Have you ever played Lego Star Wars?  The video game?  We love it so much at our house that sometimes the children act it out during their times of imaginative play.  Of course, they act out many video games– Super Smash Brothers, Cloning Clyde, Caster.  Sugar is always the princess character, Engineer the hero, and Spider is some lame-ish sidekick, like R2-D2. And somedays like yesterday, they pretend that they are in a video game and the main characters are themselves.

Now before I go on (I promise I am headed somewhere here) it needs to be noted that Lego Star Wars the video game has all kind of characters you can choose to play.  The main characters, of course are those you need to complete the game’s requirements, but if you have a lot of gold, you can buy characters.  Fun but useless characters like jawas or cantina performers.  Yesterday while the children were acting out their own game, the following conversation ensued:

Eng: Okay, we’ve got Sugar character, Engineer character and Spider character.
Sug: What about Mommy?
Eng: No, you have to buy her.
Me: (understanding what this implies) You have to buy me?
Eng: Yes.
Sug: Okay, let’s buy her.
Eng: No, I only want players that are going to WIN.

Do you know what this means?  He thinks his mama’s a loser.  Or maybe he just thinks I can’t win, like I don’t finish what I start.  Like I stink at cleaning the house.  Like I am bad a video games?  Like I am lame in so many countless throw-another-jawa-on-the-fire ways.  (Maybe I am reading too much into this?)  I am so not having any of that.

Oh, it’s on Little Man.  Bring it.  Bring it on. You are about to see just what this Mama can do.

Every morning that Charming leaves before the children wake up, he comes into our room, says goodbye and requests that I not forget to say morning prayers with the children.  It always makes me think Qui-Gon Jin’s last request in Star Wars Episode 1– "promise me you’ll train the boy…"  Something to smile about I guess.

So this morning, after a nightmare filled sleep (I think I am watching this show a little too much) I get this request and then 30 minutes later the girls are in my room requesting, not prayers, but breakfast.  We are working hard on getting the people to ask before they get food, but they seem to never ask when I am able to do it, and always ask while I am asleep.  Anyway.  For about 20 minutes they snuggled in my bed, kicked each other and drew pictures on my back.  When I was finally not a zombie Sugar asked a funny question.

"Why do you have squishy dots on your back?"

I have moles.  Who doesn’t?  But why would she call them moles when squishy dots is a much better descriptor.  Is there a suggestion box for that somewhere?  New, better, medical terms suggestions?

 Anyway.

So then we made muffins for breakfast.  Spider immediately wanted butter on hers.  She then proceeded to eat a piece, request more butter, eat a piece, and request more butter until her muffin was gone.  And when it was gone, I went in to clean the kitchen.

And when I cam back, she had found something else to eat:

Yes, that is butter in her squishy little hand.  And yes that is a butter knife in her mouth.  I’m a terriblt mother, I know.  How was your Monday morning? 

I need a magical fairy that can come through my kitchen, see what kind of ingredients I have and tell me what I can make with all of it.  She doesn’t need to cook it for me, as that is a domestic duty I quite enjoy.  But if she has any cleaning fairy friends…. that would rock.

I am so not joking.

Thursday night we went to a local farmer’s market and then to dinner.  On the five minute drive home that night, Sugar fell asleep– not having peed in several hours and with cherry stains on her cream colored dress. I was bummed I wouldn’t be able to use my mad stain removal skills until morning, but glad we had one less child to try and force to sleep that night.

Of course, the combination of Sugar not having peed recently, and an ill placed, holey matress protector assured that she would pee the bed in the night. At 5:45 she woke up from the accident and after following the protocol, I tossed her clothes in the sink, unrinsed and we went back to bed.

At around 9 am I figured it was time to get at the stain removal.

Only there were no more stains.

The pee bleached them away. 

Isn’t that the weirdest thing ever?  And slightly gross?  Anyone ever have a similar experience? 

It’s my thousand dollar day….  Trying to hit a thousand in retail sales! 

 If you want to help and want some awesome skin care and cosmetics you can have 15% off your order:

www.marykay.com/supersteph

Have fun! 

…because all they need is a big piece of foam that they can make into a slide or a "hole."

…Or "garage sale finds cost more than you paid for them."

Here’s the deal– I think freecycle total rocks.  Free stuff is great– most of the time.  If you are getting something for free that you really need/want/are dying to have then whoopee! you have arrived.  But you need to know one thing about free stuff– it is rarely, actually free.

Example 1: I recently acquired a freecycled ceiling fan.  Thinking it would be hot around here sometime (joke’s on me and everyone else in Seattle) I felt it would be good to have one in the house.  After significant driving to pick up the fan, I immediately went out and purchased supplies to repaint the "treasure" that now sits in a box in my garage.  I have also noticed some missing wiring that will need to be replaced if it is even possible to do so.  Cost so far: $10 and counting.

Not free.

Example 2: I bought an Oreck vacuum at a garage sale for $30 and also got a free handvac from someone else.  Vaccuum bags anyone?  That little steal just doubled in price.

Not as cheap as I thought it was.

