There's one special skill all mothers excel at. I'd bet you'd be hard-pressed to find a mother that didn't rock at this.
MULTI-TASKING
Men on the other hand...
Our new realtor was coming at 10 a.m. this morning. We got the bulk of things done lastnight - RD polished the hardwood floors (on his hands and knees, people!), painted the shop room in the basement and I worked on cleaning up everything else (scrubbed all the tiles in the kitchen, the cabinets, the stove, the pot rack above stove, cleaned up carpet stains, put tall piles of laundry away, put away random junk) - there was still some small things to do this morning. I had a plan - we'd first take turns taking showers and getting dressed while the other person watched the kids, then we'd work together (again, still one watching the kids) to get the duvet cover out of the dryer and put on the bed, the dining room table cloth found (in basement somewhere) and put on, bring the ficus tree up from basement and put back in dining room (it "makes" the room, but we removed it b/c the kids kept getting into the moss and pulling off the leaves), vacuum the bedrooms, and move the wine rack into the dining room, as well as some other minor things.
First I took a shower, then came out so RD could take a shower. He said he'd take one later, he first wanted to get some things done - he then escaped down to the basement. I thought he was just going down to bring something up or get something out of the dryer, but suddenly it was 9 a.m. and he was STILL down there.
Me: yelling down to basement RDDDD!! Are you almost done? You still need to take a shower yet...and we need to ____ and ____ and _____ still.
RD: Yep...I'll be right up.
He came up about ten minutes later. After some nagging on my part, he vacuumed the bedrooms, then took a quick shower, THEN WENT BACK TO THE BASEMENT!!!!!!!!!
I quickly changed the kids and put them down for their nap. I rushed downstairs to try and speed things up. I grabbed the duvet cover out of the dryer and started looking for the table cloth. All the while, RD is tidying up the shop room shelves. Not really looking like he's doing anything, just moving stuff around.
Me: WHAT ARE YOU DOING? Do you really think Tina (realtor) is going to care if that damn shelf is tidy? Will you PLEASE help me? It's almost quarter to ten!
RD: Yea, yea...let me just finish this?
ME: PLEASE, RD. Take this (duvet cover) upstairs and put it on the comforter. I also need you to bring up the ficus tree and move the wine rack back into the dining room.
RD: Okay...okay...I'm going.
I go up and put away all the toys and move the bigger toys to the side walls to try and get them out of the way. I put the table cloth on the table then went to wipe down the bathroom sink and empty the trash. Noticing all the little finger prints on the front screen door, entertainment center, and tv, I grabbed some Windex and cleaned that up. Not seeing RD anywhere, I go in and get the wine rack and lug it into the dining room. I peeked into the bedroom...no duvet cover. Just as I headed towards the basement stairs I see RD coming in (he was cleaning up some tools he had on the back deck).
RD: I was just going down to get it!
Me: Forget it...I'm getting it. Hey...don't forget the ficus tree!
Just in time, (ah-hem) we got everything done and in place. So as you can imagine, I was all flushed from rushing around, while RD was calm as can be - as he had spent the entire morning moving crap around on the shop table. I'm sure he did more than that, but for the life of me I couldn't tell ya.
It seems most mothers you talk to feel like they have the weight of the world on their shoulders. RD is a great dad...incredible! Yet...it's a lot of the little things he slips on. After asking him to grab something out of the kids' room for me, I saw him wandering from one side of the room to the other, completely lost. Our kids are over a year old and he still doesn't know where anything is. How is that? It's a small room! There are three drawers and one cubby - take a look around! When I tease him about it, his response is usually something like, "You're the mom...moms are supposed to be good at this stuff/know this stuff/be more patient/be better at this or that" Riiigggghhhht. No pressure.
As for the new realtor. Love her! LOVE.HER. She brought an assistant with her who took notes on every detail of the house. We talked about what should stay, what should go, price, timing issues, etc. Her confidence was catching. She gushed over how wonderful our house is and if I were a prospective buyer, I'd be sold! Again, loved her!
Next step is to get an inspection. The town we live in is really strict, so she offered up some tips on things we should do before they come. They were very minor, quick fixes, so we should have those things done in the next couple days.
Remember the big news I mentioned? I've got nothing to share just yet. But first I wanted to say it's nothing exciting. I guess I made it sound grander than it is. I should've said it's a big deal to us, but it will be rather boring to everyone else. I'm not pregnant, no big life decisions have been made - it's nothing like that. It's just something that involves someone else in our family, so even though I'm 99.999999999% sure no one in our family reads this blog (so help me God if they ever do), I still fear of them reading something on here before they hear it from us.
I hope you all have a wonderful week! Until next time...
