Winter Olympics my foot

One of the local co-anchors was joking about starting the Knitting Olympics. I would like to see the Mommy Olympics. This is a gag I have had running with my friends for some time - the stamina, the endurance, the sheer athletics of Mommyhood. As the mother of six, I can tell you that Olympic athletes, while they may be strong and fast, can't touch the stuff we do every day. Here are some of the Mommy Olympic Events and their venues:

The Iron Woman Triathelon
Put three kids under 5 in snowsuits, get them to Pick n Save, complete an hour of grocery shopping, negotiate two carts back to the car and get the kids and the food in the house before the kids start screaming for lunch.

Distance Marathon
This is a vehicle event, where one kid has to go to soccer/sport, one music/art, and the other a dentist/doctor appt. All have to be scheduled after school but before dinner. All participants must pass the "dope test" and illegal parking is not allowed.

Synchronized swim
While this category is usually found in the summer olympic, it can be adapted to the winter season if you are getting a quick
trip to the Dells or another water park. This is where you have 5-6 kids in several different pools, ponds, slides and rivers, and know where they all are at all times. Several point deductions are made for saying "I thought he was with you!"

Competitive Carpool
This is a vehicle event which features many intricate moves and maneuvers you thought were only seen in NASCAR. Some of the compulsory elements for the technical score include the curb pull up and hook shot drop off. The judges will be looking for original composition in negotiating lane change, and pulling back into traffic. Several points are available for flexibility and athleticism in buckling the car seats and seat belts. This can be a team event, with a separate event in coordinating schedules for carpools.

and the finale which only the strong of heart and knees can stand to watch...

The School Supply Shopping Event
More slippery than the luge, more intricate than a triple toe loop, more risky than the grand slolam and often more violent than a hockey game, this event features coordination, athleticism, patience, endurance, stamina and a keen sense of reflexes bordering on precognition. Participants in this event must pass the regional new lunch box competition and the nationals backpack/bookbag competition. You must bring the children shopping with you to qualify. Extra credit for high school students and lists. Participants are required to sign an injury waiver before competing.

and all the guys in Torino have to do is skate and ski? And get this, they only have to do it once!

sunshine? what does that look like?

Some people may be under the impression that winter in Milwaukee is cold and gray. This is, in fact, abundantly true. It has been 18 days without sunshine, and I point you to the local newspaper.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/jan06/383508.asp

A clarification at this point: It is always cold. 40s is warm. 30s okay. 20s is normal. I am just referring to the visual presence of sunshine, not the feel of the sun on your face that you might get if you lived in a more temperate zone, say, southern California.

Nonetheless, today I am told by reputable news sources, that we can expect sunshine and a high of 41 degrees. Try to control your glee, it will probably only last the one day. For anyone out there who doesn't believe Seasonal Affective Disorder is real, I say to you now, have you spent a winter in Wisconsin?

And if so, why?

They came, they saw..... they left?

Many years ago when I had 3 little kids and a littler baby I acquired a Polish cleaning lady who was excellent. She came every Thurs morning and I paid her $40/wk, although one time I paid her with a table instead. She moved on around somewhere around the time child #5 hit 2, and that was good for both of us.

Mrs. Balabusta has been very good about mobilizing the troops when it comes to cleaning the house. It is easy if you have a broom handy, (for the troops, not the house). Just swat anything that isn't moving.

The troops, however, haven't been hanging around the hood, as it were. Though when they come back they can be enticed to wash the occasional floor, on the whole, the cleaning has been getting slightly behind. Emphasis on the word slightly. These flucuations are to be expected from time to time. But then 2 things happened:

1. The rabbi told a story that started with his cleaning lady pressing the alarm button on his clock radio.
2. The PT saw The Beanies Abode.

Either way, the PT said we should have a cleaning person come in. The problem is we don't live in an affluent enough neighborhood that is custom to that kind of vendor and the second problem is while our neighborhood is diversified, it does not harbor the type of immigrant that typically would take such work. It seemed we were at an empass.

Then I took to the Yellow pages. I found one company that came and gave me what I thought was a reasonable estimate - $100 for the first time cleaning and something less for each time after. After three appointments, we finally set upon a time for this afternoon. I left a key in a secret location for them.

They came finally, took a look around, and left a note that basically said - "Thanks, but no thanks". (Mind you they had already seen the house). In fact, it looked better this time. I had cleaned off all the counters, put away all the toys and the kids worked on the laundry in the bedrooms.

I have to tell you all how I felt when I read her card: Relieved.

I did not sleep all last night and now I think I was nervous about having a stranger in my house touching and moving all our stuff. I also don't need the pressure of getting everything ready for the cleaning people, and then the inspection process after the fact and the mind numbing mental justification cartwheels that I have to do to get past spending the money on something I can do myself.

So - no cleaning help. No big deal. Maybe I can sleep tonight. After I teach my kicking aerobics class that is.

Welcome to 2006

I don't as a rule celebrate New Year's, but I do have an extra day off, so I feel like celebrating. Actually, I have been off work for a week, a phenomenon known as "shutdown", literal translation is "We're closed".

Here are the things I have done for shutdown:
1. Cleaned out my desk. This is a process known in technical circles as decrapification. This was an open decrapification, because, as opposed to a closed decrapification, where only the surface of the desk is cleaned off, this was an open procedure and I actually disected the bowels of my desk, opening and expunging various folders. This resulted in a pile of waste that could not be red bagged, and therefore required the PT to go out and buy a shredder. Post procedure ancillary shredding was therefore required.
2. Met other nurses for coffee at a mall. It was a reunion of allergy nurses from 2002-3, so we had some catching up to do, and as usual, bitching and moaning. However, we actually got the chance to get together and look at each others pictures and catch up, which was fun, and I was glad I had the chance.
3. Washed my car. Had to - I think the geese got to it.
4. Cleaned my house, really, got to some cabinets that I had written off a long time ago and took them apart. More decrapification ensued but without the shredding. This was just garbage.
5. Entertained my cousin who visited for a week. It wasn't hard, he slept a lot.
6. Finished knitting one scarf, started another project.
7. Visited my grandparents.
8. Went to see King Kong with a cro magnon.

I could go on and on. I do more before breakfast than a lot of people do all week, but I digress. I found that I enjoy vacations and I enjoy time off of work. I guess that makes me almost human after all.