This morning after my beautiful children misplaced a library book that needed to be returned, I decreed that it was time for them to clean out their rooms. Five minutes later, Presto! it was done. I clarified that this was to be a thorough cleaning including the toy bins, under the beds, and in the closets (which apparently they think also should be called “toy bins”). Noises of general disgruntlement followed, and off they trudged upstairs.

After about an hour of foot-dragging, I heard Georgie upstairs telling Anika he would come “help” her clean her room if she returned the favor when they were done (her room is bigger than his and Trinity’s, and Anika shares it with a three year old and an 18 month old who are not terribly skillful at cleaning). Uh huh.

Two hours later my husband went to go check on them. Usually whip cracking is my area of expertise, and I typically set the timer for them so that they don’t spend three hours fiddling around when they should be working. However, since these are the days of the crumminess of pregnancy, having the kids upstairs being quiet and out of my hair for three hours trumps my guilt over allowing them to fool around instead of instilling diligence (hey, they have many more years of me yelling at them to look forward to. I’m sure they’ll live through the disappointment).

Shortly after my husband arrived for inspection, vast amounts of yelling erupted from the second floor followed by copious quantities of wailing. A few moments later my hubby reappeared wearing a rather ferocious scowl and asking what was the matter with those children, to which I gave my standard reply: “brain damage.”

Apparently my terrifically helpful eight year old son had interpreted the word “clean” to mean “take my sister’s mattress off her bed, flip it over in the middle of her room onto the top of her toy shelves, which will knock them over and create the equivalent of hurricane damage in her bedroom.” Happily, his father seems to have cleared up that misconception.

This evening as I finally attacked the laundry devil that had been smirking at me all day, I discovered the second component of my son’s cleaning plan: take anything made of cloth or that might be lying within two feet of the hamper and throw it over the stair rail in the laundry pile (our washer is right below the stair landing, so that serves in place of a laundry chute). This categorical sweeping included a book, blanket, cardboard, and the usual quantity of clean, folded clothing.

I also discovered upon removing a load from the washer that my five year old daughter had pinned a silver sheriff’s badge to her shirt and neglected to take it off. As I was trying to figure out how that got by me, I noticed that it was pinned to the inside of her shirt. Mystery solved? At least this can’t be blamed on my son. Well, actually, I’m sure it could…

Rachel

Not feeling so chatty today, more like curl up and hibernate for the next two months. Hmm, why didn’t I think of that before? I think hibernation would be an excellent solution for morning sickness. My homemade drug cocktail of Unisom and B6 is not working so well for some reason.

This combination mimics Diclectin, which is a morning sickness drug sold in Canada but not in the U.S. I used it for the last pregnancy and it worked great, nearly as well as the Zofran that they give to cancer patients. I used that with baby #3 when we had excellent insurance, but it’s prohibitively expensive and we’d have to pay for it out of pocket this time. Yep, hibernation is the way to go.

Okay, I’m off to go zombify for awhile. You guys have a great weekend!

Rachel

With the ever-delightful friend known as morning sickness happily staying for an extended visit, I’ve spent much more time on the couch than I typically do (all day vs. no day). The children, meanwhile, have been doing massive amounts of chores that I have codified into lists for each of the older three.

This has several advantages (for me).

1) They get to clean up the gigantic piles of toys, laundry, crayons, sippy cups, stale bread, etc. that they relocate from their original habitats to the far reaches of the house. The clean their rooms every morning (and every morning they are disasters and need it) and tidy the rest of the house every afternoon and evening, by which time it invariably needs tidying again.

2) They get to learn the fine art of correct dishwasher loading (and unloading).

3) Since they wipe the bathrooms down every morning, said areas never get to slimy.

4) The clean, folded laundry that they stuff back into their hampers still folded at least was arranged and taken up to their rooms by them and not me.

5) Spending half the day doing chores keeps them busy so I don’t have to listen to them fighting and coming up with new and more creative ways to torture one another as often.

6) By the time they’re done with their chores (that I don’t have to remind them 5,397 times to do since it’s all written down on the papers that they only lose fourteen times a day), they’re so tired of working that they usually go find some nice way to play together for awhile. Also, they’re too scared to come near me to ask four times each if they can watch a movie.

