Perfectionism Isn't So Perfect

I love how Persistence does not let perfectionism get in her way. Here is a note (including translation) she wrote to her Grandparents after seeing a photo of their (pretend)house in Alaska. (I don't have the heart to tell the kids their Grandparents don't really live in an Igloo!)

I mts uo iehop uo kum bak sum dae i so eor haws i btn
I miss you. I hope you come back some day. I saw your house. I've been

wudren wut u slep on it luks prite
wondering what you sleep on. It looks pretty.


Does she worry that her words are spelled correctly or that anyone can in fact read what she has written? No. Never. The point is to write it down and be done with it. When she makes a picture, she draws it, she colors it, she’s done and it’s beautiful.

When Victor makes a picture it takes him 12 new pieces of paper to get the drawing the way he wants it. Then he spends the next hour testing combinations, contemplating, gathering suggestions and deciding what colors to use. By that time we are on to the next activity so his project never gets finished. Either that or he actually does finish it but it’s the most hideous thing he has ever seen, it’s not good enough and he wishes he had never been born. The humiliation of being a failure is just so great.

When Victor taught himself to write he asked me how to spell each and every word he ever wrote. I longed for a version of beginning writing like Persistence produces but he wouldn’t think of it. One day I was determined to get some unintelligable writing samples out of him so I actually refused to tell him how to spell the words he was asking for. Yes, I am that mean. I told him to sound the words out and write them how he thought they would be spelled. He was so offended by my behavior that he snuck some books into the other room to find the correct spellings himself. See! The Winner always wins!

The Gallagher Clan

I’ve noticed that the popular bloggers make up clever little nicknames for their family members. Since I so desperately want to fit in I’m going to pretend to be clever and think of some for my own family. My husband is “Stranger” since we hardly ever see him and he comes and goes at such odd hours. He doesn’t use a key because he just comes through the garage but as soon as he gets home he bolts the garage door. I have long wondered why Stranger locks the door when he gets home at 3 in the morning. Oh goody, now that we have a big strong man in the house to protect us, we can lock the door and feel safe. When we’re on our own and defenseless, we have to leave the door open so Stranger and any sort of criminal can help themselves to our home and family.

Grey, my 8 year old can be “Winner”. He is the most competitive little boy I have ever met. He loves to play games. He was proficient at Candy Land at the age of 2, years before his age mates could even sit still long enough to set up the game. And he had to win too. Mr. Plum had to conveniently get “lost” so that Winner wouldn’t get sent back to the beginning just as he was getting ready to claim his victory. He takes a loss a little better these days but now he is just better at cheating. He can cheat at any game. He doesn’t get that from my side of the family. I never cheated at Clue. I don't even know how to cheap at Clue. I don't know what you're talking about.

One time Winner set up a game of cards and then invited Stranger to play it with him. Winner likes to win but he isn’t a very good actor. His fake surprise at having a hand made up entirely of wild cards wasn’t very believable. For the next game, Stranger and I ganged up on him and kept adding cards to his stack when he wasn’t looking. It took him for. ever. to figure out that he had about 50 cards in his pile. Imagine someone CHEATING like that! Cheater might be a more fitting name but let’s just stick with Winner.

My 6 year old is relentless, stubborn, obstinate... What’s a nice way of saying that? Persistent! Oh yes, she is persistent. Very single minded. Once she gets an idea into her head that is the way it’s going to be. When she was 3 she decided to learn to swim, at four she was riding a bike, tying her shoes and jumping off the high dive. I spent the better part of 6 months trying to teach her to read the alphabet and she did her best to discourage me. Like one day knowing all the letters and the next day forgetting half of them. I finally figured out it wasn’t a battle worth fighting so I gave up. Two months later she was reading books. By the age of five she was into chapter books. I think her greatest achievement is her ability to aggravate her brother. Well, any good sister is good at that but the amount of time Persistence spends practicing you would think she was getting a gold medal for it.

Fifteen month old Elisabeth is just Lovable. There’s not much else to say about her. She gets along with everyone, she is happy about everything and is generally a pleasure to be around. I hate to say it but Lovely may just turn out to be a perfectly ordinary, average child. Heaven forbid that I would have one of those.

There you have it. My family: Stranger, Winner, Persistence, Lovely and me, Lazy.

Gallaghers Don't Give Up

I’m thinking about combining all my blogs into one. I know you’re wondering why I have three different blogs to begin with. I wasn’t exactly sure either. I kept thinking I needed to keep the things I wrote about separate for my reader (Hi Donna! In case anyone else happens to be reading this, Donna and I aren’t related. We don’t even know each other in real life. We just stalk each other’s blogs.) If someone was interested in organizing they may not be interesting in reading about my kids. Then I thought, I’m not really writing for anyone but myself. I guess I wanted the topics separate for my own reading pleasure. What else do I have to do on those lonely Friday nights when my husband is out of town but read my old blogs and pretend that I’m witty and entertaining, let alone obsessing over how much I was bench pressing 16 weeks ago?

