I’ve never actually watched the TLC show “Hoarders”, but I know enough to recognize that it is pretty bad. I’ve seen snippets of the show and the commercials which show homes that are filled to the extreme with both good, clean junk and really gross garbage. The people seem to be so sad too, either aging or poor, or both. I’ve heard descriptions that it is much worse than I can imagine, so I know I never want to watch it. Or be on it, which is why I have to stop this.

When we lived downtown, we had a small place with nowhere to hide anything. It was a loft, so there were no interior walls. We had one little tiny storage area and everything else was in the open. We barely kept anything, and purged frequently. If we weren’t using it, it was gone. Then we moved to the burbs. Our house more than doubled in size and all of a sudden we had walls and closets and places to hide things! There were more rooms than we knew what to do with or had furniture to fill. Gradually we started filling those rooms. First with furniture, then with “stuff”. We had a baby, then another. Two lils come with a lot more stuff.

I became an expert at finding previously enjoyed things for the lils. We re-purposed all kinds of stuff, including the boxes from our washer and dryer, held because I knew that they would make the perfect houses for our lil peeps. My girlfriends and I all shared clothes, toys, cloth diapers, anything baby related. I had it all organized and perfectly stowed away. But then it all multiplied, and I stopped finding new homes and purposes for the stuff that we were no longer using.

Having two busy children has meant that I have demands on my time now that mean I can’t stay on top of this mountain of stuff that I want to find new homes for. I know that there are people who want to use our no longer suitable furniture, appliances, clothing. Maybe even people who read and want my books! I have mountains of baby gear that I keep meaning to find homes for, and follow through on the giving when I do find homes for. And don’t get me started on the piles of packaging that I have set aside so that I can break it down to be properly recycled, used as a craft, or moved into the playroom. Sadly, I want to do all this, but don’t have the time, or the energy at the end of the day. So it just got piled around the house.

A couple of weeks ago I looked around and realized that this was starting to look a lot like the foundations of a hoarder’s house. While I still very much want to freecycle or repurpose as much of this as I can, I panicked a little and did a mini purge of the most obvious crap. I then started sorting through things and moving all the stuff that I don’t want to keep to the spare bedroom. I work at it a little each day, and the entire house is starting to look better. Well, everything except the spare room, that it. It looks REALLY full.

I hope that I can keep up and finally get some of the stuff moving out to new homes. If not, I guess I can take solace in the fact that I seem to be on the path toward the house that is packed with the useful, non-smelly stuff. Thankfully we get the garbage, compost and green bin out each week!

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When I was a little girl, I was fascinated by bugs. Big ones, little ones, flying ones, crawling ones… I’d track them all down, catch them, put them in glass jars or those little plastic bugs houses and watch them do their thing. Then I’d kill them. Not just kill them actually, I would smush the guts right out of them. This was usually achieved by stepping on them with my shoes, but I was also known to use my hands, or better yet, my bare feet. The big fuzzy caterpillars were my favourite. It horrified my mother.

My mom worked really hard to get me to stop smushing the bugs, and eventually she won. Sadly, in the process, she passed along her tendency to freak out at most bugs, but bees and wasps in particular. I was actually quite convinced that I was allergic to them for much of my adult life, because I had been stung when I was about seven. It got quite swollen, and I apparently had trouble breathing as a result of the sting. I lived in fear of getting stung after that, til a few years ago when I was stung five times in a two week period. I had no extraordinary reaction then, and have since realized that I really didn’t when I was seven, either. Sure the bite was swollen, but so was EVERY bug bite I got. The “trouble breathing”? Was probably hyperventilating from all the freak out that was occurring (mine and my mother’s). Sure, I still cringe when wasps or bees come near, but I am working on that.

We have tried really hard to make sure that the lils are not afraid of bugs. Woo has fully embraced that “bugs are our friends”. So much that it is to the point that he will not let us kill a bug that is found in the house. It has to be caught, admired for a little while and then set free outside, with much fanfare. It’s very cute and we usually play along, unless it is one of those centipede bugs. Those nasty things get killed.

