State of the Union

Ben has a play date over this afternoon from his class/our street/church.  Carson walked into our house which is still a bit strewn with the remnants of boxes mostly unpacked on the main level.  Those pesky things that don’t have an actual home yet, things that could be considered accessories to life by some and junk by others.  He looks around and quickly assesses the situation with the comment, “Your house is still a little bit boring.”  Not sure how that should be interpreted I asked what would make it not quite so boring to which he replied, “You should probably clean up all the stuff all over the place.”  Then he went into the tv room upstairs to play Wii with Ben, “Yeah.  This room is boring too.” 

I’m totally cracking up.  If boring was all it was, I’d be okay with it.  To me it’s cluttered, ugly and looks unsettled.  Still working, but we’ve come a long, long way since last Monday morning.  It’s been a busy day today.  We got Ben off to school, then Maddie Mae on the bus, Jacob wanted to go swimming in our little pool, then the handyman showed up, then the landlords agent to check on the handyman, then the picture hanging guys, a good chat with Lucinda until the middle of her night, got the kids ready for a bike ride to pick up Ben at school and finally we’re home.  Not much time for unpacking. 

The agent noticed right off as she saw me attempt to unload a box and get called away to help Jacob time and time again for drinks, carrying something, cutting his paper, helping with glue, fixing a toy.  “I bet you can’t get much done with your children here, then they probably take apart everything you just put away,” she said as we gingerly stepped over the Dora doll house to assess the awful noise the air con was making in the playroom.  Yes!!  And thank you someone for noticing!  Sometimes I need a little validation that I’m doing okay around here.  My only help is the cable TV.  I used it a lot last week, but decided after the big push to find basic essentials to live here that I needed to not use it so much as a crutch this week.  Net result is lots less accomplished.  Hopefully the relationship building we’ve done this week spending one on one time with each of the kids outweighs any degree of cleanliness and order in the house that would have been obtained by one more round of Mickey Mouse Club on the boob tube.

Oh yeah, a side note.  I doubt I’ve ever hung pictures in a house before I have been there about six months.  I’m pleased to say that part of our moving package was picture hanging and it was an absolute dream.  Twelve days after getting the keys to our place we are nicely decorated!  Thank you ExxonMobil.