WILL LIFE EVER BE NORMAL?

I had a bad day. A very bad day. I started it crying, feeling low. I ended it talking to the police about a stolen bike. Alex lost his key. Obviously someone found it. Took the bike for a ride across town, dumped it. My husband found it. And now that we are putting all the pieces together it seems that the kids who took it chatted with him about having seen the bike abandoned on the path and they were kind enough to put it up by the fence. I found the lock, right where the bike used to be. Unfortunately the key hasn't surfaced. Seriously if you take my son's bike and manage to break things in the less than 2 hours you had it. Can't you at least return the key to my house? Our are you planning to stop and check if I have laptops, phones and other stuff lying around? Our prime suspect had the nerve to help look for the key and offered to bring it by in case he found it. I told him it would do just fine if he dropped it off at the police station. May they catch him next time.

The police just called me. As I found the lock open and I know it was locked around 4 pm they are treating it as a theft (including all the paperwork). They made me retrieve the lock that we threw away where we found it, and I have to come in to write up a report. I am just "thrilled". I think I will take the bike in, too. Just in case. I have watched enough CSI to know what to do. HAHAHA

If there is a special purgatory for bike thieves, I shall volunteer to shovel coal to keep it burning for 5 years. 1 year for every bike that has been stolen from us in this town. Oh wait. Make that 6 years. One for every bike that was stolen since we got married.

Editors note: Make that 7....

DECLUTTER RESOLUTIONS

This one was simple.

STOP sorting

START discarding

I have spent so many years managing stuff. Toys and clothes is my nemesis. I  CAN'T for the life of me throw away a single sock unless I know it's better half is history. I have started to throw away pieces of games that no one ever plays and that only get thrown around and left for me to pick back up. You will not believe how hard it is for me. The upside? When I come across more pieces it is really easy. Because I know the game is a goner. All of these pieces can be tossed as other parts of the game have been binned earlier.

I have regretted it sometimes. Like with this cute little memory. But once we had tossed the broken box for it, it was basically impossible to keep the pieces together. I tried. Hopeless case. I am sad when I come across cards for it. As I am writing this, I realize why. It was one of the first games we got Alex. And I remember sitting on the floor with him trying to play it with him. He always just wanted to take the plane, the car, the train and I was trying to help him understand he needed two. So, it's not really about the game. I think I will give myself permission to keep one card and put it in his scrapbook

I OFFICIALLY SURRENDER

A few days ago Alex had me sign a text he had to copy about "forgetfullness".  He also added that he had to do detention again for not bringing his textbooks to class. He got all defensive about it. It wasn't his fault. They were in his locker and the key was lost. Well. DUH! Guess where the key was. In his backpack. Instead of telling me and investing 5 min into finding it, he invested 2 hours in extra homework and detention. Things got worse. Detention was canceld the day it was supposed to take place and James took a trip for nothing to get him to his music class on time (which he ended up being late for as detention and music class overlapped).
I was steaming. It didn't help that it once again concerned my "favorite" teacher. I never sent out the mean email, as we had an info night with her and another teacher 3 days later. I was way too nice and explained to her that the only one she punishes this way is me and that Alex won't care. I also told her that it is VERY important for me to find out about those things or I can't do anytthing about it. I don't understand why they send notes home to be signed by the parents if they never checked if the note got signed. Well. Guess what. Next day I had a note from teacher #2 that Alex was without a notebook for the last couple of weeks and that he expected the updated material by next Monday. To top things off Alex mentioned he got detention for another subject for not having his homework 10 times.

I can't do this. I don't care if this place is cluttered. There are obviously more urgent things to worry about. In additon to this, James finally booked a flight to attend the family reunion. He will be gone for 11 days. I am gald he is going, but want to cry just thinking about it.

I am done. The project is canceled. Ask me about it again when James is back.

THE BOYS WILL HATE ME

I already announced to the boys last week that there room is next and that I will NOT be the one doing it. At least not by myself. As they only recently moved into their room it should be fairly easy, but it will involve quite a bit of dusting. They also finally need a desk. Their lack of enthusiasm was palpable. I must said I am not overly excited myself to do this, but it needs to be done. I do consider it a fairly easy room, so maybe it will give us a chance to get a head start on which ever room is next.

