The House of Calamity and Chaos

This is the phrase that popped into my head today. Can you picture it on a nice little plaque above our door? People would chuckle and assume it’s a joke -- until 5 min. into their visit, when they’d flee the premises in terror.

I frequently wonder if there are families out there who go about their days in relative calm and peace. Sure, maybe someone spills their milk or misplaces their favorite shirt now and then, but basically their daily routine is free from injury, strife, flooded basements, and raccoons. Just to use some “hypothetical” examples I plucked out of the air. (Riiiight.)

As if the carpet conundrum wasn’t enough for one week, we’ve encountered still more homeowner headaches. First, we had a torrential rainstorm that caused water to leak into our newly waterproofed basement. No, “leak” is the wrong word. That implies a slow trickle. When actually, I was stemming the tide inside with buckets and bath towels while C. got soaked attempting to divert the stream outside. Meanwhile, the kids were splashing in the puddles on the floor.

When I finally collapsed into bed, exhausted, I heard an all-too-familiar scratching and scuffling in the attic above me. Raccoons. Did I tell you we had an entire family of raccoons evicted from our attic last year? No? Well, then, it’s because I tried to block out that traumatic episode. (Either that, or I simply forgot to mention it since Every! Frigging! Week! brings some traumatic episode or another around here.)

The whole thing was a giant ordeal involving ladders, cages, interrupted naptimes, and confrontations with well-meaning but misguided animal-loving neighbors. (Look: I love animals as much as anyone, but NOT when they probably have rabies and are peeing through my son’s ceiling!!) The raccoon guy assured us when he was done that the furry varmints would never get back in.

Except they did. So the guy came back out with his ladders and cages and nap-interrupting. His exact words when he left: “I closed off every possible opening six ways from Sunday. If they bust through dat, I’d pack up and move.” Super. And guess what? I heard the raccoon again last night.

No time to worry about that, though, because the waterproofing guys came over today. It’s almost futile to have any contractor come over when my husband’s not home. Because when it’s just me and the kids? It goes like this:

- Contractor tries to show me something about the sump pump while the kids play nearby with a loud electronic toy. I take away the toy so I can hear the guy, and the baby throws himself on the floor and has a tantrum.

- Contractor takes me outside to show me something about the window wells. The kids run out the door behind me with no shoes on. I go back in, get them shoes, try to resume conversation with contractor. Toddler goes sprinting down the street while preschooler climbs on top of a parked car. Someone falls down and skins their knee. Contractor is alternately laughing, annoyed, and pitying me.

In between all this chaos, all I heard was: everything’s wrong, everything needs to be fixed, and good luck if you try to do it yourself. I jokingly said, “So basically, you’re telling us to move.” He didn’t laugh...or contradict me.

I’m afraid to go to bed tonight. Not because of the raccoon, but because I’m afraid of what tomorrow will bring. Just another day at the House of Calamity and Chaos...

It All Started with the Carpet

We have light-colored Berber carpet in our family room. It wasn’t in great shape when we moved in 7 years ago. We always meant to replace it, but then we got a dog who wasn’t housebroken. Then we had a baby, and carpet was the least of our worries. We also weathered several storms that caused the skylights to leak onto the rug.

Then, we had a second baby. This baby spit up all day, every day, all over every surface in the house. We spot-cleaned, steam-cleaned, and covered the carpet with area rugs. Clearly, there was no point replacing it until the barrage of bodily fluids ceased.

So here it is, 2 years later, and we finally decided to do something about the carpet. But first we have to remove the old, unused woodstove that sits on a raised brick platform in the middle of the family room. We used it once shortly after we moved in, before we had kids. The entire room filled with smoke, forcing us to open all the doors in the house, thereby reversing any warmth that the stove generated. That was the end of that.

Basically, this big black stove is a danger magnet. Kids are drawn to it. They climb on it, bang on it, draw on it with chalk. And the brick platform it sits on -- square, with raised, sharp corners -- is just high enough to trip over. And believe me, kids trip over it constantly. We covered the edges with foam, which my younger son promptly took big bites out of.

So this weekend we had a contractor come over to give us an estimate on removing the stove and bricks. This is how that went:

Contractor: “Sure, that’s no problem. Since we have to patch the ceiling where the chimney was, would you like us to go ahead and patch the drywall around the skylights where you have water damage?”

Us: “Yeah, that makes sense. Sure.”

Contractor: “How old are those skylights, anyway? At least 20 years old? They don’t even make those anymore. You’re losing a lot of heat out those windows, you know. I could put in some new ones for you.”

Us: “Um, well, if they’re THAT old… And they DO leak… Maybe just price them for us?”

Contractor: “The thing is, they make 'em smaller now. I’d have to build out new frames, and add some new shingles around the windows on the roof. They won’t match, though. But if the roof is also 20 years old, you might want to think about reshingling the whole thing. It’d be cheaper for me to do it now.”

Us: “Oh, boy, I don’t know…”

Contractor: “’Cause it could actually end up COSTING you money down the road if you don’t take care of it now. I’m just letting you know. It’s your decision.”

Us: “Sure. Yeah. Um, price that out for us too, OK?”

Contractor: “I notice you don’t have a vent in this bathroom over here. That’s probably why you’ve got some mold up there on the ceiling. I could put in a vent real easy for you, while I’m doing the roof.”

Us: “Vent? Huh?”

Contractor: “So what do you think about adding another skylight? Wouldn’t be that hard, since I’m already up there, you know.”

Us: “Uh, we’ve got this thing to go to soon, so we should probably let you go now… Yeah, just send us the estimate. We’ll call you! Thanks!” We closed the door behind him, dejected.

