Being an adult is like looking both ways for cars...then getting hit by an aeroplane

After getting the itch to start blogging again late last year I intended to get this post up within a week or two, definitely before the end of January. Then January rolled in...& rolled out with February hot on it's tail. Each week I told myself I must to find the time to get re-acqainted back here. Then the days all blended into a blurry haze of summer heat, school holidays, back to school shopping & soaking up every drop of toilet training fails from Clay. 

In the end life just kept on spinning by while we kept up with each day - much like the last 18 months really.

Since that last post (was it really back in 2015!?!) There have been a few changes for us here at House of many Minions. 

- We bought our home. 

- Expanded our family by 4 furry feet. 

- Made plans for the future...then found out lucky number seven was on the way a little earlier than we planned.

- Started homeschooling Jack.

- Welcomed lucky number seven into our family. 

- Bought a camper trailer large enough to accomodate all nine of us (plus the two dogs) for many adventures & spontaneous weekends away.

- Seen Will off to his first year of school. 

- Realised life in the coming future with numerous teens & pre-teens is going to be much like raising over grown toddlers with a talent for food consumption of epic proportions.

It's a bit like when you catch up with a friend you haven't seen in ages & you're asked what has happened since we last caught up...everything & nothing. There's all these big life events thrown in with the spinning of day to day life. You quickly float over the mundane threads to try pick up the strands of glittery sparkle. 

The brightest sparkly thread that has woven into our lives is Kade, our seventh little minion.

After buying our first home 6 months earlier, Doug & I had this great big discussion on long term goals, achievements & where we wanted to be in the next three to four years time. This included having another baby, maybe late 2017 or during 2018...Seems this discussion was all the universe needed - just a few short weeks later two pretty pink lines threw all our well made plans into the air & changed our course to collect another passenger.

Thirty eight weeks & a car upgrade later, the newest member for the blue team declared his intention to join us earthside with a small pop of waters after dinner. Baby sitters were called, bags were thrown in the car, contractions were mild...until they weren't. My back felt like it was going to explode, my belly was having the mother of all period cramps, my mind was struggling to let go of inconveniencing all these people who had been called out of their homes so late in the evening. Then just after midnight our wriggly, cranky, serious faced boy arrived. 

Our little passenger is now fast approaching five months old & an absolute sleep depriving, time wasting, delight. He feeds like a sumo wrestler & can out-stare even the most seasoned pro in a staring competition. He thinks our bed is a hell of a lot better than his own & I'm too tired to disagree. Which means our nights consist of me creeping into bed a lot closer to midnight than conducive for optimal sleep, only to stumble out within the hour to collect Kade from his cradle (still in our room - these apron strings are a lot harder to sever this time round.) He'll latch on like starving man in front of an all you can eat buffet, before passing out in a warm, milky stupor minutes later. 

If I'm still semi conscious I'll put him back in his cradle...only to be summoned again within the hour. Rinse & repeat until the sun rises & the alarm declares the day must begin. The other alternative is to remain immobile all night long, as only a mother can, while the little bundle contentedly dozes the night through.

Right now I prefer some sleep over no sleep, so I'll continue to push Doug near out the bed while I play sleeping statues in the middle, with Kade taking prime position on my side of the bed.

We're surviving, I'm functioning - though that is up for debate some days, my coffee consumption is keeping the coffee bean business thriving & this too shall pass.

Some days you just have to dance it out

Some days after school are easy. 

Everyone piles in the front door, bags are unpacked, food is devoured & homework is finished. Then more food is devoured before they all scatter off to fill the time void between snack two & dinner time. Minimal bickering & maximum amusement. Will & Blake scamper off outside to ride their bikes or jump around like lunatics all over the back yard. Ben, Rianan & Jack pull out the UNO cards & see how many rounds they can each win before it's discovered that Rianan has been cheating by sliding a few extra cards under the couch so she can declare "uno!" first.

Other days are not so easy. 

