Heaven Help Me!

I am wearing black today. Both of my Roombas died within a week of each other. Bad timing I say. School is about to start and there is NO way I want to even attempt to keep my house clean without these little buddies of mine.

They work to keep my house immaculate all day long, while I cook, clean up, read and teach the kids all day long. I have to say that this is a modern convenience I do not like to do without. Mud, grass, cereal spilled all over the floor…I can continue teaching and the kids can continue learning while the Roomba cleans them up.

However, when I have to go without them, I pause before ordering new ones. Here’s why:

1. While it is not outside of the realm of my vocation to own these devices, it may be outside the realm for my children. What I mean is that I know for sure that it is ok for me (as a homeschooling mother of six, and a wife, a sister, a daughter and a friend) to use any tool necessary to get done what I need to get done in my day. However, I know I need to instill good work habits in my children, and using a robot to clean may not do this. I especially became concerned about this when I asked my six year old to sweep the floor the other day, and, instead she pulled out the Roomba to do it, pushed the ‘on’ button, then ran off to play (until I called her back to do it the way I asked).  Well, I don’t blame her – it makes my life easier, too! How can I ask them to sweep the floor, when I prefer the Roomba over a broom myself?

2. They are expensive! The going rate right now for a Roomba is $199 for the base model.  This is a lot of money for us. Still, it is cheaper than weekly maid service, which costs $120 a week for our home. I can use the Roomba daily for a year and pay a total of $199. That seems to be the better deal.

3. They break.  The Roombas I have owned are susceptible to “technical difficulties”. They require some kind of fixing or cleaning (cleaning a vacuum cleaner? yes, that’s the annoying part!) after using them for a couple months. The batteries wear out quickly and they eventually just break down. IRobot customer service used to be wonderful and based in USA, but lately it has gone downhill.

4. The less fortunate do not own these. Through centuries women have cooked and cleaned like madwomen and somehow found a way to live without dishwashers, roombas and the like. In particular, the less fortunate throughout the world today do not have such things – it bothers my conscience to be so spoiled. At the same time, I know women with large families in the 40′s & 50′s who had nervous breakdowns from trying to “do it all”.  My dishwasher helps my children get read to more often, and keeps my kitchen from becoming grossly unsanitary. To me, a Roomba is another tool that helps me achieve this goal. I guess the solution is to use these tools mindful of how fortunate I am, but also mindful that I haven’t found a perfect solution yet.

VS.

Any opinions?

Share on Facebook

A Corelle plate takes about 30 minutes to clean up after it is broken. This may seem scrupulous to some, but to really locate each & every shard that projectiles itself when dropped, this is an underestimate! Also, evacuation procedures are undertaken – in our house, instead of tornado drills, we do “Broken Dish Drills”.

This usually happens only twice a year or so in our house. However, today I experienced it twice!  Good news is I survived.

Share on Facebook

I woke up to a morning of choas. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, being that I have six children, a dog, a cat, (and a rat or two about to join the family soon). But for whatever reason, today I did not feel up to dealing with it. Hubby and I stayed up late last night for “date night”, and needed much deserved sleeping in time. My kids have been intelligently arguing and *stinging* each other for the past couple weeks since school has been officially ”over” in our house. (It is frustrating to watch just how mean they can be to each other – even though they are brother & sisters! As my father-in-law put it to my husband and his brothers when they were growing up, “You have to fight the whole world – why fight each other!” ) My eight year old daughter unlocked my bedroom door with a key this morning proclaiming that my three-year old just had an “accident” and could I please come and clean it up. As I mobilized my troops kids to action in cleaning up the spill (and helping their sister get new clothes), I tripped over the dog who was spinning in circles around me wanting to be fed and let out. Then I returned to my bedroom, because our newborn woke up screaming and needing to be fed, and my husband expressing that he missed me and wanted more time with me.

