The Shuffle

I'm doing the shuffle. Not the dance from the 1970s. I'm talking about the crap shuffle. We have so much stuff, so much crap (all of it very valuable, of course) and such a little house, that there is no place to sit or walk safely. Our living room also acts as a dining room, tv room, and play room. Oh, and office, library, and craft room. All day long I move stuff out of our way so we can eat, so we can play, so we can sit on the couch or on Joey's cool "tummy time" blanket our friends Lara & Brenda gave us (from Ikea, naturally). There's no place to build blocks unless we move Joey's blanket and bouncy seat. There's no place to eat unless we move the mail and grocery list and phone and keys and hat and drawing. There's no place to color unless we move puzzles and motors and rubber stamps. There's no place to put a cup of coffee unless we move more crap. Then it spills on the already-stained rug. Ugh.

Too much stuff. We should be on the show "Hoarders". Except I just keep thinking that once we move to a bigger house, the crap will have specific places and we will have a kitchen, a dining room, a living room, a family room, a play room, an office. Each of us will have our own bedroom, so the baby's dresser won't be next to mine, so the paperwork to be filed won't be on the floor in front of my dresser so high that I cannot get into the bottom two drawers.

No one I know lives like this. When friends come over (and they rarely do any more, since I'm so embarrased about our clutter), I do the shuffle. I take the junk off the mantel, off the dining table, off the sofa, and I put it all on our bed. I swear that I will put it all away neatly after everyone leaves, before bedtime. But then I am too tired and I place it carefully on the floor until tomorrow. When tomorrow comes, I have 100 other stashes of stuff to deal with, so the piles I moved to our room will stay there for at least a month.

Ugh Ugh Ugh. I used to make fun of people like me (like my parents, my brothers, my sister). Now I am one of those people. Slobs. Lazy. Messy. Yuck. I must change my ways so that my boys don't become like my husband and me. Poor little lambs. With the parents they were given, they don't stand a chance!

I Don't Know What To Do

Both boys are napping. It is almost 4:00 in the afternoon. John has been asleep since 2:30 pm (we came home from co-op, took off shoes & coats, picked up his "lovey" soccer ball, went to bed).

I nursed Joseph, played with him, made him squeal laugh, tidied up the kitchen and living room, played with him some more. Then I held him and kissed him and started singing to him. He just fell asleep.

I don't know what to do. I have time to myself. I should turn off the dang computer and...do what? Watch tv? Read a dumb magazine? Chores? (Ugh, that's all I do). I'll start the dinner (spaghetti with homemade red sauce and Italian sausage, garlic bread, salad) and I KNOW one of them will awaken just as I get my hands into whatever I start.

Oh well. That's my job. It is short-lived because time is flying by so quickly. Too soon I'll have more free time than I want. I don't want my babies to grow up. I don't want to grow old. I want to play and laugh and sing and dance and color and wind clocks and do wash with little John standing at the machine hucking clothes into the water and watching the agitator twirl. I want to make forts on rainy days and have the boys help me bake cookies. I want to read with them, snuggled on the couch. I want to play hide-and-seek, with John so excitedly hiding that he squeals to let me know where he is. I want to hear John count, his little high-pitched voice raising at the end of each number, then saying "ready or not...here I come". I want Joey to squeal everytime I lift him up, big smile on his face. I want to kiss and hold his chubby legs while I change his diaper. I want to see his face light up whenever I sing "Moon River" or "Somewhere Beyond the Sea" or "I Love You A Bushel And A Peck". I want him to nurse and nurse and then swing his head and arm back to see what's behind him, then to latch on with a big smile and a hungry growl.

I want so much, my list could go on and on. But I'm going to stop, turn off the computer, and go watch my little angels sleep. Forget dinner and chores and bills to pay and garbage to take out. Forget phone calls and lists of things to do. John and Joey are asleep, looking like cherubs all comfy cosy. I need to study them and imprint them in my mind. This time will be gone too soon.