When everyone pushes their way through the front door like a herd of stampeding elephants, bags are dumped in bedroom doorways or along the hallway. The kitchen is filled with too many kids all vying to find the best after school snack, then stomping away when there is only the usual's on offer still. When getting their homework started, let alone finished is harder than trying to devour a bar of chocolate undetected in this house filled with minions. What would normally take ten minutes to complete, will instead span over an hour painfully filled with moans, complaints, messy & spaced out writing or staring at the same pages in the same chapter of their book. And that is just the older three.

Then there's Blake, Will & Clay, who will spend their time either a) running, screaming, jumping their way through the house until someone gets knocked over & trampled on the unforgiving floor tiles. Proceeding to burst my ear drums with their screams, before turning to retaliate against whoever they think is guilty of sending them sprawling to the floor.

Or b) Blake & Will spend the next hour or so annoying each other until I can't stand it any longer. While Blake & Will have me distracted with their arguing, Clay will quietly walk through each bedroom, opening drawers & pulling out every shred of nicely folded clothes he can reach. 

Before I know it, 5pm has ticked over, dinner isn't even thought of yet let alone cooking away. The house looks like an abandoned clothes warehouse after a cyclone has torn through & we've all given up on any legitimate attempt on the homework front. Forget about baths, at this stage the kids will be lucky to get anything more than spaghetti on toast before being shipped off to bed at my soonest possible convenience...after tidying from the storm that wiped me out flat.

Half an hour into yesterday's after school gauntlet & I could see the sides beginning to crumble. While the bags were put away, empty stomachs were filled & homework was done (because there was hardly any required) the disagreements & arguments were starting to come thick & fast. Add in several emails & phone calls that demanded my attention & could not wait, meant that everything going on out of my little bubble had to wait. By the time I put the phone down & decided the rest could be done after the crazy had passed, there were shoes everywhere, clean & dirty clothes littered the house mimicking behind the scenes of a fashion runway show, Clay was cranky, Ben, Jack & Blake were filthy from the waist down after playing soccer together & a lone empty fry pan was still waiting on the cold stove top.

I issued orders like a drill sergeant - "pick up those shoes"

"dirty clothes in the laundry now"

"put the clean clothes on the couch with the rest of the washing"

"bags in rooms"
"balls outside!"
The minions responded like a class of hyped four year old's coming down from an intense sugar rush.   

There was only one way to rescue what was shaping up to be an evening from hell & the breaker to demolish the last whispers of sanity that were stopping me from going all exorcist mummy.

Ignore the time & turn the music up.

You can't hear the petty little arguments, whinging & dobbing if they are drowned out with only the best playlist selections from the iPod on a volume level just bordering too loud.

It was the best decision made all day. It didn't take long before the boys turned the Xbox off, Rianan came out of her room (after escaping in there for some peace & quiet) & the younger three channeled their destructive energy into dancing like maniacs. While I was chopping up chicken, dancing & singing my heart out to Clay who had joined me in the kitchen, the other five had set up the coloring in gear on the table & were all happily getting along, talking, encouraging & laughing together, with the occasion dance off thrown in for good laughs.

Before we were even a quarter of the way through the playlist, dinner was cooked & the table was swiftly cleared & then set, on my first request, ready for the plates & bowls to be distributed. Knock knock jokes were told & the best things about our days were shared as we slowly finished eating. The tension & frustration that was flooding us all not forty minutes earlier had completely evaporated. Baths & showers were done, with the older minions doing a quick but thorough {enough} tidy around the house while the younger three were bathed & prepared for bed, not that much later than their usual bedtime either.

By the end of the night everyone went to bed in a good mood & I didn't feel like crap for spending the last three hours nagging & yelling while serving up a less than substantial dinner. I'm fairly certain that I'm not alone when I say I would much rather listen to the likes of Paramore, The Smiths, Ed Sheeran & Pink {to name a few}, than give myself a headache & everyone else immunity towards the nagging tones in my voice, topping off with foul moods all round.  

