Flybaby

I am a flybaby. Although I have to admit, I haven't been as observant as maybe I should be (my morning routine springs to mind). But baby steps, right?

For those of you who are seriously confused, I'm talking about the techniques created by The Fly Lady for staying on top of housework and keeping your home organized.

Last week was my first week, and we were in Zone 5: Master Bedroom. Which turned out great because I had plans to clean up my bedroom, anyways.

But what most excites me about the Fly Lady system is the Control Journal. It's a place where you are to write down your daily/nightly routine, put detailed cleaning lists of the zones, record emergency numbers and stuff like that. So a lot of my time has actually been spent modifying the control journal to suit my needs and put one together.

Because I'm truly a geek, I have created several documents to go into my journal. I'll let you in on my geek-ness.

I am creating a Dinner Idea Master List. Sort of like a cook-book I guess. But it doesn't include recipes. I take recipes that I've found that we like, or that I'd like to try and put them all into a word doc by category (poultry, beef, fish, etc…) and I list their serving sizes and ingredients. I'm working on including general costs of the ingredients for each meal, but I still have to update my Grocery Price List before I do that.

The point of my Dinner Idea Master List is to help me plan dinners more efficiently. If I'm stuck for dinner ideas, I can consult this list and I'll see exactly what ingredients I'll need without having to go through the recipe books or web sites to get ingredients for each recipe. And when I include the price, I'll be able to have a better idea of how much we're spending on dinners, and I can adjust meals according to price when I have to.

I've been working on it all week. Oddly, I am actually having a good time doing this! It's so sick and crazy, I know. But I think about how much easier meal planning will be for me with this document. So far I've got over 35 recipes. Some we've tried, many we haven't. If we try one and don't like it, I can just delete it and move on. Of course, it will always be a work in progress as I find new recipes and get rid of others.

I created a document where I can list 3 weeks worth of menu's as a master reference of what we'll be having and I've created Weekly Dinner Menu's. As in, the meals for the week are presented on it with cute little clip art and funky type just like you would see in a restaurant. That goes on the fridge, so I have a pretty little display of the week's menu.

See that? Geek.

Hades Has A New Address

Hades has a new address.

Yes, the entirety of Hades has moved, taking it's captives with it.

It is now located at:

1234 The W. Household Circle

Tucson, Az blah blah blah blah

Please make a note of this and take the time to change it in your address books.

Rescuing The Princess

In more ways than one.

I thought about A.'s lost toy phone all night. Part of me felt that I should just go back and get the phone (if it was even still there) and just give it to her, and part of me felt I needed to teach her a lesson and make her earn money to get a new one.

The first part of me won.

I called the Children's Museum when they opened up today and asked if anyone had turned in a toy princess cell phone. Yes, the person said, we do have a princess phone. But she sounded reluctant to tell me it was there. "We were having a lot of fun with it last night," she said. "We were taking pictures of each other." (apparently, this phone has a functional camera- sort of. Who knew?)

"That's great." I said. "We'll be by to pick it up today."

"We'll take good care of it for you."

I didn't tell A. that we were going to get her phone back until we were half-way to the Children's museum.

She was so happy to see that phone, and the guy behind the admissions counter was happy to have made her smile. That was very sweet, I thought.

So, what did I end up doing with the phone?

I gave it to her with no strings attached.

I figure it this way- if I had lost something that I purchased, and thought I knew where I had left it, I would go back and get it before I replaced it. Since this is something that A. purchased with her very own hard earned money, she deserves the same courtesy I would give myself or dh had it been us who had lost something. Particularly something we cherished.

And so, the Princess was rescued phsyically (the toy phone) and emotionally (A.) by the Mom-In-The-Silver-Mazda and everyone lived happily ever after.

The Triumph Over Potty Training

Sort of.

I have changed approximately 3 pull-ups in the last few days.

No, no. S. has not finally decided that using the potty at home is the coolest thing in the world.

I'm having her change her pull-ups herself. She takes off her shoes, her pants, her pull-up, cleans herself up and puts a new one on. I actually got the idea from a passing comment a friend made last week when I was going on about my potty training woes. She just started telling me about different things that her friends had done to potty train their children. And one of them made her daughter change herself.

It didn't register right away as being something that we should try until a few days later, I found S. sitting in her pink rocker chair- she was soaked, her chair was soaked. And she was wearing a pull-up. She wasn't bothered the least bit by it, either. This surprised me because I had changed her just a few hours earlier but this child pees more often and in greater quantities than I've ever even heard of!

As I was shampooing her chair (for the fourth time that week- perhaps we should find chair covers?), I thought about how much this sucked. I'm shampooing furniture whether she's in pull-ups or panties- plastic or otherwise.

Then it hit me.

If she doesn't want to pee in the potty, or tell me when she needs to be changed- she'll just clean up and change herself, dammit.