Goose is not doing as well. She is pretty afraid of most crawly things, except maybe spiders. We get many calls of “Bug! Bug!”, whenever she spies a black spec in the house. Thankfully Woo bounds to the rescue on most occasions.

This spring we are faced with two types bugs are really starting to bother me. Outside, my poor lilies are being decimated by the red lily beetle. They are barely above ground, and there poor little leaves are covered in holes. Several times each day I do the rounds and rid them of the bugs. There are still more though, so I look a little harder, and I have noted that I am getting more and more emphatic with the smooshing. You might say it’s gleeful, and I have to admit that I get a certain satisfaction in knowing that each bug I kill is not going to get to my lilies. It’s not with my bare hands (or feet!), but I do put extra effort into getting them.

Inside, we have the ever worsening saga of the ants. They have invaded our house! We get them every year, but they have always stayed in the three-season room for couple weeks in the spring before disappearing on their own. This year they are spreading. I regularly find them all over the house, but am most troubled by the number that are in my kitchen, and my recent discovery that they are IN MY CANDY STASH. While I generally try the least invasive method for getting rid of pests, this breach has meant that I had to take some serious action. After I carefully secured all my treats in tupperware, I made a trip to Canadian Tire for the super sweet drops that ants love to bring back to their lair. I’ve left out some drops where the lils cannot reach them, and waited (and maybe watched a bit). Slowly they have come. Slowly the number of ants has been reduced. It tells me that I am winning this war. I admit that I secretly love thinking “drink the koolaid, you little jerks!” every time I see them at the drops. This may please me a little bit more than can be considered normal.

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The early part of last evening was a rough one for Goose.  She has just started to develop a cold, and was at that stage where everytime she tried to breath through her nose she found she couldn’t, freaked out and woke up crying.  The evening was long, and as Willy and I headed to bed, she woke again.  We settled her, but she stayed in a semi-awake stage and half played, half freaked out with the nose breathing thing.

It is our usual habit to read in bed before we go to sleep, but with Goosie in a fragile state, we decided to shut the lights out early. This was in part because we figured that we were in for a long night, but also because we knew that the lights would alert her to the fact that we were still up, and that we would answer to her demands. We can’t have her believing that we are here to answer to her every beck and call!

So we lay in the dark, not yet ready to sleep.  We listened to our lil girl as she shuffled and snuffled, sang, talked with, and played with her baby.  We listened to the lil boy as he murmured in his sleep. We listened to the cat as she ran around the house in her crazy post-bed escapades.  We listened to each other, as we talked about the day that was, the week that is coming, the lils and all they do to brighten our lives, and we listened to what each other was saying. More and more I find that our messages to each other get lost in the noise of our house, left half said or even unsaid, or misinterpreted because we get interrupted or distracted. It was nice to have these moments to whisper in the dark, just the two of us.

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When we bought our house, mail was probably one of the furthest things from my mind. Whether or not we had home delivery or picked up from a super box was not going to impact our purchasing decision in any way, so I never thought about it. I don’t think that it actually really registered with me that we have home delivery until we moved in. I love home delivery, so I was actually glad that we don’t have a super mailbox to go to.

I grew up with home delivery, and have fond memories of knowing the exact moment that mail was delivered. My siblings and I would race to the door to try to either say hi to the mailman, or be the one who got to bring the mail to mom. We had the same mailman for long stretches of time so there was some familiarity. They each got to know us a little, and we got to know them. Mail carriers, especially back then when EVERYTHING came by postal mail, are trusted with the timely delivery of both bills and cheques, and also personal mail. Even though many things are sent electronically these days, I still count on the mail for cards, magazines, online purchases, and the occasional bill or cheque.

For almost the entire time we have been in the house, we have had the same mail carrier. He was a no-nonsense kinda guy, who took his job seriously. Always friendly, he was never one to stop and chat, just tossing us a quick greeting whenever we were out front and he swung by. I got used to his patterns, and could always tell when the mail would be in the box. He reversed his route mid-week, so it was early early on in the week, and late towards the end of the week. I liked the predictability, and I liked knowing, if even a smidge, who was trusted with my mail.*

Our regular guy was transferred early this year. Because it was winter, I didn’t see a new carrier, I just noticed that there were differences in our delivery. The predictable routine was gone, and our mail was coming at wildly different times of the day. Some nights it was even after dinner when it landed in the box. We also started getting our neighbours’ mail. Our direct neighbours’, the house on our street whose house number is ours transposed, and the people the next street over who share our house number. I figured that it would stop after a couple of weeks when the new person settled in, but it didn’t, and it made me start to pay attention to our mail.

