Well, I finally got the washer to drain, so at least I have rinsed curtains instead of soaking curtains. I still don’t quite have clean curtains. I also don’t have a washer, as it was officially diagnosed: dead. Irreparable, but luckily quite replaceable. The new washer comes tomorrow. Any bets on how much dirty laundry we’ll have accumulated by then? Somewhere between 36 and 48 hours without a washer? I shudder to think.

Today? It’s hot. It’s really really hot. So what did I decide to do? I decided to wash the curtains. This makes sense, see, because they were dusty, and because I’d been meaning to wash them and hadn’t, and also because I thought I could hang them up to dry in the house, thus providing sort of an electricity-free air conditioning method. A very very mild air-conditioning method, but still. Better than nothing.

Well, I washed the curtains in the living room. That worked brilliantly. I hung them back up just as the sun started to come into the room, so we didn’t even roast while they washed, and the room did cool down a bit as they dried.

Inspired by my success, I thought I’d wash the curtains in my bedroom. Except that Sadie sleeps there off and on throughout the day, and needs the semi-dark to stay asleep. So I thought I’d wait until dark, wash them, and hang them back up before going to bed. (Shut up, it was a good plan.) I took them down. I put them in the washer. It filled up with nice soapy water. And then? And then? And then my washing machine died. Dead. Right there. Full of water. It will not wash, it will not rinse, it will not drain. Dead. At 9:30 pm.

So here are my options. I can take down the living room curtains and move them to my bedroom, then move them back tomorrow (or whenever I figure out what to do about the washer). Or I can leave the bedroom window uncovered and get up with the baby and toddler when the sun comes up, because it will wake us all.

Hmm.

Stepladder, here I come.

So here’s a light question for your Monday morning: Do you raise your kids for the world we live in, or for the world the way you think it should be? Just wondering.

At the library, we let our kids choose their own picture books to check out, and we keep winding up with these “how to deal with a problem” books. You know the ones I mean. How to handle a bully, or What to do when someone makes fun of your accent, or Reasons not to be outright mean to someone who is different from you in some tangible or intangible way.

Are these valuable lessons in how to get along in the world as it is? Or are they helping to perpetuate the world as it is? I don’t know. Maybe we just got an unfortunate batch of books this week. But I’m uncomfortable with the way kindness is presented repeatedly as a noble choice, rather than as the norm—as a given. Thoughts?

Normal people separate their laundry into lights and darks. A separate load for whites, maybe, or linens.

The last load of laundry I washed? The only thing that stuff had in common was that it had all been recently peed on.

Ah, the indignities faced by the keepers of babies. Similar to the indignities faced by the keepers of hostile cats. (But in my case, babies.)

Ashlee and her cohorts at Mama Speaks have put together a Mother’s Day gift guide, and they’re giving away a handful of cool mama gifts. Did you even know Mother’s Day was coming up? I had no idea. Who can keep track of these things?

At any rate. They’re not giving away one of these, though I wish they were:

How awesome is that? It’s my new favorite birdfeeder. Not that I had an old favorite birdfeeder. In fact, I don’t have a birdfeeder at all, and at $89, I don’t think this one’s in my future either. The birds will just have to continue to be satisfied with stealing the seeds I plant in the garden. But in my imaginary backyard, I would totally have three of these hung at different heights and filled with birdy treats.

I sewed a button on a pair of pants today. This might not sound impressive. And in fact it’s not a new skill, which probably makes it sound even less impressive. But the thing is, I never fix anything. Sadie’s just outgrown a dress that’s been missing a button since Audrey was a baby, and I will very probably pack the dress away without ever replacing the button.

I have needles. I have thread. I often have buttons. I have time; it takes, what, two minutes to sew on a button? But what I usually do is this: I put the clothing that needs a button (or a patch or a seam or, really, anything) in a special “I’ll fix it later” pile.

Occasionally the pile goes home with my mother and she might fix some of the stuff, but usually it just stays put until whoever owns the item in question outgrows it and I can guiltily pack it away.

Right now my pile consists mainly of a down throw blanket that needs mending. I don’t think we’re about to outgrow it.

But this morning, Abigail lost a button off a pair of pants. I was tempted—so tempted!—to tell her I’d deal with them later, but the button was one of those inside ones (the ones that secure the elastic that comes in every pair of kid pants these days, to adjust the fit of the waistband), and I was afraid the elastic would get lost forever in the casing, so… I just did it. I found a needle. I found matching-ish thread. And now her pants are hanging in her closet once more.

I wonder what else I could “just do” as it came up? Would I would get more done that way, instead of leaving things for later, that elusive later that never quite becomes now? Or would I just be overrun by the things that need doing at every moment of every day?

I suspect my existing system (mostly) works best, but seriously? It feels good to have fixed the button.

Dane did write a six-word memoir! In the comments here.

“You owe me,” I said to Dane.

But let me back up. That’s really the end of this story.

Perhaps I should start by saying that I found the baby-sized nail clippers. Though to appreciate that fact, you might want to know that they’d been missing for over a week (the nail clippers, that is), and that Sadie grows sharp little baby talons that need to be clipped maybe every other day. So perhaps I should start there.