Next time our evening - or morning, is beginning to morph into a train wreck I'm going straight to that magic button, play.

Don't mind the mess...

"Come in" she said, "don't mind the mess", as I step over the threshold to her home, drawing my attention to the suggestingly unkempt surroundings. My eyes flick over every surface as we proceed deeper into the house.

Though I'm not exactly sure what mess she is pertaining too. The haphazardly arranged toys that are within the confines of the baby mat, or the two mugs on the bench next to the kettle - clean & ready for expected company. Even the beds were made in the bedrooms we drifted past.

No piles of washing all over the couch with not-so-fifty-shades underwear & holey socks flauntingly visible, forgotten to be tucked deep into the mountain. Kitchen sink empty of breakfast bowls, no dried weet-bix or puffed up rice bubbles lingering on the table - or under the chairs. Either her children slept in their clothes the night before, or it is their pyjama's I can hear in the washing machine quietly swishing away.

The floors look clean enough to follow the three second rule {for dropped food}, curtains open & windows barely visible - not a smeared hand print or dried up cascading dribble to be seen. 

I think to myself, if this is classed as messy then my house belongs on 'Hoarding - Buried Alive'. Knowing that as I closed the front door to take the minions to school, I was closing the door on pyjama's left on bedroom floors, breakfast bowls un-rinsed & stacked next to the sink, with the dishwasher clean but not yet emptied from the night before. Wet bed sheets & quilts stripped & fermenting in the dirty laundry basket, the washing machine silent. The evidence of packing lunches on the kitchen bench remains & while the dining table is wiped of any solid food matter, cloudy streaks are easily seen & rice bubbles litter Will & Blake's chairs. Our floors, not fit for the three second rule, but clean enough for Clay to escape my hip on.

With that one careless statement, perhaps meant to clear her of any responsibility for a missed mirror streak or mote of dust I may see, but not notice - evaporating from my mind faster than a shopping list. The standard is set. The precedent of expectation which goes both ways.

Weeks later I open our front door to welcome her into our home. With a smile I say "Hi! Come in, don't mind the mess, we've been so busy the last few days I've not had a chance to clean properly." A partial truth. 

We walk down the hallway, past bedrooms & lounge rooms - doors wide open to welcome inspection. Small talk is made while we make our way to the kitchen, where two mugs await next to the kettle & a plate of {store bought} goodies already set out.

What she doesn't know is that I ran around like a blue arsed fly the night before - cleaning toilets, wiping toothpaste off mirrors & polishing windows until I could see my reflection. Washing piles thrown hastily into cupboards, floors swept & quickly mopped. That morning the kids were dropped off at school looking irritated & harassed - because I spent the previous two hours acting like a Drill Sargent. Make your bed! Put your pyjamas in the wash! Whose breakfast bowl is on the table still? Put it in the sink! Rooms tidy! Brush your teeth, make sure you rinse the bathroom sink after! 

Instead of walking each minion to their class, I kiss them good bye & head back to the car before the morning bell has even rung. Eager to gain an extra ten minutes to ensure everything is looking as clean & display home'esque as possible. Not a rice bubble in sight. Super House Wife badge on. 

This became the norm. Doug always knew when I had plans to catch up with someone the next day because the night before instead of sitting next to him on the couch, I would be mopping & folding as much of our Mount Washmore as I could before tiredness set in. 

Then a few months ago I called enough. Our house is our home, not an open door display house. I was sick of the falseness, the illusion, the expectation. I wanted to look forward to catching up with friends, not feeling annoyed that I had to sacrifice my quiet evening to make sure every surface was free of minion prints & milk spots. If a friend knocked unexpectedly on our door I didn't want to chat at the front door to hide the lunch dishes in the sink, the unfolded washing dominating the couch, unmade beds & the dozens of shoes almost certainly to be scattered through various rooms.

I also do not want other women to feel the same way. 

