It's a hard knock life.

Today we had sun again which is amazing up here in the grey, grey north. Because it was such a beautifulday and I was finally getting some natural Vitamin D I decided to do what any good stay at home mom would do. You know, deep clean the bathroom.

I can vividly remember the first time my mother taught me how to clean a toilet. She told me "Make sure you clean really well around the outside of the toilet. Little boys miss a lot." Little did I know then how important that information would become to me later in life, living in a house with three boys. Also, our bathroom here has grout which seems to make the nasty boy locker room smell ten time worse. If you are wondering how I know what a boys locker rooms smells like it is because I spent two years managing the wrestling team at my high school and we had to collect the dirty singlets and wash them. In order to do that we had to go through the locker room. Which we did covering our noses and spraying cans of lysol as we went. But hey, I earned two varsity letters for it, so...even trade.

I mixed together my magic concoction of washing soda, Dawn, white vinegar and hot water and got to work. If you are familiar with 80's movie musicals starring red headed little girls, it was like that scene in "Annie"(which I was obsessed with and wanted to be in when I was a little girl. I mean, who wouldn't want to live in an orphanage where you are treated badly and then win the lottery of adoptive parents in Daddy Warbucks and Grace Farrell and everyone sings and dances all the time?). I am talking about the scene where Molly and Pepper are scrubbing the bathroom floors-bucket, scrub brush and all. I even sang a few lines of "Hard Knock Life" (the original, not the Jay-Z version). Dreams DO come true.  It took a good 45 minutes but that bathroom is now cleaner than it has ever been before. Ever. I even got Henry into the action:

You'll stay up 'till this dump shines like the top of the Chrysler Building! 

So now I have a sparkly clean bathroom. Well at least until bedtime when showers and brushing teeth totally destroy all the work I did. Oh well.

Don't worry, I didn't go all Miss. Hannigan on Henry.  We did make it outside for a bit to enjoy the "sunshine light".

Tobyball

My brother had been bugging me to start blogging again so here I am. You are welcome bro. This post is dedicated to you.


Henry made up a new game today. It's called "Tobyball". He got the name from the fact that he stole on of the small tennis balls that my mom's dog, Toby, plays with and brought it back home from our last trip there. He was very excited to find it in his room when we cleaned it out today. He also found a  ping pong paddle in Wesley's room and thus Tobyball was born. It seems like a fairly simple game to play. One player throws the ball toward the other player who is holding the paddle. The person with the paddle has to hit the ball, at which point Henry runs around the room touching whatever he feels is a "base" (like in baseball but with about 6 or 7 bases). Then you start over again. He prefers if the door to his room is shut (his room is evidently the only place you can play Tobyball). However, the rules change as you go along such as you sometimes have to switch places so he can hit the ball and sometimes you have to sit in the tiny chair in his room to hit the ball. Also, sometimes he doesn't have to run around the bases, he just has to go back to his "home" spot after catching the ball. You only know of a rule change when he tells you ("No! I do it!" or "No! Mama throw it."). I received several penalties throughout the game for not playing correctly. He also cheers for himself throughout the game too ("Yay! I did it!"). There are not points or any type of scoring system which is good because there are no losers but also bad because there is no way to end the game. Until nap time. Ah, nap time. Mommy always has a way to rig the game.