Children's Books Re-written for Moms

A few weeks ago, my friend sent me a real-life rewrite of If You Give A Mouse A Cookie (with a tip of the hat to the DirecTV commercials) based on a weekend day home with her hubby and baby boy.

If You Give Me A Bathroom to be Cleaned...

...I'm going to bleach the entire shower and let it soak all day.
...and then I'll go to church with my family........
and then we'll come home and gag on the bleach fumes that have permeated through the house...
...and then i'll decide to bake something to cover up the smell....
...and then I'll start making chocolate chip cookies...
...and then I'll realize it's lunch time, but I don't have enough rice to eat with my more than a week old leftovers...
...so then I'll start cooking some rice before realizing I haven't finished my cookies...
...and I'll mix the flour into the dough and wonder why it's crumbly instead of gooey...
...and then I'll consider mixing in oil or applesauce to make it right...
...but that's a CRAZY idea, so I'll press it into a 9x13 pan to make it a "bar" cookie...
...and then we'll have lunch until it smells like the cookies are done but not quite burnt yet...
...and then I'll stare at the pan wondering what I did wrong before realizing...
..."1 cup stick butter" is not the same as "one stick" butter!!! Doh!...
...but Hubby eats one, so I eat one...
...and realize that my mixer really didn't crunch up that hardened pebble of brown sugar...
...but my teeth did...
...and maybe it will taste less sweet with plain yogurt...
...but it doesn't...
...so now we need vanilla ice cream to offset and save the cost of the ingredients...
....but I'm only going to be able to go to BJs today, and I don't need a tub of vanilla to feed the entire city...
...so I guess I'll either buy the tub or go without or maybe mail them to all of you.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Don't clean your bathrooms. 

I, of course, laughed and set it aside...until this past Monday...when I had a morning like that...

If You Give A Mom a Chocolate Stain... by Karin Wallace

If you give a mom a chocolate stain on an off-white table cloth that's set in overnight,

...she takes everything off the table.
And if she takes everything off the table, 
...she'll notice that you've hidden rainbow loom rings under the centerpiece.
And when she goes to pick them up, 
...one will fall on the floor where she'll discover your pile of Legos
And when reaching for your Legos, 
...she'll find where you left your watercolor art pencils that you cried about someone taking last week.
And when she goes to put them away, 
...she'll knock over the hiding spot for your Girl Scout projects
And while she's picking up that, 
...she'll notice that every single shelf in her sideboard is filled with crumpled papers and half finished art projects and board games.
After she gathers up everything that you've left in the dining room, 
...she'll remember the chocolate stain and go get the spray.
On her way to get the stain spray, she'll trip over your sandals from the unusually warm weekend and catch herself on the chair with your dance clothes and soccer ball on it.
After spraying the tablecloth and starting the laundry, 
...she'll remember to take the leaf out of the table. Your shoes and daddy's tool bag will be in her way when she's putting the leaf away.
When picking that stuff up, mom will notice the pile is too big to carry upstairs and take a picture to send to her friends!

MORAL OF THE STORY: do your taxes instead of cleaning up a chocolate stain!


But I did spend the rest of Monday making this for my daughter's teacher who's having her baby tomorrow! 

Beanie Hat available here 

I heart Fabric

There are a lot of people that can say this - I know I'm not alone - but I absolutely love fabric! The texture, the feel, the mood it brings to a room.

About  8 months ago, we got a new-to-us couch - bought it from some friends who were moving - and it came with 2 throw pillows. I love the couch! It's green and kind of a mid-century modern couch - boxy and off the floor (oh how I love that feature! no more losing thing under the couch). The pillows, well, my friend even described them as "beaten up"... The corners are fraying and there are pulls all over the fabric. I needed to re-cover them.

For me, that seemed like an overwhelming task! I have all this access to such beautiful, high-quality fabrics (although I usually keep my eye on the fun kid-themed one) and I have to pick one that I'll look at ALL.THE.TIME!  I wanted something that has energy but isn't too loud for this '80s deco den (wood slats to the chair rail and then this hideous marble-look rose-navy-forest green wallpaper). I didn't want a panel or to quilt it and it must be washable. Oh yeah, and it must feel good if someone wants to take a nap on it! I finally decided on a quilting cotton and purchased this lovely Michael Miller fabric - Hoopla Dot in lagoon - when my favorite fabric seller was having a sale! Today, while the power was flickering, I cut out the pieces for 2 envelope style pillow covers and sewed them up after the kids went to bed. I hope I still like them in 2 weeks!

