The Thief of Joy

An explosion happened at my house this morning.
If you live in my neighborhood you probably heard it. Sorry about that.
I've seen it brewing.
Like that zit on your face, the one that feels like Mt Everest, but doesn't have a head on it. I tried to pop this problem prematurely, with lots of loving words like, "comparison if the thief of joy" and "even mom and dad don't have everything". All to no avail. This morning. This morning the zit came to a huge ugly head, was popped, and left that giant open crater of hurt.
It went something like this.

Dade: Mom I REALLY need new shoes. These ones have a hole too.

Me: Yeah I noticed that. I'm sorry we've just been really busy. I promise we'll go to the store this week and get you new ones.

Dade: So, like what's my budget for new shoes? Like $100?

Me: Uh, no....

Dade: (huge huffy sigh) Yeah I figured. So like $50 then?

Me: Babe try $30.

(At this point the color is rising in his cheeks, his little hands are clenched, and I can see tears forming in his eye)

Me: Dade honey what kind of shoes were you wanting?

Dade: IT'S NOT FAIR! EVERYONE AT SCHOOL WEARS NIKE SHOES AND I HAVE TO WEAR CRAPPY SHOES! YOU NEVER BUY ME THE GOOD SHOES!

Me: Dade please don't shout at me we can talk about this. The shoes you have are Adidas, so I don't think it's fair to say I "never buy you cool shoes".

Dade: Mom no one wears Adidas anymore. Adidas is stupid. All the kids at school have Nike and you'll never buy me Nike shoes cause they are like $100! (spies his sister on the floor with her iPod) And Mom I just REALLY need an iPod for middle school.

Me: Dade you do not need an iPod for middle school.

Dade: Yes I do! YOu just don't understand! I can use it to check my grades..

Me: (I should add that now my sympathy for his plight is waning and I am becoming genuinely annoyed at his materialistic attitude. But because I am a "good" mom and the struggle is real, I am trying to stay calm) Daden if you need to check your grades you can do it when you get home. Or *gasp* you could actually talk to your teacher.

Dade: Mom that's just dumb.

Me: No Dade, wanting something because "everyone else has it" is dumb. If you spend all your time being jealous of what other people have you will never enjoy what you have. (Eye rolling from my prenager) It's true. Mom and dad can't have everything either and we're adults. For instance I drives an older car. It's dirty, and dinged up. My automatic doors don't work but it runs well and takes us where we need to go. Aunt Dani has a new car with automatic doors that work and a super cool GPS system. It's clean and shiny. Does that mean that I should be envious and go spend $50K  on a new van?

Dade: No.

Me: Well why not? Dani's car is nicer than mine! For that matter let's look at Gramma and Papa! They have a big beautiful house with a huge yard and a hot tub! We have a small house and a small yard. Should I be envious and go buy a new house?

Dade: No I like our house! (I find this shocking because not having his own room has been the subject of many spirited debates)

Me: Well there you have it. We choose to be thankful for what we have and can afford rather then being envious and always sad that we can't have what others have. If it's  something you just can't live without then you save your pennies until you can have it.

Dade: I knew talking to you wouldn't help. I knew you wouldn't get them for me. I just can't have anything.

Me: I'm really sorry that you feel that way, but I'm not sorry that I can't buy you everything thing you want. It breaks my heart to see you sad, but I know that having everything won't make you happy.

Dade: (stomp stomp stomp huff door slam)

You guys #thestruggleisreal trying to teach my kids that they don't have to have everything is one of the most exhausting parts of my day. Truthfully I feel bad that I can't give them everything they want. It hits a nerve, I was that kid that didn't have the cool clothes and the coolest toys. I remember. Don't get me wrong I had nice things and my parents worked damn hard to provide them for me. But it didn't feel that way in the moment.
I think today's children are different. Society is different. There are so many more THINGS we "need" to have. They live in an instant society and are constantly bombarded by a stream of new now and better. I'm sure it's as exhausting for them as constantly explaining why we can't have it all is for me.
I'm trying. I really trying my very best to walk the line of giving them what they need balanced by a little of what they want. It's so. damn. hard.

New year, new house....wait what?

