Precious little angel.

“Samuel” means
“God has heard”.

“John” means
“God is generous”.

Together, these two names suggest something very important, Sam. I would say that the combination of these two names is no accident or coincidence, although Mommy and Daddy weren’t aware of these meanings when we named you. Daddy wanted to call one of his children Sam, and Mommy wanted to continue a family middle-name tradition. And in fulfilling our own wishes, we gave you a name that says something. God has heard, and God is generous. Your name says it, and you yourself prove it, with your very presence. God heard Mommy and Daddy talk about our hopes and dreams for our second baby (and our first). He heard all the prayers offered up by people who cared about you – for both of you – before you were even born. And He is generous. All we have to do is look at your face, and we know it to be true.

♥♥♥

Right from day one, one of the happiest babies we’ve ever seen!

A lot happened this month to remind Mommy and Daddy of this assurance, and to make the unintended meaning behind your name really stick out to Mommy. First of all, you were born! The first time Mommy held you, I knew we’d been blessed. He gave us everything we were hoping for. You were a big, healthy boy. You were born with no issues at all, even with all the commotion and confusion the day you decided to make your entrance. You entered the world screaming, so Mommy was able to know right away you were fine even though she couldn’t see you immediately. And when Mommy joined you in our room at the hospital, you were a cuddly, happy baby, ate well, slept well, and as a little added bonus you even had Mommy’s coloring. You were perfect, with not one single problem and not one little flaw, and you were MORE than Mommy, Daddy or your grandparents hoped for… because God has heard, and God is generous.

♥♥♥

A favorite early sleeping pose. You get this from your Dad!

Our first three weeks together were perfect. We brought you home on Day 3, and you settled right in. You had already stolen Mommy and Daddy’s hearts at the hospital, and you stole your big brother’s heart as soon as you moved in at our house. The first day you were home, Zane couldn’t wait to show you to Oma or anyone else that visited – much like Mommy and Daddy couldn’t wait to show you to EVERYONE. Daddy was off work for three weeks too, so we all got to be cozy and happy at home. This was another time that we were reminded God has heard: Mommy had a really hard time after Zane, trying to run a house and keep everyone fed, and we knew we needed things to be easier this time. Thanks to some new friends and some family members, we had our freezers so full of pre-made meals that we couldn’t even fit groceries! It was probably the easiest three weeks Mommy has EVER had. You ate, slept and looked adorable, and Mommy got lots of time to lie around and relax.

♥♥♥

The aftermath of the crash!

When you were just under three weeks old, Daddy had to go back to work. On Daddy’s first day back to work, Mommy took you and Zane out for our first car trip without Daddy. We were waiting to turn left to go to Costco, and someone behind us decided that her world was going to fall apart if she had to wait for the guy beside us FOR 10 SECONDS ZOMG, so she whipped into our lane and rear-ended us doing almost highway speed. Sam, Mommy has never been so panicked and yet so calm at the same time. Of course you were both in car seats, but all the same I didn’t know what a car accident might do to a baby. You were both crying; Zane was scared but I think now that you just cried because the big crash and Zane’s crying woke you up.

♥♥♥

Your car seat did its job that day! (I think this is a different day though).

Mommy checked you over quite a few times and even had paramedics come and check you; and we still went to the hospital to have a doctor check you, too! As it turned out, your back was messed up enough to need chiropractor treatments, but you are going to be just fine. And looking back at this later, Mommy realizes that this was just one more reminder that God is generous. Anything can happen – anything – but what did happen, to us, was actually pretty minor. The car was smashed up, we had to use a lot of time driving to and from the chiropractor, and you went through something we wish hadn’t happened. But we got the car fixed, you will get better, and all four of us are alive and well. Mommy and Daddy have both our babies and that’s really all we need – the thought of losing you or something really serious happening to you, scares Mommy to death.

♥♥♥

All my boys!

