Archive for July 27th, 2009

Motivate me to clean my house.

July 27, 2009

I really need to clean my house, but I just don’t want to. I have cleaned out my email, facebooked until I caught myself cruisin’ for new friends, and read the past two months of “tochea” archives. I am running out of procrastination tools and my house is a disaster. I have the day off and I dread my husband may ask, “what did you do today?” I hate admitting that I thought about cleaning, but we both know I’m lazy and didn’t want to, so I have this beautiful computer tan instead. I not only cannot afford a maid, but I would be embarrassed to invite one into my home. I can just see myself saying, “Really, it may look like we have not vacuumed in two months, but we have freak sandstorms in our home – weird, right?” The only thing that ever motivates me to clean is inviting people over so I have no choice.  Is that wrong?  Should I have a party or do you have any way to make cleaning fun or rewarding?

I’m touched that I’ve been used as your procrastination tool. Thank you.

You’ve clearly never been to my house, because otherwise you wouldn’t be asking me this question. I live by the standard that if you can walk through my kitchen without your shoe sticking to the floor and getting pulled off your foot, it’s clean.

I hate cleaning and my husband sucks at it even more than I do. We had to get a cleaning lady. When she arrives, I follow her around the house for an hour explaining that I forgot she was coming, that I usually don’t let the kids spread peanut butter all over the kitchen table and sprinkle raisins in it and then leave it there for three days, and that the green stuff in the toilet is actually a pre-wash that I put there for her to prep it for scrubbing. She is very kind but I think when she’s on her cell phone yelling at someone in Portugese, it’s her therapist who is helping her through her Tuesday morning nightmare which is my house. I feel bad about this, but not bad enough to clean before she gets there. I tell myself I’m stimulating the economy.

I’ve gotten better, though, since my kids came down with the ebola virus from something in my refrigerator, so here are some cleaning tips for you:

1. Sell some eggs and help an infertile couple while simultaneously earning money to pay for a cleaning lady.

2. If you must clean, listen to something good. Super-loud music, NPR podcasts, David Sedaris books on tape, your mom on the phone. Distract yourself. Also, wear rubber gloves. I do much better when I wear yellow rubber gloves.

3. You don’t need an excuse to have a party, ever. But I do caution you that any party will result in a dirtier house. Better to clean your house every time you go to a party, because being hungover in a clean house is much more pleasant.

4. Get your husband to clean half the house. If you both work, there’s no reason you both shouldn’t clean.

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My friends think their shih-tzu is as adorable and entertaining as my granddaughter.

July 27, 2009

I have three wonderful children. My husband and I are retired and so spend more time with friends. When we go out we naturally speak about our children and grandchildren. They are our whole life. I have friends who have no children or grandchildren and they never ask how is your family, what are the grandkids up to?  So we never bring our family into the conversation.  But we do feel uncomfortable sometimes.  Oh, and all these people want to talk about are their pets- what is wrong with people who think animals are like humans?

1. The man who lives next door to me once angrily knocked on my door, holding a bag of rocks in his hand. These were rocks he had collected from his yard. Apparently, during one of my many playdate-turned-Mommy-winefest afternoons, the unattended kids were chucking rocks over the fence. My neighbor was super angry and was like, “These could have hit my children! It really would have hurt them! They’re only eight pounds a piece!” And I was thinking, who the hell lets two 8-pound babies loiter by a fence in the backyard all by themselves…and then I realized that he was talking about his dogs. His dog children. I immediately decided to discount everything else he ever says to me because what’s wrong with those people is that they’re bored and lonely and their spouses have ceased to provide adequate entertainment and affection, and they’re desperate, so they get it from their dogs.

2. Do your friends ask about other things in your life? Do they ask about your sailboat, or your salt and pepper shaker collection, or your tango lessons? If they do, then they either hate children and don’t want to hear about them, or they’re oblivious and it never occurs to them to ask, since they don’t have kids or grandkids of their own. If you think it’s the former, don’t bother talking to them about your family, because they don’t want to hear it: they’ll only roll their eyes and think nasty thoughts about your family (probably in much the same way you roll your eyes every time they talk about their pets). If it’s the latter, feel free to talk about your family all you want…as long as you don’t talk about them constantly. Then you’ll be just as bad as my neighbor and his bag full of rocks.

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Should I stay home or go back to work?

July 27, 2009

My maternity leave is almost over and I’m feeling very emotional and a little crazy about it. I like my job and I have worked hard to get to where I am in my career. I’m not ready to step away from my professional life, but the thought of leaving my beautiful, sweet 3-month-old daughter with a nanny all day makes me cry. We are not rich but with a few sacrifices I would be able to stay at home. I am just not sure I want to. Which makes me feel guilty. Do you see the problem here? I’m going nuts.

If you leave your child in daycare or with a nanny all day, she’ll grow up to be a sociopath at worst, and at best she’ll be that kid in the high school cafeteria who sits alone with her hair hanging in her eyes, eating the middles out of 13 slices of white bread and occasionally laughing hysterically for no reason.

If you’re a stay-at-home mother, your daughter will grow up to think the world revolves around her, and will end up angry and bitter when she realizes that life isn’t going to always go the way she wants. She’ll get hooked on paint thinner fumes and heroin, and write an angry memoir about you and your smothering ways when she’s in her 20s. You’ll become the cautionary tale for an entire generation of parents who raised their kids to be awful, spoiled people.

If you go to work, you will be fulfilled professionally, but your family life will be a big gaping hole of resentment and sadness.

If you stay at home, you’ll have terrific kids, but you’ll morph from an intelligent, interesting woman into someone who wears elastic-waisted pants and talks about poop all day.

See? You can’t win. Do what feels right. It’s going to be okay.

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