Hehe. I feel evil yet remarkably clever! Plus the evilness is somewhat mitigated by the feeling that it’s good for them to actually take care of their own stuff and the vague feeling that a whole bunch of old anecdotal George Washington Cherry Tree type of stories probably support this and aren’t prehistoric anecdotes good things to base your parenting decisions on anyway?

So last week after they finally completed their massive chore list, they decided to celebrate by “partying ’til we’re purple” and then discussed the many ways that they could accomplish this. Oddly, most of them involved massive bruising instead of the more obvious markers and were thus ultimately rejected.

Next on the agenda was music choice, since clearly a party upstairs in your little sister’s bedroom requires appropriate music. Also, since I made them bring the card table back downstairs that was going to hold the drinks that I wouldn’t let them have on the carpet, boogieing was the only remaining component of the party.

Georgie went upstairs to look through George’s CD stash, and soon came back out to holler in his usual overly loud voice, “Mom, where’s the Queen CD?” The Queen CD? Yes, this is my eight year old son blithely requesting music from the ’70’s rock opera band that brought the world “We Will Rock You,” “We Are the Champions,” and “Bohemian Rhapsody” along with  many other songs that you would undoubtedly recognize. Thank you, my dear husband, for introducing them to “culture”…..

Well, they couldn’t find the Queen CD so then they started looking for the crazy pirate music CD that their Auntie Masha gave them (songs on it like “Scurvy” and “Nelly the Elephant”). Since that CD had also escaped, they started looking for Jamie Soles, which is very mild, folk-song-y, Christian kids music. Hmmm, let’s see… Queen or Jamie Soles. Hahahaha.

They finally settled upstairs with the soundtrack to PeeWee’s Great Adventure, which is frenetic score by Danny Elfman. I spent the next half an hour wondering if the ceiling was going to come crashing down due to five children jumping around “dancing” upstairs, but it didn’t sound like any purpling was occurring and the couch I was on wasn’t directly beneath the ceiling so I was just thankful that they were happy and out of my hair.

Today after lunch I told them they could go upstairs and watch a movie in my room (so I could take a nap downstairs, thus positioning myself between them and the front door lest anyone try to escape or burglars try to waltz in and steal our peanut-butter encrusted possessions).

Naturally this was the universal signal for a large fight over whose turn it was to pick a movie. Georgie decided that since Anika stole his turn last week (because he was in his room crying over being forced to do the horror known as “borrowing” in multiple-digit subtraction), today was going to be his turn. However, he also unwisely told Trinity that if she drew a picture of herself catching Lex Luthor, they would watch Superman which was what she wanted to do.

So she’s upstairs drawing herself and Lex, and from all the way downstairs I can hear Georgie’s brain looking for an escape clause.

“I know, let’s have a bravery test, girls,” he tells them upstairs in my bedroom.

Hmmm, a bravery test. This sounds to me like he’s come up with some new and clever way to get them to volunteer for torture so that they can then earn the “prize” of getting to watch the movie he wants to watch.

“Georgie…” I holler at him up the stairwell. He comes out looking innocent. “No bravery test.”

“But Mom, I wanted to watch The Mummy.” Hehe. Two points for me. Helps being an expert in Early Childhood Manipulation.

ME: “You promised Trinity you would watch Superman if she drew that picture.”

GEORGIE: “But I don’t want to watch Superman.”

{insert further arguing dialogue here}

ME: “Too bad. A deal’s a deal. Now you forfeit your turn and it goes back to being Ani’s turn.

GEORGIE: “WHAT!!! That makes no sense at all.”

ME: “You expect everyone else to keep their bargains as long as they benefit you, but you don’t want to keep yours when it means giving someone else what you promised them.”

GEORGIE: “Oh.”

No argument to that, which of course translates to “shoot! She’s reading my mind again!” And Mom wins once more!

The girls ended up watching PeeWee’s Great Adventure (hmm, bit of a theme this week, I guess), which Georgie watched most of except for the scary part when Large Marge turns into a monster. At that point he opted to hide in the hall with my pillow until his sisters told him it was over. His younger sisters, I might add….

Thus ends this week’s episode of Juvenile Lawyers.

