Posted by Kimberly on May 28th, 2008 — Posted in The Ladies, The Agony and The Entropy, Kipple
I didn’t really mean it the other day when I said I had too many shoes. Really, how can anyone have too many shoes? It’s just not possible! Unless, maybe, the shoes in question no longer fit the feet for which they are intended. Then there might possibly be an issue–especially if the owner of said shoes is unwilling to part with them, despite their apparent loss of functionality.
It’s been well documented over the years that I have a bit of a thing for shoes. What has been less apparent–although will probably come as no surprise–is that this fetish of mine extends beyond myself to include the feet of my children as well as my own. In fact, The Ladies might possibly have cuter shoes than I do. The problem is, unlike me, they keep outgrowing theirs. And therein lies the problem.
The very idea of simply throwing them away strikes me with the same visceral reaction that some other mothers have when it is suggested that they really need not save the baby teeth (ew!); what your baby’s molars and incisors are to you, my baby’s outgrown sandals and sneakers are to me. Except that baby teeth are so much easier to simply tuck in the back of your jewelry box.
So, what to do with the wee footwear that I can no longer force onto tiny feet, but also cannot force myself to part with? Well, used to be that I simply left it all in a heap on the bottom of the hall closet, but my recent organizational spree has eliminated that as an option. And somehow, storing non-functional items in the Magical Pockets of Delight seems….wrong.
Putting them on display so that I can continue to enjoy their form long after their functionality has fallen by the wayside, however? Seemed like the perfect idea. And so, the red dinosaur rainboots Diva Girl refused to take off in the store, the strappy rainbow sandals I loved so much I’ve bought a similar pair every year since, the sparkly pink jelly shoes that have long since faded to orange, the ladybug shoes that marry two of my favourite things, and the matching pairs of Irish dance slippers (No, they don’t dance; I just liked the shoes) now reside in style on shadow boxes on the wall outside the bathroom door rather than gathering dust in the back of the closet.
It pleases me to have them out on display like this, these random talismans of my children’s childhoods. It’s possibly a bit odd, creating wall art out of outgrown shoes, but it’s a lot less icky than putting a bunch of lost baby teeth on display.
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Posted by Kimberly on May 26th, 2008 — Posted in The Agony and The Entropy, Kipple
Wow. I’ve been a terrible blogger. It’s been more than two weeks since I’ve even logged in here to blather on about the minutiae of my life. And more like a month since I’ve actually done so. Not out of any plan or design…It’s not like I’m in any kind of self imposed internet exile or anything (at least, not consciously). I just…haven’t. Which sucks. I miss this place.
So, what have I been doing with all that time I haven’t been spending in the blogosphere? Believe it or not, I’ve been cleaning the house.
No, seriously.
And not just cleaning it–organizing.
I know…I know…It’s hard to believe. ME, the Queen of Domestic Chaos, on an organizational spree worthy of a TLC franchise, but there it is. I have fallen under the spell of Debbie Travis. If it weren’t for her and her damn home design collection, I wouldn’t be constantly scanning my apartment, wondering what I can contain next.
My obsession started innocuously enough, with too many pairs of shoes, a thwarted trip to Ikea, and a bored glance through the Canadian Tire flier. It’s just sort of spiraled out of control from there.
First, the shoes were finally all neat and tidy and not cluttering up anywhere! I could find them! Any pair I wanted! It was a dizzying feeling of exhilaration.
Then I started looking at all the hats and scarves and mittens that needed to be packed away…And that was another set of pockets filled.
For a while, I was content like that. I, one of the most cluttered people on earth, had decluttered the front hall and I was feeling pretty darn proud of myself. But everywhere I looked, I kept seeing more and more stuff. Stuff that could go in pockets. Like, the sunglasses, sunscreen, skipping ropes, and other seasonal crap that replaced the mittens and hats that had been safely stored away and were now messing up my newly neat front hall.
And, if I hung the pocket on the outside of the broom closet, it would all be within easy access for the summer! Even better, I could put the swim suits, ballet gear, and Guide uniform there! Sure, doing so would deprive me of the opportunity to play the ever popular “Where’s My…..?” Game, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make in the name of Debbie and magical pockets.
Slowly but surely, all the available doors in my apartment have been taken over by my new addiction. Makeup, hair accessories, Groovy Girls, underwear…all that random crap that never has a real place of its own is finally contained in what I once thought was that mythical state of being known as “a place for every thing, and everything in its place.”
What’s even more amazing? They’re staying there!
