On Cleaning

Things have been getting increasingly disorderly around the house. The fast comings and goings of children with so many bags, papers, equipment, and who knows what, means that "I'll get that later," is uttered far more often than "gosh, let's put this away and help out."

My position of letting every person deal with his or her own stuff was simply untenable. Here's a big shocker- mess doesn't bother (my) children like it bothers adults. Not to mention, if I'm going to chose between making them clean or study, school will always come first. 

I've taken every stance at both ends of the extreme, from being mother and maid in chief, to the drill sargent who won't so much as get a spoon when asked. I wish I could say that I've cracked the code and figured out the best way, but I'm writing this in complete defeat. 

I have made a few changes that I'm happy with: 

Big kids do their own laundry on Sunday. It takes all of five minutes to put their clothes in the washing machine and hit start, and later hang their things on the line to dry. 

I no longer clear any dishes or non- perishables that are not my own or Seb's. After a few days of this, one could hardly see the counter, so I've softened that stance to moving dishes to a tray, where they await eventual migration to the dishwasher. 

The kids have to clean their own bathroom. 

Lastly, I moved the TV cabinet from our upstairs sala to the entrance. It's a catch-all for rugby/tennis/PE bags, and has a separate compartment for shoes. So far, so good. 

Since I don't have recent pictures with me, here are a few of Freddy at Seb's current age- 16 months. 

It feels like decades ago that I was taller than Moojie and Freddy was a baby. 

Instant Pick-Me-Up

It felt like everything in Sebby's closet, and by closet I mean Tupperware under our bed, was too small. I can't bear disorganized clothes  so I got to work this morning and did a quick sort through.

The poor guy has been wearing mismatched socks for days. Is it any wonder why? No, no it's not. 

I put everything into stacks of:

Long sleeved shirts

T-shirts

Polos 

Onesies 

Bibs (he never wears bibs so this is just for my visual pleasure)

Burp cloths/cloth diapers

It's hardly any clothes at all, but that's all he needs. Too many clothes are such a burden! 

There is another adjacent Tupperware with bottoms and socks still to do, but Seb has just fallen asleep and I have to race upstairs to get a second coat of paint on Moojie's bedroom wall before he wakes. 

Organization Never Stops

Now that Sebby is one, it's time to let go of his baby clothes. I divided them into four categories:

1) keep

2) sell

3) donate

4) Things for specific people (ie back to cousins) 

Seb had the best time taking things out and walking them around the room. 

Toys are next, and then we'll be back to clothes again. 

Love This!

My sister sent me this link to a house with six boys. I wouldn't trade our house, but boy do I covet the laundry room, the homework room, the huge dormitory style bedroom, and the mom's command central :)

There are a few things that aren't my taste, but yeah, I could work with this. 

http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/18065764/list/My-Houzz--Home-Full-of-Boys-Achieves-Order-and-Inspiration

I'm Just Going to Say It

I'm excited about Christmas.

A little Sinatra came on the car radio and then boom, just like that I was dreaming of fresh pine scent, the sound of the Christmas train, and the three big kids helping Sebby with his first real Christmas presents. 

I know it's September, but it's the perfect time to start shopping lists, and get going on taking Christmas pictures. My crew needs a lot of help in the Christmas picture department. 

Stocking stuffers can be such a last minute stress. This year I have every intention of buying them as we work our way through the Fall. 

I'm going to ask the kids to make a tentative list so I can get organized and more importantly, budget for it all. 

This year I'm dreaming big. I'd like a bigger rice cooker. 

Book Crisis

I went downstairs to make my anually requested chocolate satin frosting and I came upstairs to this.

We have been talking for a while about reorganization our middle floor,  but I didn't realize we were discussing concrete plans. 

Pai had moved this glass doored cabinet back into the sala from the guest room to make room for a double bed in the guest room. A serious quantity of books migrated to the floor in the process. 

We did a book clear out last year when I opted to keep my St. Andrews text books. Can you believe I haven't once referred to my Money, Banking,  and Financial Markets book? And nary a glance at Macroeconomics!  

I am happily parting with all of my text books. The rest are not so easy to  part with. 

I'll get a post up on Moojie's birthday when the computer finds a new home. (It's been displaced by the glass cabinet)

Warm Weather Rituals

The time to get beach and pool season ready is upon us.

