Earthmovers and Sandcastles

SAM: “Mom! Gabe’s just going to stand there bugging me!”
GABE: “That’s not true! I’m sitting!”

GABE (to Eric): “I love you more than ten megapixels.”

ME (hearing a noise): “Who’s in the kitchen?”
GABE (from the kitchen): “Nobody.”

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Eric’s dad remarried today.

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From Lifehacker, “Top 10 Ways Your Brain is Sabotaging You“:

You let negative feelings about putting off tasks prevent actual work.

For example, if I feel guilt for not updating, it makes me not look forward to updating, and I’m trapped. Or else it’s just that there’s so, so much to talk about…

Mom and Dad have been and gone, and it was fantastic. We did the state fair, we played at playgrounds, Dad went on some of my runs with me (following me on a bike), we ate good food, we played games – just a low-key visit, and it was awesome, every moment of it. (Well, except for the evening when I discovered the soggy spot on the kitchen ceiling, which turned out to be a leaky toilet seal, which turned out to be due to soft floors in the bathroom…but at least I had my folks around to keep me from running screaming over the brink when the plumber delivered the bad news!) I only wish it could have been cooler up here; we’ve had the peak of the season’s warm temperatures recently, and Dad was all, “I thought you told me it didn’t get hot up here.” Sorry, Dad. But, hey, back home for you guys, it would have been over a hundred degrees, and we didn’t reach that point here!

So, yeah, our bathroom is going to need a little work in the near future. But do you know what? I was sort of on a roll with the whole “purge the house” thing, and Eric and I are now thinking we’ll keep it going, fix the things that need fixing, and blow this joint. Sell it, and sell it now. We’ve been dying to do that, but we felt overwhelmed every time we thought of the work it would entail. An emptier house is more quickly sold, so…work ahead. It’ll be easier to do that when the kids start school in a couple of weeks, too. (We won’t talk of those remaining weeks, though, one of which will find Eric out of the country. Bah.) I’m thinking I’ll start with the remaining upstairs rooms, and I’ll try to do a little basement work each day (that’s harder, since there’s so much down there that’s either not mine, or else it’s things that we don’t use often but don’t necessarily want to give up yet).

Anyway! On with the show!

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Voila: usable space.

You can see the closet in the bottom two shots. It’s still packed full of toys, but they’re at least organized by type (trains with trains, Playmobil with Playmobil, etc.) in boxes and bins. Very usable, if it can stay that way; I heard Gabe on the phone with each of my parents a little bit ago, informing them both that when they were done playing with something over their visit, it needed to be put back where it was.

Oh, and that big bin under the table in the top picture is all Legos. Yowzers.

The purge continues…I’ve got some momentum, and the basement beckons!

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For the past few days, I have been completely wrapped up in the kids’ playroom-turned-office. This has been a Production. I’m still not where I want to be, but I’m working quickly. You know that stage of a project in which things look completely chaotic, far worse than they did before you started? Yeah, well, we were there, and I had to keep pushing as hard as I could, because that is nota place I want to be when my parents get here this weekend.

Oh, yes; I know how to schedule my time and energy.

Right now, the kids’ workroom is getting closer to where it’s going to be; there are still things in there that need to come out, and a few surfaces that need emptied, and we need to get the computer hooked up in there, but it’s at least mostly usable space. The living room, on the other hand, was collateral damage. Sam’s desk that was in here needed to be taken upstairs, and so it needed to be cleaned out first, and…let’s just get the mental image of the whole “Snakes in a Can” gag, or perhaps a clown car spouting out passenger after unlikely passenger, because good GRAVY, I don’t see how all this madness was contained in that little wooden desk. It’s not all fitting back in there, certainly – not that it needs to, after having filled almost two large garbage bags as I emptied it. And there are still large piles, even now that the trash has been removed and the pens, pencils, crayons, glue bottles (we had six!), and other items have been organized into the craft cart. Yikes.

(But let me take a moment to just stand in amazement that I am the mother of a kid who can actually help lift and carry a heavy wooden desk up two flights of stairs. Of course, the same son collaborated with another boy just older than him yesterday in maneuvering a few other mid-sized pieces of play furniture into the back of a car without so much as being asked to, so maybe it’s not so shocking, but it continues to be so to me.)

