My days are busier than ever now. Up at 7:00am , pack Matt's lunch, Naomi's school lunch, and lunch for Me and three other kids; pack diaper bag and cleaning supplies for the day; spend a few minutes debriefing with a bleary-eyed Matt who got off of work after 4:00am and is now heading to bed; get kids dressed; do three heads of hair; escort Naomi to the bus; and load other three in the van. Now we're on the road, heading HOME!
Our new house is a 20 minute drive from Matt's parents. The kids were thrilled to see it for the first time yesterday. There's wide open space and a circle design that doubles as race track, but Hannah didn't mince any words about the current condition of our new abode. "This is an OLD house!" she observed, "Really Old! It's really dirty. I don't think the people who lived here ever cleaned at all. You know, Mommy, you make me clean up my own toys, but these people didn't clean up their mess. I guess they didn't ever learn that."
Emma had other struggles: the steep, narrow staircase had no banister. I had to rescue a screaming, shaking Emma no less than three times before she gave up going upstairs. Toby found nothing wrong with the house at all, and was remarkably agreeable about being confined to a pack-n-play for over five hours as long as he had a clear view of the vacuum.
Fortunately two angels, Carma and Rochelle, from my church met me at the house yesterday for an all-day cleaning party. Vacuuming, scrubbing, scraping, and scouring followed until a late lunch at two-o'clock. I cautiously released Toby from his confinement cell for a bite of sandwich. Unfortunately he dropped most of it on the floor, and opted to pick up the toothbrush that had been scrubbing unspeakably filthy surfaces and pop it in his mouth. He didn't object at all when I washed his mouth out and plopped him back in the pack-n-play.
At 3:00pm it was time to pack up the kids and head back to meet Naomi at the bus stop. Leftovers for dinner was widely unappreciated. As soon as the kids were tucked in bed I rushed out to pick up some paint, then to Wal-mart, then to the grocery store, then home to clean up the kitchen and lay out the next day's lunches. Asleep by 1:00am, up at 7:00am.
Today Carma and I finished the dead-bug, ancient food-goup scrub and started in with the painting. That was more encouraging. The colors don't really look at all like the colors on my paint-swatch cards (not sure what went wrong), but they're nice, and I don't have the time or energy to fight with the paint store. More painting will follow tomorrow. Hopefully we'll finish up the kitchen and bathroom. If I can get those two rooms functional it will be a lot easier to spend time at the house fixing the rest up.
I'll post pictures when we're finished. I think it's going to look nice when we're done, maybe even nice enough to satisfy Hannah's finer taste.
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