Ah, yes! I've been wearing it! I've been doing my best Emilee impersonation the past few days. That means I have been a great over-achiever. (It's not a complete Emilee impersonation though because I haven't done anything fantastically creative and adorable in the midst accomplishing everything else.) There's just one hitch. Whenever I actually pull it off and manage to be Superhousewife for a few days, it's like the Mom part of me falls short. And on the days when I feel like I'm being a really great Mom, the house falls apart! It's like I can't seem to successfully pull off both of them at the same time! Come on, Em--what's your secret???
Friday was The Big Kitchen Scrub. I spent hours scrubbing the table (the underneath part that gets all cruddy when you have kids) and all of the chairs, then the floor itself, which took forever. We've got great white and black linoleum in there, but as linoleum is prone to get pits in it that start to get stained dirt color (!), it takes a lot of tough scrubbing to get it looking bright and white and shiny again. But if feels soooooooo good when it actually happens!
It feels good, that is, until the next day when a little kid appears in the den where you're sorting laundry, hands and cowboy boots caked in thick mud saying with great pride, "We're digging a big hole, Mom!" I was thrilled with the news (all little boys ought to be able to dig holes--they were made for such things) until I glanced up at him. My smile quickly faded as I traced his muddy boot marks across the living room floor, across my brand new, freshly scrubbed kitchen floor, across my office floor, and finally leading out the dog door, of all places. (He thought he was being a good little boy by crawling through the dog door and thereby not touching the back door with his grubby little hands. How thoughtful of him.) I screamed. I couldn't help it. I had worked sooooooooooo hard! "Sa-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-am!!!!! Get out of my house! Out! Out! Out!!! Go dig your hole and don't step foot in this house again until I tell you to!!!" I assisted him out the door and took time to try to admire his handywork, but it was hard to appreciate the hole when I knew that it's former contents were strewn throughout my house. ~sigh~ That kid wears me out!!! If he weren't so stinkin' cute I'd disown him. ;-)
After the mud incident the day went much more smoothly and I stood astonished and amazed (little inside joke there) at how much I was able to get done. I scrubbed James' bathroom, which is the most dreaded household chore of all. Stopped for lunch, then I called swim time for Katie and Joe so I could get the main bathroom cleaned. Sam decided he wanted to help me clean (he had been cleaned himself, just in case you're wondering) and he really is a great little helper. He scrubbed the tub with fury, ranting the whole time in his best and meanest superhero voice about all of the germs he was killing. "You see that one, Mom? I killed it! It's dead!!! No more germs in here!..." As I was nearing the end of that project Sam disappeared, then reappeared with his trunks saying "It's swim time!!!" and off he ran.
I was then able to get all of the bedrooms cleaned up and the sheets changed and the house was well on it's way to being really and truly clean all over, so I picked up the phone real quick and invited Uncle Jerry over for dinner so I'd be forced to see it through to it's shining end. :-) I hate it when I get real close to getting everything done, then fizzle out right at the end. So it's great to put the pressure on--company!--and insure the project's completion. I was able to get some major dusting done. By that I simply mean that I dusted the major surfaces! Ha! There are way too many knick-knacks sitting around here to get everything dusted in the limited amount of time I had. But I was able to get the entire house vacuumed and the muddy kitchen floor cleaned up again and I was even able to get my office totally clean! Wa-Hoo!!! That office has been taunting me for days. I would almost get it all cleaned up, then it would get trashed. Then the next day I'd almost get it done again, then it would pile up again. It's the meanest, most obstinant room in the whole house. But I finally got it conquered yesterday. ~aaaahhhhhh~ It feels great to win. :-)
Made fried chicken, potatoes and gravy, corn, and peas for dinner, with pineapple upside-down cake for dessert. Yum! It was great. Almost made up for the week and a half I didn't cook at all. (Ha! I wish!) We had a nice visit with Uncle Jerry, but by the time he left my nearly 30 year old body was starting to complain about all the work it had been doing the past few days. You know, 30 really isn't that old. Why would I be so sore after a couple of days of good housework?! That's just pitiful.