So, I press on. And Gabe is a little confused but game about the how and why of all this commotion; he knows that it’s related to his starting school, and he knows that he’ll be doing more Work in the near future, but he’s still trying to fill the emptied desk drawers with toys and to decide whether he’s willing to let Sam continue to work at the desk, now that it’s been declared community property.

Back to work!

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So with both boys being in school next year, Eric and I figured that they needed a more “official” work area. As it currently stands, Sam’s desk is in the living room, spending most of its existence covered in stuff. He’s done his homework, for the most part, at a lap desk on the landing between the stair flights – don’t ask me why; it’s just what he chose to do. While I’m not anticipating Gabe having much homework as a kindergartner, there’s not enough room at that little lap desk to accommodate two little workers, so another option is a good idea.

I’ve been clearing out the playroom. As Eric described it, the playroom was “where toys go to not be played with,” anyway; the boys would grab toys from it and bring them downstairs to play, but mostly they’d play with what was already downstairs. Anytime I attempted to make the room more attractive to them, they’d quickly cover every available inch of floorspace with toys…and then abandon the room again.

So now I’m removing and giving away or donating the toys they’ve outgrown, organizing and crating up the toys we’re keeping but which don’t get much playtime anymore, and generally creating a more usable space for work. So far, it’s been a great deal of work with little obvious payoff, but I’m getting there. Today, I intend to clear out the bookshelf in there of all the board books and books we don’t need or want, paring it down to a level that can be held with a bookshelf that, say, isn’t a stiff breeze away from total collapse (why, we have one such shelf in the basement, in fact!). I also want to make a final effort to go through the toy boxes in the living room, checking for game and toy pieces that are missing from sets and games. If they’re not found there, those sets and games are out of here! (It’s hard being the ruthless one in the family, but it’s necessary. The coming stuffed animal purge is going to be the worst; I might even have to do that when even oft-sentimental Eric isn’t around…)

Good thing it’s cooler today; the past few days have been a sweaty piece of work.

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Ticket to Ride is a very, very fun game. And I’m not just saying that because I won.

(Or because I split a bottle of Lambrusco Rossi with Eric. Yum.)

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I swear, I’m just going to get them both literal sets of antlers to strap onto their foreheads. CLASH CRASH SNORT BELLOW. Oh, testosterone, how you fill my days with sparkle.

Found out yesterday that Gabe got assigned to what’s been reported to me as the “easier” of the two kindergarten classes. Not that they use different curricula or anything, but I guess one teacher prefers a “sit down and write” approach, while the other is a bit more chill about things, and Gabe got the latter. I hope it works out and makes things pleasant for him, though he did do better at the less play-based preschool than he did at the opposite. We’ll see. For some reason, the kid who’s never been scared of school is now telling me that he’s afraid of kindergarten. His reason? “I won’t be in the same class as Sam.” Well, he’s never been before! Maybe he was hoping it’d be like Wednesday night class at church, where when he graduated from the nursery, it was to sit next to his big brother. In any event, this all started coming out after I read him Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus, where she went to kindergarten; it was a wild romp of naughtiness that reminded me so much of him, but perhaps Junie’s apprehension of the bus let Gabe feel free to express his own anxieties. Poor guy. I reassured him that what Junie needed was what he’ll have: a big brother on the bus.

Sam got the teacher about whom we know nothing, good or bad. Keeping fingers crossed that he finally, finally, didn’t get the strict one. Not that there’s anything wrong with firmness, but after a few years, I think he’s served his time and has earned the right to the smiley teacher who giggles a lot, right? (Maybe I’ve earned it, too?)

Anyway. Supposed to be hot today, and I’ve got seven miles scheduled. I should work hard on waking up a little more, or I might doze right off in the middle of the run.

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Exact question on one of the forms for registering in schools here:
“What was the first language your son/daughter learned? No______ Yes________ (Name language)”

I’m not slamming my head into my desk only because somebody better be around to counterbalance this sort of thing in the world my kids inhabit.

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I volunteered at a half-Ironman, watching the runners dissolve into puddles of salt, and then I did some sweating of my own. Good ol’ summertime.

Thanks to JayDub (BHAG Running) for his contributions. Music on the show comes from the Podsafe Music Network. Tracks used were:
42 shades of grey – State Unsteady
Ari Shine – Try a Little Harder

You can subscribe through iTunes or download the show here (mp3 version). Voicemails are always welcomed at 206-424-0426, or you can email or leave a comment!

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