Once I started to look at things, I started to get a little ticked at our new mail carrier. I am all for the evolution towards a paperless society, and, as such know that there are generally a couple of days here and there when there is no mail… but we frequently miss 2-3 days of mail at a time, then receive a pile of mail all at once. Then she started to do things that ticked me off. We’d get one magazine, but it would be tied together with 15 elastics. She doesn’t always wear her uniform, or if she does, it is hidden under a coat. We continued to get the wrong mail, months after she’d taken over the route. I felt that she should have gotten it after a few months, but she didn’t. She also didn’t pick up the misdirected mail that I left hanging out of the box, even though I confirmed with the last mailman that this was the accepted protocol. She just ignored it for days on end, or worse let it drop out of the box onto the step and blow away. It irked me.

The kicker, and the thing that actually upsets me is that she drives our route. I didn’t believe it when I first noticed the car going up the street, stopping in every second or third lane and the driver running up to the door. I gave her the benefit of the doubt, but then one day she drove up while I was out front with the lils. I was too shocked to say anything, but next time I will. I don’t know what her story is, if she has an injury, is trying to fit in two or more jobs, if she is lazy… I just know that it has burst my bubble about home delivery, and that makes me sad.

*I realize that there are many others who are trusted with my mail, but he brought it directly to my house.*

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Today was election day in Canada and I voted. I voted because I don’t like what is happening in my riding, but more so because I disagree with the way the country has been governed for the last five years. I voted because not is not only my right, I feel that it is my responsibility. I voted because I have no reason not to vote. People all over this country overcome far greater obstacles than I did to get to the polls. People like my grandfather who, at 97, voted at the advance polls to ensure that his vote counts. He voted at the advance poll because he wasn’t sure he would make it to election day (he did). Democracy came to Poland long after he fled with his wife and twin boys, so he knows how significant it is to vote. People around the world die fighting for the right to vote, so I can figure out how to fit voting in between naps and dinner. I voted because I have never not voted, and I firmly believe that you have to vote to be able to complain about the results.

Most importantly, I voted for my children. I want them to know that they have a voice, that what they think and believe in can be heard, and that they can make a difference. They have accompanied us to every election that has taken place in their short lives. They are starting to ask questions about the process and about the candidates that we are considering electing, and I love to talk to them about the process and how important it is. I’ll continue to teach them about democracy, until I can watch them go and vote for the first time. They are the future, and teaching them about the electoral process ensures a better future for them.

Here is my voting buddy Goose, just after she made the “X” on my ballot. Eyes wide open!

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Both of my children are questioners. They start the first thing in the morning and don’t let up until they go to sleep. Both, in fact, have been known to lie in bed and ask many a question to themselves, their stuffies, the air… all overheard on the monitor long after we have left them for sleep. They know that these questions are not going to be answered right then, but feel the need to get them out anyways. We frequently get asked the questions in person the next morning. I love that they are both so curious, and hope that I never tire of answering their questions.

Woo is a master questioner. He has never asked just “why”. Since he started talking, the questions have been very specific, pointed, and non-stop. Our wonderful daycare provider frequently tells me that he asks more questions than the other four children combined! This may be because the others can’t get a word in edgewise, but any way you look at it, there are a tonne of questions.

Our answers frequently always lead to more questions, and more questions, and the discussions either end with me turning the question back on him (ie “why do you think that is happening”) or promising to go ask the internet what the answer to that question is. I do have to go to the internet a lot to find out the right answers for him, which makes me think that school will be a learning experience for us all.

Tonight at dinner Woo asked us if it was less dangerous to get smoke only in your ears. We both sat in silence for a few minutes, not sure where this was coming or going, and then talked about how it would likely be less dangerous to get smoke in your ears, that it would be hard to only get smoke in your ears, and that the fact that smoke was getting in your ears meant you were close to fire, so eyes/nose/mouth would be in danger too. He didn’t seem satisfied with our answers, but dropped the line of questions.