So, I took a brand-new pack of pull-ups, put it in the cabinet underneath the sink. I showed S. where the pull-ups were, and explained to her that from now on, when she needs a new pull-up, she has to come into the bathroom and take care of herself (I still help with the poopy ones though. I'm afraid poop will end up all over the bathroom floor if I don't, but luckily those don't happen too often)

There was a little resistance the first time. The getting off not such a big deal. It was the putting a new one on that was the problem. It took about ten minutes for me to get her to do it. She peed on the carpet in the meanwhile. Lucky me.

But since then, it's actually been going pretty well. I still have to ask/tell her it's time to be changed. But she heads straight to the bathroom where all this business is being done now and did what she needed to do. She even put a new one on immediately and without a fight! Yipeeee!

And here's the kicker- she was so proud of herself!

I'll take what I can get.

Another thing I did was copy a picture of the huggies pull-up designs from their website. I typed "S.'s pull-ups" on top and printed it out at about 6x6 image. Then I taped it on the cabinet door which led the way to her pull-ups.

Oh, how she loved that!

This last time I shuffled her into the bathroom, she ran! Then sat on the bathroom floor and ooo-ed and ah-d over this lovely picture of the princesses which also adorned her pull-ups. Then she changed herself and ran back into the living room. The whole thing took less than five minutes, and all I had to do was get her and take her back to the bathroom!

And again, she proudly proclaimed "I did it!" I congratulated her and fussed over her being such a smart girl before she ran off.

If I'd known this particular method would be so much less soul-wrenching for the both of us, I'd thought of it much sooner! But the important thing now is that I found something that works.

She's still not "potty trained", but I'm not changing pull-ups every few hours either. It's a win-win situation.

Also, A. saved up just enough money doing chores that she was finally able to buy the princess cell phone toy she saw at wal-mart last week. I gave her the money to give to the cashier all by herself, even. She was so excited! She's been carrying that phone everywhere since she bought it yesterday, occasionally flipping it open even as we're walking and putting it up to her ear to see what Princess Jasmine has to say about Aladdin's latest adventures.

But she lost it at the children's museum today, and we didn't realize it until we were half-way home. It was too late, anyways. The Children's museum would have been closed by the time we got back there.

It really was heart-wrenching for me to see her distress over losing that phone. Because it wasn't just any phone. It was the very first thing she's ever bought with money she, herself, has earned.

I thought about calling them, turning around and going back for it, but I didn't. As much as it sucks, this is a great way for her to learn about keeping track of her things and taking responsibility for them. I'm always telling her to keep this or that in the car because I don't want her to lose it. But today I just didn't. I didn't think of it. My bad. But this isn't about me.

I told her that I was sorry she lost it, but that she could earn more money to get a brand new one, and maybe next time she'll be more careful with her things. Surprisingly, that was enough to quell the tears flowing down her cheeks. Still though, I'm thinking about calling the Children's museum to see if her phone has been turned in. But then what? If I give it to her, she'll never learn to be responsible for her belongings.

So now I'm trying to think of extra things she can do around the house this week to earn the money back faster (that $3.06 was the result of weeks and weeks of accumulated change).

I just feel so terrible that she lost it so soon after buying it.

It's hard to be a preschooler, sometimes, isn't it?

Still There

I caught another mouse in the garage.

In the car- not so much.

And yet again, in the car there was a cracker on the outside and NO FUCKING TRAP!

I looked under the seats, between the seats- where I noticed that the traps weren't the only thing this fucking vermin was rearranging. I found a moth ball (which was in the drivers side cupholder) underneath the front passenger seat.

Son of a bitch!

That fucking rat bastard!

I don't want to use poison because I'm afraid that it will work, but the mouse will crawl into it's hidey hole before it croaks, and then I'd be left with a rotting mouse carcass somewhere in my vehicle.

This whole ordeal gives me the neebie jeebies. I get all shivery- the kind of shivery you get when you're scared of something and not sure if you'll be able to escape.

What the hell does a girl have to do to get rid of an obviously smart magician mouse?!

Seriously.

Ideas anyone?

Updated to say:

I am bolting down the traps tomorrow. Duct tape, velcro, super glue-

let's see houdini make it disappear then!

The Rodent Magician

This is going to sound terribly disgusting. And if you happen to be someone whose vehicle is manned by children (in any number) 95% of the time yet have managed to not have stray French fries on the floor boards or sticky car seats will probably definitely find this terribly disgusting.

I do have to say though, that I am disgusted myself so- I won't be hating on the haters this time, yo.

There are vermin living in my car. Or maybe just one mouse. I'm not sure yet.

See, I started noticing these odd black rice sized thingies scattered in the cup holder and on the floor boards of our suv. I immediately figured out that we had a boarder of the disease-carrying kind. I did what any normal person does when faced with an unknown situation. I googled, "there is a mouse living in my car". Lo and behold, I found page after page of people plagued with the same problem.

*whew* I'm not alone in my disgustingness, then. That makes me feel just a teensy bit better. But just a teence.

So anyways, the vermin must go.

