The Green Clean

It's pretty tough for me to get myself motivated to deep clean, as I barely have the energy to actually clean. That being said, lately I've felt myself energized by a certain amount of smelliness I started to notice around the house. First it was the diapers. Considering they're cloth this shouldn't be news, but they seemed particularly stinky. Then I noticed our regular laundry had an odd odour about it. Next it was the carpets upstairs. Today I noticed our furniture had a certain kind of odour wafting from it. We've had a lot of humidity these past few week and it seems all that moisture is bringing out all the stinkies in everything! So, I got motivated to beat the funk. Because I have an aversion to conventional cleaners with all their chemicals (and they`re so expensive!), I started looking online for more natural solutions. I thought I'd share with you guys a few of the things I learned!

First of all, I had some suspicions that one of the reasons even my regular laundry wasn't smelling fresh was that the washer itself wasn't clean. After a year of washing three kids worth of cloth diapers and soiled clothes in it, I can honestly say I'm surprised it didn't come up sooner. After a lot of research, I put 2 cups of lemon juice in the empty machine and ran it on the longest, hottest wash cycle. You can also use vinegar for the same results. I did a test wash in the machine after and not only did it not stink, it smelled fresh and clean. Now that I had a clean washing machine, I knew it was time to try some different detergents that wouldn't leave so much residue and would rinse more easily while being more environmentally friendly. I discovered this amazing recipes for homemade diaper detergent that I also use for our regular laundry. My laundry hasn't smelled this fresh while looking so clean in a LONG time. The best part, it was so inexpensive and easy to make!

Even with my new diaper detergent, there was still a lingering smell. Not enough to make my eyes water or anything, but enough that when I folded all my diapers up together they had a collective smell that I could live without. What I did to battle the latest funk was to rinse all the diapers thoroughly by hand, and then let them soak in the bathtub for over an hour in very hot water with about a cup of baking soda mixed in. Even though I had pre-rinsed all the diapers and rung them out thoroughly, the water slowly turned a very unpleasant colour! After the soak I rinsed them all again and popped them in the washing machine for a full wash cycle with 2 tbps of my home made diaper detergent on the hottest cycle. After that I put them out in the sun to dry, which both deodorizes and whitens cloth diapers. Not only do they not reek like the mouth of Hell, they smell pretty like the outdoors. Win!

Next up I tackled the carpets. The ugliest carpet you`ve ever seen. I`d post a picture, but I don`t want you guys to gag to death. Let`s just say that most of the carpeting in our house is a vomit coloured green, sometimes with `white`mixed it. Also, it`s shag. 50 year old, smelly, ugly coloured, dirt-concealing shag. The boys room, which is the only carpeted room without shag carpet, but instead what was once cream, plush coloured carpet, had the remnants of their latest book tearing contest (that's a thing, right? It must be, because my boys LOVE tearing books to shreds and then marvelling at the remnants with their ridiculously high pitched cackles), not to mention far too many toys. After cleaning up the debris, I did the easiest thing ever: I sprinkled baking soda on the floor. I let the baking soda rest on the floor for about an hour to absorb all the stink and nastiness, then simply vacuumed it up. Brilliant! For the spots that had stains (can anyone say potty training disasters?), I took 2 tbps of borax and 2 tbps of baking soda mixed in a bowl of very warm water, and scrubbed the spots like crazy. After that dried I vacuumed up the dried out powder. As I mentioned above, the carpet in the boys room is, or should I say was, a lovely shade of cream once upon a time. While I wasn't able to completely restore the colour (darn Easter egg dye got on the carpet from when my Mom used it as her craft room),  it was now at least clean in the spots where the boys had left their own mark. To make sure the smell was absolutely gone I took about 4 tbsps of vinegar diluted into a small spray bottle and sprayed the carpet down once more. All I had to do was wait for it to dry and the smell was finally gone. An additional tip if, like me, you have a little bug problem, including tics (you can feel me shudder from a distance, can`t you) is to sprinkle borax on the carpet at the same time you sprinkle the baking soda. Leave it on there for 4-6 hours so the borax can do its work. This will help deodorize the carpet while dealing with any unwanted pests of the many-legged variety.

