Freedom is messy and, on occasion, painful

I had a friend almost tearfully confess to me, a couple of months ago, that she had done something she thought she would never do. She had bought a play yard for her 14 month old son. Oh, I asked, is it the gray plastic one with the six sides? Yes, she whispered, her eyes downcast. Well, I said, we have that very same one, and we have used it continually since Harper was around 6 months old. We don't call it a "play pen" we call it a "rock climbing gym," and I fill it with blocks and books and puzzles and balls and babies. We started putting each kid in there whenever they got mobile, so they got used to it and didn't see it as a prison. I don't think it's hyperbolic to confess that having it has saved my sanity over the last 5 years. I tried very hard to use it ONLY when it was necessary (cleaning, showering, cooking) and not just as an excuse to sit at the computer without having to worry about someone falling in the toilet or emptying the entire bookshelf. Anyway, I never understood how staunch advocates of total attachment parenting could actually wear their 14 month old in a sling while they emptied the dishwasher or got a pizza out of the oven. I also was not willing to let the 14 month old destroy the house in the name of curiosity. Well, a few weeks ago, the dog peed on the corner of the quilt that goes under the rock climbing gym and I had to move it. And when the husband picked it up, it broke. Pieces of it had started to splinter off bit by bit for the past year or so, but this time, it was the death knell. The reality is that I wasn't using it much anymore because Helena has gotten much better about playing independently without destroying things or endangering herself. I was mostly putting her in there when I showered or cleaned. But today is the stay at home and clean day and there was much to be done and I missed it. Oh, very much. Here's what I accomplished today:
1. four loads of laundry, including all of the sheets.
2. washed bathmats and mopped bathroom floors.
3. Also cleaned toilets and sinks.
4. And vacuumed (Harper had to help with this because she was riding her bike in circles through the front room as I was scurrying around with my swiffer and she commented, "You are like the little red hen and we are like the lazy animals!" So, I put her immediately to work.)
5. Swiffered Hudson's room.
6. A tiny bit of dusting.

Also, we did NOT turn on the television ONCE! (more about this later, but we have almost completely cut out the t.v. watching and it makes me feel better about life in general and the kids, after a couple of days of withdrawal, don't seem to miss it much). The big kids played nicely inside and outside.

So, I could end this post here and you would think, "WOW! Impressive." But. Let's talk about some of the things that happened while I was so productive. Well, Helena stuck her hand in a pile of disgustingness that I had just swiffered up from Hudson's room and the hall. Then she followed me into Harper's room and stuck her hand right into the disgustingness that I found on the window sills when I dared lift the disgustingly dusty black-out curtains. So then I put her in her room and put the baby gate on her door. She wept like Jeremiah while I mopped the bathroom floors. I let her out. I opened a window while I dusted and had to prop it up with a sawed off broom handle because the windows are 55 years old and won't stay open on their own. I was dusting the television and Hudson somehow managed to knock the sawed off broom handle off while he was sticking his head through the window to say hello, and the blasted thing slammed down on his neck like a guillotine. Thankfully, I was right there to release him but he was pretty sad and wept like Jeremiah for about 10 minutes. Then I realized that all of the dust was about to cause me to lapse into anaphylaxis so I took two Benadryl. Then I made lunch and got Hudson and Helena down for their naps. I realized that two Benadryl is maybe one too many and that I might just lie down on the couch for a minute and rest my eyes. I fell into a medically-induced coma that last one and a half hours. Then Harper and I did our reading. Then the other two woke up and I commenced again to the spring cleaning. I put Helena in the sand box and went to switch some clothes into the dryer. There was a loud bang and I realized that Helena had tried to remove the sawed off broomstick from the window (because, yes, I was idiotic enough not to learn my lesson after the guillotine incident. My need for fresh air superceded appropriate parenting, apparently) and the window had landed on her poor baby hand. She wept, yet, again, like Jeremiah. Her hand appeared relatively unscathed, thankfully. I left the window down this time. Then the husband got home. Then he left to go on a quick grocery run. The big kids had dinner outside, which they've asked to do for months and I always say no. I got Helena down from her high chair and stepped out into the back yard to tell Harper and Hudson to finish up and come inside. I tried to come back inside and the door was locked. I didn't know Helena could reach the dead bolt. She can. The window was also locked because the husband had locked it emphatically as I told him about the series of unfortunate window events. After she locked the door Helena went straight to my desk and got my camera and started pushing all the buttons and came to the window to show me.I'm glad the memory card was in the computer because if it had not been, I feel certain she would have erased the entire thing, thus obliterating an entire year of poorly focused, badly lit Hinze family memories. The husband got home a few minutes later and just shook his head as he let us in.

It's a day for The Annals of Perfect Mothering, for sure.