Now I'll still say "come in, don't mind the mess." But you will know see exactly what mess I am excusing. Whether it be the crumbs on the bench, the dining table I'm wiping down before we sit, the glass door opaque with hundreds of hand prints or the baby toys & action figurines that lay abandoned on the floor. The real mess. 

Pop over for a cuppa, come for the company. You're welcome any time, just mind the washing.

Boys & their toys

Have boys, they said. 

It'll be fun, they said.

{ok, we didn't get a say in the whole boy:girl ratio, but work with me here}

Boys are awesome. Our boys are awesome. They are loud. They are hilarious. They are adventurous & cute as puppies when they are up to no good. You know that saying 'silence is golden'? Nuh-uh. If the house is quiet it's a telling sign they are up to no good...True. ALL true.

Another truth about boys - they make your toilet smell like an alley behind the local pub. No lie. 

We do toilet checks on the hour every hour - or after each pit stop, to comply with standard OH&S recommendations. A wet toilet floor is a slippery toilet floor, & no one wants to land in someone else's pee. Or even your own pee.

I was aware that the younger (& not so younger) male species may need reminding to refine their aim. I was prepared for drips on the toilet seat & few a strays on the floor. What I was not prepared for was the proverbial showers that would dry in yellow droplets all over the seat & lid. Neither was I expecting to regularly find Lake Bonney on our toilet floor. I kid you not. I had no idea that so much wee could come from such a small person in one trip.

With four boys taking regular jaunts to the lavatory, one of whom has a low capacity, hyperactive bladder meaning he is nearly always busting straight off the mark. Some days I clean the toilet floor more than I load the washing machine.

Over the last four months or so it seemed to exacerbate, likely due to the school holidays & with now four boys using the commode on a rotating door basis. Fed up with having to resort to a towel to clean up the initial mess, going through rolls of toilet paper & bottles of disinfectant on a weekly basis I called all the boys to a toilet door meeting. Mum was serious.

Rule #1
When you go to the toilet, hold your penis! 
Many times I had busted Jack just thrusting his hips forward & then refining his aim as he went. Which was never successful, & often by the time his aim was on target he'd run out steam, so to speak. By then it was too late.

Rule #2
Put the toilet seat UP!
You can't drip wee on the toilet seat if it isn't in your way. {I didn't bother asking them to put it back down once finished. I learnt long ago to pick my battles & right now putting the seat down is very low on the list of parenting warfare.}

Rule #3
Watch where you are weeing.
How do you know if you are meeting water with water when you are staring at the ceiling or looking over your shoulder? 
To reiterate - hold & watch, from beginning to end.

Rule #4
If you make a mess, clean it up. If you need help, ask.


We went back to basics, even though we had covered all of these back at the beginning when they first began running around in jocks. With these rules {verbally back in place} I was hopeful. 
Hopeful my days of soggy socks from stepping in some one's wee were over. Wiping seats, behind lids, walls & floors with disinfectant could be done less than five times a day. Minimum.
For a few days it helped. Lake Bonney never returned & but for a few splashes here & there, it seemed they were taking their responsibilities as boys seriously. Then every now & again I would find a puddle returned, or the beginnings of a yellow shower over a seat that hadn't been lifted. I was able to rule out Ben from the offending list. That still left Jack, Blake & Will. It appeared each of them were guilty, in random order, of breaking one {or all of} the toilet commandments.

Through constant reminding & follow up checks, we're slowly getting to a clean & visitor safe lavatory. Most of the time anyway. If they make a mess they do clean it up - to the best of their ability. The seat & lid now both stay down, so if they need to pee they lift both instead of aiming over the seat. Every boy is holding their hose & watching where they are aiming - a big win.

Seriously, I never imagined getting boys to use & leave the toilet in a clean state would be such an on going drama. We were not lazy with their toilet training or have low standards of personal care & hygiene. It just seems that they are too busy & find the need to vacate their bladder a time consuming interruption to their days. So it was done as quickly & as haphazardly as possible. After all there are soccer balls to kick, bikes to jump & scooters to ride. Who has time to go to the toilet anyways.