It was my turn to put Woo to bed tonight, and he was very deliberate in his choice for books, one of his favourite Sesame Street books. He chose this book because we clearly had not answered his questions at supper, and he knew that the story would let me see where he was coming from. I didn’t know that yet. I started reading, but didn’t think anything of his book choice, or determination to have it read, until I saw this picture:

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One of the things that we have tried to foster in our children is a positive self image and a healthy dose of self confidence.  Most days I think that we are doing a decent job.  Neither of them is what I would call overconfident, they know their limits, and they aren’t cocky. We know they are young and things could change, so watch them to see how they develop.

It seems of late that Woo has become aware of how he can sway opinions and get his way if he projects confidence.  I noticed it at first with Goosie.  He can get her to do or say anything, so long as he is confident in his delivery.  He delights in getting her to be naughty, knowing full well that she will get in trouble for her misdeeds!  It only took me half a dozen or so such misdeeds to realize that they were immediately preceded by Woo saying “Goose, do this…”.

Now that he gets in trouble for leading her astray, he has focussed his attention on getting her to back up his rich fantasies.  I frequently get these awesome tales about the completely implausible things that he they saw or did.  His latest is that he sees eagles everywhere.  Not just birds that he thinks are eagles, imaginary eagles.  Each sighting is described to me in detail, and verified by Goose.  “It landed in the back yard, RIGHT Goose?!” or “It flew by our window and looked in, RIGHT Goose?!”.  She blindly agrees, regardless of whether she was looking in the right direction, or even in the room with him.

At first I passed this off with a little bit of hero worship from a little sister to big brother, until I started to notice that he’s doing it to others too.  Last night Willy came downstairs and told me that Woo was having a quiet time before he slept.  I knew that this should not be so as woo had not had a nap yesterday, and usually face plants at 7:00pm on “no nap” days, but Willy he reported that Woo insisted he was not tired and told him so.  Fast forward twenty minutes and Woo is melting down because he so tired, and I am wondering how he ever convinced Willy, who is pretty good at detecting tiredness, that he wasn’t.  It’s not the first time that he has gotten his way with Willy in this manner.  He also does it to his babysitter, who he regularly gets to let him do crazy things, or have special treats by saying, with authority, “My mom lets me…” I keep telling them and myself that he is only four!  What happens when he starts to work it on me?!

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We buy a lot of secondhand everything for the littles. Usually what happens is I bring the stuff home and sort it. Stuff that can be used now gets put into circulation, and anything that is too big or to be saved for a gift is packed away and stored. I bought one of these items shortly after Woo was born. It was a little tool box that was filled with play doh toys, or so I thought. It was tied together and I trusted that was what was inside. Woo was about six months old at the time, so I packed it away until he was old enough.

Fast forward two and a half years, his third birthday is approaching. So I go and get this little box and opened it up just to clean it out. I really wanted to make sure that there were no old hard old play doh bits inside and, and that no toys that were too sharp or not really pay doh toys. I then wrapped it up and we gave it to him at his party. He loved it and played with it pretty much nonstop for several weeks after he got it. It still gets dragged out on a fairly regular basis, and he and Goose now play with it together. We’ve never had to add anything to it, the toys inside were perfect for their play doh play. It really is one of my best consignment finds!

One of the toys inside was this little tree…

It’s really not a great play doh toy as there is not much that you can do with it. The lils seem to play with it often enough, but it is pretty much an accessory to their other creations. We really thought nothing on it until one day Willy held it up like this:

Then took it apart and I really looked at it…

We’re dirty birds, so we laughed and laughed, and then laughed some more. We are now thinking that maybe it should have been taken out of the tool box on that initial cull. Of course it never fails that either Goose or Woo go looking for the “tree” whenever the box gets brought out, and as they play, it never gets assembled anymore.

