Just another day

I found my camera! It's been missing for a couple of weeks. I've missed out on a great picture of my son's fat, gashed and bruised lip, the many messes made by Hurricane Joy (aka Pure Joy) as well as the daily joys of life with my kids. I'm so happy I found my camera! I took two pictures tonight. The first was of my Precious Green Gem's Math homework. It had a nice circular design drawn on it with brown crayon. Next to it lay another math page with similar brown drawings but this one was also ripped up the middle and hanging on like a loose tooth. I'll give you one guess at who was responsible.

The other picture was of my boys. They were both on the bottom bunk and the older one was reading a book to the younger one. I've needed more of these moments lately.

I spent most of my day cleaning out the many boxes all over our back patio. My youngest son brought out his "Cars" chair and fell asleep watching me. I went in the house for a moment and when I walked out I caught Hurricane Joy leaning over her sleeping brother. "Don't wake him up" I said quickly. "I'm not" she said sheepishly. "Then what are you doing?" I asked. She turned around and in her hand was a smooshed up Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. I looked at my son and saw that he had brown smudges up and down his leg. Knowing the answer I asked, "Did you stamp chocolate on your brothers leg?" Proudly she replied, "YES!" (followed by giggles)

I believe she has surpassed her older brother, "The one whom God has remembered", he held the title, "Creatively Destructive" for quite some time but she has stolen the title!

That's why it is so important for me to be able to clean out our home! We have way too much stuff. I have recently been checking out www.flylady.net and getting ideas and encouragement for cleaning out and organizing my home. I've got a L O N G way to go! I love her definition of CHAOS. "Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome".

My problem is that I need someone to watch my kids while I spend the 15 minutes rescuing a room or doing a 27 fling boogie. Otherwise I've got 13 new messes to clean up. And you do these several times a day! Can you imagine the "FUN" Hurricane Joy would have while I tried to clean something up. I try to save the TV for times I really need it. That's how I get a shower in the mornings. Curious George or Clifford. It's gotta stay new or it won't hold their attention and they'll make messes. And it can't be Big Big World....if that show comes on while I'm in the shower, I will surely have a mess to clean up! That show bores them.

So anyway, I've got to get things cleaned out. My kids have too much stuff and every time I try to get rid of something they whine, "But it's my favorite _____!" or "But so & so gave this to me"! Their rooms are such messes it drives me crazy. I think it's the clothes all over the floor that drives me crazy! Worst though is the books I find half opened with the pages getting scrunched! THAT makes me crazy!

Today my Precious Green Gem went to school without her swimsuit for PE and lost her points for the day. She also called me at lunch to see if I would drop what I was doing, put my son in the car seat and drive 15 minutes to her school, get my son out of his car seat and take the binder to her class, then put my son back into the car and drive another 15 minutes home and hope that I still have the motivation to continue cleaning out what I was working on. I said, "No." Of course it's after the phone gets hung up that the guilty feelings start rising.

(She made it through without her binder just fine, by the way)