In a predominantly XY gene'd large family two toilets are not a luxury.

They are a necessity.

Who knew I had so much time on my hands to waste

It's not very often I say this, but Doug is right. I have little to no self control when it comes to technology & social media. I know I read a lot & my Facebook app is opened several times a day. Ebay is my friend & Pinterest an enabler. I don't watch tv, because I don't have time too. I'm too busy flicking through watch lists, re-pinning two-minute-hairstyles-for-long-hair & liking statuses.

On a bad day, it's really bad. A quick ten minute check of Facebook, follow a few links, catch up on a blog or two & hello it's time to pick the kids up from school. The floors still need sweeping. Dried weet-bix super glued forever more to the breakfast bowls. Washing to be pulled out the dryer {& dumped on the precariously balanced, gravity defying folding pile}. The coffee ring stains on the table next to the laptop & butt imprints left on the warm seat tell the tale of a less than arduous day.

This is only the beginning. A browse through Ebay, looking at furniture on the cheap I could revamp or fitbits to get me motivated on the whole 10,000 steps a day thing. Which isn't happening as I check out the local real estate to see what's happening on the market in the general area we live, before jumping onto a parenting forum & stalking the TTC* & HPT, OPK & BFP's** forums. We aren't ttc ourselves, putting a definite stop to my own POAS*** addiction, it's been years since I've stood next to a window, turning a pregnancy test this way & that looking for the faintest sighting of a second line. But I can & will stalk every other woman who is desperately hoping to see the feintest of feint second pink line that speaks to the whispers of life. Praying faceless strangers who understand their tight grip on hope can also see that miraculous second line, affirming it's positive status. There's nothing like seeing a photo of multiple positive pregnancy tests that go from 'just maybe' to 'you are thoroughly up the duff'. Gives me goosebumps & a fair case of envy every time.

At the end of the day, I like to finish up with a quick flick through Pinterest at 11pm, before turning out the lights...At 1am. After the muted glare from my phone has woken Doug. I'm thirty two years old & still shouldn't be allowed to control my own bedtime. Then of course, I can't sleep with my thinker set to 'redesign-the-whole-fricken-house' mode.  

I'm not starved for social interaction, I get my grown up conversation every morning & afternoon at the kids school & when Doug gets home from work in the evening. There's no coherent conversations in the morning between us. Given I go to bed at stupid o'clock & Doug gets up for work at ridiculous o'clock, our morning interactions are usually limited to Doug kissing me goodbye with sweet whispers of love & have a good day. In response I smear the dribble from the pillow all over my cheek, mumble something about putting the shoes in the shower before stumbling my way up from slumber to coherently forming sentences that bumble along the lines of "love you too, have a good day. See you tonight." By the time the kids are ready for school I am more than ready to start talking to people over the age of ten & stop saying things like "have you brushed your teeth yet?"

"Socks & shoes, guys, let's go, come on!"

"Ben, stop talking to Jack about your clash of clans base."

"Jack! get dressed!"

"Is your bag packed? Diary, lunch box, drink bottle, homework."

Once Ben, Rianan, Jack & Blake are at school, I return home with just two of our little minions & flick the kettle on, ready for some more social interaction. Because that ten minutes outside the classroom was only a warm up.

All is not lost, some days I don't even turn the computer on, & the days that I do, my hours are interrupted. I get up to do the basic daily essentials our big household & little people require. But many minutes, many times a day are sucked into that blue void. Because people.

We all have our vices. Since the age of sixteen months mine has always been that I talk too much. Now I get to natter away even when there's no one at the table with me.





The lingo
*TTC {trying to conceive}
**HPT, OPK &BFP {home pregnancy test, ovulation predictor kit & big fat positive's}
***POAS {Pee on a stick} a ovulation predictor or pregnancy test, either either