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In the last week or so I started noticing some chatter on Twitter about being a “zombie mom”. I have been there and remember it well, that haze that surrounds a new parent, where sleep is a luxery that most can’t afford. It was a time when I did some really silly things, like left the water running for long periods of time, pouring hot coffee in a mug with a tea bag, then serving it to Willy as just a normal cup of tea, leaving the laundry wet in the washer for days… It was worse with Goose, as I had Woo to keep up to in the daylight, and never got to nap. Woo gave up napping three days after Goose came home from the hospital. The days were looooong.

As I read some of these tweets from these new moms, I felt sorry for them, but was secretly smug.  Smug because I am so far past that stage.  My lils, for the most part, are great overnight sleepers. If they wake in the night, they are quick to settle and we barely notice.  Willy is always the first to get to them anyway, so I get the shut-eye that I need. If I don’t it is my fault for going to bed too late. Then Willy went away and Goose got croup.  I hate croup.  It not only sounds horrible, but it destroys the sleep of whichever little is currently afflicted.  Who could sleep through that awful cough?  I can’t, and I am not the one making all that racket.  We have become pros at taking all the precautions we can and managing it at home so that we don’t have to go to the doctor or hospital, but every now and again they get a bad case.  Goose has a bad case.

The first night was not too bad as she only woke twice so my tired was a manageable tired. The second night was way worse, and she woke at least once per hour.  Then the thunderstorm hit and I was finished sleeping for the night.  I lay in bed and started thinking of my day. Worried that I would fall back to sleep and wake late, I started jotting down important things that I was worried I’d forget.  Things like get file from office, pack a lunch, get dressed, bring camera… … get dressed.  I had to remind myself to GET DRESSED for work. It took two short days, and I am a Zombie Mom again.  I am afraid of what will happen next.

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I like to joke around about my mother-in-law as much as the next person, but for the most part, she’s pretty awesome. Take this week for example… Willy’s away, so she dropped everything and hopped on the train to come and help out and talk care of the lils while I go to work. The fact that the monkeys are sick has not deterred her, even though it has meant that she is now exposed to their little germs and at risk of getting sick, despite the fact that she is hosting a party when she returns home at the end of the week. It has also meant she has not been able to meet with friends here, as the lils won’t be going to daycare tomorrow. That earns her a BUNCH of gold stars in my book!

This visit is starting to be a bit of a problem for me, as she is starting to make me look bad. At first I didn’t see it for the clearly calculated plot that it must be. Seems innocent enough that she planned her train arrival at a time that was most convenient for the lils and I to pick her up on friday, right? I mean, she didn’t intentionally take the perfect train that allowed her grandchildren to stand on the platform and be awed by the arrival of the train, then be greeted by her running down the platform with open arms to them? They were thrilled. I didn’t see it when we got home and she suggested to them that they all paint together. In the house. Every day of her visit. I started to get suspicious when I caught her reading them book after book after book, including the same books over and over without complaint.

I came home from work today to tales of a game of “doctor” that somehow involved the lils piling every blanket and chair cushion in the play room onto Gramma and then jumping up and down on her repeatedly. Then I heard that they had hot crossed buns at both morning and afternoon snack today, complete with hot chocolate this aft. I knew what was up when she let Goose climb into her lap this evening and happily much on her dinner cuddled in her Gramma’s arms. How on earth are am I supposed to live up to this??

Now she has done it. She is making me look bad to myself. This weekend, she raked our lawns and cleaned up my flower gardens. Today I came home to reports of happy children, with nary a whine or cry in sight. One night, she offered to make supper, and when I shoed her out of the kitchen, she started to fold and sort the laundry, on the same day that it was washed. As each load finished!! Each night after supper, she has sent me out of the kitchen to play with the lils while she washes the dishes. On the same day that they were used!! Then, right before bed, she cleans up the play room, sorting all of the toys, and getting the lils to actually help.

It has gotten to the point where I now have to privately make things up that she has done wrong so that I can live with these standards. Sure, she folds the laundry, but the underwear is folded wrong. Yes, she sweeps the floors, but she walked by that pile of clothes at the top of the stairs twice, and everybody knows that things left at the top of the stairs are supposed to go down. It’s wrong to just walk by. After the dishes, she leaves the water in the bottom of the sink, claiming that she is looking for more dishes to wash, but that is just wrong. Thank goodness I have these to “faults” to hold on to.

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