So all in all Sam… I guess you didn’t change a lot this month. You slept a lot, ate a lot of milk, peed and pooped in a lot of diapers, and cuddled in a lot of loving arms – rinse and repeat. The health nurse was impressed with you in your first week home, the doctor was impressed with you at our 2 week appointment. The paramedics and doctors were even impressed with what a trooper you were the day of the crash. But all talk of your awesomeness aside, you are HERE and that’s what matters the most to your Mommy and Daddy and to lots of others who love you. You’ve been here just one short month and Mommy and Daddy already couldn’t imagine what our lives would be like if we didn’t have you. We love you so, so much and we can’t wait to see where you will go.

♥♥♥

Measurements at the end of your first month: 

• 10 lb 12 oz
• 20.75 inches

So why do I hate laundry? Probably the first and worst reason is that it’s never done! Even if I have EVERYTHING in the house washed, dried, folded/hung, and put away, the next morning there will be Laundry needing to be done. Even if it’s just a couple pairs of underwear and socks, there’s always SOMETHING there. This probably wouldn’t bother me as much if I kept up with it and could keep an empty hamper for us to put dirty stuff into. But currently, I do NOT keep up with Laundry, so there is never a place to put dirty stuff, and it goes on the floor! I realize as I type this that if I can overcome this and keep my floors (relatively) clear, then Laundry will have a much more difficult time intimidating me.

I hate when things have to be washed a certain way. Things you can’t put in the dryer are possibly the biggest peeve… I don’t have a clothesline, and I don’t plan to ever have one as it will dominate our average-sized backyard. So when I wash a load of things I can’t put in the dryer, they are hung all over the house. In the bathroom, over chairs, over doors, you name it. It’s like an extra step since I have to gather all that stuff up later and put it away. I have been known to get rid of clothes simply because I can’t put them in the dryer, or because I refused to hang them, put them through the dryer, and now no longer fit.

I can’t stand doing socks. This has got to be the stupidest part of Laundry… I think that socks should be manufactured to a universal standard so that they can be simply thrown in a drawer without matching. You would always know that the only factor you have to take into account is color. All your red socks would be the same, all your black socks would be the same. You just pull out two of the same color and go. No more sorting, no more matching, no more throwing out single socks because you haven’t seen their mate in a year. Maybe this could be achieved if I threw out every sock in the house and replaced all of them with 10-12 pairs that are identical for each person. Would it be worth it? Maybe.

Sorting colors is dumb too. I don’t sort colors – if I’ve just bought a new pair of jeans, I will wash them alone ONCE to let them run. Otherwise, everything goes in together. Brights, darks, pastels, I don’t even look. I just throw it all in. If something gets stained from something else, then I get rid of it – obviously I don’t want it if it’s going to make Laundry more difficult. I wash in warm and use the same soap for everything. If the clothes can’t take it, then they don’t belong in my home. The one exception is whites – I OCCASIONALLY wash the whites separately and throw in a little bleach to keep them bright. I won’t even go into dry-cleaning… if it gets wrecked using a Dryel bag, it gets thrown out too. There’s actually a lot of things other people do with their laundry that I refuse to do… sorting colors is just one of them!

Another one is bleaching socks. My husband told me about this – he pointed out that since he moved in with me, his socks are not crisp, beautiful white anymore. Apparently, his mom used to wash the socks separately and bleach them to get them nice and white. I told him in no uncertain terms that I will NOT be doing this. First of all, his white socks don’t make a full load even if EVERY LAST ONE is dirty, and partial loads are another Laundry peeve I have. They’re wasteful. Maybe not wasteful of water, but definitely wasteful of electricity. Secondly, if you have to bleach something after EVERY TIME you wear it, maybe it’s time to not buy it in white! I buy only black, patterned or colored socks, for this exact reason. Eventually, his socks will all be black or colored as well. White socks are ugly anyway.