Last but not least, I had some furniture to clean! First I vacuumed, because I didn`t want to get all the toast crumbs and bits of goldfish wet and rub them into the furniture. I took a bowl of warm water and diluted 2 tbps baking soda into in and then carefully scrubbed down all the soft furniture. I did my best to not oversaturate it as too much water can lead to mould! On a warm day like today it dried up quickly, leaving everything fresh and clean. I went over everything with a vacuum again to make sure I got up all the dried baking soda, then took my spray bottle of vinegar and water and sprayed everything down and let that dry.

So, while there are still mysterious odours coming up from the laundry room, all the main areas of the house smell so much nicer! Well, except me, because I worked so hard I`m sweating like a pig!

Perks of 4 Kids

It's easy to talk about the challenges of having a lot of kids all at once. There's the expense, the diapers, the noise, the odd smells in every corner of our house, the crying, the arguing, the terrible twos coming one after another for 4 years, the business of never having personal space, either on a piece of furniture or in the bathroom, the fact that once one kid cries at night, suddenly everyone is crying (Mommy too), and the list goes on. All of this and more is part of the daily struggle of having a family full to the brim with a baby, a few toddlers, and a preschooler. Intense drama, though momentary, is par for the course in our house.

I'm not sure that I would have it any other way. Sure, I'd love to take my bathroom breaks solo. Let me correct that, I'd love time to actually take regular bathroom breaks well before I'm doing the potty dance, running through a crowd of children to the nearest bathroom. All that being said, there are a lot of perks to having four little kids. Here's a list of my 5 favourite perks:

1. I rarely need a blanket as the body heat from four kids keeps me cozy even on the frostiest of winter mornings. These same little hot water bottles I call children are always ready to warm up my heart with genuine outburts of "I love you, Mommy!" and "You're so pretty, Mommy!", a light in the darkest of times.

2. I don't need to wake up to a loud beeping alarm clock. Most mornings I get to wake up to the sound of our boys playing in their bedroom or our girl singing loudly to the music on her radio. Even the soft whimpers of a hungry baby is music to my ears compared to the angry siren of our alarm.

3. I'm never lacking in helpers. If big sister isn't in the mood to help Mommy pick up the diaper wipes when I'm busy with baby girl, I have my two little boys on hand, begging to get involved. I'm also never without a helper in the kitchen, which makes every attempt to cook an adventure.

4. My house can look like a bomb hit it, and no one would dare to question my housekeeping skills. They know as well as I do that I could have scrubbed every inch of it, and within 5 minutes my own squad of aspiring tasmanian devils could have it back in its normal post-apocalyptic splendor. If, by chance or design, my house looks even halfway clean, I suddenly appear to be some kind of Martha Stewart-styled domestic goddess. Equally, if I manage a successful meal for guests, I am a modern day Julia Child, ignoring of course that I just dumped a pile of ingredients in the crockpot. Lastly, along the same train of thought, my personal hygiene and attire are never questioned. As long as I'm not in a robe, people seem to think I've gone out of my way for them. Fair enough. Pajamas and sweatshirts are my usual uniform when we don't have guests around. So long as the kids are dressed and clean, I've won my victory for the day.

5. This one may be my favourite. I love watching my kids becoming best friends. Sure they fight, just like any other kids, but they also take care of each other. There's nothing in the world better than coming into the livingroom to see the three older kids huddled around baby girl's exersaucer, doing everything they can to make her smile and giggle. If our youngest boy trips, the first one by his side is his big brother, giving him a hug and telling him he's okay. Our oldest girl can often be seen teaching her 3 year old brother, his letters. They do everything together by choice. I feel so blessed to witness their evolutions from roommates to friends, and from friends to best friends.

Having what is rapidly approaching a bus full of kids has its downs, but those are nothing compared to the ups. It's hard to ignore how blessed I am each day. As we finished off our long, busy, exhausting day I was so very ready to see their little heads dissappear behind closed doors. At the same time, I couldn't help but be reminded of my four little blessings when I heard them wishing each other goodnight through their joining wall. No matter how rough the day, or how rough the night ahead, that little ritual is a moment of peace and perspective that centers my day. I wouldn't trade that for all the coffee, peace, silence or sleep in the world.

