The Toy Fairy

6:28 a.m.: "There's a sad sort of clanging from the clock in the hall and the bells in the stee-bo too. And up in the nursery an absurd little bird, is popping out to say cuck-oo CUCK-OO!" (This goes on until the entire song is over, and she begins again.)

6:34 a.m.: In tones of fear and possible pain: "MOMMY!" I rush upstairs and Berit says, trembling, "Mom-sob-my, last sob night I forgot sob to clean the toys and sob the Toy Fairy came and SOB took them all AWAY!"

So... the Toy Fairy. I have left her out of the blog because after the whole bathtub incident I didn't need another notch in my trunk of bad parenting. However, as I'm now kind of convinced that the girls will be having Toy Fairy conversations with their husbands someday (as in, "I truly feared this horrible creature and isn't it just like my MOTHER to make her up just to scare me??"), I'd like to explain myself.

The Toy Fairy is much like the Tooth Fairy, except she's evil and mean and scary and instead of leaving money for your hard-won baby teeth, she takes your toys away.

Ahem.

I don't remember inventing the Toy Fairy. Maybe Trevor did. Yes! He must have! He doesn't read the blog, let's blame it on him. But to be a little fair, I have a horrible memory, so I probably could have done it in a frantic moment and have shoved it deep into the bottomless file in my brain marked: "Necessary Parenting Strategies To Ensure Survival And/Or Sanity."

Anyway, the basic idea of the Toy Fairy is that she comes at night to take your toys if you haven't cleaned them up before bed. And since bedtime is meltdown time for Berit, but we also insist on our children's help in cleaning up their toys, at times scare tactics are needed. Enter the Toy Fairy.

When children leave their toys out overnight, the Toy Fairy sees that they don't really appreciate what they have and swoops in to shove them in her big toy bag and deliver them to children who will take care of them.

I have often thought about attaching a guilt factor here as well, like, "There are children who don't have ANY toys and you have so many even I can't count that high, so maybe you should feel badly for making such a mess with the toys you don't even care enough about to clean." But that's probably going too far.

I would have probably forgotten about the Toy Fairy altogether after her first use, except Berit clung to the idea instantly and now asks about her when it's time to clean up before bed and before vacuuming. (When it's vacuuming time she screams and cries in terror that the toys aren't sufficiently cleaned when they're just up on the shelves and couch.)

So I indulge a bit in the Toy Fairy, and now she's having nightmares about her. I wonder if she's wearing Berit's dress-up clothes in the dreams? Is she riding in on Berit's toy ponies? Maybe in the dollhouse minivan? Does she use Berit's fairy wands, and ride the tiny carousel when Berit's sleeping, hoping that tomorrow night Berit forgets to put it away and she can claim it for herself?

You see, I can take this places. It might be wrong, but my living room is clean.

I Have Become One With The Chaos

I'm not sure when it happened -- perhaps when Marta began demonstrating that she was in no way like her order-minded older sister and liked to literally drag her arm along shelves to wipe them clear of all toys, books, clothes, whatever -- but something has changed a little in my necessity to have all of the kids' toys stowed with their proper pieces comfortably attached at the end of each day.

Rousing post, right? 

But seriously, I used to be really picky about this. I mean, we bought (or more likely, had been given) these toys and I wanted to take perfect care of them. I wiped them down constantly, washed many in kid-safe cleansers at night, and tucked all the pieces in the right places. In fact, I often didn't have the need to pick up a game piece on one side of the room (or, God forbid, on another floor of the house) and haul it over to the OTHER SIDE OF THE ROOM to put it away, because Berit never threw, mingled or messed her toys like that. Not bragging, she just didn't. 

Enter Marta. Last night she was taking any number of dolls from dollhouses, Happy Meals, those random sets of girls' toys with the ice cream trucks and couches and etc. etc.,  and pieces from Candyland, Memory, the doctor's kit and various fairy wands for rides in the dumptruck and dollhouse minivan. You can imagine the horror when I tried to clean it up -- where did it all belong? I was going to have to THINK about it! 

Instead, I just dumped it all into a bucket (with Berit's name, not even Marta's on it) and called it good. 

Is this progress? Is this a garage sale in the making, what with all the missing pieces?

I Want A Sign That Says "No Nasty Chemicals" Over My Front Door

When I found out that the baby I was carrying had a heart condition, I wanted to point fingers. I needed to know what caused it, obviously, and I hoped that information might lead me to understand how to stop it.

And as it turns out, the condition is still relatively confusing to doctors. They're not sure why a baby has it -- which isn't very settling to the parents of a baby who has it. 

