The Art of Letting Go

Wow I am not feeling the love right now, but I sure am hot! Okay, now get your head out of the gutter – the air conditioning in my house broke down the exact time we decide to break records for the hottest day here in the GTA not fun at all. The only problem is the new Air conditioner we spent a few mortgage payments on cannot be installed until next Wednesday!

So picture if you, will a house full of 6 whining children, 6 month old twins who can’t yet whine, but would if they could, the hubby who is recovering from his ass surgery and a house that is hotter inside than it is outside. Yeah hand over case of wildberry now.

So this afternoon I convinced the kiddies to go down into the dungeon (aka the basement) where it would be cooler. Usually they are afraid to go down because of some ghosts or something but given the heat in here they were all too happy. I however, was not. A few weeks ago I spent a whole weekend cleaning out and re-organizing the playroom, yet today this is what I walked into:

When I asked the children who was responsible I got the same answer from all of them. “Not me!” Of course “Not me!” is the invisible child that lives here in our house and is apparently responsible for the broken laundry room window, bikes not put back in the garage, a Barbie doll in the toilet and a slew of other annoying events. “Not me!” must be amazingly fast because whenever I come to scream bloody murder question the children he or she has disappeared. The other children tell me that “Not me!” is quite frightened of me. Smart child.

I needed an excuse to get out of doing yet more laundry so I offered to help clean up as long as they helped with Thatcher and Tanner.

This was the one time I actually didn’t mind because it was sooo cool in the playroom! After a few hours it was done and 4 brave kiddies even decided to sleep in the playroom (as long as I checked in on them every hour – remember the ghost?)

Usually I would have been way more pissed off at the state of the playroom because even though I know it is an impossible task to keep this house looking like a Martha Stewart ad with so many children I am sort of a neat freak. However, a lesson learned about 4 children back was that it is okay not to have a perfect house and that some things just are not worth freaking out about. This was one of those things. Besides it gave me a chance to catch up on my kiddies thoughts about everything from the a/c being broken, how they feel about the twins development (wow they are now little people who can babble and move a bit!) and most importantly it gave them the opportunity to work as a team.

What about you? Do you have a “Not me!” living in your home? What have you been able to let go since having children?

Until next time
Chantel, Momof8crazymonkeys