I don’t know if it’s the novelty of actually knowing where things are, or the see through pockets making it that much easier to find things, or simply the magical pixie dust Debbie Travis sprinkles over all her products, but for once, The Ladies actually seem to be on board with the organizational plan. For once, they are not only getting thing from where they go….they’re putting them back.
I’m not saying that there’s not room for improvement. Or even that there’s not still a significant amount of kid rash covering the surfaces of our home. What I’m saying is that for the first time, I think I may have hit on a real life workable strategy for dealing with it.
All I need is a few more doors…..
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Posted by Kimberly on December 12th, 2007 — Posted in Diva Girl, The Agony and The Entropy
There’s a post coming. A big one. I just have to decide f I’m going to make use of Wordpress’ nifty password protect feature or not before I publish it. And I can’t really think about that until I get the damn cupcakes ready for tomorrow.
Yep, it’s that time of year again when I dust off my mixing bowl (literally) and track down the muffin tins–the drawer thingy under the stove seems such an organic place, I can’t believe I didn’t think of looking there before I tore my entire kitchen apart–and preheat my oven.
Between tonight’s school Christmas concert, the sisyphean task of readying the house for Diva Girl’s birthday sleepover party, and the aforementioned but as yet unposted drama, I was less inclined than usual to do the ritual baking (and I think we all know that I’m never inclined to bake). But bake we did; as I write this 48 mini chocolate cupcakes all iced and decorated with not one but two Smarties a piece are sitting amid the debris on my kitchen counter just waiting for me to figure out exactly how they’re going to travel on the school bus without becoming one giant smooshy mess.
Much though I dread this annual event and grumble about it, it’s comforting I suppose, to have the rituals. Even the ritual complaining. Sometimes, when this motherhood thing leaves you feeling like you’re rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, or maybe already in the soup, the rituals are all we have to cling to. Those moments of stability inside the swirling chaos.
I know that while I don’t remember every brutal moment of my own growing up, I do remember that I had cupcakes to take to school for every birthday. I’m hoping that when all is said and done, Diva Girl has that same experience. That along with the battles both big and small that we waged on the way to her adulthood, that in spite of the myriad ways I let her down over the years, that no matter how hard it got, that one of the things that stands out for her is that there were always cupcakes, even when I didn’t feel like baking them.
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Posted by Kimberly on December 9th, 2007 — Posted in The Agony and The Entropy, Kipple, Just Like Riding A Bicycle, The Man I Didn't Marry
Illness can be neither created nor destroyed, it can only be transferred.
In layman’s terms, if you mock the barf gods by noting your good fortune in having been spared their most recent visitation, they will make you pay. And pay hard.
I honestly thought I’d dodged this particular bullet. In fact, I was so sure that I was in the clear that, once it looked like the Zen Baby was well and truly on the road to recovery, I sent The Ladies to my mom’s for the night and went ahead with my original plan to go out for dinner and a movie with The Man I Didn’t Marry. And I was fine. Maybe a little tired, but we both put that down to my extended stint as Florence Nightengale, not the onset of the plague.
So, um, sorry about that, MIDM. The puking and moaning that are probably tearing their way through your house right now? Totally my bad.
On the upside–if there can be an upside to repeated attempts to catch a glimpse of your own liver–I at least didn’t barf all over the sheets. Thank goodness, because I don’t think I could have handled the laundry room on top of everything else. At least this way, in between visits to worship at the altar of the porcelain god I was able to lose myself in the sweet unconsciousness that can only come from freshly washed sheets.
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Posted by Kimberly on December 7th, 2007 — Posted in The Ladies, The Agony and The Entropy, Kipple
So, I never did come down with what Diva Girl had. I felt vaguely crappy for a couple of days, but it was nowhere near the clammy, pastyfaced barffest that she endured, thank goodness. I know that sounds harsh and all, but really, if someone is going to get sick around here, better them than me. At least when they’re sick, there’s someone around to fetch the gingerale, fluff the pillows, and hold the bucket steady–all while administering cool compresses to the brow and other bits of motherly TLC, of course. When I’m sick? The gingerale gets spilled all over the kitchen floor, they constantly interrupt any napping or lolling on the couch with sweet yet maddening attempts to make me feel better, and they tend to stand over me as I heave, offering a bizarre colour commentary on the contents of the toilet bowl. So really, it’s better this way.
Speaking of better, Diva Girl is. Maybe not all better, but better enough to raise a whining ruckus over the possibility of not going to the PD Day program she’s been looking forward to for a month–Bee Movie, and then swimming at the Y. Last night I told her that she could definitely do the movie portion, and we’d see about swimming in the morning. But that was before her sister took her place clutching the barf bucket.
