Daily Archives: March 14, 2008

Easter Basket of My Dreams

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If my options for Easter Basket gifts were limitless – you know, cost not being an issue, some of the things I’d get this year would include:

-Some beautiful gourmet chocolates like these, because some days Hershey kisses just don’t cut it. Seriously these little treats are gorgeous – like little pieces of artwork for your tummy. For real.

-Funtastic jewelry from Etsy – I’m liking this and this and this particularly. Because if my jewelery can’t make a political statement, it should at least aid me in quoting Vanilla Ice, right?

-Hmmm and now let’s assume it’s a very BIG Easter basket, and include this and this and this. Just for kicks. :P Hey, if Easter doesn’t mean spending loads of money on dream computers, fancy new hybrid cars and your potential dream house, then frankly, I’m not sure what it means.

But seriously, Easter has treated me pretty nicely this year and by nicely I mean inexpensively – my son being too young for sugar-filled cavity goodness (he doesn’t even have ALL his teeth yet!) is getting a board book and some puzzles from Target’s $1 section and Dan and I each got a big egg filled with candy (because we’re too old to worry about cavities – it’s already too late for us) – it all fits in one basket and cost less than $10 – can’t go wrong with that! Especially with MLM’s 2nd birthday coming up in less than ONE month! More on that later, I’m sure. :)

Eww!! Germy McGerm Germs!!

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So, what do we think about air sanitizers and disinfectants? I keep seeing these commercials on tv where Oust is all like “We are so much better than Lysol because…” and then Lysol comes on five minutes later to say, “We are like SO much better than Oust because…” and when I’m not thinking, “When did commercials start to feel like political campaigns and start actually calling out their opponents?” I’m thinking, “Should I be disinfecting and sanitizing MY home?” As you may remember, I’m not exactly a mopping maven or disinfecting diva… So when bzzAgents.com emailed me, inviting me to join the Oust Surface Disinfectant AND Air Sanitizing campaign, I decided it was time to give this thing a shot, particularly since Oust is all about multitasking, and lets me do both at once with one HUMONGOUS can and did I mention they sent me TWO cans for free? Huzzah, if I do say so myself.

So today, my bzzKit finally arrived in the mail via my friendly neighborhood UPS man. And after calming MLM down from the disappointment that our doorbell was not rung because we had company in the form of some relative coming to take him out on a fun play date like on Wednesday, I set to work disinfecting my apartment. It went a little something like this…

1) Open box. Nearly shout with glee – “TWO CANS!!! These are humongous!!! Woohoo!!!!!!”

2) And look, handy dandy paperwork and COUPONS for more free cans!!! (which don’t expire until August, so if all my friends and family DON’T want a coupon and I decide I like spraying spray, I’ll be one well stocked momma.)

3) Carefully read can to insure that spraying spray is not more difficult than it sounds (again, remember the mopping incident).

4) Cautiously shake can and spray on refrigerator handles. Cannot remember if it is Lysol or Oust that says you can spray INSIDE refrigerator and thus refrain.

5) Move on to spraying doorknobs, trash compactor, recycle bins, diaper pail and bathroom.

6) Remember how humongous cans are and start feeling liberal. Spray MLM’s crib, bedroom, my bedroom, and finally the entire living room in one big gigantic spraying extravaganza.

7) Cough, sputter, and rethink extravaganza. Remind myself to next time, not spray so close my personal self. Honestly, the smell isn’t that bad, but I can still feel the fumes….

So how does this work, this spraying thing? I think that the apartment should come equipped with a special “light” that shows me all the germs, so as to determine if my spraying spray has actually accomplished anything worth blogging about. Perhaps my DH can engineer me something? :)

The Invisible Woman

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Now my son is still too young for a lot of the typical demands of motherhood – I don’t bake for bake sales or sew costumes or help with homework yet, but this article about the invisibility of motherhood on momlogic.com still moved me a great deal. The brief description in my RSS feed led me to think maybe it would be about activism and doing something more with your life, but instead it is wholly focused on the truths of motherhood and embracing what that is. It moved me beyond words. And yet, now I’m going to use words to talk about it some more.

Being a mother is certainly a challenge – the chores and tasks we do are undoubtedly thankless. MLM is too young to thank me of his own accord (although I constantly demand the phrase anyway in an attempt to teach him kindess and manners) and I’m sure that when he is old enough to think of it himself, that most likely he will not.

I know that there will be no awards or medals or praise for defeating the most evil of butt rashes or cooking the best dinner they’ve had all month. Nobody will call the press because I managed to sit through the 100th viewing of Elmo in Grouchland without screaming. And that’s cool. I’m used to the feeling of invisible. If you flipped through my photo albums you’d see 8,000 pictures of the world’s cutest toddler and maybe 4 of myself. I’m the invisible girl behind the camera in pictures and in life. I think all mothers are. Especially SAHM’s with no other career to speak of.

While our husbands go off to make a name for themselves within their careers, we stay at home and strive to make men and women out of tiny neanderthals we call our children. But we did, in fact, sign up for this role. I meant it 100% when I uttered the words “I want to stay home with my children,” (over and over and over again to my disbelieving family) and I still mean it today. Because as thankless as the job is, I think most mothers will agree that it’s also like winning the lottery – we do have the best job in the world, even if it does come with a lack of vacation time and Christmas bonuses.

Anyway, if you haven’t read the article linked above yet, please do so now – because everything I’ve just said is nothing compared to the beautiful speculations in her article.