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By rebecca, May 19, 2010 3:16 pm

DAILY SNACK

Here’s the thing we don’t talk about much:

Hygiene is tricky when you’re at home with young kids.

Sure, we talk about not having the time to take a shower,

And still being in your PJ’s at 3pm when you have a newborn,

But what about when you have an 18 month old?

For four years, I’ve been winging it, shower-wise.

My preference is to shower in the morning, upon waking.

That NEVER happens.

Between breakfast and getting dressed and shuffling off to our morning routines,

Or just dunking my head in a pot of coffee for a couple hours,

It’s hard to find the time.

The time I do have,

When the little one’s asleep or after bedtime,

Is invariably spent taking care of much more pressing matters that I simply cannot attend to with screaming kids running amok.

That shower will just have to wait a little bit longer,

Until it really can’t.

So, yesterday, I was determined to find a way to shower while Irene was still awake,

In our not-quite-finished and incredibly un-childsafe home.

I brought the bath toys down to the main floor bathroom,

(Because the upstairs tub is good for baths but not showers just yet)

And filled the sink with soapy water.

I closed the door and was able to keep an eye on her through the glass shower door,

While she stood on a step stool and played to her heart’s content.

Genius!

Why I haven’t thought of this before,

I’ll never know.

But, just in case you haven’t either,

There you go.

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By rebecca, March 4, 2010 4:25 am

DAILY SNACK

He’d been thrashing around on the bed for twenty minutes.

He was being silly,

Obstinate,

Unfocused.

I kept begging him to put his pajamas on.

“You can win another happy face sticker.”

Lame.

He was tired; I was tired.

I let go of Irene to pick out her pj’s,

Just as he reached over and grabbed her,

And she rolled over willingly,

Wrestling like they always do.

Except there was no bed on the other side of him,

And she went careening over him,

Head first.

I dove across the bed and caught her ankle,

Just as her head was hitting the floor.

And time froze for a couple beats,

As I dangled my daughter upside down off my bed.

Then I let her down gently and got up to comfort her.

She was hurt, but not badly.

Then,

I started screaming.

Thank goodness for doors that close and rooms to calm down in.

Thank goodness for teary-eyed hugs and I’m sorrys.

Because I know he didn’t mean to hurt her.

And he knows I didn’t mean to hurt him.

And I think we’re going to be alright.

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By rebecca, January 22, 2010 5:00 am

DAILY SNACK

Last Sunday a friend was making the rounds

Picking up food and cash donations for Haiti.

I had agreed to donate both.

Suddenly I realized that I was home alone

With a puke prone boy and a baby girl,

A bare cupboard and an empty wallet.

I’d forgotten about Ed’s morning commitment and my own commitment to donate.

Until it was too late.

Miraculously, I did manage to extract a bag of rice, dried beans, lentils, tuna, tomatoes, and mixed fruit from my cupboards.

But the wallet wasn’t coughing anything up.

So I left Colum at home and took Irene to the bank.

Of course, we do live above a store

With a bank machine only four doors away.

We were gone for less than five minutes.

Many people have garages that are further away from their children’s bedrooms.

Don’t tell me they don’t run down to grab something from the garage.

Still.

Colum was standing at the top of the stairs when we got back.

He did not want to be left alone.

This post was inspired by Her Bad Mother’s admission to having left her sick four year old alone for a few minutes. (Which was, in turn, prompted by Anna Kournikova’s mother being charged with child neglect for leaving her five year old unattended.) I wouldn’t make a habit of running downstairs to take care of some errand or other, but I also stand by my decision in a pinch. What do you think?

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By rebecca, May 5, 2009 10:19 am

Yes, my home is a mess. And I don’t just mean that I have a couple books lying out and the laundry still to be folded. It’s a real disaster. Now, nobody has ever accused me of being a particularly stringent housekeeper to begin with. Nobody has ever had to plead with me to just let something go and nobody has ever, ever made any claims about eating off my floor. I’ll even admit that we have lived in states of squalor worse than this back in our newly-wed days if only because we could all but abandon our apartment and only come home to shower and sleep. This may be the worst it’s been, however, since the children have arrived and since I’ve had to really live in my home. Continue reading 'Cleaning House, Somebody’s Gotta Do It'»