The carpet’s not THAT bad, I guess. I mean, with all the toys scattered around and unless it’s really bright sunlight, you can hardly see the spit-ups stains at all. Right? RIGHT?!

Home Work

You know the classic childhood fantasy: when we grow up, we’ll have the perfect husband, kids, and house with the white picket fence? Then when that fantasy becomes reality you realize that the house and fence need almost as much care and maintenance as the family. Seriously.

Our formerly white picket fence is the least of our worries at the moment. Do you realize that you could go through your house room by room, updating and fixing and renovating, and you would NEVER be done? By the time you got to the last room you’d have to start over again.

Now granted, we live in an old house. But still. Doesn’t this list of issues we’ve had in the past few months seem a wee bit excessive?

- A lingering sewer stench in the newly finished basement
- 2 clogged sinks
- 3 leaky windows, one of which soaked the carpet, which stained the drapes, and another that buckled the paint and cracked the plaster beneath it
- Some kind of animal(s) in the attic
- A strange stain on one bedroom ceiling

If you’re thinking we should have jumped on these issues immediately before they got worse (hi, Dad) then you don’t fully understand what our life is like. Scheduling a plumber around preschool and swimming lessons and doctors’ appointments is hard enough. Actually TALKING to the plumber while one child screams on your hip and the other pillages the guy’s tool kit is another story. Is it any wonder he had to come back 3 times before the issue was resolved?

BTW, the source of the stench was a clog which looked suspiciously like baby wipes. But it couldn’t possibly be, because I’ve told a CERTAIN SOMEONE at least 7 trillion times that you can’t flush baby wipes down the toilet. Moving on...

How hard is it to peek into the attic and see what’s making that scuffling sound? Not hard ... unless it’s a trap-door type attic that you have to access with a ladder through your child’s ceiling. And you don’t own a ladder.

As I watched my husband stack a bathroom step-stool on top of a chair and attempt to climb up this precarious structure, my sons’ behavior was suddenly so clear to me. So THAT’S where Miles got the idea to put a rocking chair on top of his bed and jump off it. And THAT’S why Riley’s favorite trick is to climb up the side of the wood stove and dangle from one hand. I see “America’s Funniest Home Videos” in our future. And a lot more ER visits.

I am amazed that we have been able to get ANY home improvements done around here since we had kids. I literally finished painting the dining room the morning of my 1 y.o.’s birthday party, because my parents were around to watch the boys. It took 2 weeks' worth of naptimes and a couple Friday nights just to finish the trim in the basement.

I have the perfect husband, kids, and house. I just don’t know if we or the house will still be standing by the time the kids get older.

READ O' THE WEEK: The Little Crooked House by Margaret Wild is one of Miles' favorite books. It's about a house in slightly worse shape than ours.

No, We Can't, Bob & Barack

If you’re the parent of a young child who’s a fan of Bob the Builder, like I am, you may have noticed that the animated handyman shares a slogan with President-elect Barack Obama: “Can we do it? Yes, we can!” While I admire Bob’s and Obama’s positive attitude, when it comes to home improvement tasks around here, our sad refrain is: “No, we can’t.”

See, we have a toddler whose favorite pastimes are emptying out the junk drawer and managing to find all the sharp and/or potentially dangerous implements in the house. He’s not one to quietly amuse himself while we, say, caulk the leaky skylights or strip wallpaper. Or if he does, he’s amusing himself by finger-painting the upholstery with diaper rash cream. That means one of us always has to be on kid duty while the other is tackling our lengthy to-do list.

Since I am on kid duty pretty much full-time during the week, you can understand why I might not be super-enthusiastic about taking over on Saturdays and Sundays, too. Yet even when I’m not 6 mos. pregnant, I’m not clamoring to get my hands on the caulking gun. I do my share of household tasks, but I’m no Babe the Builder. What this usually means is that Dad takes over with Miles on the weekends, nothing gets done around the house, and I stress out about it.

But, really, what are our options? We don’t live close enough to our families to drop him off at Grandma and Grandpa’s for the day. The kid is frustratingly incompetent with a paint roller. I guess we could hire a sitter to watch him while we paint or rake, but I’d rather spend that money on a night out.

So we’re forced to take a tag-team approach to home improvement tasks. I watch Miles while C. runs to Home Depot. Then he takes Miles to the gym while I shop for shelves. Or we’ll all go together to Target, which more often than not is a huge time- and money-waster for everyone involved. We go in for a rug and we leave with more Lightning McQueen paraphernalia.

But we’ve got another baby on the way, and the flowered wallpaper in the guest room is not going to strip itself. So I took matters into my own hands. For 4 consecutive days during naptime, I peeled and steamed and stripped and scraped wallpaper myself. I was proud of what I accomplished during those 90-120 minute blocks. And on school mornings, I even made 3 separate trips to the paint store to find just the right shade of light blue. (Sherwin Williams’ no-VOC Harmony paint in Rhythmic Blue, if you care.)

Then on the weekend, C. spackled and sanded but did not get to the actual painting since I was so fed-up with potty training that I fled the house for all of Sat. and Sun. afternoon. The paint cans and rollers are just sitting there unopened, mocking us. In the yard, the fence is slowly falling apart, slat by slat. The skylights are still leaking. The dining room still needs a new coat of paint. The shelves we bought over a year ago still need to be put up.

Bob? Barack? If you’ve got a minute, we could use your can-do attitude over here -- or at least an extra pair of hands.

LINK O’ THE WEEK: For home décor inspiration, check out what people with more time and talent have done at Rate My Space. You can search by baby nurseries and boys’ or girls’ rooms, among other things.