FREAK OUT FIRDAY

Seriously. What a day. I had a break down before 10 am. I had just realized that after a week of being told to change the sheets on his bed, Alex had tricked me into believing he had, by taking the old sheets off. He just never got new sheets on. As he has a loft bed, above eye level, it is not something that would have caught my attention. Unfortunately for him, the blanket he got himself to not have to use his sheetless comforter was peeking out and caught my attention. I got quite annoyed. I gave him an additional 20 things to put away. He was upset about being "punished". (He obviously never really has been punished in his life!) He was all:"I didn't know that not doing it would get me extra work." Excuse me? My telling your 5 times is not enough motivation? You would do it if you knew you get in trouble for not doing it? Well. What really finished me off was bumping into just one more blasted thing standing around hurting my knee. I yelled and slammed a door. Obviously I had been loud enough to scare James into thinking that I got hurt badly. After sobbing hysterically for about 5 min, I was finally able to tell him, that the real problem is, that no matter what I do, it never seems to be enough. 

Once I had calmed down I reminded myself it was Miracle Week. The dishwasher being fixed helped. I cleaned up the kitchen, even mopped the floors. Did some laundry, emptied a basket that I had taken out of the bedroom into the hall. I dug through more stuff from the attic. I made pizza for dinner and a cake for a friend. I dropped one of the layers for the cake, and nearly dropped the one I had to bake to make up for it. James twisted his ankle badly in a heroic sacrifice to not run over Marie who had managed to fall with her bike right into his path. All in all I guess it wasn't the worst of days, even though I still feel that nothing that was done today will make a difference in the long run. Not even the 3 more pieces that I mended watching TV. As I stayed up way to long watching anyway I should have gotten my ironing board too. Well. Enough self accusation. Things got done. They are taken care of. More will get done today. Miracle week has 23 more work hours and I will make the most of them! But first. I will catch some sleep!

CHEAP LABOR

Last night I went to bed around 6:30 to "read a little". 2 pages later I was history. I did wake up 2 or 3 times but decided to not get up until morning. I actually made it. By 7 am I felt well rested and full of energy, and that was after rolling over 2 times. 

After 12 hours of sleep and ready to tackle this house I decided it was time to torture the kids a little bit. I have been way to laid back about daily chores lately. Clean up your own room has not been stressed much and they rarely had to put away their own clothes. The girls had an easy life especially. Marie can whine like no other and I just didn't have the nerve to listen to it. Ella will happily help 9 out of 10 times. Plus, I wanted their clothes to be put away nicely and the just won't happen if they do it. The boys did rather well the last 2 weeks with staying on top of their room, Alex gets assigned little things that he prefers to do "later" and Matt unloads the dishwasher first thing every morning without ever being told. So thanks to Ella and Matt, Alex and Marie were off the hook. That would change today.

I had my mind set on making them each work for 60 min today. I did not tell them, I just announced that it was "help Mommy day" today. Matt had 26 min under his belt before the other 3 even got up. He was done by 11 am. That was the moment I took to announce that any kid that worked for a total of 60 min before 5 pm would be taken to the ice cream parlor. They were all rather excited. Matt hat a smug smile across his face as he had earned it already. Ella wanted to work off her 40 min in one stretch, Alex was confident but didn't get off the couch for his additional 49 min and Marie broke down sobbing (fake!) that that was "way to hard!" During the day Alex decided we could go without him, he'd rather play computer games. Marie spent more time whining then working and Ella realized she still had homework left. 

I sneakily assigned Alex 2 min chores to fill up his account, so when we told him he only had 35 min left to work he reluctantly got going.  Once he was down to 15 min he was excited and found jobs until he was done (smack at 5 pm).

Ella got done easily, homework and all. Marie got an extension and finally finished her 60 min by getting all the groceries from the car. The hardest thing for her was that every time I told her:"do this still and you are done," (referring to yet another 10 or 5 min block) she thought she would be done all the way. So she was rather frustrated. I will have to communicate clearer next time.

We made it to the ice cream parlor after dinner. Once there, the kids happily agreed to making this a Saturday tradition. Work for 60 min and then go to have ice cream. To sweeten the deal we agreed that it would even include the playground if they got done earlier next time. 

I must say that getting 4 hours of labor for the prize of 10 scoops of ice cream was a great deal!