Next up, making sandwich bags with the remnant like I did for this fabric!

Cleaning House

I just bought this book Cleaning House: A Mom's 12-Month Experiment to Rid Her Home of Youth Entitlement by Kay Wills Wyma. I'm only on chapter 1 where she describes when the problem hit her. For Kay, it was when her 15 year old son wanted an awesome - and expensive - car when he turns 16 and expressed this out loud to her in a less than "this is my dream car" way. I personally don't see this as a problem. Everyone wants that awesome car right off the bat - for me it was a soft-top Jeep Wrangler, you know, to match my dad's Jeep Cherokee already in the driveway - and a few kids get their dream car either by hand-me down of the mid 80's Mustang, hard work to buy their own pickup truck or they have generous or indulgent parents (2 different things) but most are just happy to drive the family station wagon without Mom or Dad in the car. It's good to have a dream/goal and to be able to picture yourself there - it builds the imagination where, by that age, being able to analyze literature, science and math wins the gold star in school and there is precious little creative outlet. For the record, I did not like driving the minivan regardless that it was the only automatic transmission that we had and still don't like driving one that I bought as an adult (the catch is that it easily fits 3+ carseats). I'll take my husband's Jeep any day of the week.

So to diverge from all that car-speak, I thought I'd post about my cleaning pet peeves.

1. Dry Cereal - I know it sounds like a great snack but when the kids grab for it, I think "empty calories and future mess" and they think "I can take this ANYWHERE because it's just dry cereal so it doesn't make a mess!" It's banned in my house because I'm tired of cleaning up the stray pieces of cereal that fall on the floor and get stepped on - even cleaning with my way-cool lobby set (broom and dustpan on a stick).

2. Tiny Scraps of Paper - it's one of the reasons that I still keep scissors on top of the fridge. I know that my children are old enough and responsible enough to know not to cut the table cloth, their clothes, their sister's hair, etc but they leave a PigPen style mess when they use scissors on paper - little pieces of paper follow in their wake and leave an unmistakable trail to the glue sticks. I guess they just don't see all those itty-bit pieces of paper that they just cut off of their lovely projects but I did...They can't figure out why I make them sign a waiver that reads "I will pick up all the tiny scraps of paper and return the scissors to Mommy" before allowing them to use the scissors even for homework...

3. "Almost" Putting Things Away - this might be the one that sends me over the edge - they get something out of a bin and almost put the bin back. You see here an example: This is the paper bin (perhaps I went a little crazy at Staples' summer penny bin on loose leaf paper, packed it up when we were moving and didn't find it until October) and it sits like this most of the time, 1/2 pushed in and lilting to one side. It's next to my sewing box and no, I didn't leave it like that. It belongs in the cubbie behind it.

This weekend, I'll be taking on my 9 year old daughter's room with her. 7-10 is a tough age for keeping your room clean mostly because you're in-between little kid stuff and big kid stuff so you end up with both. This 9 year old has an active imagination (read: lots of stuffed animals that are integral to her imaginary life), is very artistic (read: has art supplies under her bed, projects both finished and in progress and scraps from previous projects the she'll "use on another project") and loves clothes (read: refuses to recycle clothes that are too small or have holes or very noticeable stains on them and has about 50 pairs of underwear, of which 1/2 are way too small, 1/4 are still too big, and 1/4 have holes or elastic pulling off. I'd try to weed them out when doing the laundry but she really only likes 4 pairs - wanna bet I can find 2 new packages of the same type so I can convince her to just toss the rest?).

What are your cleaning pet peeves?

eta: Here's a hat that I just finished last night and ironed (for better photographs) this morning. The pattern designer, Crochet by Jennifer, calls it the Fleurette Bonnet but I haven't decided what to names it when I list it later today. (it's overcast today - I couldn't make the room bright enough even with 3 photography lamps! sorry for the pink hue - photographers, I would appreciate any suggestions!)