Taking back the house

(We noticed you had put our toys in here. Don't worry,
we fixed that.)

(This was originally published on Feb. 29, 2012)

The first few months are rough. We've been over this. Especially with multiples. You don't sleep, you free time has evaporated, your chores have quadrupled (I don't care how many kids you have) and you're operating under a cloud of chaos. Laundry piles up, dishes pile up, when did you vacuum last?

Then suddenly, you turn a corner. More sleep is happening all around. And the combination of sleep deprivation training and actually getting more sleep helps clarify your situation. You don't have to operate in panic mode. At least not all the time.

We came to this realization a couple weeks ago. We were looking around at some of the clutter in our house, and as if he was reading my mind, my husband said: “I'm planning on taking care of some of this. A little each day.”

And that was that. We both began to tackle small chores, and cram them back into our daily routine. Easy stuff like dishes and laundry first, but adding on extra bits – reclamation of the parts of the living room, clearing off baby stuff from one of our easy chairs, breaking down the bazillion cardboard boxes that we've accumulated from various infant accoutrements (diapers, wipes, toys, furniture).

But let's be clear - we don't clean rooms. We clean fractions of rooms. We do what we can when we can do it. But it's been working. Taking 10 minutes to clean off the easy chair one day, 20 minutes to rediscover the top of my bureau - and looking at a project in small pieces is far easier than attempting to tackle an entire room, especially when you have to stop to cuddle, change or play with babies.

It's fun looking around the house for the ever shrinking list of projects, all the while trying to balance the constant flow of regular chores.

A few things we've done seem staggeringly obvious in hindsight – but when you're a sleep deprived zombie juggling bouncing babies, “obvious” becomes meaningless.

-Do the chores where the babies are.

If your kids are downstairs and your laundry is upstairs, bring it down to the living room and fold it. Duh? Yeah, it took me a few months to master that little gem. All because in my previous life, I had folded my laundry upstairs.

-Don't kill yourself.

It's easy to look at a mess and get overwhelmed, especially when you're dealing with extra chores that stem from baby care. And if you overwork your already-tired self, you're going to be disinclined to continue with the routine. So keep it simple. Break rooms down into manageable parts (e.g. organize the coffee table one day; clear out a cluttered corner the next).

And as you start taking back your house, you'll feel better about life. It's like getting dressed. When you look better, you feel better, and you are better. Same applies with your living room.

And to be clear, my house is never going to be “clean” - at least not in the Martha Stuart sense of the word. There will be toys on the floor (I just located a squishy fabric ball under my feet), and mail on the table. But it will be a controlled chaos. Or at least less chaotic chaos. Works for me.

(P.S. 2016 reality check: You will win and lose this battle with your house. It's okay. You are not alone. You can do it.)

Showers, sleep and other mommy scheduling conflicts

(Note: Originally published, Feb. 8, 2012 in The Maine Edge.)

(The elusive hot coffee. Some think it only a myth)

I've always been a person who had two separate minds when it come to scheduling. One mind was my work brain, which kept track of business meetings, interviews for stories and any other business related meetup that might appear. Then there was my home, or social, mind. This was for lunches with pals, hitting the movies and meeting up for gaming, dinner and drinks at a friend's house.

Add three kids to this mix and suddenly there isn't enough brain power to go around, and more scheduling conflicts than I ever thought possible arise. Who knew that there would be a scheduling conflict between sleeping and showering? You have time for one or the other, not both. You have to cancel one of them.

This is compounded by the epic amount of doctor appointments needed to bring your kids up to date on things like immunizations, regular exams and what not. Add in family and friends who want to visit and help and suddenly you have another full docket.

Then there is that separate brains problem, when you have set up a doctor's appointment for your kids three months in advance, but you don't mesh that schedule with your work schedule – because up until a few months ago you never had this whole other schedule to keep track of. This entails calling people to explain that you've gone full-blown stupid and double booked.

Thankfully, losing your mind because of new children is something most people (or at least most people with children) are entirely sympathetic towards. Even if their kids have grown up, they remember that first year.

Here are some scheduling conflicts for some of the rooms in your own house. Pick two out of three.
Kitchen: You can cook dinner, wash bottles or stock or empty the dishwasher.

Living Room: Pick up toys, sweep/vacuum the floor or pay bills.

Bathroom/Laundry Room: Wash your clothes, wash your kids clothes/diapers or take a shower.

Bedroom: Feed kids, get dressed in real clothes (sweatpants don't count) or sleep.

And that's just at your own house. If you need to bathe a child, meet with friends or fix an appliance, you can only pick one out of three.