Sorting TOWELS and washing them with any kind of care is one of the SILLIEST things I’ve ever heard of. I’ve heard several people say that they don’t like faded or stained towels. This is ridiculous. We go through towels like water, and I will not develop a system just for washing my towels without fading or staining them. I wash towels (along with underwear and socks) in HOT water. This is so that any germs or mildew that might be on them will be dead and gone. Yes, washing in hot all the time fades them. To me, a faded towel is a CLEAN towel. I have dark-colored ones that I put out for people I like, they don’t show stains and don’t look that bad when they fade. For the most part, I don’t care. Did the towel dry your hands properly? Then I don’t care what the color looks like.

Folding underwear is another thing I refuse to do. You have a drawer or bin for your underwear. When you wear it, it goes inside all your other clothes. NO ONE CAN SEE IT. So why would you care if it’s faded, discolored, or WRINKLED as long as it fits right and is comfortable? Cotton underwear never gets wrinkled anyway, and if you want to wear underwear that isn’t cotton, that’s between you and your sweaty genitals. I sort out our clean cotton underwear and I shove it haphazardly into the drawer. As long as we both HAVE clean underwear we’re happy. My one exception is bras – I am willing to fold something I spend 50 bucks apiece on. If I spent that kind of money on underwear, I might be willing to fold it… then again, if I HAD that kind of money for underwear, I could just PAY someone to fold it – and all my other Laundry. Wouldn’t that be heavenly…

All of this being said, I guess Laundry isn’t too bad as long as you don’t LET it be. I set my boundaries. Towels, underwear and socks get washed in HOT water. I don’t bleach socks. I don’t sort colors. I don’t fold underwear. I don’t dry-clean. If something can’t handle my simplified Laundry routine, then I don’t want it in my home! Laundry is my arch-nemesis, and I must deal with it in the way that works best for ME (it’s not like anyone else is going to do it).

All this being said, Laundry and I have reached a precarious treaty this week. I have agreed to (a) wash, dry, fold/hang, and PUT AWAY one (1) load of Laundry each morning and (b) pick up anything from the floor that’s clean enough to be worn again and put it away, each morning. In return, Laundry has agreed to (a) not pile up and (b) not expect things from me that are unrealistic, like catering to prissy laundry rules. I guess this will be part of my Morning Routine A-LA-the FlyLady.

I think that if I hold up my end of the treaty, it could work out for the best – for me, my honey, my family and my own sanity. I have upheld my side for one day so far. Whether I CAN and WILL continue… remains to be seen.

The book brought to me by my stepmom… that seems as if it was written about me! Click the picture to go to Amazon if you want a copy.

On Sunday, May 29, 2011 my stepmom brought over a book that has the potential to start some huge changes in my life. The book is called “Sink Reflections” and is a self-help book (yes, I know, SIGH) that promises to get both your home AND your life in order. We have yet to see if it actually will start the engine of change, since it will depend largely on my ability to start with “BabySteps” as the author says, and not go on a huge cleaning spree once I’m started. I tend to “marathon clean” or “crisis clean”, and then I am so sick of cleaning that I don’t do it for weeks until my house is desperate again. I am trying to just follow the steps in the first few chapters to de-clutter the house… and I wanted to share my experience on my first day as a “FLYbaby” (this may be the last time I ever use that term).

I read the first few chapters of the book on Sunday night before going to bed. I like where the book starts… she calls herself the FLYlady because she used to teach flyfishing classes, but in the book FLY stands for “Finally Loving Yourself”. Her first few chapters have a lot to say about taking care of yourself and CARING ABOUT yourself. This hits home pretty hard for me because since we brought Zane home, I’ve been neglecting myself. It took a bright pink book with a kitchen sink on the cover to make me realize it. I have been completely overwhelmed with what I keep saying is my “new job”… caring for an infant, keeping the house clean all the time, and doing the lion’s share of the cooking. I have been feeling like I need to get EVERYTHING done… only I’m too tired to do everything at once, so I do nothing instead.