When Regan woke up around four am making ominous rumbling sounds, I had two competing coherent thoughts:
1) But I’m out of laundry money!!!!
2) Sabrina is going to be so pissed off.
Fortunately, my dad was willing to drive Sabrina to her program, solving at least one of my problems. But that doesn’t help with the fact that for the second time this week one of my children has thrown up all over my bed, and this time I’m out of loonies.
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Posted by Kimberly on October 28th, 2007 — Posted in The Agony and The Entropy, Kipple
What is it about laundry day that turns my house upside down and inside out? Shouldn’t the ritual gathering of the clothing strewn willy nilly throughout my apartment lead to a tidier environment?
So why is it that instead, the place now looks like the aftermath of a particularly devastating natural disaster? A tsunami of mess, if you will
The laundry tide has receded, leaving behind a debris field comprised of pennies, orphan Barbie shoes, stray Cheerios, scraps of paper, tiny beads, and abandoned ponytail holders in its wake. And wee red and green plastic houses. Monopoly, the game that keeps on giving.
Forget rolling boulders. There is no more sisyphean task than doing housework with small children.
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Posted by Kimberly on January 28th, 2007 — Posted in The Agony and The Entropy, Kipple, iVillage
Why is it that the toilet never makes those ominous burbling sounds when it’s clean? And that it only fills alarmingly, threatening to spill its contents all over the floor when those contents are…less than pristine?
Standing in my bathroom doorway at 9 o’clock on a Sunday night, watching the plumber lift the toilet into the tub, the better to deal with the clog, several thoughts ran through my head: A mental note to scrub the bathtub with bleach. Disappointment that the grizzled old man sticking his hand down that hole looked nothing like Mike Delfino. Impatience that I might the start of Studio 60. And relief that I wasn’t the one paying for this service call.
There are many things I don’t love about renting. The guy next door who can’t tell time and doesn’t understand how the volume knob on his stereo works. The beige box aspect. Creepy Neighbour Guy. But I do love that I never need to worry about fixing things. I don’t worry about not having the know how (I wouldn’t anyway; my dad’s a pretty handy guy), and, even better, I don’t worry about how I’m going to pay for the repairs.
I do, however, worry about the embarrassing state of the toilet. Kinda makes me happy he didn’t look like Mike afterall.
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Posted by Kimberly on January 18th, 2007 — Posted in The Agony and The Entropy, Kipple, iVillage
Remember that rug at Ikea? The one I hugged? It’s on my floor. Finally. It only took 8 months, but it’s finally sitting in the middle of my livingroom, and every time I look at it, it makes me happy. Of course, it doesn’t match my beige floral handmedown couch at all, but that’s ok; it matches this one.
(And yes, there was more hugging involved.)
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Posted by Kimberly on January 6th, 2007 — Posted in The Ladies, The Agony and The Entropy, Kipple, iVillage
The thing about feeling better is, all the stuff you let slide while you were is sick is right there, waiting for you. The dirty dishes filing the sink. The overflowing pile of laundry. The crayons, clutter, and crap strewn about the livingroom. The mystery spill on the kitchen floor. The kitty litter.
None of this really mattered while I lay groaning on the couch. But, one of the uglier realities of solo parenting is that it didn’t bother anyone else in the house, either. So long as there was a steady flow of juice, cheese strings, and Treehouse, The Ladies really weren’t overly concerned about cracker crumbs and substances of suspicious origin. Which is fair enough; I wasn’t too concerned about that stuff when I was 8. But now I’m The Mom, and it’s my job to care.
Not a lot, mind you. My house is never going to pass a white glove test, and there will always be clutter. But in the three days I spent directing the action from the couch, my cheerful chaos degenerated into a cheerio decorated disaster. Just looking around at this mess makes me want to go back to bed.
Sadly, that’s not really an option. Not just because of the mess. It’s the children. They know, you see. That I’m feeling better. And any slack they may have cut me about playing with the Little People or helping to dress Barbie is gone; those apronstrings have been pulled taut again. So not only am I stuck dealing with the piles of laundry and stacks of dirty dishes, I’m juggling the demands of two very bored children while I do it.
And let’s not even talk about the merry mess making that takes place in the wake of my cleaning spree. I might cry if we do.
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Posted by Kimberly on May 26th, 2006 — Posted in The Agony and The Entropy, Kipple, iVillage, Sanity and the Solo Mom
It wasn’t like I was unaware. I was paying attention. I was watching where I was going. I saw it sitting there. I even stopped for a moment and considered the ramifications of my actions.
And then I vacuumed up that Polly Pocket horseshoe without an ounce of pity or remorse.
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