I keep seeing things on the freecycle that I think would be great for me, and I keep re-evaluating the actual cost.  King sized mattress?  I’ve always wanted one, but I don’t have box springs or King sized bedding or a place to put my perfectly fine queen sized bed.  Gas grill?  Oh, well, I don’t have a propane tank.  Size 2 designer dress? Can’t afford the personal trainer, darnit.  

Seriously.  The free?  Not so much.   

Free is good, my friends, it often is.  However, I would advise that you Freecycle wisely. 

(And have you ever noticed how people want their c-r-a-p picked up immediately?  That always cracks me up.) 

I grew up here in the Rainy Place.  I love the rain. I love listening to it.  Watching it.  It makes me want to curl up with a bookand a blanket and eat popcorn. Of course, when I was a kid, that would have been a great thing to do on the weekend, or after school when there was no other obligations.  On a regular Monday though Friday day, Mom kicked me off to school, rain or not, and I was fine with that.

But now as an adult, day after day, it rains.  The kids are out of preschool.  I have no playdates, and a gallon of gas costs more than a watermelon.  I’ve got no mom (ok, I’m here) in my house telling me to get off my bum and get moving.  And as much as I love the rain, I am withering.

Too much water tends to drown things.

I need the sun, and I need it now. 

I never knew I was so much like a sunflower. 

I was reading/singing the Farmer in the Dell to the kids the other day while my friend was over cleaning for me.  I was singing along, the farmer takes a wife, the wife takes a child and then the child takes a nurse.  My friend looks over after the part about the nurse and says, "and then the mom takes a nap."

And it got me thinking– what did the wife actually do when her child took a nurse?  I mean, did she do the housework?  Because that would stink.  I spent all day yesterday cleaning, hardly played with my kids, and I felt exhausted. 

The more I think about the song, the more I think, I could really use either a.) a full time nanny or b.) a full time cleaning lady.  I would probably take the cleaning lady so I could spend time with the people I spent so much time creating.  And yet, I could use a "nurse" too.  Us mom’s need some me time.  I know I need to be able to go to the store without people who touch stuff the moment you tell them to not touch anything.

Seriously.  This has got me thinking.  When did motherhood start getting so complicated?  When did motherhood come with so many expectations?  Between the piles of laundry, the toilet bowl, the grocery shopping, the cooking, the bill paying and the window washing, when am I supposed to have time for my kids?  And let’s not forget I am supposed to be a wife too.  And no, I don’t wash my windows, unless you count letting the kids paint them first and then having them sponge them down.

We are getting the raw end of the deal here ladies!  Forget universal health care, I think what we need is universal mom care!  Every mother should be entitled to a cleaning lady at least once a week!  A restaurant dinner just as often!  A date night with the hubs!  And it should somehow magically fit into our budgets!  Mothers of the blogosphere UNITE!

Who’s with me? 

I spent most of yesterday out running errands.  Feeling green, I bought some organic tampons and chlorine-free bleach (among other things).  Since I didn’t need to use the tampons when I got home, I decided to try a wash with the bleach.  I was unconvinced that the tree-hugger bleach was capable of my toxic bleach’s germ killing power so I decided that a hot water wash would cover all my bases.  And it did indeed cover more than that.

It covered my garage floor.

I imagine in Heaven (or where ever it is that He lives) that God said to himself, "I think Stephanie needs to clean out her garage.  I  know she will never just do it on her own, so I am going to give her an excuse."

How helpful.

I walked in the garage, for reasons still unknown to me, to see water spurting from my hot water heater and flowing down my garage floor.  I called Charming immediately who told me to turn off the water supply, which I somehow managed to figure out.  I then sent out two emails for help and started to panic.  Charming had asked me if I could handle it, and I said I could, but I quickly im’d him saying I could NOT DEAL WITH THIS.

A mild anxiety attack started to set in.  I was shaking and my heart was pounding.  I just had no idea what to do.  Charming asked me to call people, but I couldn’t.  It’s hard to understand this if you’ve never suffered from a mood disorder, but I could not pick up the phone.

And then the phone rang.

"Hi, this is (gal from church that I don’t know very well) and I still have that brand new water heater in my garage that I can give you for cheap, and you ought to call so and so and let me call some other people to see what we can do."

Nice. 

An hour later I tried calling a few plumbers and had no luck. (One number I called was actually a private residence– a story for another time). And then the phone rang again.

"Hi this is (son of someone at church) I am a general contractor, let me come look at that water heater tonight so we can figure out a way to get you some hot water."

Wow.

As for the rest of the day, I had one friend come over and buy some product and offer up her shower, another came by and took a load of laundry and another friend volunteered to come over and help with the cleanup and she took a load of laundry home too as well as opening her home for showers.

Think I’m being watched out for? 

I don’t really believe in coincidences.  That water heater sat in that woman’s garage for three years before she sent out an email saying she needed to get rid of it.  I think it no coincidence that she still had it a few weeks later.  That water heater was meant for me in this moment, I am pretty sure.  Because God knows I don’t have any more cash for these kinds of things, and that I am working on getting our financial house in order while still paying our tithing on a regular basis.  And God knows that sometimes I feel like no one at church likes me and he sent those ladies to serve me so I could remember to stop eating worms.

At first I was mad about the water heater breaking, but now I know, God just wanted to show me a little love.  And I hope that when your water heater breaks, you have a community like the one I have.  I am so grateful that I have it.