First I deep cleaned the interior of my car. I vacuumed in spaces I had no idea even existed, pulling chairs up and even getting into the compartment in the back where the jack is (who knew it was even there??? Not me!). I was sure I'd find that fucking mouse just a nibbling away at some wire or piece of plastic. But no such luck.

After I vacuumed, I wiped the consoles down with Lysol wipes, and then I shampooed everything- the floor boards, the seats…

Satisfied with my wonderfully clean and mouse-shit free vehicle, I went to Target to get moth balls, which I read mice did not like. I bought a box and just dropped like, 5-6 in one of the cup olders. And yet, the droppings showed up again the next day.

Son of a bitch!

Now I had to get all hard core and actually buy mouse traps!

On the way to Wal-Mart, I pondered the techniques used to dispose of a live mouse stuck on a glue pad (I'm not fond of having to clean up mouse guts). Do I just throw it right into the trash like that (ewwwww)? Do I smash it's head with a hammer and put it out of it's misery (double ewwwwww. And kinda psycho, don't you think?). Luckily, once I found the traps at Wal-Mart I realized that I would have to do neither. Because there were these "humane" (funny, how I'm all concerned about being humane to disease carrying vermin which are not, um, human) traps called Mouse Cubes or something like that. It's a rectangular plastic box with a few holes in the door, which only goes one way. So the mouse can get in, but can't get out.

Disposal then became less of a concern for me. I figured when I trapped the mouse I could take it into the desert (away from my house) and let it free to be eaten by snakes (which is another reason these mice must go. Snakes eat mice. And remember what happened a few months ago? I don't know that I could sufficiently bash a rattler to death with A.'s walking stick all by my lonesome. I prefer dh to do the dirty work.)

The directions on the trap suggested that I smear peanut butter on a cracker and slide it into the trap (not cheese. Huh.). And so we got home and I got to work putting crackers slathered with peanut butter into the traps. The directions also suggested that I put a little bit of pb on the door of the trap, to attract the mice. So I did that, too.

Two traps went into the garage, because I remembered dh telling me, not too long before I realized that mice were living in my car, that he saw one in the garage.

And two went into the SUV.

I've been driving dh's car while I make my suv rodent-free, because this mouse (these mice?) are fucking smart. I've never seen or heard one in my car. Just seen the droppings. And you know what else? The day after I cleaned my car, I took the girls to story time. I went into B&N with a shit-free car and came out two hours later to see droppings on the back passenger floor!

That fucking mouse waited until we were no longer in the vehicle and then took a dump all over the fucking place! So, I figured I had to stay out of the car, to increase the chances of catching that little fucker.

The next day I found mice in the garage.

Take that, you car-shitting fucker!

Then I checked the traps in the car.

The one in the left rear passenger side was missing.

MISSING!

But when I looked under the seat, there it was. With the peanut butter cracker sitting RIGHT IN FRONT OF IT!

I have no idea how that is even possible, but the fucking mouse moved the trap and got the cracker out of the trap with the one-way door! Oh, and he pooped in the pb. Ewwww.

I shut the door and checked the front passenger side trap.

The trap was still in place, and the cracker was still there, but the pb I smeared onto the door to attract it/them to it was all licked up! There was a clean trap door!

Mother fucker!

I went back inside, furious that I was being bested by mice. Mice! I glanced at the mouse traps in the garage, each being occupied by an unsuspecting mouse. "You'll pay," I told them on the way into the house, "you're little buddy wants to be a smart-ass, so you will pay. Let your demise be an example to him/them!"

Right then I decided that I was just going to toss their traps into freezer bags and then into a plastic target bag and then finally into our trash can (thank God trash day was the next day).

Life is cruel like that.

It took an extra day for me to catch the mouse in the car. In the front passenger trap cowered a little gray peanut-butter-car-shitting nuisance and I laughed when I saw it there.

Triumph!

I got you my pretty.

I had hoped he was the only one, but I can't be sure. Because when I checked the back trap again yesterday, it was gone. Not moved this time, but disappeared! I checked the very back, where the 3^rd row seating is- the trap is fucking gone. Like some kind of rodent David Copperfield putting on a show, the fucking trap had VANISHED. I don't know if it vanished before or after I found the one mouse because I didn't check that one again until later. But it's not there anymore. Or anywhere from what I could see.

Son of a bitch! Bested again!

We'll see about this.

Yesterday I went back to Wal-Mart, purchased four more traps. This morning they were placed, as before, two in the garage and two in my car.

As of this afternoon- no mice.

This could be a good thing meaning I caught them all. Or this could mean that Vermin Copperfield and his remaining buddies are incredibly smart and sly.

I'm hoping for the former.

Because really, my ego can't handle being out-smarted by a fucking rodent again.

I Trust You, But…

A conversation at Jamba Juice:

A.: I want an orange drink.

Me: we're going to share today (they never drink all of theirs).

A.: Are you getting orange?

Me: No, I'm getting something else, but it has strawberries in it. You'll like it.

(after a brief pause of consideration)

A.: Well, I trust you, but I still want my own.