Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

(by the way, that's the title to a very funny children's book...)

Well, first the bad news: still no Squid (but of course! Or you would log into my blog and see his adorable little better-late-than-never newborn face plastered all over the place). The good news? The children I already have are keeping me busy enough that I don't have time to wallow in misery. Yesterday, Gabba, Lucy & Eliza did ALL of their chores - their bedroom practically sparkles - for the privilege of going to a birthday party. What's noteworthy is that they were in a good mood about it, and did all of their chores. Even Eliza, Queen of passive-aggressive pouting and avoidance. It was amazing.
Hyrum had a bicycle obstacle course at Cub Scouts, and has also been on top of his chores...for the most part. He even made breakfast for me. It was muffins, but he decided to use the mini-bundt pan (makes six mini bundt cakes...very cute, but a pain to use) in stead of the muffin pan.
Which is OK, except he forgot to grease it. So everyone got their breakfast in the form of crumbs. Yummy crumbs, mind you, and if they were still warm, you could butter them - sort of. But the crumb mess stayed a mess until bedtime, when I insisted on a vacuum job.

You see, our kitchen is carpeted. It has been that way for decades, probably the same mud-brown carpet the entire time. It's nasty, and having children who like to be independent in their pursuit of meals and snacks makes it even nastier. We've lived here for not-quite-two-and-a-half years, and the kitchen floor is seriously on the List Of Things To Change about the house. But it still hasn't happened.

This has been a particularly messy summer for the kitchen floor. Maybe not, only that I notice more because it's such an effort for me to get down and clean it properly. In the last month, I've had to scrub out maple syrup, raw eggs, chunky salsa, melted ice cream, and melty orange juice concentrate. I'm just glad my mom taught me the trick of using the dust pan and the plastic pot scraper to get the most of it up before I scrub. Thanks, Mom!

Right now, the floor right in front of the fridge is soaking wet. Yvette decided she needed a drink from the pitcher of water we keep in there. So, she pulled it out and promptly dumped it. It was by accident, I know, but it's still soaking into the carpet. I made a half-hearted attempt to soak it up with a towel on the floor, but since it's water, I couldn't really get myself to care enough to do a good job. It could just as easily have been the gallon of Orange Juice (which Yvy is obsessed with...) or the quart of Apple Juice. Two quarts of water? Hmmmm, not a big deal.

It's not the only thing Yvy has done this morning to keep me distracted from my belated natal state. I woke up this morning at 6 o'clock to her whimpering and telling me she was poopy. She wasn't, but she was soaking wet. Maybe it was the three sippy cups of Orange Juice she had before bed... So, I got up and changed her. Then, since it was almost time for the alarm to go off anyway, I stayed up and read my scriptures. When it was time for the alarm (6:30 here), I woke Mark up, and we did the whole Morning Hygiene Routine thing. Then he left for work, and I...went back to bed. The children got up and did their own thing. They had pancakes and syrup for breakfast (I keep a stockpile of pancakes in the freezer for just such occasions), and found their own occupations, and left me alone. I must have needed the sleep - duh - because I slept for a long time.

When I finally hauled my sad self off the mattress, this is what I found: breakfast on the table, and syrup everywhere. Hyrum hot-gluing seashells to a piece of dowel rod to make...something. Gabriella critiquing Hyrum's work and waiting to get to do one of her own. Lucy working on making jewelry of some kind with a sparkly button, a long leaf from one of the Tiger Lily plants, and a permanent red marker. Eliza in nothing but a t-shirt and a tu-tu. Yvette, naked to the waist, covered in syrup (she was complaining about being sticky) and - strangely - hair. Lucy informed me that she had found Yvette trying to cut her hair (Lucy also denies being the one who left the scissors down, even though it's her craft project all over the children's table...).

It looked to me like Yvy had already succeeded. So, I got a brush and some warm water, so I could brush the syrup out of her hair and assess the damage. Clumps of hair came off her head with the brush. She was so sticky, everything she had cut off was still stuck to her hair. She was not happy about the brushing deal. I pulled a handful of pre-cut hair out of her still-attached hair. The damage was not too obvious. I can disguise it easily. Yvy has a lot of hair, and what she did wasn't nearly as bad as Gabba's hack job when she was the toddler. Or as obvious as Eliza's back in July, when she chopped her bangs while Mark and I were at the temple - Eliza has thin hair, and there were no disguise-it options.

What was really funny was, after I was done brushing through her hair and assembling the wad of severed strands, she complained about her neck being sticky and itchy. That's when I noticed she had hair all over her neck and chest and chin, stuck to the syrup I had missed in my panic to assess the damage to her coiffure. She looked like she had a three-day stubble goatee, I kid you not. So, I got out a warm washcloth, un-stickified her, de-haired her, and helped her put on a clean shirt.

I'll post a picture of the butch job when I get one.

So, no worries here. I have full faith that - while I wait for Squid to finish buffing his nails and combing his hair - my family will keep me hopping. I just hope he comes while the house is still clean! (Is it just me, or does a tidy house have a shelf life of six hours?)