Too Much

My hubs and I live in an adorable french cottage style house in Northern California.  Its adorable.

And small.

With just 2 full sized bedrooms (and one small one) and one bathroom, it gets smaller with each person that enters the front door.

So we do our best to make it feel as spacious as possible.  Fortunately it has a sizable attic and several large closets to store all our junk.  (And when I say our, I mean my husband’s.  I’ll share the story of why I have so few possessions another time.)

Before we met and before he moved to the Bay Area, Hubs owned a home in Dallas.  It was about the size of the one we own now, but of course it only housed him and his spiteful cat.  In this home, he was able to house several LARGE  (we’re talking larger than most trash bins!) speakers, a variety of recievers, amps and a bunch of other audio/visual equipment I can’t name. A couple of these speakers were immediately stored in our garage (mostly b/c I feared he’d blow out the 90 year old single paned windows.)  He also owned a beautiful cherry desk.  Like his speakers, it was rather large.  When we bought this house, it fit nicely in our 3rd bedroom/office.

Well, life went on and we brought our darling Madpie home and the desk has to be moved to accomodate all the things an infant needs (or parents, depending on your view.)  Moving this damn thing takes quite a bit of time and patience.  Since this year we have quite a few family visits planned we thought it was time to dismantle the desk, find a place to store it and return the 2nd largest bedroom to a more comfortable and accomodating space.  This also meant clearing out a couple of closets and multiple trips up the fold up ladder to the attic.

It was quite an exhausting morning for a Saturday.

Well, you would think we would like to sit back, proud of our labors and maybe enjoy a beer, listen to some music on those MONSTROUS speakers that were reintroduced to the living room, and just chill.

Nope.

So just as we finished, there was a knock at the door.  Hub’s college roommate and his 2 kids came to visit.  W is 4 and is on a gluten-free diet in an effort to minimize his blood sugar levels. In other words, he’s a holy terror.  H is 2 and is a darling little girl, when she isn’t turning a piece of furniture into an amusement park ride.

Oops, I failed to mention another delightful fact:  My Madpie was just going down for a nap when they arrived.  I think she may have slept for about 20 minutes (her naps usually last a couple of hours.)  Yeah, I was expecting a disaster at any moment.

They played outside for about an hour while we had a few beers but it got cold and we had to come inside.  This is when I started to get stressed out.

Now of course my own child has already spilt numerous cups of milk on our furniture and spread oatmeal into the rug, but you know, it’s my kid.  You know, shit happens, you deal.  But who in their right mind invites more of this mess into their home?  Yeah, that’s right, my husband does.

W followed me around asking me at every step I took what I was doing, where I was going, and why.  He did this while his mouth was full of food, spreading crumbs everywhere.  (Why would we give these kids chips?  Hello!  Greasy fingers everywhere!).  He also had a knack for finding ALL of Madpie’s noisy toys.  He marched around the house playing her one note recorder, blowing thru that damn thing with every ounce of breath he had.  Of course H is still a toddler and you know what toddlers do, they put things in their mouths.  And those things happened to be my daughter’s favorite toys.  Yes, you got it, these two little girls were essentially french kissing.

Have I mentioned I have cats?  3 of them.  None of them went unscathed either.

So our delightful visitors stayed for about 4 hours.  And I was fried.

Just as they walked out the door, W thanked me for having him and his sister to visit.  Doesn’t that just make your heart melt?

Yeah, but it doesn’t run the vacuum, now does it.

Now I know, everyone has their own way of dealing with stress, running, napping, enjoying music, maybe baking or working a craft.  Well, once the crumbs were cleaned up, Hubs and I went our own way to decompress.  Me to the dining room to work a necklace for my mom.  Him to the living room to sit in front of his larger-than-a-midget speakers to listen to music at near eardrum-shattering-volume.

It was just too much.  I couldn’t focus, I couldn’t think.

I shuffled off to my bedroom, closed the door and curtains, turned off the light and hid under my comforter.

That was 16 hours ago and my head still hurts.

Sorry for the whining.  I’m gonna have a cup of coffee and watch Dragon Tales w/ Mad.  Hope you guys had a better Saturday.

3 Responses to Too Much
  1. Caffeinated Bliss
    January 18, 2010 | 5:30 am

    Sounds like one hell of an exhausting day. I would have clawed someone's eyes out. Hope your Sunday was more restful.

  2. Red Shoes
    January 18, 2010 | 12:04 pm

    Oh man… that sounds like Over-Kill… I echo Caffeinated Bliss' wish for you…

    I love Northern California… a friend of mine used to live in Santa Rosa… beautiful country there!

    ~shoes~

  3. Blissed-Out Grandma
    January 18, 2010 | 10:29 pm

    Oops, I'd better not invite you to our house! We've got crumbs and fingerprints everywhere, not to mention a totally dented kitchen garbage can because we let grandson Augie use it as a drum. Last week I found ten cans of cat food on the floor behind one of our speakers…he was pretending they were cupcakes being stored in a cupboard. There was a time when all of this would have stressed me out terribly, so I do completely understand (and I'm not big on loud music, either). I hope your headache eases up soon! But didn't you just melt when that little boy thanked you? Too sweet!

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