This is what I wanted my first blog post of 2014 to be about:

Organize My House

Believe me I had grand visions. I imagined my first blog post would be photos of the areas of my house that needed the most help. The ones I would focus on. Raw, unedited, untidied up for the camera, photos of the parts of my house that are the biggest clutter destinations. The following weeks would bring more photos of my progress and clever witticisms about the thoughtful, creative ways I would tame the clutter beast and get my house in shape. This people, is not that post.

I live a real life. With real children that make real mess. After walking my entry way and laundry area I was so overwhelmed at the scope of the project I seriously wanted to cry. So I tell you honestly I said f*(&k it. Yep. I actually said those words. In my head people I have small children. (No mom, no matter what Ryder says he really didn't hear that word from me. I swear)

A week (or three) went by and I found myself thinking more and more about the dysfunctional areas of my house. Not only where they aesthetically horrific, they were actually causing me a good deal of strife and irritation. I really thought about how much time I spent cleaning up those areas that I could have back if only they functioned better. I resolved to do something about it. OK so maybe this is that post, but I promise you it's no where near as magnificent as it was in my head.

Let's start here shall we? This is the first thing that people see when they come into my house. There is nothing under the baskets on the bottom, so the won't slide in and out. So basically they don't work and are just taking up space. The foil on top of the dresser, which looked SO cool when I first did it, has been picked at by tiny fingers and now looks a hot mess.

This is the "junk box" on top of the table. Eric and I are supposed to be able to through our keys and his wallet in there when we come home. But as you can see, everything else in the world ends up in it. A random light bulb, a nail file (which I don't even use so I have NO idea where it came from), a pencil, an old drawer pull.....you get the idea.
The top of the table also seems to be a clutter magnet. Instructions to the game the neighbor girl brought over three weeks ago, a random pack of batteries, those awesome throw up bags the labor and delivery nurse at Kaiser Sunnyside gave me. Those are supposed to go in my car. Yes, I know they were in my purse, which was in my car, and that I brought  them inside. Baby steps here.

Ugh. Here are the insides of the drawers. Hey at least my Scentsy stash is nice and organized. Don't worry it's not in alphabetical order or anything crazy. The drawer on the right is an absolute cluster. I am not even sure what all that crap is or where it came from. You also get a better picture of the clutter that gathers on top. Oh and the dog. Say hi Ein.

Remember those baskets we talked about earlier? Well see they are supposed to hold flip flops. My kids are flip flop fiends and rather than have them all over the house I designated the two baskets at the bottom of the table to hold them. Problem is the baskets are non functional, so we have this ugly flip flop basket.

Here is the other side of our entry way. See how I tried to make it all pretty with the cute hooks and the wreath. This actually isn't that bad. We have a one coat, one bag, one pair of shoes rule....that gets ignored every freaking day.
I had originally envisioned this having some sort of bench for the kids to sit and take off their shoes and put their shoes in, but that didn't work out space wise. Right now they literally walk in, sit down in the middle of the floor and take their shoes off. Let me tell you how awesome that is when I have an armload of stuff from the car. I'll need to fix that, I just have no idea how.
This area also gets insane when our five zillion neighbor kids come over. They also sit down in the middle of the floor and take their shoes off when they come to my house. Which is awesome, except that in a very short amount of time I have an enormous pile of kid shoes to be tripped over. I am not really sure how to solve this.....

This is my laundry nightmare. There is only one tiny, baby shelf and it's so tall I have to stand on my tip toes to put anything on it. The top of the dryer is constantly collecting stuff that really needs to go out to the garage but didn't quite make it. That box there? It's full of random electrical cords, chargers and I don't know what else that I just cleaned out of my desk. I don't know what most of them are, but God knows if I throw them out I will suddenly need one. So there they languish. In cord purgatory, cluttering my laundry room Ahem, laundry closet, actually. Because it's a closet next to the downstairs bath. There used to be accordian doors over the entrance, but within a month of moving in the boys ran into them and broke them. I had intended to hang some sort of curtain awesomeness, but never got around to it.

That's all I can handle sharing right now. I am going to be straight with you. Taking those photos, and making the list of things that need to be fixed/reorganized, and typing it all out here seriously stressed me out. There is more to share on the first floor. SO much more. But those two areas are all I can emotionally handle right now.
Don't worry, I'll share more later, but for now I am going to make a giant bowl of ice cream with chocolate syrup, curl up into a fetal position on the couch, and watch NCIS reruns.