Yet Another Recall

I want my kids safe. So I'm happy they are recalling defective products. What I'm not happy about it that they aren't being made safely to begin with and that some are being recalled years after they were made.

Right before I had Jack I happened to see in a magazine that the bassinet we were going to use had been recalled due to a strangulation hazard. The same bassinet that we had bought 5 years earlier and had used with both girls. Thank God they survived!

Then a month ago, all of our kids medication got recalled. Too bad we had already used most of it!

Then yesterday I stumble upon yet another recall...this time for the crib. What's weird about this is the recall was issued over a month ago and I never heard about it. Sure, I had heard about the drop side crib recall, but this was one related to the mattress support. And the problems started in 2008 when a boy died when the support broke and he suffocated. The recall was in April 2010 - that is a full two years after that happened. How can they wait two years? We would have never used that crib for Jack. But yet another unsafe product all my kids have used.

I do have to say after much run around with the stores where we bought these products (except for the medicine - Costco took it back without a problem), we were finally issued full refunds in the form of store credits for them.

It's getting to the point where I feel like I can't let my kids play with anything, eat anything, sleep in anything. I'd wrap them in bubble wrap, but that would probably get recalled too.

Just a Quick Note

This last month of school is going to be a crazy one for us, so I'm likely not going to be around a lot. But don't worry, I'm still alive and I'll be back to entertain you soon.

If you remember, I vented about the school closure in our district and what it might mean for us. Well, I'm happy to report that we got the phone call yesterday that Lexi is in the school of our choice!

And it other news, I was elected PTA Vice-President. I have no idea what I just got myself into.

Do You Know What Sucks?

When all three of your kids end up with a stomach virus.

Do you know what sucks more?

When two of them get sick in the same night, leaving you with very little sleep.

Do you know what sucks more than that?

When you don't realize that the baby has gotten sick sometime in the night until you go get him up for the day and his entire crib is covered in puke. And you realize you are the world's worst mother because your baby slept in his own puke all.night.long! And you are so disappointed in yourself that it doesn't even make you feel better when somebody else justifies it by saying you've raised pretty awesome kids if they don't even cry when they get sick.

Do you know what sucks more than all of this, though?

When Mom catches the stomach virus and has to take care of sick kids while barely able to lift her head. Umm, Universe, I thought we had agreed that moms can't get sick. Especially when their kids are sick. So I finally admitted defeat and asked Nacho call in sick yesterday because I knew I just couldn't do it.

And I have to give him credit - he stepped up. While I slept upstairs, he got Sam off to school and took care of the two younger ones. When the baby went down for a nap, he took Lexi to Costco and got all of our shopping done. And he even brought home flowers. I finally managed to move down to the couch to watch the younger ones while he picked Sam up from school and then he took the two oldest ones to the preschools' parent potluck. I would like to point out however I did manage to stand upright for 10 whole minutes to make a taco salad for them to take.

After a good nights' sleep, I'm feeling much better. Samantha's teacher, who is recovering from this as well, warned me that I need to take it easy or it will creep back up. The thought of taking it easy sounds heavenly, but I think I just used the one sick day I'll get this decade. And our calendar is crazier than ever, so let's just hope I bounce back as easily as the kids have. Besides, I have to clean the downstairs before I go crazy. Because while Nacho rocked it yesterday, cleaning up is not his strong suit. And making a gigantic mess is Jack's.

My last post really got me thinking about priorities for our family and those to families around us. Obviously I can only speak for my family, since saying anything about how other families live would be making assumptions, which is what I just stated drove me batty. So my comments and observations in the rest of this post are about how I would feel in any given situation and not neccessarily of those living it. I hope that makes sense.

We live in a very nice house in a wonderful neighborhood. Our dream house honestly, unless we were suddenly to win the lotto. Some rooms in our house are nicely put together with furniture that looks like it belongs there, while other rooms have a mish-mash of furniture and somedays look like Toys r' Us has thrown up in it. Our walls are white, something that recently has been driving me nuts, but repainting a house this size would cost lots of money - money we don't have. I suppose I could always do one room at a time, but I tend to be an "all or nothing" type of person.

We recently went over to a friends' house which is honestly immaculate. Now I know we all clean up before having company over, but this was different. You could tell they lived this way. And when it's somebody without kids or with older kids it doesn't really bother me because the need for a bunch of little toys isn't there. But these people have kids similar in age to our oldests, so I'll admit it, I was jealous. How could their entire downstairs be void of little kid toys? Our house looked better when the playroom was upstairs (we had to move it downstairs when we had Jack), but it was never like this.

After sleeping on it for a night (and still waking up a bit jealous) I really got to thinking - I don't really want a house like that. Sure, it would be nice for when company came over for them not trip over toys, but for the day to day stuff around here, I want my kids to know it's their home too. That they can pull toys out during the day and play with them. That for us, this house is a home.

But we've seen the flip side of this too - where a house looks like it's been taken over by the kids and you can't find anything adult in the room. Where counters and tables are covered in papers, games, crayons, etc and you can't quite figure out where they actually eat. Or sit. Where there isn't a single room that looks like it actually belongs. And I couldn't live in a house like that either.

So for me it's trying to find the right balance that allows the kids to be still be kids and allows me to not absolutely go nuts with the clutter and chaos. There are simple things we do each day that helps to accomplish that, I think. Rooms are picked up and beds are made every day. For me walking into a room with a made bed makes the entire room look nicer. Toys are played with and messes are made, but the family room is picked up before bed. And my biggest pet peeve - our center island. Sure it gets covered during mealtimes, but keeping it cleared off for the majority of the day helps me to keep my sanity. Being able to look over and see a clean kitchen table and the clean center island allows me to sit down and watch tv with my husband at the end of day without feeling like hurting somebody.

There are still days where I wish all of our furniture was bought for this house, where we had some actual color on the walls, where we actually had that built in for our tv in our family room and where it didn't look like we owned a toy store. But I also know that there will a time in the not so distant future where we'll probably have all that - a clean house, with matching furniture and no toys. And no noise. And we'll be wishing to have it all back.