So, waking up with demands from all sides prompted me to recall a familiar scene from a horror flick – one in which a woman is running away from ghostly arms coming at her from all sides. Once in a while, it comes at me, like a movie that is on continuous repeat. In this panic, I just felt like being a teenager running away from home (I did this once, but only made it to the end of my driveway); to escape my responsibilities, and fly to a deserted island where the only noise would be the lapping of the pristine blue ocean waves, and the only conversation would be a waiter who would bring me interesting, gourmet tapas and perfectly prepared pina coladas, as I dreamed of fitting into my former size 8 swimsuit, beached in the glowing sun on a comfy, white sand mattress.

Finally, with the assistance of my husband, I made myself an iced cafe mocha, went to my room, closed the door, pulled out my computer and typed in a google search the words “overwhelmed mother”. What this search yielded was a timely surprise:  an article on being an overwhelmed mom written by an overwhelmed mom.

I won’t say exactly what the article says, but I felt much better (and grateful for the choas I’ve been given) after reading it.

It was a good reminder that what I need is to make sure I take time out once in a while. My husband constantly offers such time to me, but something inside wants to stay home enmeshed in my responsibilities. What is it? Pride? That I can do it all?

A mother of a large family is called to a life of service. As I tell my kids sometimes, when I need to “recharge my batteries”, “Okay, guys, my tank is almost on empty. Time for me to take some time to fill it up and for you to watch a movie!”

Fifteen minutes later after ‘filling up my tank’, I am a happy woman again.

Which is a much cheaper, much more  accessible solution than a flight to Kauai!

Share on Facebook

It’s a plain fact that my house is full of glitter, rhinestones, and sequins. I have four girls who are very attracted to them. How can a little girl, (as well as a big girl) resist something so sparkly and reflective. They all fell in love with glitter in the same way they all loved pink and purple when they were five and six years old. Any dress purchased for them was more special with glitter, sequins, and “fake diamonds” that they once thought no different than real.

For years, I have been vacuuming and finding glittery reminders of my daughters’ presence throughout the house. It escapes their clothing as rain escapes the cloud that can no longer hold on. It is everywhere. Glitter in between the couch cushions after the whole family being cuddled up on the couch watching movies, glitter brushed off onto my bed after a goodnight kiss, rhinestones swept under the fridge by the girl learning to sweep, sequins that have fallen off in the dryer, even glitter in the tub or on the bathroom floor.

My newest shipment arrived today…in the form of clothing I bought for my oldest daughter. Neither of us really knew the quantity of  glitter this shirt would actually have on it. It sheds, like a dog. (Nevermind my daughter’s reaction when I suggested she brush it off outside to get some of the “extra glitter off” – if looks could kill…)

It got me thinking…and reminded me of something my neighbors said to me some years ago. I was talking to them about our dog, who sheds. They were telling me how they once had a loyal, faithful dog whom they enjoyed having around so much. But unfortunately, the dog got older and older, and finally succumbed to sickness after reaching the much accelerated dog lifespan of fifteen human years. The funny thing, they said, was that once in a while, they still find dog hair in their home – which gives them an opportunity to remember their pooch fondly.

I have a pretty good feeling that I might find an old rhinestone, specks of pink glitter, or a fancy sequin in my house behind the bookshelf twenty years from now after the girls have moved on with their lives and gone. I don’t think I will just toss it to the side, or into the garbage can. Rather, I will have to sit with it for a moment, holding it in my hand, as my life flashes before me, remembering; pondering, the precious years I ‘ve been given with my girls.

Share on Facebook

Husband and I have always been interested in what makes a successful marriage “tick”. When we were newly engaged, we played out different scenarios in our minds about who would stay home and who would go to work. We mutually hyphenated our names when we got married. We knew the flexibility of modern marriage did not confine us to certain roles.

In practice, it turned out I was not destined for a career outside the home, as I immediately embraced staying home when our firstborn son was born. I was “into” cooking and cleaning and caring for children and found great fulfillment in it. I loved reading the children stories for hours on end, playing with blocks and making birthday cakes. Changing diapers wasn’t all that bad, as long as I got to do these other things, too.