The FLYlady’s second “assignment” involves starting to take care of yourself first. (I’ll get to the first assignment in a minute). She believes that if you put the messy house and tasks like laundry and cooking first, you are completing these tasks on an “empty tank” and that’s why you will burn out! She also points out that by doing this you don’t just make yourself suffer. You also take yourself away from your family because there’s always something hanging over your head that “needs to be done”. This makes a lot of sense to me because I’ve seen Rickie come home a few nights and pick up laundry or cook when he should be coming home to play with his son. But because I’ve taken myself away, he feels like he has to help with my tasks. (Not saying he shouldn’t ever help, but there are basic things that I should just be able to handle!)

So in her book one of the first “assignments” is to get dressed every morning before doing anything else. This isn’t a joke! For the last month I’ve been getting up in the morning, throwing on sweatpants off the floor, and doing nothing with my hair unless I happen to need a shower that morning. It was like she looked into my life and based this chapter on me. So my first new HABIT has to be to get dressed every morning. She says get dressed to makeup and even shoes… well I don’t normally wear makeup and I hate wearing shoes… so for now, I will get up each and every morning and dress in clothes that I can leave the house in and make sure my hair looks presentable.

The FIRST chapter in the book is interesting. She starts in the kitchen (which makes sense because the kitchen can be the most awful place in the house if you let it!) and she says to take everything out of your sink and shine the sink. Well she is right about one thing… a clean empty sink DOES make your whole kitchen look better. But I thought about this and I wanted to start just a little bit bigger. My kitchen is already fairly organized, so I thought rather than just cleaning the sink, my goal in the kitchen should be to keep all the dishes caught up and the counters wiped. FLYlady says to adapt any of her routines to yourself… well MY kitchen problem has always been the counter, so the counter will now be my version of her kitchen sink!

So what did I do yesterday that was sooo great it made me want to write about it? Well, first of all I got up in the morning and put on capris and a tank top instead of one of Rickie’s huge T-shirts and my sweats. I didn’t even do my hair yesterday but I already felt better just by wearing nice cool clothes that fit properly and that I wouldn’t be ashamed to answer the door in! Score one for the FLYlady.

I decided that the first task to make its way into my Morning Routine would be the kitchen. When my kitchen counter is bare and clean, my whole home looks better automatically AND I feel much less overwhelmed with cleaning to be done. So after dressing, I emptied the clean dishwasher, loaded it with the few dishes sitting in the sink, and wiped the counter and sink. Let me mention that I DO like to have a clean sink… but instead of the FLYlady version where you fill it with cleaner and scrub it (a little bit of overkill IMHO) I am happy if my sink has no goo on it, no dishes unless they are clean ones drip-drying, and the dishcloth rinsed and hung on the tap. So the first item in my morning routine is to have my kitchen as described above. I also discovered that if it’s kept up, this only takes about 15 minutes to do… which brings me to another ingenious concept from the FLYlady.

FLYlady suggests in her book that you spend no more than 15 minutes doing one thing (of course this doesn’t apply to things for enjoyment, this is just a way of keeping your tasks from driving you insane). In other words, set a timer and work on one room. When the timer goes off, move to another room and work in there for 15 minutes. I did this during my kitchen cleaning in the morning and found that in 15 minutes I not only got the kitchen looking satisfactory, but also put away some CLUTTER on the counter leaving even more space! So I decided that this was what I would do the rest of the day; cleaning in 15 minute bursts.

I started out in the bedroom where I had a mountain of laundry to put away. I figured if I worked quickly I could do it all in 15 minutes. But I had to do something else first… a 27 Fling Boogie (and yes the name is stupid… but the actual routine is GREAT). A 27 Fling Boogie (I’m going to just call it a 27 Fling from now on) is when you take a bag or box, go through your house, and collect 27 items for the trash or charity. FLYlady tells you to get rid of ANYTHING that does not either (a) get used or (b) bring a smile to your face. I had no issues with this since I’ve believed this for a long time anyway! BUT I have trouble doing it in the bedroom… this is why I hate putting away laundry, because my closets and drawers are so full that it becomes a pain to actually have everything put away. So I needed to do a 27 Fling before putting away all the clothes we actually USE. I got a bag and went to work.

