Baby Clothes

Today is Friday, and Friday was the day I had set aside for dealing with the baby clothes.  First thing in the morning my friend showed up and we got to work - 4 huge totes of clothes to deal with in front of us.  I thought that things were bad, but I didn't realize the disorganization we were talking about here.  One bucket held only boy clothes, but the other three were a mix of gender and sizes, and it was awful.  I don't know how long it took us to sort them into piles, and then to put each pile into a separate labelled bag, but right now it doesn't look as if any space has been saved at all.  It will, though, when phase two:  The Storing Of Baby Clothes takes effect.  In the meantime I handled the huge pile of clothes that had somehow gotten stained while in storage.  While we watched tv I used stain remover on them and then ran them through a wash.  A few got better, but I'm trying again by soaking them in Oxyclean and hot water.  I'm about to go and run them through another wash and see if that does anything.  And I've hung up the nice clean ones, and I think I have enough so as soon as these come out of the dryer I'm done.

That's all I did for the baby, but it's taken all day to do, and my list of tasks I still need to finish in the next few weeks is much, much smaller.  I have a list to take to the store and fill, I have to make some freezer meals...generally speaking I think the big stuff is pretty much done.

I'm 34 weeks on Sunday and I'm glad to be ahead of the game.

Draining The Will To Live

The weather, I feel, has been terrible for weeks.

"It's awful." I whined to my husband this morning, while the toddler instituted her daily dose of military intensity cuddling and feeding of dry cereal.

But honestly, the grey, the damp, the not being able to dry clothes on a clothesline or fuss in the garden or take the children outside.  It's draining my will to live.

So here we are, stuck inside.  Except that today is a day where we are not stuck inside because we have to go out.  The cat has developed an expensive-looking ailment and David has taken him to the vet, and then will come home to pick us up and drive the long distance to the city so that I can wait for hours to see the bebe doctor who will weight me, poke my stomach and send me on my way.  And then as consolation we will eat at some horrendous boxy restaurant-type place and grit our teeth and go to Walmart.  If I've timed it correctly, and there's no reason to assume I haven't, we will get to the spot where we need to purchase items just as Clara breaks down into an exhausted tantrum and Samuel, overwhelmed with life, will flail about the checkout line and knock over a display of gum.

"Listen to the beautiful music!"  I'll bellow at the children in the back seat while blasting Gregorian chant.  "Can't you hear God!"  Of course they can't.  They can't hear a blessed thing over the noise of their own annoying voices howling in rage in the backseat.  They will fall asleep 6 minutes before we get home.

The backseat.  Oh my.  I ignored the endless contractions and crawled around there installing car seats the other day.  I was very very hopeful that somehow the three seats we already own could be arranged in such a way as to fit in the back of a small car.  The idea of buying another seat is too much for me right now.  And the Lord was gracious and they fit and my children look like sardines.  David thinks that we should now remove the infant seat until we need it and I firmly disagree because I'm not installing it again when I am even fatter.

A Baby Update

I’m due with our third child on the 29^th of June, which, if you’re not great at math (I’m not) is 48 days away.  Considering I gave birth to Samuel at 10 days past my due date and Clara at 15 days past my due date, I’m not expecting to see this baby in 48 days, but it’s an approximation that helps me organize my thoughts.

Those thoughts are mostly focusing around nesting.

It happened with Samuel – I turned a storage room in our tiny two bedroom walk-up apartment into a nursery.  It happened with Clara (remember the Baby Clothing post?), and now it’s happening with Baby #3 – an overwhelming desire to organize the pantry, to wash everything, to re-upholster furniture and knit things – combined with a bone numbing exhaustion.

Everything that I do allows me a chance to mentally check something off my list, which may explain how I found myself spray painting bed frames in the backyard two weeks ago, or attaching locks to all of my cupboard doors, or, this morning, scrubbing the grout around the kitchen sink.  Heaven forbid the baby experience dirty grout.

I’ve set aside this Friday as baby clothes organizing day.  What was once a neat tub of clean, stain-free, sized and useful clothing in a closet has grown into four years of wardrobes that would strike terror into the heart of anyone.  There are baby boy clothes shoved into the 24 month size girl pants section and hats with the diaper covers.  There are clothes in piles on top of clothes in buckets beside clothes shoved, unfolded, into a suitcase.  It’s awful.  I have a friend coming to help me tackle it all and I have a plan, so hopefully between the incentive to get it done with help and the organized perfection in my head, there will be order.

