Housework & Me

The problem with knowing & reading so many great stay-at-home-mom bloggers is that I read more than my fair share of posts about housework. Particularly in January, it seems, as everyone is trying to get their households under control as part of New Years' Resolutions. Me--not so much. Or if I am, my definition is different: arrange to have the car daily in order to pick the soon-to-be-eleven-year-old up from school, make sure that all of the bills get paid in any given month, learn to get an infant and a toddler in the car by myself. I've been doing pretty good with two of the three--I'll leave you to guess which ones.

My standards of housework perfection are simultaneously high and low. When I read the blogs of stay-at-home moms, I think, "Gee, if this person does this stuff all day while I sit at the computer & read blogs while trying to find the 'correct mental state' for dissertation writing, how must my house compare and should I care a teensy bit more about it?" I frequently feel like I haven't done a single productive thing in a day (don't ask what my definition of "productive" is--I couldn't tell you, except when the mood hits!) I don't feel like I'm an adequate housekeeper--or houseworker (that is, "doer of housework")--though I do, paradoxically, perhaps, feel myself to be an adequate homemaker. Perhaps that's where the contrast comes in, I'm not sure. . . But home maker seems to imply an attitude and an overall effort to make a house--and a household--home like, which seems to be something beyond mere neatness or organization.

So anyone who actually pledges to stay home & take care of cleaning, etc., as a full time job has my admiration, and if I imagine myself in comparison to these individuals, I will almost certainly feel that I come up short. I think of my grandmother, who had a task for each day of the week, including weekly vacuuming and dusting (!), and whose house always seemed perfect. (Vacuuming and dusting are only to be done if guests are expected, pine needles accumulate, or dissertation writing is being put off.) I was illustrating her system of washcloth folding to my son over the weekend: the washcloths had to be folded in fourths, but all in the same direction, so that the stripe was on the top of the folded towel and parallel to the folded portion. Everyone who took a bath at her house had to wipe out the bathtub afterward to maintain a clean tub! Obviously, I will never strive to that kind of perfection. But I wonder if, in the grand scheme of things, I am that much worse than my peers, or if we merely harbor different goals. . .

In a given day, I know there are things I need to accomplish. I need to drop off my husband and son in the morning so that I have the car in order to pick them both up in the afternoon. I need to make sure that the toddler has at least 2 meals (or as close to two meals as I can manage) before picking up Brother and Daddy. I need to feed myself a reasonable amount of fairly-nutritious food. I need to give the toddler a nap. I need to bathe myself, either before the dropping off or during the napping. I need to change at least 2 toddler diapers before the nap. I need to accommodate the needs of the infant, allowing her or helping her to sleep when necessary, feeding her on demand, changing diapers as necessary. Those are the essentials! I may give some thought to dinner early in the day, but by the time supper preparation time rolls around, I may have changed my mind! Other tasks happen when they happen, and are governed by necessity: if someone has worn all of their pants this week, pants need to be washed. If the dirty clothes is overflowing the dirty clothes receptacles, multiple batches are in order (they used to be washed on the weekends, but laundry is no longer something that can be accomplished all at one time. . .). If the clutter is becoming overwhelming, straightening up is on the agenda. If bills need to be paid, I wash some more clothes--you get the idea! ;) During semesters when I teach, papers are graded before they need to be returned, and class prep is accomplished during the days on which I teach if I teach in the evening. The point being, I prioritize tasks. Often if I want to accomplish one particular thing, like cooking a pot of soup or two from my favorite Monastery Soups cookbook, making blankies or some other sewing project, or baking a king cake, for example, something else (hopefully not toddler meals) gets pushed aside. Hey! Some things can wait! I put it down to a quality of life issue. And I'm not always this laid back about it, as my husband, who does a considerable amount of "what needs to be done" can attest. But I am opposed to scheduling my day. I don't think it would make things less overwhelming or make my day seem more productive. Rather, it would emphasize what I have been unable to accomplish in an unhealthy way. I do enough of that on my own!

