Being Sara

Our well pump died last night.  But, since the Universe is apparently completely pissed off at us lately, it waited until we had already started dinner (friends on their way to visit) and Xander had a head full of shampoo before it went ca-put.

And the Universe wasn’t done at just breaking the water pump, oh no…  Zach managed to blister his hand on some hot oil while I was outside gathering snow to melt (so we could flush the toilet).

Then when it was his turn to go out and gather snow, Xander forgot to put down the toilet seat after he used it, which we didn’t realize until we heard Parker splashing in it (yuck!)  And of course, we didn’t have any good way to clean up anyone without any water…

Our evening just turned into a series of unfortunate events, culminating in a half dead mouse on our carpet this morning that we couldn’t flush down the toilet with the rest because there wasn’t enough melted snow left, so he sort of floated in a little pee bath while we hurriedly melted more snow to get him to go away.

The good news? We have running water again!  It’s amazing how easy it is to take things like electricity and running water for granted, and how much you rely on those sorts of things.  Between the 4 day power outage and now water failure, it feels like moving out of town moved us back into the 1800’s.

The bad news? “Phase 1″ alone cost us $1,970.00.  At $180/hour those well guys aren’t cheap, and our pump was apparently difficult to get at.  We’re still waiting on a quote for “Phase 2″ and in a matter of hours all of those exciting plans we had for the house (including a nice, new fancy generator to prevent problems like 4 day power outages) fly out of our bank accounts in the blink of an eye.

So welcome to Sara’s pity party – table for one please.  I know someday it’ll get better.  Someday we won’t have something breaking on our house or car every week.  Someday we’ll go a whole day without finding a dead mouse in the trap in our silverware drawer (don’t worry – the silverware is safely stored elsewhere for now).  Someday I won’t find little pockets of seeds stored by mice in my clean laundry baskets or t-shirt drawers (clean laundry that I can’t re-wash yet because there is still too much sediment in my water…).  Someday the Universe will cut us a break.  Someday the stress will go away and we’ll actually be able to enjoy this house that we fell in love with (I love you, but I don’t really like you right now kind of love).

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Sometime last year (probably about the time Xander decided he could leave the house on his own, and hearing cars honk horns as our escapee darted out the door) Zach and I decided that we needed to move.  We needed to get off our busy mostly-college-student-populated street and go somewhere that our kids could truly run and play and be boys without the fear of broken beer bottles, speeding cars and late-night parties.

So, we put our house on the market at the end of the summer.  Much to our surprise, it sold in November.  So, in three weeks we packed up all of our earthly belongings and moved into a rental house for the winter.  We lived out of boxes and desperately missed our carefully collected possessions as we searched for the perfect home for our children.

Despite our realtor’s concerns, we insisted on looking at this house way out in the middle of nowhere.  The town population doesn’t even come close to 100 people.  Despite that, it’s still only 15 minutes from work, and we knew some people with kids the same age just down the street.

We fell in love.  Sure, the house needs some love and some updating, but it’s in pretty good shape, and it’s huge.  It’s got a brook running through the property (perfect for throwing rock into, and getting completely wet and muddy in) and it’s got a Harry Potter closet under the stairs.

So, we bought it.  It took lots of super-human effort, and begging and pleading with numerous local and state officials to get the paperwork completed, but we finally did it.

And we moved.  Good God we moved.  Our beloved (and exhausted) friends all turned out one sunny Saturday in February and packed all of our belongings from a storage unit and the rental house into a U-haul and a few trucks and poured it all into this new (and now not-so-spacious-because-it’s-filled-with-all-our-crap) home.

And then we started to settle in.  We sorted toys and washed clothes.  We rearranged furniture and learned how our house worked.  And then we lost power for 3 days (gotta love living in the sticks…).  And we worried about pipes freezing, and our children became nomadic, shifting from home to home staying warm, fed and occupied while we prayed for the electric company to fix all those downed lines in record time.

During this move and settle period, I knew there were mice in the house.  I had seen evidence of their existence when we first looked at the house.  That first week I could hear them rustling somewhere as I lay in bed, and I actually saw one running around under a couch and behind some boxes.

Now, the mice have gotten used to us.  I actually think they like the company.  We brought in two not-so-neat children who love to leave discarded food on the floor.  We keep the place warmer than they’re used to, and we’ve given them lots and lots of new things to chew through.

They are so comfortable in fact, that they don’t run when they see Zach walk into the basement anymore.  Last night I found mouse poo in our silverware drawer (is there anything in the world ickier? It certainly gave me the heebie jeebies for the night).  So, I spent the evening sanitizing everything I could get my hands on.  The glue traps have been out for three days now, but not a single mouse has fallen for that trick yet (we have smart mice people!)

So, creepy, icky, pooping, scratching, chewing, dirty mice it. is. on.  We paid good money for this house.  We own it.  We aren’t moving (and couldn’t afford to even if we wanted to).  We will not cohabitate with you.  The snap traps are coming in tonight.  Spray foam for every crack and cranny will be added this weekend.  We will continue to unpack boxes and place things in plastic bins where you can’t get them.  We will win because we are bigger, smarter and stronger than you (unless you are Pinky or Brain, in which case, we’re doomed).

If anyone has any good suggestions for a) getting rid of mice; b) keeping them away; or c) cleaning and sanitizing things that clearly have had a mouse visit, I’m all ears (no pun intended)

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Warning: This is a grumpy, whiny, self-pitying post.  Move on to greener pastures here if you aren’t interested.

