Paint, Urine, Coffee Grounds and Other Refuse
OK- I left out the mashed banana guts and grape skins, and the usual diaper contents. Typical day around the house- lots of messes, half-cleaned! All in all, a good day, though. We completed a Kindergarten II workbook page, watched the latest library-provided Blue's Clues video, painted plaster dinosaurs, had fish sticks and tater tots for lunch, put together a chocolate chess pie, finished loading the dishwasher and started it, and even took out the kitchen trash (after the coffee grounds incident, unfortunately!) A bit mundane, this life, but good. I won't miss potty training, though!!

Now, should I be concerned that my baby likes to eat coffee grounds?

Labels: boys, Cleaning (Rah?), learning

- posted by Lenise @ 1:28 PM |

 
Still Around
Daniel started rolling over front-to-back this week, and is quite the expert at it by now. We started trying some of the activities in the Barbara Curtis book (given to us by our dear friend Jamie and her new husband) and Jay and Isaac really enjoy them.

Our yard sale was an unmitigated disaster, but I sold my maternity clothes through an employee classified bulletin board at work, gave nearly all the newborn clothes away (to a friend and a co-worker) and we got a local charity to take the old behemoth entertainment center, so we've dealt with the pain and are moving on :-7 I still have to return the newborn clothes my friend in Maryland sent us. They're mostly gathered into one of my dresser drawers, so it's really the boxing and shipping that are the problem. We've also got a lot of post-Isaac clothes borrowed from Cathy, but I'm hoping we can keep some of them for Daniel (please?).

We've reached the point where it's only out-of-season clothes which get packed away. Other than that they pretty much get handed down directly. A lot of the summer clothes seem to migrate back-and-forth between Jay's and Isaac's drawers. Options, y'all! ;)

Labels: baby tricks, boys, Cleaning (Rah?), clutter

- posted by Gary @ 4:25 PM |

 
Closure
I ordered the entertainment center from WalMart last night. No more lost sleep (at least, not over that)! Now, if we can just get this yard sale together this week, I'll be a really happy camper! I did scrub down two more of my new dining room chairs on Saturday with a toothbrush (they were filthy, and still look dirty, but they're vastly improved), so I just have one left to clean, and then we can started on getting the other chairs to sell them. I think we may end up using a chair as a TV stand until the one from WalMart arrives. We have a couple of dining-type chairs I plan on holding onto that aren't part of either set.

Labels: Cleaning (Rah?), furniture

- posted by Gary @ 7:36 AM |

 
In Need of a Pep Talk (Among Other Things)
I am hoping to have a yard sale this weekend. I've gone through our video collection and weeded out a lot, gone through my closet and done two loads of laundry (well, the second just went in), but I've still got a lot to do, and then there's the boys' clothing stock. It's time to go through it anyway, to find the summer clothes and sort things into sizes. I'm also planning on putting out the entertainment center, our old dining room chairs, and other assorted items (a couple of armchairs, possibly, though NOT the ones in my living room!). It's more than a little overwhelming for a slacker like me, but it would be great to get more stuff out of the house. I don't think I would have gotten this far, except I did some winnowing in my closet when our house was on the market two years ago. It would be easier to just take the stuff to Goodwill, I suppose, as I gather it, but a little extra cash never hurts! Anybody have any pointers?

Labels: Cleaning (Rah?), household hints

- posted by Gary @ 10:04 PM |

 
Among Other Disappointments,
Swiffer-type things don't work too well on old painted wood floors. You need a pretty smooth and a pretty level surface to make it work. In the office, I'm not sure I removed the dirt so much as moved it, but oh well. A hard day's work is not without its rewards. Maybe I'll get a good night's sleep!

Labels: Cleaning (Rah?)

- posted by Lenise @ 7:48 PM |

 
And There Was Much Rejoicing
Jay wore green doggie underpants all day yesterday without a single mishap!! We celebrated with an ice cream dessert, as promised. I probably shot myself in the foot on the nighttime dryness front a few nights ago, when I answered a wee hour summons to find Jay asking to go to the toilet. As loyal readers will know, this toilet is quite a hike from either of the bedrooms, as it is at the rear of the house on the first floor, and the bedrooms are upstairs, and the bottom of the stairs is in the front of the house, more or less facing the front door. No way was I going down there with him at that time of the night (tired, lazy). Unfortunately, he did not want to use his toddler potty which was in his bedroom, so I told him he could use his diaper. "No! I don't use a diaper na'ymore!" But I think the discussion had outlasted his bladder control, and he quieted down and went back to sleep pretty much immediately.

I've got to check on that Sears home improvement contest... I have ALL KINDS of ideas for improving our house, I just lack a budget.

Meantime, I need to get back to the day's occupation: home improvement through dirt elimination. I took the day off from work and shipped out the menfolk so I could spend some time getting the house ready for a Christmas tree and the small crowd we're expecting for festivities surrounding the annual Christmas parade on Friday. I even bought one of those vinyl tablecloths I so despise. It may be tacky, but it certainly is practical.

Next on the list is to get the dining room vacuumed. If I could move the piano, china cabinet, and dining room table out, the easiest thing to do would be to pull up the carpet and haul it to the curb. Then I could have the floor re-finished (see paragraph 2 above). That not being an option, I may have to get the upstairs vacuum cleaner with the dried-bread-crusts-pasta-and-grapes attachment down here. Wish me luck!

Labels: Cleaning (Rah?), Old Houses, potty training

- posted by Lenise @ 10:03 AM |