Coupons

How dull is it to hear about someone else saving money with coupons, or whatever?  Well, actually, I don't find that sort of conversation all that dull, but in a third-person 'put yourself in someone else's shoes' type way, I can understand why it would be.

I'm mentioning this because I've started clipping coupons occasionally, and today we're heading off to the store and getting what I think are some really quite good deals.  99 cent toothpaste, for example.  I'm not a huge fan of coupons for food because I find that most of the food is very over-processed, but coupons for toiletries and cleaning supplies are great.  I struggle with the desire to 'stockpile' necessities, and the equal and sometimes stronger urge to throw away everything I own and live a minimalist life.  I think, I hope, I'm achieving some sort of balance.

I try to live frugally, while still having a good life, and I think we do fairly well at that.  I know that I have the skills to run this house on very little if necessary, but I also know that forcing my family to live in 'survival mode' for the sake of saving money is mean spirited.  And yet, I do enjoy aspects of the frugal life a lot.  I like making the 'best' decision - finding the best price or even choosing to spend more with the knowledge that a product is higher quality.

My competitive nature wants me to push myself, and I have to find grace in life and realize that the struggle to be the best at saving is as bad as wanting to be the best at anything.

World Day of Prayer stuff, church, my children.

Well, I announced in church this morning that the World Day of Prayer is on Friday, and hosted by the United Church this year.  We need to bring two readers, and I gamely volunteered to be one of them and hope that someone else will stand up as the second so I don't have to start calling people and asking them.

Trying very hard to keep the focus on our big vacation in 10 days - we're heading off on a 12 hour drive to see relatives and shop for summer clothes and other things that are difficult to do where we live.

Also at church - a large, gooey, celebratory cake which reminded me of that passage in Lauren Winner's book Girl Meets God.  Perhaps I am meant to be an altar guild member forever.

Saturday

Oh my word I just discovered that I'm supposed to be posting for seven days, not five.  Seven.  Which means that today, which I assumed was my last day of inflicting inane ramblings on the poor folk of facebook is, in fact, not.  I need to think of things to write about for another two days.  People, I'm not that interesting.

I woke up this morning, after having slept in until an embarrassing time, and David asked me if we could have company for supper tonight.  Now, I'm almost always up for company.  No, that's not true, here's the deal: when you don't have children entertaining consists of looking through lots of cookbooks and spending an afternoon shopping for food and possibly even a few days cleaning depending on how important your company is.  And then you all have a lovely long visit and eat all sorts of things and enjoy yourselves.

When you HAVE children, you can only cook in shifts, because otherwise whomever is in the kitchen is attempting to move around whilst dragging the dead weight of a toddler clinging to her legs asking for cheese/a drink of water/ cuddles/ more cheese.  "Oh how sweet' the childless among you coo; no it is not sweet.  It is, in fact, very far from sweet.  Your options are baby gates or a spouse who can effectively distract.

There is also no point whatsoever in cleaning anything because, as my living room can currently attest to, cleaning lasts 3.2 seconds.  And I'm not talking 'well we'll need to re-fluff those cushions' type cleaning.  There is currently a torn apart bun all over the floor.

This means that the only real option is so serve something from the slow cooker, arrange for the children to leave the premises for the majority of the day (or at least just before company arrives) and tidy everything by throwing it into the playroom.  I've been told that this changes as the children get older - but I can't see it from the trenches.

So, the company.  We're having it, and this company falls into the 'I'd like things to look and taste nice' camp, as opposed to family or friend company where my hope is that they like pizza.

I think I've decided to try and make my mother's recipe for zucchini stuffed chicken, and then serve that with something totally store bought, possibly even a store bought dessert.

Friday

When you are pregnant with your third child everything is very different.  There isn't the same level of nervousness when you get your ultrasound; you can recognize things on the screen; all is fine.  We're having a girl, it was discovered, and I'm very pleased.  As is typical of us, we have no name chosen but lots of ideas.  I don't feel any panic, though.  We'll figure it all out.

Today the telephone person is supposed to come and fix our line, and I have intentions to take Samuel to the library and possibly even playgroup, depending on how optimistic I am.  There will also be something decadent for dessert, although I don't currently know what that will be.  Possibly homemade popcorn balls.