Most years I love Christmas time.  I love decorating the house, putting candles in the windows, making cookies with my mother, preparing Christmas cards and sending them to 60+ family, friends and coworkers, selecting and buying presents, wrapping and finally giving presents, cutting down a tree with my family and decorating it, holiday parties, and holiday food and most importantly, spending time with family and friends.  Generally everyone is in a good mood for the entire month.  People are more generous and friendly, everyone smiles and wishes you a Merry Christmas.  Kids are excited and happy, in my little world, Christmas time is a great time of year.

Except this year.  This year it sucks. I haven’t been able to drum up even an ounce of excitement for this huge holiday looming in front of me.  I don’t want to see any Christmas lights on houses because it just mocks the fact that I can’t have any lights in my rental house this year.  The same with decorations.  I don’t have a single Christmas decoration up in my house – not one.  They’re packed away in boxes, buried under mounds of stuff.  I feel like I’m completely failing my kids in the decorating department.  It makes me want to cry whenever I think about it.  We’ve figured out most of what we need to buy for Christmas this year, but we haven’t figured out where we’re going to come up with the cash to pay for them.  And, even when we do finally buy the gifts, the presents under the tree are going to be sparse this year, and even though our kids are too young to notice, Zach and I know that, and want to be able to give them more…

I’m so stressed about money (or lack thereof) and about our house sale/purchase (eventually…) that I’ve mostly stopped sleeping.  Even though my children are finally sleeping well, I’m awake at ridiculous hours of the night fretting and worrying about everything that we’re precariously balancing at the moment.  So not only am I grumpy about Christmas, I’m just tired in general which just makes it harder for me to hide my grumpiness.

I have to miss one of the holiday parties this year – with 2 little kids it’s just too much to chase them around an office party.  I had small hopes that perhaps the party would be at our house, which would have eliminated that difficulty, but it’s not.  So, Zach will go to the party, and I’ll stay home with the boys.  The holiday party for my office is new, different, and I’m not sure what to expect (besides having to come back to work for 2 hours after the party – the day before the holiday break…)

After sick kids and broken vehicles and (someday) closing on our house, I won’t have enough vacation days to take the whole week of Christmas off.  So while everyone else is home and the office is empty, I’ll be working.

I’m going through the motions, but I’m not excited about any of it this year.  I’ve mentioned this a few times, hoping someone might be able to help me find some Christmas spirit, to help me put some real joy back into the season, but I’ve come up empty.  We’re in a strange house that I can’t decorate, and we don’t have any money.  I don’t want to do Christmas.  If we didn’t have kids, I’d beg Zach to just skip it.  But we do have kids, so I’m forcing myself through the motions, but I’m miserable doing it.  I’ve turned into one of those people who hates the holidays, and I hate that about myself.

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Here are just a few helpful tips from one working mom:

If you happen to commute to work with your husband, it’s a good idea to make sure that he hasn’t taken your car keys and his car keys when he leaves for an early 7am meeting.

When attempting to reach said husband, it’s a good idea to make sure you are sending text messages to him and not to your friend (sorry about the early morning, slightly grumpy texts Jenny!)

While waiting to be rescued from your stranded position at home, you should probably insist that your toddler use his stool to go pee or else you’ll end up cleaning your entire bathroom (for the thirteenth time that week).

While attempting to keep urine off your bathroom ceiling, you probably shouldn’t assume the buckle on the changing table will actually restrain your 8-month-old because he’ll be crawling off of it any second.

It’s probably a good idea to wipe your urine soaked hands on something before rescuing said baby.

You’ll want to grab a burp cloth after you get the poopy diaper on the baby changed, because he’s going to start spitting up all over your floor, and if you’re not quick, he’s going to crawl through it and smell like baby vomit all day.  You’ll also want to break out the carpet cleaner because yeah, he’s going to spit up there too.

When your husband finally arrives home, it’s probably a good idea to already have the kids in their shoes and coats and ready to walk out the door and not upstairs in a bedroom with toys everywhere, or he might be annoyed at you for making him leave in the middle of his meeting and then not being ready when he comes to return the keys he stole rescue you.

Just a few friendly tips from me to you so you don’t end up debating whether it would be better to crawl back into bed and wait for tomorrow or keep going because what else could possibly go wrong?

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Shortly before Parker arrived on the scene, I stumbled upon this post at Childfreedom. As I was 9 months pregnant, I thought stork spots were a pretty awesome idea. However, I’ve never actually seen a stork spot here in NH, so they were a new idea to me. I could sort of understand where the author was coming from – as one of my co-workers loves to regularly remind me “children are a choice”. He’s right, I did choose to have children, and I accept all of the trials and joys that come along with that.

I think what bothered me most about this post, and this site in general is that I had never realized that there was this whole population of people out there who not only choose to not have children, but are actually offended by people like me who choose to procreate. I can still recall my life before kids, and I don’t ever remember colliding with the kid friendly crowd when I didn’t want to. Aside from being irritated at parents who bring small children to adult movies (a topic which deserves its own rant), I can’t think of a time when a kid inconvenienced my lifestyle before I had my own kids.

I never thought of our society as “child-centric”. I think it’s pretty easy to avoid kids in places like bars, and late movies, grocery stores at the right time of day/week, etc. Even if you don’t want to actively avoid me and the rest of the kid-friendly crowd, I am very conscientious of my children in public – making sure they are not noisy or disruptive in adult situations, making sure they use their manners (well, I haven’t really started the 2-month-old one on manners yet – he still spits up on people without warning…) I guess I don’t like being stereo-typed. Sure, some parents probably do let their kids run wild, but there are at least an equal number of kids and parents who are nice, kind, polite people who do not belong in this category, and do not deserve the disdain this site doles out.

So, the stork spot post in particular, and this website in general really bothered me. What do you think – is this lady right, are the child-centric people encroaching on the child-free people of the world or is she unfairly stereo-typing families?

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