Why Moms Do All Of The Work: Cable Men, Hoarders and Helpers

We have always been family on the go.  We race around at breakneck speed, saying yes to one more volunteer opportunity, one more night out with friends, one more little getaway until we find ourselves right smack in the middle of a Do It Yourself Hoarders episode.  

You enter the episode by waking up, tripping on a pile of outgrown clothes and opening your eyes to a room full of junk.  Piles of junk.  Piles and pile and piles of junk.  It is usually in my bedroom, and friends that truly know me, know that if my house is clean, my bedroom is absolutely not.

Why, you may ask?  Because if I have to clean the house, I gather everything form all over the house that is not in its place and dump it in my room for later consideration.  Once the rest of the house is clean, I am way too tired to actually clean my room.  Sometimes, it can be months before some things get considered.  Right now I have a pile of hand me downs and a whole bunch of Christmas gifts just waiting to be shipped out for Christmas.

This Hoarders Episode is more acutely brought to light when the cable guy arrives to fix the modem.  Our modem is in the garage.  I figured, why clean the house if he is going to be in the garage on a Sunday morning?  What happens in the garage, doesn't always stay in the garage.  In fact, that cable guy was in our house right quick parading past the unscooped kitty litter, unwashed dishes, half finished laundry, jumble of shoes...well, you name it and he paraded past it.

I want to say our house doesn't always look like this, but on the weekend, it usually does.  After our family has an extended holiday weekend, it especially looks like this.  

Was my husband ever furious!  He went into his speech about how our kids need to get to work and that we should all have our list of chores and that we absolutely never should have our house looking like this.  He was saying this as I was scrubbing his breakfast pan from the day before.  Remember, honey, you thought it would be nice to make a big breakfast?  Now 24 hours later I am scrubbing eggs off the bottom of a yucky pan, your yucky pan.  I didn't even get any of the eggs!

This unleashed my wonderful husband into the Tasmanian Devil of garage cleaners.  Considering the inside of the house, he banished himself to the garage.  He put all of the kids to work cleaning their rooms (don't look in the closets or under the bed, mind you).  I cleaned my room....I am still cleaning my room on Monday morning...

Husband's idea of cleaning the garage and putting things out for recycling and garbage can be seen below.  He didn't factor in the raccoons.  I can guarantee that I was the only mom outside at 7:40 in her Wonder Woman pajamas cleaning up his cleaning job for 45 minutes.  Not alone making breakfast, doing laundry and cleaning up from breakfast.

Clearly, moms would never have left the garbage in this state.  It would have been quicker to do all of the recycling and garbage today by myself.  AND, I wouldn't have to clean slimy egg shells and other assorted food off the cement!  Moms do all of the work because their "helpers" don't understand the big picture.  The big picture could include raccoons or why you don't pile a bunch of furniture in the area of the garage that you need to get in and out of on a daily basis.  Or hanging your daughter's bike up and parking the car in front of it when she needs to be racing to school early in the morning by bike.

Well, I do love him.  He did try hard.  They all try hard.  Unfortunately, happy Monday to me.  It looks like a  multiple espresso kind of day.

Little Pitchers and Big Ears: Selective Hearing

Why is it that I can ask my kids 20 times if they've done their homework and get no response?

I can say one thing about a wacky relative in a whisper voice on the phone and EVERY TIME they will crank their neck around with whiplash speed and ask me why I said that?

Selective hearing.

It works the same way with my husband. He swore up and down on Thanksgiving that I never asked him to do X, Y or Z. I am 100 percent sure that I did.

It's kind of like a "If a tree falls in the woods..." situation. If you ask a question, and no one hears it, or acknowledges it, did you really ask?"

Amazed at the frequency of use, this week I started experimenting with the phenomenon. To my surprise, selective hearing is actually an addicting habit. Now, I find myself using that technique with my whole family.

Here's how in 4 easy steps:

1. Say you are working at the computer. Stare straight ahead at the screen. If the request is one that just doesn't interest you, keep staring straight ahead.
2. On the second request, keep typing and staring.
3. On the third request, move to the kitchen and begin slicing carrots (keep the knife in hand, most grown ups approach you with extreme caution when you are brandishing a knife).
4. If the inquirer is persistent or crying, you can finally say with a smile, "What did you say, dear?"

Of course, if you really have no interest in the tasks, tears or screaming, just continue along in you blissful blank state until the inquirer walks away.

This technique also builds the useful skill of people not realizing that you are really listening and spying on their conversations. This is quite good, especially with teens.

Bikini Shots on Facebook

I'm not a big facebooker.  I have an account and about 20 friends.  I have no need to write on their walls, because I see them every day.  I know this is generally not the typical use for facebook.

Yes, I know it's used to spy on old boyfriends.  Check in on the kids you once went to school with, etc., etc. It's like one big, happy family reunion.  It is an easy way to connect, but I'm just not that much of a connected kind of person.

O-k, what this really is about is all of the woman who have bikini shots as their profile photos. I know, they are all looking slim and trim--I'm happy for them.  But, what does this say when you identify yourself as a swimsuit model?  I'm not going to even recognize you in an airport or the grocery store if you actually have all of your clothes on.  I need close up head shots--my eyesight isn't that good.

There are cool shots on FB of people doing quirky, silly things, or surfing or climbing mountains.  There are shots with the husband, kids or all of the above.  How we identify ourselves or portray ourselves to the world is quite interesting.

I originally had a shot of my husband and myself.  Then I thought, what am I trying to say with this?  Is it that I'm married to a handsome guy?  Is it that I'm married in general-ha, proved some of you wrong?  What does our FB profile photo say about us?

Is this just a case of too much caffeine on a Wednesday morning?  I guess I better quit procrastinating and go clean my room.  Does anyone else think about this?

The Dishwasher Loading Award

Like so many of my cool blogging friends out there, I've decided to create my very own award...

THE DISHWASHER LOADING AWARD

and I'm awarding it to...

drumroll please...

MY HUSBAND!

Honey, only you can load the dishwasher in such a way.  In my entire life I'm eclectic and chaotic, but in the dishwasher department, my world is neat, tidy and lined up just so.

You have proven time and time again, you can load the dishwasher willy nilly and it still comes out sparkling clean.  I love how you can stuff every last thing into a load.  

The very same amount of items would take me at least one and a half times around the cycle, but you, are able to jam it all in there.  It's very Eco-minded of you.

Now that I've awarded  this award to you, here are the rules:

1. You must load the dishwasher every night.
   
2. Cooking dinner would earn you extra points.
   
3. Tag all of your children and give them the next round of dishwasher unloading duty.
   
4. Write 5 things that you love about being married to me on romantic stationery and seal it with a kiss.  Mail it to me snail mail.