I went through and organized all of our swim suits, gathered up the goggles, and stacked the beach towels.  I was inhaling the signature smells of sun block and chlorine as I pulled each one out and held it up to decide if it would still fit any of the children.  My favorite find is Moojie's suit that we got him on his first trip to Portugal at 11 months.

It will be perfect for Seb to paddle around the pool this Summer. Happy,  sunny, sandy, water baby days are here again.

Another Month, Another Box

I just boxed up another round of clothes. Time to make room for Spring stuff and bigger sizes. Out with the 6 months stuff, in with the 9-12.

Baby Clothes Quilt

I now have two large Tupperware full of clothes that don't fit Sebby, and what to do with it all is a pressing concern; I'm out of space and this guy is growing! I love this quilt idea, but I want something more masculine than hearts. Ideas?

Circles?
Stars?

My quilt conceptualization skills feel rusty.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cathygaubert/5617239072/

Stuffed Animal Cull

Seb is my resident organizational consultant.

Nesting Hits the Kitchen, and Other Updates

I've been deep in house projects since the weekend. We took almost everything off of the kitchen shelves and out of the cabinets, and did a major clean out. It was so therapeutic! All of these things are headed for the door. This shot doesn't include the 4 big bags of stuff we got rid of.


Pai moved the refrigerator to every possible spot because it never felt like it was in the right place. We've settled on a new place, but that will entail removing a whole set of deep shelving and getting new cabinets for the refrigerator's old spot. I don't have any pictures since it's not so easy to just dash up the stairs for the camera without feeling like I'll drop the baby right on the landing. This whole kitchen project started when we realized that 5 people hardly fit around our kitchen table and 6 would be impossible.

We finally harvested the wild quince growing near our gate. I was lead astray with a recipe that called for water and it turned out too runny. It solidified a bit with a second boil and sitting over night, but I think I will call these preserves instead of jam. I can't wait to try a dollop over plain yogurt with a sprinkle of granola, or drizzled over pancakes. yum!


  Isn't the color just gorgeous? They are white like apples in raw form, but darken as they cook.

Freddy and I also made our annual quince apple pie with crumble nut topping. Again, no photos.

Fall colors are almost non-existent in Portugal, but the tennis courts where I spend half of my life happen to have vibrant red leaves. What a treat.

Zita and Freddy went on their first field trip of the year to the Pavilhão de Conhecimentos in Lisbon where they were all filmed for a news segment. Here they are just before. Sorry about the sun Freddy!

I've been incorporating a lot of squash, pumpkin, and carrot into dinners, as one does at this time of year, and these squash fries added great color and something new to our table. The kids never turn down anything labeled "fries."

My Bedside Table

Look What I have

Freddy's waiting on the next chapter of Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and Zita wants my full attention to discuss a possible dinner party this Friday. I'll have to leave it at just some more baby prep photos until tomorrow when the house is once again quiet.

Life Books and Scanning Mania

 

 Work in progress

My baby nesting is all over the place, and seems to be leaning more towards things that have nothing to do with the arrival of a baby.
 I decided to scan all of the children's school pictures and make life books for each of them. I'm planning to have around 2 pages per year, including their individual photo, class photo, a photo of the family, and a brief description of what was going on that year.

I thought I had all school pictures neatly organized in a tupperware, but this project has revealed gaping holes such as first and second grade photos for Tomas, and a few for Zita as well. Freddy hasn't been in school long enough for me to slack.

Here's Moojie's first ever school photo, taken at the St. Andrews Univeristy Nursery where he went two mornings a week.

He's 13 months in this picture and to this day, he gets little wings above his ears when it's time for a haircut.

After an entire morning of working on this, I have all school photos scanned for Moojie, half done for Zita, and nothing done for Freddy. I don't plan to complete these until they are 18, but now is as good a time as any to start.  

Baby Things

Moojie was swadled in this little blanket as a newborn, and just looking at it conjures images of his squishy baby face, newborn smell, and those  I'm alive and I sound like a little lamb! newborn noises that all babies make.

    I gave away a lot of his baby stuff, but safely kept this blanket until miss Zita came along. She took it off to the first day of pre-school with her in a huge pink backpack and duly wrote "Zita" on the seam.  

Freddy started day care the earliest since I was working by that point. I handed him over to his teacher, shoving this blanket at her as he started to scream. I started to cry the moment the blanket left my hands. I didn't stop until I got to work and even then, I was heart broken pretty much until I stopped working 2 years after that.

