How we’re tackling our daugher’s (constantly) messy room
When I picked up a pair of tights with a gummy lollipop stick attached to one leg, I was annoyed at her messy room. Then I found the candy wrappers — she’s not allowed to eat in her bedroom! — and the chewed-up wad of gum — in her jewelry box! — and I could feel my face heating up.
I just spent an unpleasant Sunday cleaning our five-year-old daughter’s messy room. This is not something I do very often, and maybe that’s the problem. Actually, no, the problem is her — and her “casual” approach to order.
Our daughter is like my husband, you see. This means she is delightfully friendly and outgoing, she loves staying up late, sugar is her love language, and . . . she is a bit of a slob.
I thought she’d outgrow trashing her room after we passed the toddler years, but somehow it kept happening. I tried to accept that it was how she liked to play, and that she didn’t need to be super-organized like me (and her brother). But every time I walked by her super-messy room, I felt like screaming.
“I just don’t know what to do! It’s driving me crazy!,” I wailed to my husband. “You’re like her — what would make YOU keep your room clean?”
He looked apologetic. He didn’t have any ideas, but he, too, was annoyed by the mess. (When a messy person is annoyed by a mess, you know it is a REALLY BIG MESS). Read More
Can you paint fabric storage cubes?
Just about everybody has one of those “cube” organizers, whether it’s Ikea’s Kallax or one of the thinner knock-offs sold elsewhere.
We had a six-cube unit* that floated around the house for years — closets, bedrooms, different closets — before winding up in our daughter’s room. Now it’s a six-unit Barbie office complex, complete with a dentist and a daycare centre.
Years ago my mom let me take her 16-cube light birch Kallax. It was my first Ikea piece and I was so proud of it.
Remembering the ‘baby bubble’
Something in our conversation startled me. I leaned back in my desk chair reflectively, like an old lady in a rocking chair thinking back on her life.
“Of course. Mum-Mums,” I thought to myself. “Those awful, sticky, lighter-than-air baby cookies. They made such a mess. How could I have forgotten that?”
It had been so long since I thought of the Mum-Mums and Gerber puffs that used to fill the pockets of my diaper bag. There were little baby cheesies, too, and they tasted OK. Except the tomato flavour — those were gross.
I had been interviewing Courtney Ceponis from Port City Strollers for an article about her fitness classes, and listening to her talk about life with her 10-month-old son made me feel nostalgic … and old.
Was it really five years ago that I was freezing pureed carrots in ice cube trays? (Remember the weird names I used to delight in giving my concoctions???) That I was snapping up sleepers and tickling roly-poly thighs and patting little diapered newborn bums to hear that satisfying Pampers crinkle?
Our conversation about babies was like a trippy blast through the past, where I remembered everything while also realizing how long it had been. It was like dreaming of a place you haven’t seen in years, and wondering if you’d just imagined it …
When you have a baby and most of your friends have babies, babies absolutely consume your world. You know it, and you laugh about it, but you don’t fully understand its weight until you’ve slipped out the other side.
I remember being in the Baby Bubble, where it was second nature to heft a baby onto my hip and carry them around while I cleared the table or transferred wet laundry to the dryer. I could eyeball a onesie and immediately know if it was a 3-6 month size or a 6-12 month size. I automatically swayed back and forth, even when I was alone in line at the grocery store.
I remember the years I couldn’t carry a small purse. I was always lugging around too much stuff — diapers, wipes, teethers, toys, and the Very Special Last Resort Toy for when I was really desperate. Sometimes I felt like a pack mule, but then I’d save a friend’s morning by having an extra diaper to hand them when they ran out.
Going was a crapshoot, I remember. The nervousness of walking into a restaurant while toting the infant car seat that weighed approximately 80 lbs. The baby might sleep the whole time or they might start wailing when the meal arrives. (It was always, always the latter.) I remember forgetting to order a glass of water, so when the soother falls on the floor I’d swish it in my 7-Up and hope for the best.
I reach up and touch my hair, and I can barely remember the months it was falling out. The months of that ugly fuzzy regrowth. The days I would be wearing the crumpled “in case of emergencies” T-shirt I stuffed in the diaper bag for when I got covered in baby barf or poop … or both.
When I get together with friends now, we don’t talk about how many times our baby fed, or how long of a stretch we managed to sleep. But I remember when that was ALL we could talk about. I remember being genuinely surprised when someone suggested getting together in the early afternoon, because a 1 p.m. nap is just … expected. It felt like the world stopped at 1 p.m., and now it passes without me even noticing.
You aren’t kicked out of the Baby Bubble automatically when your baby turns one, or two, or even three. You walk out of that world so slowly that you barely realize you’re moving.