Family Life, Unplugged

We decided this week to cancel our cable. In our area if you don't have digital cable or a converter box you don't even get basic channels. We struggled to make this choice, but after weeks of not watching any television with the kids (okay, okay, they've been watching movies instead) and basically only watching reruns and one or two new shows ourselves after the kids are in bed, we decided to re-evaluate whether or not we really needed cable.

I'll be the first one to admit I watch a lot of TV. Easily too much. When the kids are napping I turn on TLC and watch all the baby, bridal, and family shows I can muster. Looking at my regular consumption of visual trash, cutting off our cable is really no real sacrifice for me. I can honestly say it's good for me. My husband isn't a big television watcher these days because by the time he gets home from work, he'd rather spend time with the kids and I, and has lots of woodworking projects he'd rather get started on. For him, television is dull background noise at best, and a useless distraction at worst. Even the sports that he and I both enjoy can be watched online these days. When we used to watch cable together at night we'd click from show to mindless show just to fill the time. Half of it we weren't even enjoying or it was a repeat of an old favourite we'd seen a hundred times. Our lives were running by the cable schedule most nights with very little variety in between. We already have Netflix, so instead of investing in expensive box sets of shows we might like, we've been enjoying trying out new shows, one or two episodes per night. I know I'll miss a few regular favourites that haven't made the leap to Netflix, like Glee or The Big Bang Theory, but we can watch most of those online if we really want.

Already not having cable has been freeing. We're talking more, playing with the kids more, and simply enjoying each other more. This week, instead of turning on the TV to distract the kids, I brought them into the kitchen with me and we made bread together. They've also been helping me prepare all of our meals, which has made them more likely to try some of the new foods on our menu. They're also talking more for themselves, and spending less time mimicking their favourite characters on their morning shows (not that singing the alphabet song like Alpha Pig from SuperWhy was all bad). When we do watch a show or movie with the kids, we try to pick one good show instead of whatever's on, and then turn it off when we're done. We've also taken up bowling with them on our game system. It's pretty hilarious watching the two oldest kids jumping around with joy even when they get a gutterball. I can't imagine a better way to beat the winter blahs right in our living room.

So, while we're not entirely "unplugged", we're well on our way. Instead of tuning into the television, we're trying to tune in more to each other. I'm thankful my husband was keen on the idea too and am enjoying reconnecting with him by warm candlelight instead of the blue glow of our TV. The world is too beautiful to be seen through a box. It's time to start making plans that don't revolve around the cable schedule. It's time to work on us.

Disorder and Order

After over six months of living here, my husband and I have finally unpacked our basement. Excluding a weekend when we first moved here, the entire bottom floor of our home has looked something like a shanty town. Dishevelled piles of boxes, random articles of clothing, and mismatched furniture were strewn in mighty stacks wherever we tossed them while moving in. We didn't care so much about how it looked. We had no real plans for it. It was too humid to make much use of safely with the children and with a baby on the way neither of us had the time or the energy to make any real headway in the large room that takes up most of that floor.

What really convinced us to make the time to sort things out was that we finally, truly decided we were staying here for more than a year. We had the opportunity to look into buying a home in the country at what looked to be a fair price. This house, that of my maternal grandfather, was nothing less than my dream house. A six bedroom house on a fairly large piece of land, that has the kitchen of my dreams, a layout I adore for our young family, and plenty of room for my husband to ply his trade as a cabinetmaker and finish carpenter. We could have our own garden, a shed for any animals we'd want to raise, and, perhaps best of all, we would be surrounded by my extended family, whom I have seen far too little of in the past years. In spite of this very overwhelmingly positive prospect, we took it to prayer and found our thoughts turned to staying in the city, in our current home. It wasn't without a twinge of sadness that I let go of the idea of the big country home in which I spent so many summers and holidays. I had to let go of the cheerful front door with a hummingbird captured beautifully in its stained glass window, the true sign that we were at our second home, a place where my grandparents would be waiting for us with expectant smiles and the smell of fresh bread.