I get a little fuzzy on my high school US History, or on the corporate finance classes I took in college, and I've been known to watch a Kahn Academy video or two before settling into study sessions with Moojie, but my mind has been programmed to lock away every single memory related to baby items from socks and bibs, to blankets and PJs. 

When I look at these old blue pajamas, I see my younger self stepping out of a taxi on Market St. in St. Andrews with an 8 week old Moojie in one arm, and a carry-on bag in the other for our first visit to Scotland together.

 

This size zero-month sleeper is what I handed to the nurse right after Freddy was born, only for her to hold them up and laugh out loud. I hadn't even held Freddy yet so I didn't know what was so funny, but in true sassy Portuguese nurse fashion, she asked "what size baby were you expecting? 

Your big boy will never fit in this!"

Miss Zita was our sweet pea angel all dressed up for the Portuguese relatives in her long hand sewn gowns and this lovingly knit cardigan.

These socks have been passed around to most of my mom's grandchildren and just came back to me this Summer. As soon as I had them in my hands again, all of the details of our first flight were vivid and real. Moojie wore these socks at 8 weeks from San Francisco to London. I spent most of the flight walking him up and down the aisle tugging at the socks as  passengers let me know that my baby was about to lose a sock.

I can throw away just about anything, and there's nothing I love more than a good clean out, but baby stuff is just painful to part with and now with my last baby on the way, I think I'm going to have an even harder time letting go. How do other people manage?

Example of Menu Requests in Action

Just when I thought I could get away with serving pasta in the absence of any dinner requests, Moojie texted his request in the nick of time!


Stay tuned for Valentine's Day prep.

Tinna to answer your question- I've never known picanha as anything other than picanha, but according to wikipedia, it's top sirloin cap steak, not to be confused with just top sirloin steak. I wound up getting vitela de lombo which is a nicer cut (veal). Below is the final result, or "proper dinner" as Moojie requested.   Nothing like an artery clogging dinner to make a teenage boy happy and full, at least for the next hour or so.

Here's Mr. Freddy cutting the chouriço that is cooked with the black beans.

Meal Planning- Another Gargantuan Post

The biggest problem I had with menu planning was inspiration. Whenever I asked what I should make for dinner, I always got "I don't know- anything!" Arrrgggghhh. I hate that. 

 We've been using this new system for all of this school year and it has made life so easy.  I only have to think about what to make for dinner once a week (Wednesday), and groceries are also geared toward our menu and thus a lot less expensive.

The basic system is this: everyone has one night of the week to choose what we all eat for dinner, and the dinner has to be something we all like to eat.

Monday: Moojie

Tuesday: Zita

Wednesday: Freddy

Thursday: Me

Friday: Pizza

Saturday: Pai

Sunday:  Misc- this rotates between rotisserie chickens from a nearby restaurant, left-overs, something insprired by a cook book, random rquests,  no dinner at all due to heavy and long tea times at the grandmother's house, or it can be a make-up night for anyone who for whatever reason missed his or her night.

Here's the new board that Freddy, Zita and I completed last night. It replaces a generic list that I had up on the kitchen wall.

The envelope on the left hand side has meals not yet chosen. Under each day, the person resonsibe for that day needs to hang up his or her choice for dinner. When the week is over, everything we ate that week gets put in the 'X' envelope. I have a sneaking suspicion that Moojie will be getting steak out of the 'X' envelope more than he should since he always asks for a good steak.

The success of the system depends on having all of your familiy's dinner options written up. I have about 50+ dinners that all five of us will eat. Not just will eat, but like to eat. If one single person doesn't like something, it's not in the rotation. I'm lucky that my kids eat just about anything, but even picky eaters can get a decent list going.

It's hard to think of everything all at once, so write up the list over a few weeks, and get out visual cookbooks to look at with your children. What you put in rotation should be practical. Fancy and difficult stuff is not on the board.

I have a deadline of the morning school run for putting orders in. After that- too bad! They can make it up on Sunday or lose the day. Freddy in particular takes this all very seriously and loves to pick on his night. He wakes up elated every week on "his day."

This is sounding way more complicated than it is, but the bottom line is, responsiblity for planning the weekly menu falls on everyone, no one can blame mom for a lack of decent meals, and every single night we eat something that all 5 of us enjoy.

