I Want to Marry My Mop

27 Sep 2012 1 Comment

by Natalie in Failed Housewife

I never thought I would be excited to mop my kitchen floor. I don’t know, it must have something to do with crawling around on all fours wiping up crusty food stains and muddy shoe prints.

Sounds like a great way to waste a half hour, right?

Not to mention the fact that I naively laid 12-by-12-inch white tiles throughout my entire kitchen within the first six months of home ownership. I know the black-and-white checked floor looks really cool – like I have my own little pizza parlor – but I seriously wish someone had warned me about that one.

Especially now that I have kids.

I recently broke down. I spent $47 of my hard-earned birthday money and bought a wicked steam mop. Honestly I don’t know why I didn’t by one 7 years ago as my own housewarming gift.

I guess I held out because I thought steam mops were a lot more expensive.  I borrowed a Shark Steam mop from a friend a while ago and thought it was nice, but the pump-handle action coupled with the price tag kept me at bay.

I ended up buying a Eureka Enviro Steamer from Amazon.com. It was less than $50. And now I no longer need to buy floor cleaner. The steam is supposed to be a lot more sanitary anyway.

Why didn’t I do this earlier?

Not only is the new mop extremely quick and efficient (I can mop my kitchen in less than 5 minutes) it has also helped me relax a little in the kitchen.

In a way feel like that crazy lady on the old Resolve carpet-cleaning commercials. You know, the one who said, “That’s okay,” when her son spilled grape juice on her cream carpet, or her dog tracked mud throughout the living room.

When my kids shed food from their plates onto the floor, I almost smile and say, “That’s okay.”

Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration. I still snap at them sometimes and the control-freak in me still pours their Kool-Aid and grape juice into sippy cups.

But in all seriousness I am extremely happy with my new mop. I’ve decided that I need all the help I can get when it comes to keeping my house clean.

And although I’ll probably periodically drop to my hands and knees to scrub those darn 12-inch white squares with bleach cleaner, I definitely won’t do it on a regular basis.

Now if only I had a vacuum that didn’t suck.

He Packs, She PACKS

20 Sep 2012 3 Comments

by Natalie in Failed Housewife, What's a mom to do?

Here are the bags I recently packed while getting ready for vacation.

My husband made the comment a couple of weeks ago about how women are always stressed out before going on vacation. Oh really?

After running (with the kids) to get the van’s tires checked, buying diapers and gas from Costco, picking out everyone’s favorite treats from Winco, hauling 4 loads of laundry up and down our stairs, and then packing 1/3 of our home into several miscellaneous bags and boxes I can tell you why this woman was stressed out the day before our most recent vacation.

My favorite part about getting ready for our trip to Yellowstone two weeks ago? My husband telling the boys that they could go outside and have a water fight while I got everything together. Keep in mind, my boys don’t like to do anything without me and my husband was conveniently occupied with meetings over at the church house. Add a fussy 2-month-old to the mix and needless to say, I was up til’ 11 p.m. getting stuff ready to go.

Here is the bag my husband packed while getting ready for vacation.

It’s hard being in charge of everyone’s crap. My husband did his packing two nights before we left. He shoved everything he needed for the four-day trip into one small over-the-shoulder duffle bag.

I wish I could say everything else we needed fit into a similar bag. I managed to cram the rest of our trip needs into two suitcases, a large picnic basket, medium cooler, giant toy/activity bag, big diaper box, camera bag and purse/diaper bag.

And I packed light.

I guess that’s the difference between a woman and a man. I wish I was more easy going about packing and didn’t worry about all the things I might forget.

Luckily the trip was well worth the work. But each time we get ready to go out of town and I’m running around like a chicken with my head cut off, I seriously wonder if it will be worth it.

I guess I can’t help falling into the stressed-out-before-we-go-on-vacation woman category. Next time I’m going to let my husband do the packing, that way if we forget anything, it will be on his watch.

Melting Up Some Magic

13 Sep 2012 3 Comments

by Natalie in What We Do/Make for Fun, What's a mom to do? Tags: , , , ,

My brother and his cute new wife just got back from a honeymoon to Florida. Where they visited the Wizarding World of Harry Potter Universal Studios in Orlando.

They stopped by and showed us photos of Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, where they bought their robes and wands.

Naturally, after they told us of their stop to Ollivanders and the amazing wands they bought, my boys wanted wands too.

They thought my brother should have bought them some.

I tried to tell my boys that “the wand chooses the wizard” so there was no way that their uncle could have chosen a wand for them, but they still didn’t understand.

My oldest son told my brother to go home and use his Elder Wand to do a spell to send him and his brother their own wands. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that no use of the word “accio” would ever be able to summon up wands.

The next day a small box was delivered to our doorstop while we were gone running errands. My boys ran to the porch to see what it was, but were sorely disappointed when the box contained my new year’s supply of contact lenses – not their new wands.

At that point they began to realize that they might not magically get their hands on some wands.

That’s when the constant begging began for me to help them make some wands. My sister-in-law found an easy way to make authentic-looking wands on Pinterest and my boys wouldn’t let me forget it.