Then one day you realize everyone in your family eats off the same (non-plastic) plates and drinks from the same (non-sippy) glasses, and you no longer own the fistful of plastic spoons that used to be washed daily. It’s not exciting when everybody sleeps through the night — it’s just annoying on the odd night when someone doesn’t.
You carry a small purse, and the only snack inside is a granola bar you’re probably going to eat yourself. You don’t worry about eating in restaurants, everybody buckles their own seat belt, no one’s going to swallow a nickel (hopefully), and you can make plans that start at 1 p.m.
As much as I love the “big kid” stage, where our son and daughter are funny, independent, and full of personality, there was so much sweetness being in the Baby Bubble. The squishy little tummies, the coos, the tiny grins and giggles.
It was forever ago and it may feel like a dream, but it’s one I won’t ever forget.
Upcycled wood and metal lockers
A few weeks ago I shared how I turned old sticker-covered lockers into cool toy storage for our seven-year-old son’s bedroom.
Now I’m showing you how I took more of those same grungy lockers and gave them a completely different look for my new home office.
The project started the same tedious way — scraping off zillions of stickers.
By the end of the task, I could tell how tricky a sticker was going to be based on the style. (The holographic ones were the absolute worst and now I am permanently traumatized by those tiny, sticky shards.)
When it was time to paint the fronts of the lockers, I went with Tremclad Rust Paint (flat white) but it took a disappointing number of coats — like, six, I think. If I was doing this project again, I’d use Fusion Mineral Paint like I did with our son’s lockers, since it’s thicker and covers much better.
Painting the lockers white wasn’t very exciting, but I had some other details planned for them.
Once the FINAL layer of white paint was dry, my handy husband taped off the lock areas and sprayed them a nice warm gold (Krylon Metallic in “Gold”). I was too nervous to get over-spray on the fresh white paint.
Then it was time for construction! We’d bought a pile of 1x3s ($30) and a sheet of plywood ($15) so I could construct a wooden “surround” for the lockers. My handy husband had originally planned to build it, but we had different timelines — mine was more … immediate — and I wound up building the frame myself in less than an hour.
I started by making two tall, skinny “walls” (the height and depth of the lockers). Then I propped them on either end of the lockers — tilting chairs into them so they didn’t fall forward — and connected them along the top with more 1x3s.
With my handy husband’s help, I cut the plywood into two long pieces to cover the frame walls. Then it was just a matter of holding them in place and using our nail-gun to secure them over the frame — making it look like the lockers were surrounded by thick, chunky timbers.
I sanded the surround and then slid it forward so I could stain it without messing up the lockers. Standing in the middle of the room, it was like a weird wooden archway. I was fresh out of foam brushes, so I grabbed a rag and wiped the exterior down with a nice medium stain (“Early American” by Minwax).
I did a couple of coats of polyurethane the next day, and then my wooden “archway” was ready to slide back into place. I love how the dark wood makes the white lockers pop, and they certainly look much fancier.
Since the lockers were in pretty bad shape, I wound up painting the insides with random leftover paint — green, orange, blue, red, anything I had on the shelf. I also added some shelves made of extra melamine board, but left the middle locker open for hanging/storing long items.
My new wood-and-metal lockers provide plenty of storage space in my new home office, and I could even lock them up if there was something expensive I needed to protect. For now, though, I don’t think anybody’s after my collective of picture frames and wooden letters.
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When your antidepressants backfire
The decision to start taking antidepressants is huge (it shouldn’t be, but that’s a rant for another day) so it’s kind of funny that the decision to CHANGE your meds routine is sometimes even more monumental. Like, didn’t you already take the big step?
Nope.
Change is scary, especially when you’re talking about little pills that change your brain chemistry. Brains are not a thing to be messed around with!
The thing is, you wonder if a change might make things worse. You’ve seen the (ugly) “before,” and what if you’re sent back there? What if you’re zoomed to a dimension that’s even worse? Maybe you should leave well enough alone, or … yeah. It’s weird.
My foray into the world of antidepressants has been pretty basic. I get a lot of private messages about what I’m on and how much I’m taking, so let’s spell it all out here in case someone is too shy to ask. Hooray for TALKING ABOUT IT AND/OR READING ABOUT IT!
When I first made the decision to start them, it was the summer of 2015. (Can’t remember if it was July or August — I know there was T-ball because I remember being especially miserable at the T-ball field.)
My family doctor suggested sertraline and it sounded good to me. Gentle! Popular! It’s what little kids can take!
I started taking 25mg (one yellow pill) each day, and then added a second 25mg after a month. I think I stuck with three pills (total of 75mg) for a while, and at some point I/he/we decided to up it to a full 100mg — replacing my three yellow 25mg pills with one big fatty orange (100ml) pill.
And that’s exactly where I stayed for a long time.
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