I am not what most would consider organized, but I have enough of my grandmother in me that I could be--really obsessively organized. (The perfectionist gene manifests itself differently in each generation. I received more than my share.) So when I organize, I really organize. When I wash clothes, my batches include darks, blue jeans, lighter mediums, darker mediums, lights, white clothes, reds, light towels, colored towels, and baby clothes. So I stay away from opportunities to organize like the child of an alcoholic avoids alcohol. 'Cause daily life doesn't have to be that perfect, especially if sanity and happiness (yours and others') are lost in the process. I scoff at visiting picture-perfect professors' houses (yeah, like those children's books would be stacked just. so. on that antique chair if any real children lived here!!) Mess is part of life, as long as it's not unsanitary.

Now, clearly I do not think of myself as a stay-at-home mom. I share a lot with stay-at-home moms. For starters, I am usually home with my children all day during the week. I do not choose to put my children into others' care while they are small. In fact, I don't like to put them into childcare until preschool--part time--at age 3, if I can arrange it. Even then, we start with 2 or 3 half days a week, and I am very selective of the facility, preferring Montessori. My son only went to kindergarten part time. And yet, although I am home a lot, I do work outside of the home. I am not currently full-time, and I hope not to be (2-3 classes is enough!!). I choose my hours as much as possible to make things convenient for me to stay with my family. But I am not a stay-at-home mom. And I wonder if this influences my perception of housework. I really don't think of housework as part of my vocation--it's just something unpleasant that needs to be done, and everyone pitches in to keep everything running fairly smoothly. And it works! There are frustrations, and a certain big brother needs to become accustomed to his share, but it does work. In a given day, I--or we--accomplish enough to be able to sit down in the evening and relax a little knowing that the tasks that will not wait are taken care of. And at the end of the day, that's what's important.

Laundry and Wives' Tales--UPDATED

So this is the weekend I've had slotted for a while to unpack & wash baby items. I have most of my baby clothes present & accounted for, some of the dingier things from my son (that I did not find until we were moving) have soaked, and the first batch is in the wash. The "washing baby clothes" is perceived by some as "nesting"--at least, that's what my mom told me with the last one. Well, she was right. . . I did have her within 3-4 days, though only at 37 weeks or so (I suspect I was more like 38 weeks). However, it tends to feel more like a rational decision than an impulsive burst of energy, so I just don't know. Tonight, I bought a new Sterilite drawer unit for the clothes. Plastic drawers are pretty standard for my newborns!

So I'm 37 weeks, and I feel that the preparations should begin.

Meanwhile, my husband (who had already washed most of the other clothes in the house in order to make way for my baby clothes washing) evaluated the situation with carseats. My daughter is now behind the driver's seat, the new baby will be in the middle, and my son will be behind the passenger--except that I have declared him an adult for airbag purposes, and decided that he may now sit in the front when my husband is not with us. He's taller and heavier than some adults, even though he is 10 and not 12. He takes adult doses of medicine (at least, he could, but I am a medicine minimalist and would prefer to give him the age-appropriate dose if it does the trick!!). The original plan was to put the toddler seat in the middle, but the infant seat did not fit well behind the driver's seat and our vehicle has side-impact airbags. With the infant seat so close to the door, it just didn't feel safe to me. Big brother is behind the passenger because of the carpool line at his school--someone is always trying to help my toddler out of the car to go to 5th grade.

This doesn't feel like nesting to me, as I've said, but a funny thing happened tonight when we went to eat supper (out, a rare treat these days). I have been craving fresh tomatoes for 2 days, but on our way to get sandwiches or pitas (with extra tomato, please!), I decided that chinese food sounded good. Once inside the restaurant, nothing would satisfy but the spiciest darned thing on the menu--which they made extra spicy: Jjambbong. Ask Mrs. Darwin, she knows!! It's a Korean soup with seafood, pork, veggies, round noodles, and some pretty spicy peppers. Almost as soon as I ordered, I remembered that eating spicy foods is one of those old "tricks" that supposedly stimulates labor. At any rate, it's traditional to try that route when overdue. Most of my brain (the rational part, which I hope dominates at least most of the time) feels confident that this is a myth--though not one the Mythbusters will test any time soon. The irrational part of me was perhaps a little hesitant to dip into my soup-of-flaming-chiles. I am fairly confident that the baby comes when the baby is ready--spicy food or no spicy food. But if the baby decided to be ready tonight or tomorrow, I would wonder. . . I'm not really ready, so hang on baby, and I'll put the Tabasco away!!