So, we decided to stay here. In our cute city townhouse. Four bedrooms, big living area and lots of ugly shag carpet and wacky paint (sorry Dad, but I'm so over the pumpkin orange with green trim in the livingroom. Tuscan villa this ain't). We couldn't help but see so much potential within these four walls. A little paint here, some new flooring there, perhaps a workshop in our basement... And that's when it hit us. If we were really staying here, we couldn't live in complete order upstairs while the downstairs was in complete disorder. To be fair, a lot of items are in the wrong room or even the wrong floor because we had been hesitant to fully unpack. So at last we decided to give in, and in a few short days things started to come together. Suddenly, our basement has furniture that is there with intention. The small room is set up artfully with all of my husband's tools. The main room is starting to take on a very nice atmosphere as either a games room or even a second playroom for these winter days when going outside isn't an option, but a mere change of scenery dispells our cabin fever.

With no regrets, we unpacked our last box this weekend. If this can be home, even just for now, let it be so. No more holding back. If this is where we're meant to be, we will be, living wholly in this moment and, hopefully, enjoying it.

3 Week Meal Plan

There's been a lot of buzz about the 100 mile diet lately and our family has decided to do our own version of it wherever possible. With that in mind, we've developped a 3 week rotating meal plan for supper based on the local produce that's available this time of year. We will be changing our meal plan in spring and summer based on what's available then. We also hope to sign up for CSA starting in April and working around our weekly food boxes. For now, here's the bare bones of our plan. I will be elaborating with recipes and adding basic pricing as I can.

A basic element of our meal plan involves making most meals to last two nights. This is financially a lot cheaper than creating 7 unique meals. More importantly, I can make a more elaborate meal with a view that I won't have to cook the next night. Our meal plan is 3 weeks instead of 4 because we liked the idea of more rotation so that the first Monday of every month or whatnot isn't always the same thing.

Week 1

Monday & Tuesday: Stir fry (1lb pork or beef stir fry pieces, veggies in season, rice, soya sauce)

Wednesday & Thursday: Butternut Squash Soup

Friday & Saturday: Pizza (homemade pizza dough, hot house tomatoes, veggies in season, bacon and/or sausage)

Sunday: Bacon & eggs with toast (made out of Homemade Molasses Brown Bread)

Week 2

Monday & Tuesday: Beef Stew

Wednesday: French Toast (eggs, milk, sugar and Homemade Molasses Brown Bread)

Thursday & Friday: Shepherd's Pie(1lb-2lbs ground beef, pork or lamb, veggies in season, mashed potatoes on top, and gravy make from homemade beef broth)

Saturday & Sunday: Crockpot Leek and Potato Soup

Week 3

Monday: Pancakes (flour, eggs, milk, oil, sugar)

Tuesday & Wednesday: Sausage Meatballs (8 uncased sausages with seasonal veggies and potatoes)

Thursday: Muffin Pan leftovers (pizza dough pressed into 12 cup muffin pan with leftover meatballs spooned in, covered with sauces and topped with cheese and baked for 15-20 minutes at 400F)

Friday & Saturday: Mixed Veggie Egg Drop Soup

Sunday: Dijon Spice Pork Tenderloin with seasonal veggies and potatoes


That's the plan for now!

Just Another Wednesday

I can see the snow blowing around in whispy clouds out my back window. Oldest girl is drawing at the table. The boys are packing toys in their little ottoman style chairs. Baby girl is bouncing peacefully in her excersaucer. Light and cheerful music drifts through the air. The coffee is drunk. The dishwasher is full and running. (Relative) quiet. (Acceptable level of) peace. Supper is already made for tonight.

I realise that I could go down and start some more laundry. Or even fold the enormous pile of laundry in my bedroom that's growing faster than baby girl. But not yet. Not in this moment. There could be a million pressing tasks begging for my time in the moment, but I am not letting the voice of duty have a say in this moment. The only duty I have right now is to sit back and savour the miracle that is four children, existing in something that one could approximate as harmony. Everyone is clean, fed and occupied...