Finally when I could take it no longer, I found the Pinterest pin and we gathered up some supplies to make our own magic.

First off we headed to the local oriental market for a package of chopsticks. We bought a 20-pack for $3.99.


Then we came home and gathered up brushes, some acrylic paint, hot glue sticks, a glue gun and a bunch of different sized beads.


The boys took turns looking through and choosing their own beads and we worked carefully to glue them on to the bottom end of the chopsticks. The instructions I saw online said to cover the beads in glue then, after the glue was cool, to mold the wands’ handles with your hands.


That didn’t go so well for me. I ended up nearly melting my palm to a few of the wands trying to mold the ends before I decided it wasn’t worth it. Instead I ran the end of the wands under some cold water until the glue was almost all set. Then I squeezed the end with my hand to make sure the beads would stay.


The beads and glue made the handles of the wands look real. We even added a feather into a couple of the wands so that they had a “core.”

Once we had the wands molded to our liking, we needed to finish them off with paint.


The painting part was probably the fastest, but most stressful part.  I don’t know why I ever think I am a patient enough mom to paint with my children. Even though I make them wear some of my really old t-shirts I am still a nervous wreck that they are going to end up with paint everywhere.

But we survived and I am really happy with how the wands turned out.


They were really easy and my boys have been playing with them ever since. You can check out the website we looked at for instructions here.

My boys wanted to be done after we made only two wands. But after I had strewn crafting supplies all over my kitchen, I wasn’t going to stop with only a couple of wands. I made them help me finish ten. That way when we lose some (which I know we will) or when friends come over, we will have extras.

They are definitely not as fancy or as authentic as the ones my brother picked up in Florida, and I am sure they aren’t nearly as nicely made, but don’t tell my 4 and 6 year olds, to them they are still pretty magical.

What Should I Tell My Children About My Past Mistakes?

06 Sep 2012 2 Comments

by Natalie in From My Heart, Parenting Battles, Trying to be a Better Mom, What's a mom to do? Tags: , , ,

I had flashbacks all last week to one of my most traumatic childhood experiences.

My son’s elementary school headed to the local aquatic center last Friday for a field trip party at the pool. The thought of him going swimming with his schoolmates flipped my mind back to the time when my elementary school did the same — and the time when I was a few seconds from drowning.

I was 8 or 9 years old when the experience happened. My school was heading to their annual trip to the local pool. We walked with a buddy and were to stick with that buddy while swimming.

Unfortunately for me, my buddy could swim and I couldn’t. My mom warned me for days to stay off of the donut-shaped floatation tubes. She knew I couldn’t handle them. She wanted me to stay in the shallow end where I would be safe.

But my buddy rented one of the tubes then headed to the deep end of the pool. Stupidly I followed.

Almost immediately I ended up under the donut floaty while waves splashed around me and I fought for my life to climb back up. The tube’s slippery plastic, along with other tubes slamming on top of me, kept me from climbing to safety. Luckily a sixth-grade swimmer saw my desperation and drug me to safety where I coughed up what felt like a gallon of water.

It was one of the scariest things that has ever happened to me. And I still haven’t learned to swim because of it.

Not only was I scared for my life in the pool, I was scared for my life at home. I don’t think I told my mom about my near-death experience for almost a week. I knew she would be furious. She had warned me not to float on a tube. I was terrified to hear her say, “I told you so.”

So with that experience in the back of my mind, I geared up to let my 6-year-old baby splash in the water with his friends. Despite the fact that the school sent home a note forbidding flotation devices, I was still terrified.

I didn’t want him to sense my hesitation in letting him head to the pool with the student bodies of two elementary schools and only their staff and a couple dozen lifeguards there to protect him. But how could I hide it? And I didn’t want to tell him about my experience because I was certain he wouldn’t go after that.

I tried to encourage him to go, but I was so scared.

He has taken swimming lessons for the past three years, but he is just starting to feel comfortable in the water, and he is definitely not a fish-like swimmer.

He ended up not wanting to go so I picked him up early from school Friday and he hung out at home.

Honestly I was relieved because I knew he would be safe with me, but it got me thinking about what I should share with my children.

I don’t want my children to know of all of the major mistakes I have made or will make in life. I don’t want my stupid choices to impact their decisions. But when they have challenges in life, maybe it would help them to know of my own challenges. Maybe it would help them realize that I am an imperfect human, just like they are.

Now I know that floating in the deep end of the pool when I knew I couldn’t swim wasn’t an immoral or illegal action, but it was something that was seriously stupid. Should I tell my boys about my experience?

Maybe if I didn’t completely scare him from the field trip, my oldest might have been able to learn from my story and use it as a what-not-to-do example.

Heaven knows I have other stories of stupid things I have done. Should I shed all of the skeletons from my closet and come clean with my children?

Maybe, for now, I’ll keep the skeletons locked up, but not forgotten. That way when my sons make mistakes or do stupid things I’ll be able to sympathize. Hopefully all of my stupid mistakes will make me a better parent, a more understanding parent.

Because as the mother tasked with raising three boys, I am sure I will parent through my fair share of their mistakes.