Now I’ve decided that I just don’t have time to write three separate blogs and that’s that. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have a life and I could waste away on the computer, blogging and making lots of internet buddies (You’re my one and only Donna!). Oh how I would love to actually have a real organizing website some day. Nope. It’s not going to happen while I’m home-schooling three little kids. I can’t lose myself to the internet when I have so many important things to do, like today we spent the evening watching Love jump in her jumper. We were waiting for her to fall asleep in it so we could take a picture of how cute it was going to look. She teased us by making a pillow with her blankie and sucking her thumb while she jumped but after an hour of that the whining started so we had to give up and put her to bed.

Kate in her jumper at 21 months.

What about the other day when I did Love's hair five different times in case she did something cute that I had to photograph. It didn’t help that she was having her first ever bad hair day. Then there was this morning when we drove around for 3 hours looking for garage sales and only found three in the whole city. Don’t you hate it when you follow garage sale signs for 10 miles only to come to a dead end and NO GARAGE SALE! Kate thought we should report this criminal act to the police. How could people be so MEAN! Who has time to make and post 30 signs and then not have the garage sale? Too bad they didn’t have time to TAKE THE SIGNS DOWN! And to think we were chanting the last leg of the trip, “GALLAGHERS DON’T GIVE UP.” It turns out we should have shut our mouths and turned around when all the other garage sale-ers did.

With all these important things to do, it looks like I’ll have to resign myself to selling a couple organizing bags and writing the occasional blog.

Catching Up On Paperwork

I did some painful organizing yesterday. When we were homeless for five months our paperwork piled up in several boxes. I finally took the time yesterday to go through all of it and file it. I hate dealing with paperwork just as much as anyone else. It’s been a couple years since I organized our house files so some time this week I’m going to go through them and print labels for any new files I’ve made. I think I’ll post my file index so you can see exactly how I organize my files.

One Thing I Learned Yesterday

I have figured out why kids talk non-stop in the car. I thought it was because their little minds are hyper-active and they have so much to say. I also thought it was a really great way for them to drive their Mothers completely insane in the short amount of time it takes to get from Walmart to Target.

It turns out it’s really an innate way they protect themselves from death by car crash. I found that out yesterday as we were driving to meet Chris to pick out brick. I got on the freeway and found myself struggling to keep my eyes open. I think at one point I actually fell asleep and dreamt I was driving. When I came to and realized I could have just killed myself and my three children, I pondered the reason for it.

I often drive when I’m tired. I’m often tired because my brain likes to torture me by waking me up at strange hours of the night. Most of the time though, I’m just exhausted from taking care of kids all day. We like to say about Kate, if she’s not talking, she’s asleep. Well, if I’m not listening to kids play, whine, cry, complain, laugh or beat each other, I’m asleep. That’s when it hit me. Not one single one of my children had said a word the entire car trip. I guess that’s why my brain thought I wasn’t using it and passing out right then would be a good idea.

After that I told Grey that Kate used his hammer without asking and we were able to drive safely the rest of the way there.

Who Owns This House Anyway?

Oh ya. The bank does.

Chris and I have been having daily panic attacks since we accidentally found out our construction loan is closing June 1st. No. No on informed us of this. I just happened to stop by our bank to ask them exactly what we needed to have finished so we could close our loan and get the lower interest rate.

“Oh. Mrs. Gallagher. Well, your loan closes on June 1st. If your house isn’t completely finished by then, you can hand over 1,200 more dollars of your hard earned money to buy a 3 month extension.”

“Why didn’t anyone tell us about this deadline?”

“Well, I’m sure it was on one of your monthly statements from the bank.”

“You mean the monthly statements that no one looks at? The ones that are hidden in piles of mail that no one in our household wants to open or look at? Or maybe you’re talking about the monthly statements that got lost along with the rest of our mail when our address changed three times. Are those the statements you’re talking about?”

Apparently, yes, those were the statements she was talking about. So now what do you do about a house that is so incomplete that there is no possible way you can finish it in two weeks? First of all you spend the first week worrying about what you’re going to do. Then the next week you spend on the phone with the bank begging and negotiating a way to get out of this deadline without forking out another dime.

“Would anyone there have a problem with a very expensive, year round, enclosed sunroom/sand box? We really love our children and this is something we’ve always wanted to give them.”

“No, we never intended for a wood burning stove to go there. That’s a stage where we’re going to have family productions. That hole up there in the ceiling over the stage is where the fake snow, rain, ufo’s and other type of things will fall from the sky (be dropped from the roof) onto the actors. We’re also going to use it for a...you know...laundry chute. In case you’re up on the roof and you spill ketchup on your shirt and it needs to be laundered. 'Oh look. There's a laundry chute right here, just where I needed it.'"

“We thought it would be safer not to have steps going to the front door. Otherwise people can slip on them and hurt themselves.”

“That’s just how I designed the bathroom cabinets. You can access them from the front doors OR you can just reach right in from the top. I think everyone is going to start doing this in their homes.”

