Ahhh, busy week around here. I can always tell when I’m feeling better because the house all of a sudden looks really messy and drives me bananas. Saturday morning I spent three or four hours cleaning out the big kids’ trash trap of a bedroom. Four garbage bags full of broken toys and miscellaneous paper shreds plus a trip to IKEA for shelves to turn their toy box units into bookshelves later, the room is lovely. Yesterday I cleaned out the toy units downstairs that were overflowing with similar detritus. Ahhh, so nice to have all that de-junked.
In an effort to help them remember to keep it clean, I am now charging them for everything that is out of place when I go into to check it every day. Hehe. I feel all evil but since we’ve had to tell them every day for the last two weeks to tidy up their room and it only stays mildly less disgusting for about thirty minutes and is disastrous again by the following day, I’m not overly sympathetic.
Now I just need to do their downstairs bookshelf and clean off the tops of all the flat surfaces (like the piano, kitchen counter, bookshelf, sewing table….) that have accrued paper-y stuff over the last few months as well. Oh, then the kids’ season clothing changeover…. Argh! It’s the neverending project week around here.
Henry sleeps quite a bit in the morning so I try to make sure I get dinner as prepped as is humanly possible, the laundry at least mosly done, and the day’s projects finished before he wakes up and wants me to hold him for half the day. Very sweet, but not conducive to productivity.
So I learned a valuable lesson over the last two weeks about good and bad places to go with six children. The week George was out of town, I ran out of groceries and my usual shopper (the aforementioned Hubby) was working working late on site for a client and had been since he got home from Las Vegas. Milk, eggs, fruit, peanut butter, bread ~ we were out of all this plus most of the other things that comprise our usual diet, and I had used up my babysitting help while Hubby was actually out of town (I was three weeks postpartem and various family members had come over to help out with getting kids to and from school, letting me nap, and things like that. The day I was planning to go shopping with only a couple of kids, my van broke). I had to get groceries, and the only way that was going to happen was with six kids in tow.
Anticipating all the million things that lead to ulcers under such circumstances, the children and I had a pow-wow prior to departure. I held up the list.
ME: This is what we are buying. If it’s not on the list, we aren’t buying it. If it’s on the list we are. I don’t want to hear ‘I want this; I want that’ or ‘Ewww, why are we getting that? I hate that.’”
I read through the entire list.
ME: “You older kids need to help with the little ones and hold their hands so they don’t run around the store. And you all need to be extra well behaved because otherwise everyone will be miserable.”
GEORGIE: Why will we be miserable?
ME: Because if you’re naughty, I’ll spend the whole time yelling at you, and I hate yelling at you guys. Do you like being yelled at?
GEORGIE: No.
ME: No one else does either. It’s miserable.
They all grin. And off we went to Starbucks where I bought the biggest coffee they had and then on to store number one, which is actually a restaurant supply store. For large families, this place works great. You don’t get a cart there, you get a pallet with wheels. I stuck Henry’s infant seat on the pallet, told Faith (age 2) to hold Georgie’s hand (age 9) and Anika (age 6) to hold Kyra’s (age 3.5), and off we went. They actually did remarkably well at the first place. We bought 30 pounds of fruit (which looks like it will last about two weeks) and a few other things before the middle two girls started racing up and down the aisles. By this point, I was nearly done and we made it out of the store before total chaos set in.
Unfortunately, we still had one more store to go to. The second store is a normal grocery store, so we picked out two carts and installed Henry and Faith each in one. I pushed Henry’s and Georgie pushed Faith’s while Trinity and Anika theoretically kept after Kyra. This store was much more crowded and the list of things to buy here was much longer. Everywhere we pushed the carts, people snickered. Of course, who wouldn’t snicker at a six year old hollering things like, “Mom, can we get broccoli”? This did break the no asking for things not on the list rule, but what six year old likes broccoli? How can you not laugh at that?
For about two thirds of the excursion, the kids did great. Then Georgie starting complaining that pushing Faith around was getting to heavy (hmph! And the groceries were all piled up in my cart!); and even worse, Kyra decided that she had to go potty. Aack! She said she could wait, but pinning my hopes on a three year old’s bladder control seemed risky at best. At this point, our shopping trip sped up considerably as I raced around grabbing things off shelves with no regard to price, brand, size or anything else. Is it diced tomatoes? Good, throw it in the cart.
We blazed through the rest of the store and breathlessly arrived at the checkout line where I tried to bag groceries (yes, it’s a bag your own grocery place) while my children immediately scattered since my eyes were looking at yogurt and cheese instead of blazing holes in the backs of their naughty heads. I turned around and Faithy’s cart was sitting right by the exit with Faith still sitting serenely in it and no other children to be seen. Argh!! Anika came back to tell me that they were trying to get candy and toys out of the machines (by sticking their hands up the slots, of course) between the interior and exterior sliding doors. Oh terrific!
Eventually we made it home, and Kyra had accurately gauged her bathroom requirements so that mess was avoided. Phew!
Last week after George’s work slowed back down, we decided to take all the children to the zoo. It was great! You know, an extra set of eyes to keep track of escapees and someone to watch Batch A of children while you take Batch B to the rest room really improves an excursion considerably. George kept complaining that the kids were being wacky; but after my solo grocery shopping trip, I thought they were great (and they really were well-behaved at the zoo). So groceries alone with six kids = bad; zoo with a buddy (or spouse, parent, hobo in need of $5….) and six kids = good. Just a little child-rearing math for you there. Have a great week!
Rachel
Fiendish friend for effusive fun!
that automatically uploads your pictures to your computer through your wireless network. 
