Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Letter from Editor

Over the past several days I've gotten a few little comments about my blog not being updated often enough. Please allow me to address your concerns.
I know that this blog makes many people happy. I know at least one of you looks at this first thing in the morning and last thing at night. I know some of you, when you can't sleep, log on to find out about our latest adventure. I am well aware of the fact that many of you rely on this window into our lives to provide you with procrastination time at work. So, I know that it is important to keep this blog relatively up to date.

However, it is also important that I do our laundry. I am amazed by how much laundry a family of three can produce, particularly when one family member is peeing through her PJs four times a week. Also turns out, that while a laundry chute is GREAT, a laundry dumbwaiter would be FABULOUS. It is time consuming to get all our clean garments back up from the basement to the second floor, and then from the basket(s) to the drawers and closets. I hate laundry. Sidenote: it is even more time consuming if you are going up and down these stairs with an independent just about 21 month old who doesn't want to hold your hand, thank you very much, and can get up or down her damn self, so BACK OFF.

Turns out a family of three also produces a copious amount of dishes that must be washed. Granted 95 percent of them are washed by our dishwasher, however, there is no magic spell that gets them from the sink, to the dishwasher, back into the cabinets.

To keep the dust and filth from taking over I also must vacuum, sweep, mop and dust. You would be amazed at how long it takes to vacuum our darn house. I vacuum almost daily to keep on top of the cat fur, tracked in dirt and renegade cheerios. Not to mention the dust, the spiders that keep threatening to overtake my basement, and the general filth that we manufacture.

I also must see to it there is food in our house. Not just reduced-fat Wheat Thins and beer. But actual food with nutritional value. Food like carrots and lunch meat and yogurt and string cheese. In addition to making sure said food is in the house, I more often than not, need to figure out how to assemble the food into some kind of well balanced nutritional meal. I am totally content with eating mac-n-cheese and hot dogs six times a week, but Addie's pediatrician disagrees.

And then there are all those pesky other things like making beds, dropping of dry cleaning, tackling yard work, keeping our bathrooms from being hazardous to our health, making sure the oil is changed in the cars and that the bills are, more or less, paid.

Oh, wait, I am also attempting to shower each day, get in a few workouts a week, teach a child how to talk, count, sing, problem solve, put on shoes, be kind, generous, self-reliant and curious.

So, on occassion, when I am not sitting on my ass watching TNT Prime Time in the Daytime, I attempt to do all the things I have just mentioned. And while I would like to neglect laundry, more often than not I end up having to neglect blogging.

I know. I know. There are parents who work full time or more than one job and they have to do all the same things. There are parents who do not have a partner who will take over dinner duty, because it is finally nice enough to grill again. There are moms who have multiple young children and they also have to grocery shop and do laundry. I KNOW. I am not trying to say I am a martyr, or that my life is harder than theirs or yours. I am just saying that, jeezloueez, there is a lot to get done in a day.

I will try to do better. If I am showered, and the big chores are done, and she is napping, I will blog. I will regale you with stories about her coloring skills, her endless need to say the words bubbles, purple, kitty and uh-oh. I will entertain you with melt downs in public and scraped knees due to bad parenting.
But once in awhile, I may neglect you, my friends, just because life sometimes creeps up on me, sucker punches me in jaw, and demands that I do all the mundane things that I try to avoid while being Fabulous in Cincinnati.

With that said, I have to go change pee pee stained sheets, make my bed, shower, drop off Andy's dry cleaning and call the exterminator (those spiders think they have the upper hand...but they don't know what I am capable of).



**For a like minded rant I highly recommend peeking in here. Because, damn is she funny. And accurate. And makes me feel slightly better about all things related to figuring out motherhood.

5 comments:

Kate C. said...

Thanks Jen Lancaster - ha!!!!!! Bitter IS the new black!

Just kidding. I enjoy your blog, but I would never be disciplined enough to update one. I can barely do status updates on facebook and twitter.

I am jealous that it is grill weather, but at least I can take advantage of it in 2 weeks.

Oh and I have a request for a post. When you get your action plan for your landscaping, I'd like to see that :-)

Kathy said...

Whine,whine whine! Quit yer bit**in' and blog! We want updates...don't we Sue?

Sue said...

Yes, Kathy, we do! We felt a little bad when we first read this posting, but then we got over it. Now I am just thinking about myself and my need to have fresh postings to read on my lunch break at work.

ck said...

Ummm...laundry IS an adventure in our house. Because it's not a day, it's a week-long event.

I mean, I get the clothes clean in approximately 1 day, but then it takes 6 days to bring myself to sort the remains (since it's been picked through by this point), bring it out of the basement, fold it, carry it up another flight of stairs and then put it away.

At this point it's been 7 or 8 days, no one has clean socks and there are piles of clothes waiting where the hampers would have been had they been brought up in a timely fashion.

The worst part is, of the 6 loads of laundry I do, only half of a load is mine...

Unknown said...

Kathy and Sue I agree with you! I miss this when there are no updates!
Hey Jess, did you write this after drinking the bottle of wine that Steve brought for YOU????