I gave the kids their baths this morning, since I ran out of time last night. That's one of the perks of having service from 12:00-2:00 on Sundays--you've got time for such things in the morning before you go! We had 6 visitors at church today (5 brand new ones with 1 who had been once before) along with the two ladies, Sister Patsy and Sister Virginia, who have become "regulars" the past few months. Praise the Lord!!! It is soooooo exciting to see all of these visitors coming through our doors! The Bible speaks of giving honor to whom honor is due and it would be wrong for me to not acknowledge Sam & Tammy Kaufman as the primary reason for all of the visitors. God has used them sooooooo much to reach out to sooooooooooo many people. They just take everybody in and love them to death and witness to them and pray, pray, pray, pray, pray for them--and God is blessing. Our whole church is part of it--and feel blessed to be so!--but I am just so very thankful to have a pastor and pastor's wife who do the amazing work that they do. We love them so much!
After church today we went to Pizza Hut with Sam & Tammy, then came home and had family nap time--everbody was out cold from 4:00-6:00!!! That's so bad! That's way too long and way too late to be napping. We had eaten enough at lunchtime that nobody was truly hungry, so I suggested a new alternative for dinner: Blizzards!!! I had my usual Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Blizzard and James and the kids tried the Kit Kat one. What a great night! Afterwards I played Hide~N~Seek with the kids. It was great, except the dumb dog kept interfering. I was hiding at the head of Katie's bed underneath all of the pillows and such, but Hershey knew it and wouldn't leave me alone. It's a bit of a give-away when whoever "It" is walks into the room and sees the dog on the bed, wagging his tail furiously, and digging in the pile of pillows. It's probably even more of a giveaway when an arm emerges from the pillows and slugs the dog. Oh well, it was fun anyway. It's always the best to play when it's dark. My kids don't even really know how to play Hide~N~Seek. They only hide until "It" gets within scare range. The object of the game isn't to not be found; it's to scare the bejeebers out of whoever is looking for you. :-) It's so much more fun that way!
Rats. I had notes of all of the crazy stuff the kids have been doing lately, but I seemed to have misplaced them. I can't ever remember the really great stuff unless I write it down. Oh well, I'll do my best.
Katie made herself a paper watch this morning and was sooooooo proud of herself. She taped it to her wrist, then came to show me. "Look, Mom! I even made it say the same time as the clock up there. 9:43.... Aaaaarrrrggggg!!! It changed already!!!" She spent a lot more time making the watch than it actually held the accurate time for her! Ha!
Sam told me yesterday, "Mom... You're a good woman." I think it was when I served him his lunch or something equally endearing. Every Mom ought to hear that from their 3 year old--there is nothing better in all the world! :-)
The kids were playing yesterday and Katie was wallowing around on the floor, waiting for the "knights" to come and rescue her. Mosey Joe (not the knight I would be hoping for if I was a maiden in distress!) was on his way, but taking his sweet time, as usual. I asked Katie what her problem was and she said that she was a princess and she had a broken leg and needed help. I told her that it wasn't very graceful-like for a princess to have a broken leg. She rolled her eyes and said, "Mo-om, I fell off my throne!" Coming from Klutz-o Katie it was just sooooo fitting! Ha!
Well, I'd best call it a night. Not that I'm tired. I slept for two hours this afternoon, you know! Maybe I'll be able to get some reading in tonight. That would be great!!! G'night!
~Rebekah~
--Hey, did you guys notice that we smoked out another lurker with that last post about Mom and the pit bulls?! How exciting!!! Welcome, Brother Ryan!!!
Okay, so I'm not done--here are some pictures...
My flowers are about to outgrow their space!
Our garden! The large plants on the right side are pumpkin and the smaller ones on the left are watermelon.
This is, of course, the sweet corn--and carrots in front.
Cowgirl Kate
I'm guessing Joe was pretending to be William Travis, drawing his line in the dirt at the Alamo.
This idiot child was wearing a sweatsuit and boots!!! In West Texas! In July!!! As if that's not enough, he was wearing it OVER his blue jeans and t-shirt! He lasted all of about 3 minutes before he was yanking at the sweatshirt and whining for help to get it off. He just had to wear it so he could be a super hero. (We've never seen The Incredibles, but somebody gave us this outfit and the boys love the "hero" picture on the front of it!)
In pursuit of a decent family picture...
Why bother?! When you've got a humorless husband (doesn't he look like the mortician he's always wanted to be?! Ha!) and three dopey kids, it's just a waste of time to even try for a decent picture. You end up thumping your kids in the back of the head and hollering, "Cut it out!!! Now smile and look happy--but normal! No, not dorky--just normal! You bunch of goons!!!!" Or something like that. :-)
Okay, that's really all for tonight. Hope you all had a great weekend. I look forward to hearing lots of great things about the Conventions that have been going on. I don't even know how many there were in all. Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas... Any others? Anyway, have a good night!
~Bec~
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