Rachel

Life has slowed to an utter standstill around here with the onset of the appallingly misnamed “morning sickness” that lasts from the time I wake up until I drop back in bed. George has been telling me for several pregnancies that I should write a book called “101 Things You Don’t Want to Throw Up and Why” or something along those lines. Actually, now I’m sort of thinking about it. None of my non-pregnant friends really want to know what pizza tastes like on the flip side, but there must be some other pregnant women out there who would find barf humor funny, right? Plus, hey! The research is already done.

My friends and family keep asking me how I’m doing, and I can’t think of any way to answer other than “I’m pregnant.” That’s really all there is to say. It’s all encompassing, all consuming. I’ve gone from sleeping seven hours a day to sleeping ten including the two hour nap every afternoon and spending most of the rest of the day wishing I were asleep. If anyone tells me I’m glowing from pregnancy, I’m going to have to hit them with a frying pan. Or my likely with my pillow that is in permanent fixture on my couch (with my head on it). Not as deadly but much easier to reach and not so much effort. Of course, no one would tell me that right now unless by “glowing” they mean “pasty and half-dead looking.”

I nearly made it to church on Sunday but started getting shaky right before I walked out the door. This happens if I don’t eat for one or two hours. Sunday School hour is from 10 to 11 and the service from 11 to 1. Potluck is after that around 1:30. I ate breakfast when I got up at 8:30 so I could make it through the getting ready part of the morning. Small problem. I pretty much melt when I’m pregnant, go nowhere, and do nothing for a couple months until this part wears off.

And to think, a mere two weeks ago I was finishing my last softball game! Actually, that last week I was already starting to wear out much faster and was glad that we were nearly done (we found out I was pregnant right before that). And now I’ve turned into a zombie. At least I don’t have to eat brains. That’s a plus. You know, it’s really the little things that keep me going….

The little things plus George, who has been absolutely indispensable. He’s pretty great under normal circumstances, but he is now approaching SuperHero-dom and may soon require a cape and alter ego. Evidence: in addition to his normal wonderfulness of changing diapers, helping with and entertaining the kids, and all that Dad stuff, he now has started organizing and making dinners (which I did not ask him to do), keeps the kids busy with their chores and away from asking me the usual 10,000 questions per day, can tell by one look how I’m feeling, refills the ice in my water cup when he walks by, reboots the computer network fifteen times a day when it goes down in the middle of the show that I’m watching downstairs (he has a computer box downstairs with a bunch of shows that we can play on it over the network from the media box upstairs…. or something like that….), and is adamant that I get a nap every day which is nice because I reeeeeally need one.

My energy level has dropped to the Mostly Dead category, which presents a bit of a problem with five kids swirling about the house. I’ve been working on coping strategies that I can manage from the couch with a minimum of movement involved, so hopefully I’ll be able to be more help. Anyway, George has been miraculous and wonderful and I’d never get through this without him. Anyway, this is pretty much how pregnancy is around here for the first few months, so next week we’ll talk about something else, okay? As much as I don’t feel like actually talking or moving, the old neurons seem to work okay and I can type in sarcasm, so that still works I guess. Nice to know something is still me in there even when I’m Mostly Dead.

Rachel

So guess what? I’m pregnant again with Baby #6. Yes, we’re surprised too. We were planning to be done after Faith was born last year (she’s 18 months). Apparently not! And since I wasn’t looking for it and therefore found out a bit later than I normally do, I’m sick already (threw up 2x yesterday). I think I should get some sort of superhero persona with this. I could be Fertile Woman or OvaBabe. Yeah, OvaBabe. That’s good.

We found out a week and a half ago and Georgehas been praying for me every night before bed, which has been an enormous blessing. I can feel my attitude improving every time. Also some of the kids are old enough to be actually helpful-ish now so they corral their own laundry and haul it to the washer, fold and put away the clean clothes, clean two of the bathrooms, clean their rooms and make their beds, and will soon be back into doing dishes regularly.

In other news, my parents are moving on Saturday to their new house, which is about 15 minutes closer to us. I’m so glad! I think I’ve about got my Mother conned, errrr…. convinced of her own accord, into teaching the kids foreign language this year. She’s pretty fluent in German and French, so that will be fun. Trinity (age 7) was in Mom’s Sunday school class last year and she taught all the kids a Christmas carol in German. Wow, did Trinity ever get a lot of mileage out of that!

That’s pretty much the big news around here. Hope you’re having a delightful week that involves no morning (or other) sickness.

Rachel