But at this point it seems that I’ve already started. I’ll just continue. By the time I found the clippers this afternoon, Sadie’s fingernails were so long she could have taken out my eyeball with an errant swipe of her pinky. Luckily she didn’t, or this story might end somewhat differently. Or perhaps it would end the same, though I can’t imagine how “you owe me” is the appropriate response to losing an eyeball.

At any rate, there I was, sitting on the floor clipping Sadie’s fingernails while the older kids blew bubbles in the backyard. As you might expect, I have to look at the clippers when I’m clipping. Which is how I managed to miss seeing Audrey accidentally swallow a gulp of bubble solution.

Instead of dipping bubbles wands, the kids had been blowing through straws to see how big of a mountain of bubbles they could grow. But Audrey accidentally sucked on her straw, effectively putting an end to the bubble mountain game. She didn’t swallow much—when we play with bubbles, I assume spillage will happen and dole out solution accordingly.

“I think Audrey swallowed bubbles!” Owen yelled, but before I could even stand up, I was saying, why yes, yes I think she did, as the bubble solution—along with Audrey’s lunch—made a slimy reappearance. All over the sliding screen door.

After washing Audrey and checking that she was quite all right (one small swallow of immediately-vomited-up, nontoxic bubble solution does not seem to have done any lasting damage—she made a face that said, hmm, that was annoying, and then moved on), I turned my attention to the screen door. I figured I’d just lay it on the lawn and hose it off, thus cleaning away the yuck and also watering our parched grass, but I couldn’t figure out how to get it off its track. Of course.

I called Dane, who explained that screen removal requires pushing and pulling and cursing, and that a screwdriver might be involved. “Call your parents,” he suggested helpfully, but they were out of town this afternoon. “Bring the hose in the house and spray the screen from the inside out,” he offered, which, I mean, sure. No problem.

Eventually I closed the glass sliding doors and sprayed the screen from the outside, thus pummeling the—let’s call it spit-up, shall we?—onto the glass door and then, one hopes, out onto the ground and into the lawn. And then we were done playing outside today because: ew.

“You sure you don’t want to come home to share in this fun?” I asked Dane over the phone before turning on the hose. But he didn’t. Which is why I am on the computer tonight and he is washing the dishes. Or wait, no, that’s every night. But whatever.

Worry a lot. Sleep hardly ever.

More “me”? Rather.

Tag! I’m it! Kate tagged me for the six-word memoir meme. And I know I’ve been tagged for about eighty-six other memes in the last six months or so, and I always mean to do them, but then I forget. Because I’m lame. I’m sorry. But this one I remembered, so here it is! My life in six words.

As we all know, I can’t tell you my name in less than six words. I’m wordy. So certainly I can’t give you my whole life in just six, right? But some aspect of my life, sure. So here’s what I tried:

Homebirth, homeschool… I’m home a lot.

But that depends on the compound-word versions of “homebirth” and “homeschool.” And while those versions are certainly used, I’m not sure they’re really the accepted norms. I think “home birth” and “home school” are used at least as much, which would give me eight words and therefore would not work. Next!

Missing: Mama’s brain. Hardly used. Help.

“Mama” being me. But that’s not really true; I use my brain. I know where it is. It’s my sanity I’ve misplaced. Maybe it should read more like:

Have kids. Am an exemplary lunatic.

Or perhaps:

Had kids, became virtuously neurotic. Naturally.

Because isn’t that what happens? You’re getting along just fine eating nutrition-free white flour pizzas and potato chips and chocolate ice cream, swimming in overchlorinated pools, eating produce bathed in pesticides, filling your house with furniture that happens to be stuck together in part with glues that give off toxic fumes—and you don’t worry about any of it! You probably don’t even think about any of it! And then you have a baby and it’s wee and vulnerable and you read about how all these things are slowly poisoning your child and hey, just for an added bonus, half the toys on the market are made with toxic levels of lead or arsenic or are laced with phthalates, and the baby bottles leach hormone disruptors—and you’re expected to keep your kid safe! No one else is going to do it for you! Good luck with that!

Um, yeah. Moving on.

I could summarize one of my many flaws:

Not “present” enough? Where am I?

Or describe parenting:

Squirming, squalling! Swaddled. Settled. (Experience helps.)
“Don’t climb—” [Thump! Wail!] (Kiss.) Better.
Everyone! Now. Outside. Run! Play! Go!
Need more books? Me too. Library!

But really I want something more positive… more about my life specifically… but that’s gonna take a while to figure out. So how about this one, which explains how I get anything done, ever:

Do projects. In chunks. Practice completion.

That will have to do. And it only took eight hundred and fifty-two attempts! (Or ten. Ten attempts.) Did I mention that in addition to being wordy, I’m indecisive? Yes, well.

I’m tagging a couple of writer-ly bloggers, because how could they not want to do this? So let’s see six words from Heather, Megan, and Diana! (The rules: Write a six-word memoir. Link to the person who tagged you and to this original post. Tag five others. Go!) Following Kate’s lead, I’m also going to tag my husband, who is welcome to post his here. (Let’s see if he really does…) And I’m going to leave my fifth “tag” open, because don’t you all want to join in? Tag: you! If you do write one, leave me a comment so we can all come read it, won’t you?

(By the way…If your six words happen to be mothering-related, post them at mamazine.com! I’m off to post some there, too.)