Left behind and a room redo.

So, I know the big question on everyone's mind (after the last little novel I posted) was/is did you go on the vacation??

And the answer is no. Not all of us, anyway. We really only get one good trip away with Kirby's side of the family each year so we couldn't bail, half a sick family and all. Kirby loaded up the three bigs on Saturday morning and I stayed in my pajamas for 4 straight days. Not really. But it was almost as depressing. Not really. But kinda. (Not really)

(Clemmy, here, was less than pleased at the vacay ditchery.)

I was really, really happy for the kids to get to go. Happy for them to be alone with Kirby, happy for them to see their grandma and their aunt and uncle and cousin. Happy for them to be staying in a beach house on the ocean.....grumble grumble a lil bit.

(View from Kirby's private suite, emphasis on the private aka with not me.)

 

But really, it was fine. Peter and Clemmy were still pretty miserable and subjecting them/us all to a five hour car ride would have been pretty sad. So, we stayed.

As Kirby was getting ready to go I started to feel my psycho project-tingle creeping up. I have this little habit of doing strange, waaaaaayyyy outside of my pay grade/ability, way too ambitious, way too time consuming, forsaking all other things, spending all the time and all the money projects when Kirby is gone for a day or two. I had been wanting to swap around the kids rooms for months. And as Kirby loaded the last bags into the car, it came to me. This weekend is the weekend! Now is the time! And then a special convo went down like this:

K- "Babe, I feel so bad that you can't come with us. It would make me feel a lot better if you spent some money while we're gone."

B- "Come on! Don't say that. Don't feel sorry for me. You guys are going to have a great time. We are going to be finnnnne (super breezy and casual). I don't need to spend any money."

K- "No, really. I want you to spend some money."

B- "OK"

And so, as a means to bury my sorrow, distract myself, and positively torture the two children left behind with me, the great room switch began.

And seriously... I realized that I don't really know what to do with two babies anymore. I found myself sitting across from Clemmy at Ikea trying to really chat it up over meatballs. She was mostly all um, why are you talking to me, where are my sibs? I found myself trying to jet out to Target waaaay past bedtimes and just generally breaking rules and being a bad mom because no one was there to really care. (For all those really horrified and really to call CPS on me, I let everyone spend Saturday recovering. Real mania didn't commence until Sunday and people were generally well by then. Worry not.)

Anyway back on track. This is what things were looking like on sat night.

This is the playroom/Clemmy room. Minus the bed frame on the floor is often looks like this because all the toys/books/closet stuff/hanging clothes for all the kids is in here and it just gets trashed really easily. Having all the kids things consolidated to one room worked when we had less kids but even with keeping our belongings pretty minimal, it's enough to overwhelm a space. (See below and cringe away)

I didn't take a before pic of the other room but it's really small and had been a bunk room only. One set of bunks against one wall and a toddler bed for Johnny on the other. It was crammed and usually trashed. Here is a shot of the grimey bunk beds mid-demolition.

Ok, so I'd been collecting free/Craigslist beds for a few months now. I mostly bought storage gear, some decor, a little bit of bedding, and mattresses. All I really did was think hard about the space and what I wanted to accomplish with it: less stuff out and accessible for trashing, less stuff period, a boys room for future crib-Peter + Johnny and a girls room. And overall, general cuteness and improvement.

I mostly worked when the kids napped and after bed and my mom came over and hung out a lot while people were up (bless the woman.) I dragged my kids to Ikea, Target (2x) and World Market. We had our "meals" at these establishments, most naps were had in the car, and both kids slept in my bed so that I could loose sleep doing this. I just need you to know that sacrifices had to be made in order for this to get done. Here is what we got out of these few days of spending money, sleep dep. and subpar parenting.

(Hero has to wait until I scrounge a matching bed off of craigslist because I'm cheap like that. But also, Ikea is cheap like that. I got the frame on the left for $20 off of CL! I figure mostly all Ikea stuff falls apart eventually anyway, so you might as well not pay full price *that's my official tip *my other official tip is- buy cheap Ikea mattresses for your kids because they will get nasty in short amount of time and then you won't hate trashing them.)

And the boys room... (I made sure to include some peeling paint and half-stickers stuck to things for good reallife measure.)

(Hi, mom)

I went against everything I (usually) believe in and got the boy Avengers sheets. I paired it with a rad gold quilt from Target, so it's less aggressive superhero in your face-y and I think it actually turned out pretty cute. He was totally beside himself to the point of (after peeing in his bed later that night- of course) asking Kirby to wash and dry his bedding right away (to which Kirby replied with mockery and scoff, I'm sure)(even later that night while sleeping on the bare mattress and pillow he proceeded to bloody nose all over all the new shiz but that's another story...)

Anyway, that's that. I don't know when I would have gotten all this done otherwise so I'm happy it worked out this way (thank you baby sickness??) plus look how cute n all they we're while they were away.

I missed them like a crazy lady but I'm always happy to fall back on my denial and loneliness via tearing our house apart and redecorating. And now my brother is here for a few days between Coachellas so all is right in the world.

(Blessed, happy, holy Triduum to you all!!!)

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