Friday, October 24, 2014

7 Quick Takes about Clean Dishes, Having Memory Like a Goldfish, and Remaining Silent while Children Trash my House


It's 7 Quick Takes Friday!


— 1 

One of my favorite parts of being a mother is the conversations I overhear between my children, both heartwarming ones and silly ones like this:


Brother: What if you were taking a shower and ten thousand dollar bills came out of your shower?

Sister: There's no such thing as a ten thousand dollar bill.
Brother: [unfazed] But what if there was??

This is the same boy who a few weeks ago turned to me out of the blue and said "If you were a skeleton and you went upside down and drank water, it would come out your eye holes."




— 2 

Phillip and I have spent the last week dancing in front of the dishwasher like kids on Christmas morning, waiting for the cycle to finish so we can pull out our sparkling glassware and hear the angels sing.

For the past month we've torn apart the dishwasher looking for clogs, tried new kinds of detergent, and finally just given up and started washing the dishes by hand. No matter what we did, they just kept getting cloudier and cloudier.


It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}
Who wouldn't be embarrassed to have people over with dishes like this?


Enter Cascade Platinum. Ordinarily too expensive for a practical person such as myself to buy, I used this rebate form to get it for free (okay, I did pay for the stamp.) But look at this picture  do you see the custard dish in the middle of the rack, the same dirty one pictured above? Of course you don't, it's so crystal clear it's invisible!


It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}
Do you hear those angels singing now?


Cheapskate Jenny and Jenny Who Likes Clean Dishes are going to have to duke it out when the Cascade tablets run out and a decision has to be made.


— 3 

Phillip and I have different sleep personalities. I like to chat in bed before going to sleep, he likes to shut his eyes and go to sleep immediately. As a compromise, we usually talk for a while and then he tries to think of a tactful way to say goodnight. Here is one of his less-successful attempts:


Me: [after a lull in the conversation] What are you thinking about?
Phillip: ...How to politely end this.
Me: [stony silence]
Phillip: What? That wasn't it?


— 4 


I avoid the phrase "bane of my existence" for fear of overusing it, but if I used it it'd be to describe shoes. My children have the lovely habit of coming downstairs 3 minutes before it's time to go out the door to church or school and announcing that none of their shoes fit. I'm not sure if they think I have a magical shoe cache hidden under the floorboards or what, but it always ends in tears. It seems like this happens once a week, and half the time there is still plenty of growing room left in their shoes. Maybe my children are just insane.


As a result of yet another "I don't have shoes" morning, this is what 2 of them wore to school on Thursday (for the record, it was 47 degrees and rainy.)


It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}
Yes, those are sandals. At least one of them put socks on underneath.


So it's time to visit the shoe store, where we each have our jobs: I hold the baby while trying to crouch down and assess the fit of shoes by feeling for their big toe ("Wiggle it harder!"), the toddler scatters shoes throughout the aisle, and the older ones try on every pair in the store and declare them all uncomfortable. I ask, "Well, are they the uncomfortable that will get broken in and become comfortable, or the uncomfortable that will just stay uncomfortable?" They stare at me blankly.



— 5 


A friend (who I've know for about 4 years now) and I decided it was time for a girl's night. We picked a new restaurant, sat down at a booth, and were perusing the menu for several minutes before I looked up at her and asked, "Have I been here before with you?" She looked around and after a moment said, "You know what? I think so." I made a mental note at that point to find more friends who are equally/more forgetful than me so I don't annoy them.

— 6 


A nasty cold hit our house this week, and some of us fared better than others. I've spent three days so far without a voice, the first few days of which it felt like someone was punching me in the throat every time I tried to swallow. Bonus: the kids think it's cool when I cough because I sound like a Minecraft zombie.

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}

— 7 

Speaking of losing your voice: it's really hard to issue authoritative commands in a hoarse frog-whisper. So I don't recommend it for moms who want their kids to clean up after themselves, stop fighting with each other, or get stuff done.

I can only croak out so many words, and I'm not about to waste them on non-emergency situations. So basically, unless you're doing something that will likely end in putting your eye out, you're getting away with it in our house this week.

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4 comments:

Ann-Marie Ulczynski said...

Your crystal looks amazing! And I love your son's questions.

Jenni said...

Dishwasher tips! I love it. Right now we are using two detergents to keep things clean and it gets spendy. Not only that, but we are perpetually running out of one or the other and limping along. I will have to try this Cascade!

My kids have a habit of outgrowing their shoes on a Saturday night. So when we are trying to leave for church on Sunday morning, suddenly all anyone has that they can wear are flip flops. Seriously, Payless should be open 24/7 just for this kind of stuff.

Rae said...

Cloudy glassware here, too. Drives me crazy...! Thanks very much for the detergent recommendation.

Jenny Evans said...

They should also have an emergency drive-thru where you can call ahead to order the size/style, and they throw them in your window as your drive past on your way to wherever it is you're late to. They could work out something for payment like the EZ Pass boxes you can put on your windshield to pay tolls. The more I think about this, the more viable the business model seems...