UPDATE: Probably by sheer coincidence, I had my very first REAL, NATURAL contraction last night--as in, too painful to be a Braxton-Hicks, and not induced by pitocin. Now, this is somewhat encouraging. On the other hand, it scared me silly!! Both the pain and the fact of the thing which, by my calculation, should not be happening yet. I stayed stock-still in bed until morning because I didn't want to do anything to trigger more. I am telling myself that I would have handled it better in daylight hours. And had I not written this post about stimulating labor only hours before. . .

Totally Random: Laundry Meme

I figure I might as well write about the laundry, since I'm sure as heck not doing it right now. . . I'll get to it later. . . along with everything else. . .

1. In your home, who does the laundry? I do a lot of the laundry, but not all. Some weeks my husband does it all, and recently my son has been learning some of the basics.
   
2. Do you sort your laundry? Compulsively.
3. If you sort, how many different color/fabric type groups do you sort it into? It varies week-to-week, but here's a sampling: Darks (which then can be divided into blacks and non-blacks), medium-colored permanent press (which might be split into a jeans-only or mainly-jeans batch, and then a medium-greens and grays batch with some purples thrown in), light colored permanent press (usually divided into lighter greens, blues and greys and then other pastels like yellow), reds and dark oranges, white permanent press, and towels (sometimes divided into white towels and colored towels, depending on how many towels are dirty). The baby's clothes have slowly been integrated with ours, but in October, I will be re-introducing the baby clothes category. There! Do I get the obsessive-compulsive laundry award? Is it any wonder I hate doing housework with the way I classify and divide?? I blame it on growing up with my mom.
   
4. Do you hand wash anything? Not usually
5. Are there any articles of clothing that you send out to be cleaned professionally? Nope. Except those starched jeans--just kidding!
   
6. If you have any clothes cleaned professionally, is that drycleaning? Or regular laundering/pressing? n/a
7. At home, what detergent do you use? Any detergent additives that you regularly use? ALL with bleach, Dreft and Target's Dreft imitation for baby clothes
   
8. What whiteners/brighteners do you use? Bleach sometimes, sometimes OxiClean or OxiClean for babies, but ONLY on whites. Colors fade, whatever they claim!
   
9. Do you use any fabric softeners? Sometimes I use fragrance-free Downy in a Downy Ball, but mainly for baby clothes.
   
10. How do you handle stains? Dreft Stain Removal spray is expensive but worth it! OxiClean stain removal spray is good, too, but worrisome because of warnings not to use on khaki or fluorescent colors.
    
11. Do you use different water temperatures for your different loads? Yes. Mainly cold, warm or hot for towels, warm for baby clothes.
    
12. Do you use a tumble dryer, or do you hang your clothes to dry?Both. Lots of spandex in t-shirts, screen-printed boy clothes, and things likely to shrink
13. In your home, who folds the clothes? Nobody. Ummm, I mean, we all pitch in (when we get around to it!)
14. Where do you fold your clothes? (i.e., in the laundry room, at the kitchen table, etc.) Futon in front of TV, in bedroom on bed, coffee table, on sewing cardboard on living room floor. . . Pretty much any available flat surface!
15. Who puts the folded clothes away? Nobody. . . Ummm, I mean, we are all in charge of putting the clothes away and anyone who can't is usually helped out by the person who folded the clothes.
    
16. Do you have a certain day of the week you consider "laundry day"? Weekends are laundry days, though increasingly that doesn't really happen and so on Wednesday or so I usually start a load or two a day, when I'm on top of things!
    
17. About how many laundry loads do you do per week? Too many! But really. . . probably 8-10. This is an increase from before we moved to this apartment and a smaller capacity washing machine.
    
18. Do you iron? Nope. There's barely a reason to dig out the ironing board except to press a seam in something I'm sewing. However, my husband irons when necessary or advisable!
    

I'm also going to gripe about the little endangered species of birds that likes to build nests in the dryer vents to the apartment complex. So every couple of weeks, I can't dry a load of clothes--however small--in a single cycle. When we first moved in, it was taking an average of 3 dryer runs. But they have to clean the darned nests out every month or two (not often enough). I like cute little birdies that dive-bomb people as much as the next person, but sheesh! Can't they block the vent openings or something??

Hat tip to Entropy at Sphere of Influence!

Incidently, Boober is my favorite Fraggle. Really. Wembley comes in second.