out.  She is in pre-school 5 mornings a week and loves princesses and Barbie.  Drew, my wild man, is 3.  He goes to pre-school 2 mornings a week and loves trains, trucks, mama and prison.  Nope, that is a country song.  He does love trains and trucks and mustard of all things.  He loves mustard so much that he asks for "a mustard sandwich, with ham on it".  He would slather anything in mustard.  Allie will be 1 next week.  She loves to eat, throw crayons, climb up stairs and splash in the tub.  The newest addition to the family will be here in June.  We will find out next week what we are having.  A boy to balance us out or a girl to drive the guys crazy :)  When I told Drew we may not have a boy like he wants, he told me "mom, if it is a girl dad and I are just going to move to the garage".