Free Ice cream and Clutter Stress

Mama ustala. (Mama's tired.)

John took the car in for an oil change and took Adam with him today. The "guy" there struck up a conversation with him and Adam and John explained that Adam was just learning English, etc., and what the situation was. The guy treated them to free ice cream cones in the adjoining convenience store, and then John bought extra cones to bring to "us girls." They aren't used to a lot of sugar, so I'm sure these helped contribute to the kid's "high-energy" levels today. It was sure nice of him though! You don't see that kind of treatment around very often! Pretty cool.

I keep forgetting to mention that at the One Month anniversary home I put the girls' clothes back into their rooms. They've handled it just fine, and it is a relief to not have to be so in control of what they wear. They don't tantrum about their clothes as they did when they first came home, and they aren't changing their clothes a half-dozen times a day anymore either. They must be settling in!

The toys are still in the kitchen, though, except for some "quiet toys" like the girls' dolls and Adam's legos, books, etc. It is a blessing to have the toys out of their rooms from the clutter perspective too. The more cluttered their rooms, the more wound up they get. Same goes for the rest of the house, so I have to keep on my toes. Mess=stress to them, so I try to keep it neat, but with three kids constantly needing attention, it doesn't always happen, so I'm thankful that at least their bedrooms stay nice. Also, the tv has stayed in our room now. They only get to watch one video maybe once a day or once every other day. I can't imagine the chaos of what it would be like if we gave them free reign over the remote. Scary.

The room that gets me the most frustrated though (aside from our own!), is the kids' bathroom. In order to keep that room clean I have to scrub it down at least twice a day or it starts to stink. (And I only have ONE boy!) I've gotten great advice from our "Older Kids" adoption group, but it still makes me crazy to have to clean the bathroom that often. I had been letting the kids clean it (they LOVE to clean the bathroom), but they were having way too much fun squirting the squirt-bottle, so I had to start doing it myself. The best advice I got was from someone who mentioned the obvious to me: Squirt the bathroom down myself and then hand a kid a washrag. Duh. Another "no duh" suggestion I've gotten was when I mentioned that our kids were putting their used tp in the wastepaper basket. Answer? "Just take the wastepaper basket out of the bathroom for a few weeks." Oh. Yeah. Duh, Shelly.

Anyway, off to bed. I'm exhausted. Sorry if this post has seemed like rambling babbles. I suppose they ALL are babbling though, so nevermind. ;O)