Falling Apart

I need to take a few minutes for myself, and do something I really enjoy (like blog). The last couple of weeks have been crazy. Why, I don't know. Not much has changed, besides the addition of the kitten. Yet somehow things have exploded with crazy since the kitty arrived. Taking care of an extra animal, especially a cat, is not even an issue. It just folds into the rest of my day of poop cleanup, feeding, and supervision. But I have discovered that having a cute little kitty around is just one more thing I have to yell at the kids about... "Don't tease the cat" "stop chasing the cat" "don't pick up the kitty like that" "he doesn't want to be brushed/chased/held/teased". Plus, the big dogs may possibly want to eat the kitty (I haven't figured out their intent... but it seems suspish.) I don't think the cat is necessarily the reason things have gone berserk around here... but timing is everything. I'm thinking about naming the kitty Chaos.

1. The Toy Problem

My kids don't have tons of toys. I don't think they need them, and half the time they don't play with them. My kids get toys on birthdays and holidays, and not frequently in between (at least not from me). So it's not like they have a ridiculous number of playthings in their rooms-- so why are the bedrooms always carpeted in toys/clothes/books? And of course, no one ever wants to pick up. Last week, after yet another epic argument about bedroom cleanup, I decided enough was enough. I went through both bedrooms and weeded out all the broken toys, garbagy crap, happy meal toys, and things I just plain hate seeing and threw them in the trash. Then I picked out all the things that the kids never play with but still manage to throw all over (Mr. Potato Head, blocks, baby toys, etc). Those went into a tub in the garage while I figured out what to do with it. Brynn still claimed that there were "too many" toys to pick up in her room... so ALL the toys in the girls' room ended up in a tub in the garage, along with all the dressup clothes and a good number of actual clothes. (For the record, this mean mom told the kids that everything was going to the garbage man and the poor kids who didn't have any toys. Bean didn't care, but Jacob seemed to take offense at the 'poor kids' suggestion. I'll tackle that issue later *sigh*). And somehow, even with about 50% of Jake's toys and 100% of Brynn and Norah's being removed, their rooms are STILL A MESS. How is this possible? I don't know. I haven't even had time to figure out what to do with the three tubs of toys/clothes in the garage yet, and I'm already back to having problems with room cleanup.

2. Cloth Diapers

I don't do cloth diapers just to save money (although my tightwad self does love that part). I also enjoy doing it. Weird, huh? But they're so cute, and it's good for the environment, and it just seems to me that if one is a stay at home mom who is not inflicting them on anyone else, it's an easy way to save a few bucks and do a good thing (at least until they start eating real food and the poops become ungodly bad). However... at three months, Wyatt pees more than any baby I've ever seen. I had Jacob in cloth diapers at 2yrs, and it wasn't this bad. I cannot keep him dry and so he gets these sad little pee blisters on his weewee. Not to mention that I'm already double diapering him all day, so none of his clothes fit and he can hardly move his legs. This morning, with so many other things, I hit a wall and put him in a disposable (one of Norah's, since I didn't have any his size). My idealism is fading fast...

3. Vegetarianism

I hate eating meat. Flesh food creeps me out, I get "meat guilt", I can't justify wasting a life so I can eat a hamburger, etc. But after more than a year of solely vegetarian cooking (minus the couple months of pork cravings while pregnant) I am just bored with it. I love cooking, and I love eating. To be bored with either one is awful, plus I have to cook every day whether I'm bored or not. It just seems like there are ten million ways to cook meat... but there's only so many ways to cook a lentil. So this week, I actually bought chicken and country ribs, and picked out some really yummy recipes. And gosh darn it, the dinner I made last night (Cajun Chicken Pasta) was really, really good. Ah, the guilt. This is truly one of those rock/hard place situations for me... I don't mind other people eating meat (I recognize that I have a case of the crazies here), but I'm happier when I don't. But I love cooking. But I hate cooking meat. But meat is tasty... ugh.

4. Norah

Naughty, naughty Norah. Temper tantrums, destruction, disobedience, screaming, hitting, spitting... you name it, we're struggling. She's two, and we've spoiled her up until now. So it's natural that the Terrible Twos are beginning (despite having eluded it with Jacob and Brynn). She CAN be sweet... she's just usually not. Usually I'm discovering what mischief she's gotten into since I took my eyes off of her minutes earlier. Digging through drawers to find the messiest thing she can is popular (there was an incident with a purple bingo stamper). I'm going to have to take everything out of the junk drawer soon, because I can't keep her out of it. She finds pens and crayons and enjoys coloring on whatever she can find-- walls, shoes, herself, books. I haven't figured out how to stop her from eating the dog food, though thankfully her fascination with the cat box seems to have passed. She goes from room to room, making the biggest mess she can (I don't think she does it on purpose, it's just kind of her 'thing'). She's always sticky and hates taking baths. Sometimes, at the end of the day, I think if I have to spend one more second cleaning up a Nonah-mess I am going to explode. The biggest problem here is correcting these problems. Putting her in the corner doesn't work very well because she doesn't really care. Sending her to her room is ineffective because she just bounces back, chipper as ever after about a minute. And spankings only slow her down-- after about thirty seconds she has forgotten all about it and is off to the next adventure. I've had such easy kids up until now. That's the secret as to why I can have so many and not be crazy. This one... this one is going to be my downfall.

I'm going to stop here, for now anyway. There are some other things going on that are also making me crazy (this week I have attempted two tasks on post at Ft Hood, and rekindled my loathing of dealing with all things military), but I have to get back to the never-ending routine of laundry, cleaning, and feeding. I don't have time to play with my kids or dogs anymore... but if I can make it to 8pm without having a complete meltdown (and some days I can't) I consider it a victory.