Throughout the years, marriage and the idea of a “good wife” has been “reinvented” multiple times. This is the focus of an article written by Lisa Belkin in the March 22, 2010 edition of the New York Times, entitled, “The Marrying Kind”.

All this redefinition has become possible as women have been given more choices. While some of it has been helpful, as a fairly traditional woman who stays home with my children, and tries to make a home for my husband, I have found some of it a maze to navigate. My impression of what makes “a good wife” has been subject to society’s influence over time, particularly when I was young and forming these ideals. I believe I had the “perfect mother” – she tended to my two brothers and my needs with extraordinary devotion and care, in a way I’m quite afraid to admit that I am unable to do myself today. Dinner with all food groups represented every night at 6:30pm, Sunday brunch without fail, meticulous attention to detail when we were sick. Although I have twice as many children as her, and my life choices have dictated that I won’t be able to pull off motherhood with as much careful concern as she did, a part of me still wishes I could. At the same time, I am grateful that the standards aren’t so perfectionistically high that this type of care come solely from me (my husband is just as active in it).

However, the “osmosis” education that my peers and I received to become a H.I.T. (Homemaker in Training) was conflicting at best. It tooted the benefits & supposed freedom of being a ‘supermom’, who could “bring home the bacon AND fry it up in the pan”, just like the Enjoli perfume commercial said. In other words, we were told we could be a mom just like my mom and a career embracing feminist, as well. In high school, we had a home economics class (one of the most popular classes!) in which we all donned aprons and baked apple pies during school hours. When that class ended, we were whisked off to the next class, “Business Economics” which encouraged us to have skills for a successful career outside the home. Confusing? I’ll say. And most of us still don’t know how to make homemade gravy from scratch.

In the aforementioned article, Ms. Belkin highlights the latest “twist” in the redefinition of marriage and what it means to be a good wife: the fastest growing subset of cohabitating couples today are over the age of 50. These women, having been previously married and lived out the “ideal Mrs.” – having wanted nothing more from life than to don the apron and be married -now scoff at it. These women, who were enmeshed in that rejection of the “old ways”;  ”housewives” protesting they were not married to their houses, began calling themselves the more respectable title of  ”working moms” instead. Gradually, we have realized since then that “Supermom”, due to its unattainability, is more comic than reality. Seeing the old guideposts gone, what impetus is there to follow?

Women today are not what they were and as a result we are probably much more relaxed and reasonable. It is perfectly fine to enlist the help of a device to do housework, instead of scrubbing each square of bathroom tile with a toothbrush like grandma did. With the constant redefining of our roles, it will be interesting to see the scenario play out.

On that note, I am off to eat a wonderful meal, home-cooked by my husband, who is a five star *Mr. Mom*, doing all the cleaning and homekeeping while I recover from birth. In the “old days”, it might be unthinkable that Mom or Mom-in-law would not be at my side for two weeks, so hubby could get back to work since he was clueless when it came to running a home. However, this is not the case for us, nor for many women today. Due to this redefinition of roles for women, our mothers, *too*, have the freedom they earned themselves thirty years ago.

Share on Facebook

I’ve always thought those looming “green” wind turbines were a magnificient contrast to the blue country sky I often travel through to get to my parents’ house, until reading this article in the Chicago Tribune recently. Watch the video. Now, I have to admit to having second thoughts about whether or not they are such a good idea. I think the inability to escape those shadow flickers would drive me insane. I understand the people whose land is being leased for the turbines are going to be compensated fairly, but their neighbors, who are perhaps more affected, are not. For those land owners who are affected by “shadow flickers”: does money make-up for a loss in quality of life? Can one be “paid-off” to enjoy a formerly unobstructed view of the countryside? If the government pays you a fortune for your land, but the new outcome is a loss of community, loss of relation with one’s neighbor, is this in the best interest of the common good? Is it true that this is what it really takes to become less dependent on foreign oil? Or is there is way to work out these issues?

What do you think?

Share on Facebook