My FOUR 27 Flings from yesterday. A bunch of CLUTTER on its way to the car and OUT OF MY HOME!

This is where the day started to get interesting! I stood in the closet and just ripped things off hangers and flung them on a pile in the hallway. When I counted the items into the bag, I had a few more than 27 items. So rather than stuff in the extra items and call it a day… I challenged myself. I closed up the first bag with exactly 27 items in it, set it at the back door, and got another bag to see if I could get rid of another 27 items starting with those few extras I had pulled. The same thing happened again!!! On my very last bag, I pulled a few items from other rooms to complete it, so at that point I knew I was done in the bedroom and needed to do what I came in there to do. BUT I filled 4 bags. That means that in just a half hour, my house was freed of 108 items that we don’t need. AND almost all of them came from one closet and one dresser! How’s that for lightening the load.

I went ahead and set my timer and started in on the laundry. In 15 minutes I had everything put away… and it was SO EASY to do because I had freed up so much space in the closet and dresser! I have more stuff to wash and put away today but I believe I will have HANGERS LEFT OVER. This is not something that I have ever had before, so you can imagine how big it is for me. I decided to have a new rule in our closet… if we run out of hangers, WE DO NOT BUY MORE HANGERS! If we don’t have extra hangers then we should be able to get rid of some clothes. This will keep the CLUTTER down in the closet and dresser which by turn is going to keep our bedroom clean. Very important because right now our bedroom has our bed, my dresser, Zane’s cradle, a tall cupboard with office supplies, AND both our desks and computers. Big victory in the master bedroom yesterday!

My next 15 minute timer was to work on wedding invitations, and the one after that was to finally sit down and decide on our cake and write up some notes for the cake maker on what I want. YES, these are some of the overwhelming stuff for me right now. I am excited about our wedding and the day will be wonderful, but there are parts of the planning that I just don’t want to be bothered with. I worked on invitations/registry for three 15 minute stretches at various times yesterday and got more done on them than I have to date.

So what did I accomplish from the book?

1. The kitchen is clean
2. 108 items stripped from our bedroom closet and dresser and BANISHED
3. Clean laundry put away
4. Wedding cake selected
5. 45 minutes in total spent on wedding invitations

What else did these small things ALLOW me to accomplish?

Yup, I definitely slipped a photo of my son into a post that barely even mentions him. It can’t be helped, really.

1. I didn’t hate putting away laundry because I had SPACE to put it away.
2. I don’t feel guilty every time I walk through the living area, because the kitchen looks CLEAN.
3. I didn’t skip lunch because I had clean dishes to eat it from.
4. Supper and its cleanup was easy because I had clean dishes and pots and room to put them in the dishwasher as I finished with them.
5. Because I wasn’t cleaning while making supper, I had the time to make muffins while the food cooked. So now I have snack food for Rickie’s lunches.
6. I was able to give Zane a bath in the kitchen (see super cute photo on right) without having to wipe the counter first or shuffle dirty dishes around.

So what I am saying here is that by following only the first four SMALL things FLYlady says to do (get dressed in the morning, clean the sink/counter, 27 Fling, and 15 minute decluttering) I was also able to accomplish many more things in the extra time and space I had created! Not to mention, I was able to have Rickie’s dinner almost ready when he came home and actually got to spend some time with him instead of trying to get his supper in a messy kitchen. Already I am more available to my family as FLYlady said I would be. This day was definitely enough to convince me to keep going with my FLYing lessons!

FLYlady: 1. Messy house: 0.