Oh wait, I see a brawl starting and baby girl is starting up her hungry cry... It was nice while it lasted.

Two Kids Ago

In the spirit of nostalgia I was remembering how different things were when we only had two kids. That's literally half the kids we have now. We had really gotten settled into a rhythm and routine at this point. We were renting a fabulous 4 bedroom townhouse and had just upgraded to a mini-van. My husband had just gotten a hard earned pay raise and we finally had a kind of financial balance despite constantly rising gas prices. I was a Mom with 2 kids and a tidy little house. Both kids were reliably sleeping through the night and so were we. We both had energy to spare. For the few months before I became pregnant with baby I was Inspired to live another kind of motherhood than I do now. I'd get up and have my hot cup of coffee and hit the ground running. I think this lasted a ridiculously short time. Maybe 3 months. In those 3 months I:

1. Showered. Daily. And got dressed in more than pajamas.
2. Made 4 loaves of home-made bread twice a week and several batches of chocolate chip cookies.
3. Made yoghurt in my crockpot weekly.
4. Washed, folded and put away laundry. Sometimes I would hang it out on the clothesline.
5. Washed, dried and put away the dirty dishes. Daily.
6. Made 2 special home-cooked meals. Home-made baby food for the kids and something fancier for we adults.
7. Swept the floors. Vacuumed the furniture. Dusted. All daily. I'd wash all the floors on my hands and knees weekly.
8. I slept when I wanted. Or read a book. The kids lived by my schedule.

The other side of this litany of insanity is that we almost never went out. I also didn't spend as much time enjoying my kids. I ended up switching to formula because I couldn't keep breastfeeding and have a clean house. My oldest son's first year is a blur to me because I was too busy trying to be something akin to a Stepford wife to acknowledge all his needs and little milestones. I wish now that I had let the laundry wait and sat down to cuddle him when he was still able to sit still in my arms. When we had our third, our second son wasn't thriving on breastmilk and it wasn't caught until he was around 4 months old. After switching him to formula I ended up dedicating every free second to giving him as much fatty food as he could tolerate. I was so stressed I stopped all my extra baking, cooking, cleaning and self-pampering to be there for him. As stressful as it was at the time, once I dropped these (unquestionably excellent in principle) habits, I found myself with time to rediscover my older children. My priorities shifted dramatically. I didn't have to drive myself crazy with housework. It all needed to get done, but never at the sacrifice of the needs of the kids. When they're babies they need an extra hug more than they need a cookie. I'll take time later to build my legacy as an immaculate housekeeper. For now I'm happier building my legacy as the Mommy who thinks there's nothing in the world more important than kissing your boo boos, hearing your funny stories, dancing with you, and telling you "I love you" knowing those words feed your heart in ways unseen but lasting. So when people marvel at how we manage with 4 kids, I can't help but reflect that it's actually easier than when we had just two because along the way I've learned that another chance to enjoy a new baby while our house goes to pot again isn't a burden, it's a gift.

4 Under 4

For about three weeks after we had our 4th baby we were in the special parenting bracket of 4 kids under age 4. Just to be clear we are not one of those families blessed with multiples. We don't even have the fabled Irish Twins. Each of our babies came one at a time, no less than 15 months apart. I was reflecting as I ran another load of dirty cloth diapers that clustered families like ours have special challenges and gifts. So, in honour of the past 4 years of or being parents I give you this list:

Signs that You Have 4 Kids Under 4

1. You find yourself pregnant and one of your first discussions is whether your infant car seat can handle another baby before it expires.

2. You determine that after 3 excitable and bouncy kids, you need to retire your old crib.

3. You have one kid potty trained, one in progress, and two entirely in diapers.

4. You know how to take the cover off of your toddler car seats (yes, seatS. We have three!), wash and reassemble them with your eyes closed. You or your spouse has mastered the art of squeezing three full sized car seats in the back row of your van.

5. Speaking of vehicles, you've already long since upgraded to a mini-van and started researching the price of a Dodge Sprinter.

6. You cry when you get a dishwasher, but only for a second before you promptly fill it with sippy cups.

7. Not only do you have sippy cups in every shape and size, but the quantity of plastic dishes and utensils rivals your regular dishes.

