Thrifty Mom in a Consumer World: It goes with the job.

I have, on my refrigerator, a little recurring patch of nameless crud. It appears daily in changing shapes at about knee height right where the two doors come together. It's pretty gruesome and mysterious and probably warrants it's own episode of the X-Files. I'd post a pic but it's gross, I'm tellin' ya.

But I do know the key to the puzzle (although it took me a bit to figure out). The Nameless Crud Patch is the result of countless encounters with grubby baby fingers.

You see, when my babes get through with their meals (and after they've asked to be excused from the table), they have to put their plates in the sink and their juice/milk receptacles in the fridge. Since they still all do a certain amount of eating with their hands, the crumbs and/or sticky residue is deposited on my appliance.

So I wipe. I spend a good portion of my day wiping. Wiping refrigerators, wiping hands (heaven forbid I attempt to do this before they get down), wiping bums, wiping spills up off of floors and spit-up off of chins. When I'm not wiping I'm sweeping, mopping, picking up, changing linens, changing nappies, loading the washer, unloading the washer, hanging wet clothes up, taking dry clothes down, prepping food, cooking food, serving food, packing lunches, washing dishes.

This list doesn't include baby-centric stuff like reading to them, breaking up squabbles, answering endless questions, changing nappies (did I say that twice?), admiring crayon scribbles or Duplo towers, bathing them (when the crud level gets too high), kissing owies, finding loveys, tucking them in, entreating them to eat, fussing at them for eating catfood, fussing at them for snatching a toy, for flushing the toilet 25 times in a row, for throwing Matchbox cars, for picking the cat up by his head.

Mommying is a hard job! But I can say without reservation that it's the best one I've ever had.

So what brought all this on, you ask? Well, I was reading my last post and all of your lovely and helpful comments (including my Troll's - the entertainment value alone!) and I realized that I am stressed but I'm still happy. As opposed to when I was working at my last job. I loved my job, but all the crap and trouble, the late nights and annoying people, were something I put up with as a means to an end (a paycheck).

While I'm raising children all the stuff is just ... stuff. I'm working toward a goal: presenting the world with capable, useful, nice people who will contribute to society. It's kind of like the difference between renting and buying, lol.

Thank you SO much for your comments. I feel like I can really depend on you people to tell it like it is.

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Speaking of working, some folks are fortunate enough to have careers (as opposed to just a job - like the long series that I had), and what they do counts for something in the long run (just like parenting). My darling Evil Genius Husband - who teaches middle school - is going for his National Board certification and I am sooooooo proud of him! Keep him in your thoughts.

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Well, I'm on the road to solving some things. Yay!

1) I have caught the little bastard of a predator who was killing my chickens.

2) My oldest daughter, The Human Crash Test Dummy (formerly known as tall Girl), is over her mysterious wee-ing thing.

I thought about it (and considered everything you all had said) and decided that she might very well be just getting so wrapped up in playing that she was forgetting to go, then falling asleep (in exhaustion and without wee-ing) and then wetting the bed.

So, I moved her back out into the parlour (she was in the big bedroom with her brother) and got out her potty again. I explained to everybody that I thought we were getting more playing done than sleeping. I never mentioned the accidents, just made the move.

After ONE day things had settled down tremendously. Both she and her brother are sleeping better and she has had zero accidents since the first day after the move. She's happy. I'm happy. Boy's a bit disgruntled. He was having a blast encouraging her to flush an entire roll of toilet paper down the loo in huge wads.