“We thought it was a little frivolous to have a tub AND a sink in each bathroom. So I came up with the idea for everyone to wash their hands and brush their teeth while taking a shower. That won’t be a problem will it?”

The bank thought these were all wonderful and innovative ideas. They’ve hired us as consultants for all their new home construction.

Wash

I can’t believe I have taught my kids to do dishes. It just goes to show that washing by hand is easier than using a dishwasher because they never washed dishes in our old house. I went shopping yesterday and said, “I want you two to get the dishes done before I get home.” Immediately Grey said to Kate, “Do you want to wash or dry?” Kate said wash and went to work filling the sink with water. The dishes were all cleaned and put away when I got home. It was a wonderful thing.

Organizing a Photographer

I had an organizing job on Monday and it was so fun! It’s been a long time since I’ve actually organized for someone else since I don’t have the time to make it a business. I’m doing it in trade for a photographer. His wife is in my home-schooling group and that’s how we met. They are building a house so we spent most of the time designing his new office together. He was very excited about the work we did. Next week we’re going to get started on his files.

The thing I love most about organizing for other people or giving seminars is that it makes me come home and want to organize my own house. I spent the rest of the day working in my pantry and going through boxes around the house. My pantry looks a little bit better! There's not much I can really do until I get my permanent shelving in there. After we get our sunroom finished I need to concentrate on designing my pantry and closets and getting them built.



I hope to have time to schedule some seminars when we're not so busy with the house. I would even like to start teaching organizing classes in my home. Don’t you want to sign up for one right now! My dream for when my kids are older is to be a design consultant for new construction. I don’t want to be an actual architect because that doesn’t interest me. I just want to be the one with all the great ideas!

Wondering

What is the purpose of child sized chairs? Parents only buy them because they are little and cute. Kids are much too busy to actually sit in them. This is a chair someone made us and I was so shocked a child was sitting in it that I had to catch it on camera.

Bum Cheeks and Leather Fringe

What the stylish Cowbaby wears.

Hungry Dinosaurs

We went on a short hike on Tuesday with some other families. Sure it was straight up the mountain and I was carrying a baby on my back but it seemed a little more difficult that it should have been. I didn’t mind the going up with my heart pounding wildly in my chest but the going down part where my knees hurt and my legs shook, threatening to give out at any moment, was scary. It's scary how old a 34 year old can feel. I think I'm going to be a crippled invalid by the time I'm 44.

Everyone ate the lunches and snacks they had packed up the mountain. Not because they were hungry but because they didn’t want to pack it back down. While we were up there the kids decided that the flag was so old it had been chewed up by dinosaurs. I suggested some other options but we decided the dinosaur story was the most plausible.

The really high point of the hike was when my 6 year old called 10 year old Jessica a “he” and I had to spend the rest of the way down apologizing and explaining to the girl and her Mother how boys wear their hair long these day so you can see why a 6 year old might get confused. What? Of course I knew she was a girl.Tip: If you can't see the camera, the camera can't see you.

Kid Survey

I surveyed my kids a year ago and then again yesterday and here are their responses:

Kate 2006

What would I do if I had $1?
I would it spend it on Hubba Bubba.

What would I do if I had $10?
I would spend it on a real kitty that I could play with all the time and feed it.

What would I do if I had $100?
I would spend it on a house and car and furniture.

What would I do if I had $1000?
I would spend it on everything in the house.

Kate 2005

What would I do if I had $1?
I would spend it on a cup of sugar for a candy treat.

What would I do if I had $10?
Save it to buy something I would really, really like, like nail polish, make up or a ring.

What would I do if I had $100?
I would save it for a favorite, favorite thing like a unicorn that stands up.

What would I do if I had $1000?
I would save it in the bank for 100 dollies or a big huge house to live in by myself.

I think I need to watch the sugar bin more closely.

We have got to get these kids an animal. They found a garden snake the other day and they’ve been dressing it up and playing house with it.

Hmmmm, do you think Kate has houses on her mind? She told me the other day, “I don’t ever want to move again. I mean, even if it was a house in the country. I mean, even if it was a farm house, I would not want to move there. I don’t ever want to move anywhere else.” Ok, I get your point.

I was surprised that at 5 she guessed pretty closely how many dollies she could buy with $1000. But then she added the huge house thing.

Grey 2006

What would I do if I had $1?
I would spend it on pizza at the gym.

What would I do if I had $10?
I would save it for a basketball hoop.

What would I do if I had $100?
I would buy a season pass to Lagoon.

What would I do if I had $1000?
I would put it in the bank.

Grey 2005

What would I do if I had $1?
I would buy a chocolate bar.

What would I do if I had $10?
I would put it in the bank so I could make more money with it.

What would I do if I had $100?
I would save it to buy a car.

What would I do if I had $1000?
I would give $3 to my Mom and $3 to my Dad and $1 to my sister and save the rest to buy two cars.

This kid just has way too much money sense. I think when he grows up he will definitely choose a job that has something to do with money. Spending money or making money or something. I’m pretty sure about that. Maybe not though.