Meal Planning

Freddy's home sick today so he's helping create a dinner plan board. I already have a good meal planning system, but the black and white print out on the kitchen wall was temporary until we figured out a better way to display it.

I've printed out a few menu items, and Freddy is cutting them out so we can laminate them and then hang them on the day we'll eat them. We also need to get a board going, but that should be fun and doable. Freddy is loving the one-on-one time and so am I.

Stay tuned...

Update: the board was hijacked by Zita who in the short time I was away with moojie at the doctor, got a kitten calendar on it, and made it an organizational board for her own room. Must remember to leave projects out of sight.

De-Cluttering: My Big Bag Method

I consider clutter to be those things that accumulate on surfaces and are neither useful and meant to be there, or beautiful. We used to have a table in our entrance just to the left of the front door. It was the biggest clutter magnet of all time, and there was nothing I could do to fight it. Nothing that is, except for removing the table. I moved it around the corner to the next room and  it worked  like a charm. 

Up until last week, we had a sofa at the foot of our bed. Another clutter disaster zone. All it took was one shirt, one blanket, or a book here and there, to make me feel like the whole room was messy. Moojie helped me move that out of the room last week, and the cats now happily sleep on it in the basement.  

Since I can't remove all furniture from the house, things still do wind up where they don't belong. We are particularly adept at creating piles on the stairs to be taken up later. The problem is, the stairs become like an extended bedroom for the children and this system is hazardous. I'm sure we're all familiar with clutter so I won't go on any more about how it happens. I will, however, share my method for getting rid of it. This includes the car, by the way.

Step one: Get big bags as seen above, and just walk around putting every single out-of-place thing in the bags, until you're satisfied that all surfaces have only what is aesthetically pleasing or absolutely necessary. This morning,  I wournd up with what you see above- a lot of stuff! The more often this is carried out, the easier and less daunting it become.

Step Two: I settle the bags on our upstairs sala floor where I sit and sort everything into piles until the bags are empty. Remove the bags from sight or it will be very tempting to just  create a "toy bag," or re-bag things.  Force yourself to put everything away.

Everyone's piles will be different, but mine worked out nicely into books (top left), toys (bottom left), bathroom items (bottom right), trash (plastic bags), art supplies (zip-loc in the middle), and things that belong in the kitchen/ stragler Christmas decorations (white bag).

The collection process took me 20 minutes and the empty-everything-into-piles process took another 10. Being ruthless about throwing stuff away makes the whole process go much faster.

Today's clear out was particularly fruitful in that I found 4 pairs of swimming goggles and much needed face sunblock sticks.

That's it. It's so easy to de-clutter this way when half of the time spent cleaning, one is actually sitting on the floor with the Mezzo chanel on.

Question : Aren't you in the middle of the photo project of the decade, and isn't this just more procrastination?
Answer: Yes I am, and yes it is. I'm struggling, but forging forward, accomplishing at least one page per day. I'm up to end-of-September 1999.

Baby Collage

Since I started using a digital camera in 2005-2006 I stopped ordering prints, and most of the frames we have are pre-2006. I was particularly bothered by the lack of baby photos around the house, but I don't like wall clutter and we are running out of space for more frames. I feel strongly that things on the wall should be framed and something we all love to look at, so I love the idea of a collage where many photos can be displayed in one tidy spot.

 I created the below collage for $3.49 and the frame is IKEA so the whole thing was less than $10/EUR10.

 Pretty much every photo sharing site has the collage feature, but I used Kodak Gallery since that's where Freddy's baby photos are kept.

(now that I've posted this, I can see that the lower frame is not straight. It's now fixed)

In Freddy's collage, I included all the things I love about newborns- their little bums, those chubby dough-like fingers, tiny toes, and that tummy down fetal pose. I never took closeups like this for Moojie and Zita and I regret it so much.

The frame below is Freddy's birth announcement and the photo that went with it. If you didn't send a birth announcement, use one of the collage boxes to put basic stats like name, weight, length, and birthdate.

Since every act of mothering on Happy Street is measured and compared closely by two children in particular, as soon as Freddy's collage and birth announcement went up on the wall, I was immediately questioned about the timeline of delivery on the other two collages.

When my backlog of prints-into-albums project is over,  I´ll make a collage for Zita and one for Moojie too by scanning in prints.  Although, by this point I'm not too sure Moojie will love that on his bedroom wall.