8. Your bathroom has three toilets and only one of them flushes.

9. You didn't buy cloth diapers for the sake of the environment, but because it was financial common sense.

10. It's not unusual that you have three crockpots going at once (Yes we have three. Two are full-sized and one is small. We gave our second small one away)

For all the things that become common place, from spit up to minor illnesses to poop, there are some things that never get old. I still had tears in my eyes the first time our newest baby smiled at me. I'm also taking just as many pictures as I can each day and showing them off like there's never been a group of kids so darn cute. I'm tired of laundry, dishes and no sleep, but I will never get tired of being a Mommy. So bring on the adventure!

Moved

After months of waiting we finally moved into my parents' old house. Life is ever changing and I think always for the better. We payed movers, which made life so much easier, but then promptly got to the work of ripping up the million year old carpet on the main level ourselves. A week and a half later, with the help of hubby's Dad, almost all the new laminate is down. We also discovered that the stairs are read solid wood stair-tread underneath. With a little TLC they can be returned to their natural glory. We've discovered some mold (from a leak that a previous contractor swore up and down he fixed), some questionable plumbing (no Mom, duct tape is not the answer to a mis-matched pipe for the sink. Nice try!), and an some trim in the living room that is painted no less than 3 colours in our pumpkin orange living room. I feel like hubby and I are finishing up a lot of half-started projects my parents had once dreamed but never had the time to get to, but in our own way. My parents finally have their dream house, and we, many years younger, have the bare bones of ours and the will and talent (though maybe not the cash flow all the time, haha) to create ours. We're doing our best to make lots of little improvements where we can to make our home our own. Thanks to my parents we have some leftover flooring from their (dare I say gorgeous???) renovations that will help us over the next year to have many full weekends doing over hallways and bathrooms without any financial cost to ourselves. The living room and dining room (which are attached) are getting all the real attention as we want it safe and ready for our kids, playdates and some dinner parties with dear friends we sorely missed.

While our house is blossoming around us, it's hard to ignore that the kids are blossoming too. With more room to roam and bigger bedrooms their imagination and creativity are growing faster than my belly. This is going to be a great summer. We're finally next to a big, useable park that they can just run their wild energy off in, we're walking distance to the library, and best of all we're a 5 minute drive from the greatest friends a family could ask for. I'm also closer to many old friends and some new ones just down the street. Our beautiful, friendly, little neighbourhood from the past 2 years was perfect for our family before, but this is starting to feel right now. Already we've seen more of our friends than we did for months on end at our old home. The visits from my boys' future wives (just kidding!) and my girl's best friends and their parents, truly great friends to us, has made this not just my parents' old house, but our home. Once everything is unpacked and set up I can't imagine how much more comfortable we'll feel!

And then there's the other matter of our marriage! After some struggles to figure out what our family would become, I find myself closer emotionally than ever with my dear husband. He's been working himself to exhaustion day and night to bring home the bacon, and then he works nights and weekends to make good of our renos. His father has been no less than a saint helping him lay down the flooring and I can't thank him enough. I have the best intentions, but being ponderously pregnant I'm about as useful as a bag of hammers with our renos. So, thanks to Hubby's Dad! Meanwhile hubby himself has been quietly doing his best to accomplish the hundreds of necessary little tasks to makes this all work. While I sit in the recliner complaining about Braxton-hicks he's got an open ear while he plods away taking out an outdated and useless closet he will make into a hutch/display cabinet/toy storage. I love him more in his quiet dedication to our home and our family. He is truly the King of our family, and it shows in the eyes of our children. He is now the preferred parent for boo-boos, story time, and play time. Being big and preggo this of course suits me fine. Seeing our wee boy reach up with little squeals of "Da! Da!" is the finest moment of any day. We are so blessed to be a family.

After a lot of rambling I'm left with the profound sense of how blessed I am. Blessed with shelter, family, friends and a wonderful marriage. My complaints and rants (trust me, I've had a few) are overwhelmed by my sense that Providence has always been with us and always will be. With God so clearly leading us through our sorrows to constant joy we will surely be fine!