After scrutinizing the heart history of our immediate family, Trevor and I turned to our cabinets. What were we eating or using in our house that could be hazardous? We read several studies that said organic foods were so much better for people in general, but for pregnant and nursing moms they were a must. We switched. And while cleaning the bathroom one day, stifling my breathing because of the strong chemicals I was using, it occurred to me that I had foolishly been using the wrong stuff to make a pristine environment in which to raise a baby. I was using what my mom had used, and probably her mom before her. I was using the brightly packaged cleaners from the shelves of my local grocery store; the stuff that was on sale or ultra-powered or familiar. Literally, I dropped my spray bottle, tore off my rubber gloves and exited the shower, on the hunt for a better solution. 

Since that time we've tried just about every cleaning product we could get our hands on that was made with natural, non-toxic, non-harmful, not-tested-on-animals ingredients. To tell you the truth, it's tough, because most of them simply don't compare to the cleaning power of the ultra-powerful, chemical-laden products we were used to. We've found a few favorites and we invest in them heavily, buying as many as we can at once and touting their praises to friends and family (many of whom are reluctant to "go green," break out of their comfort zones, which is surprising given the boost in green living lately). 

So now you know our story on the green cleaning front. We're continually looking for the right fit for our family (especially where the dishwasher is concerned; God help Trevor and his quest for the most sparkling glassware on earth). 

Which is why I was so pleased to receive a package of three products from ecostore, a company that's putting its products in your local Meijer store (and the one that's being built here in my town), a company that's making it less expensive to clean green (thank you thank you thank you), a company that was founded in the spirit of pure do-goodery. I was excited to review the products, for myself, and for my readers. And as this is my first real review on the blog, I'd like you to know that I'm not swayed by free products. I'm honest, because I like to think I'm an honest kind of a gal, but also because I know how hard it is to spend your time and money finding products that are better for you, your family and the earth. So maybe I can help you a little.

All of ecostore's products are super-concentrated, which can be hard to get used to when you typically load up your dishwasher or washing machine with full cups of cleaning agents to achieve results. Seriously, you only need a tiny squirt of the Dishwash Liquid to wash a sink-full of dishes (and wash dishes we do, every night, as we don't dare subject the kids' cups and such to the scary, chemical-spreading dishwasher). I'm a picky smeller; I don't like flowery or syrupy scents. The smell of he dishwash liquid is clean and citrusy. And even though I was washing at night, I felt awake and in-the-moment... as much as you can while you're washing dishes. I paid attention because I was reviewing it, but also because the soap doesn't lather as much as the typical wash, and I wanted to make sure I was getting the cups and plates clean. The verdict: I will buy this, once it's in stores and once said store is in-town. I like it better than anything I've tried so far.

Ah, the baby wash. Baby wash is a common bone of contention in our household, because the organic kind is expensive, yet I can't imagine sudsing my daughters' skin with anything potentially scary (even when it looks harmless in cute, familiar packaging). Again, I loved the scent of the baby wash -- lavender and lemon is so sweet on babies. However, I didn't like that it wasn't a shampoo, too, which means that I'd have to find a second product in the tub (which I will surely forget to do), and the directions instruct you to dump a tiny capful straight into the water as it's filling up. If you have girls, you know that you are not supposed to do this, and you probably know why. So even though this product is not a bubble bath, it was hard for me to set my kids into the soapy bath. The verdict: I will not buy this in stores, unless they changed the product to be applied by hand and made it a shampoo, too. (And no, I don't think you could just use it as a shampoo, as it's very thin and wouldn't "stick" to the hair.)

And lastly, the laundry whitener. I was hesitant to use this, because I am ridiculously picky about whiteners. I'm addicted to another brand of natural whitener, and I didn't want to waste a load of clothes with another one. However, I gave it a go and, happy day! I loved it. My children were so white and bright that I took pictures of them in their undershirts, seconds before they smashed graham crackers and prunes into them. The verdict: I will buy this in stores. The packaging is handy, you only need a teensy, tiny amount in each load, and it is very effective. 

So now you are informed. Go forth and clean.

Memory, Birds and, Well, Me

I need to post about the big birthday party, but I'm waiting for our pictures to be developed (yes, I still use an old film camera). In the meantime, I was just playing memory with Berit, and thought to post about it. See, we had all the cards set up and we were both looking forward to the game, me because I love when she's interested in learning games, and she because she's been begging me to play with her one-on-one all morning and finally I could. So we get started, and she's doing awesome -- three matches to my zero. And then she starts flipping cards over, frustrated, clearly looking for something in particular, so I ask her about it. "I'm looking for the bunny," she says. I glance and her matches and see that she has the carrots. "Is it because you want to feed the bunny a carrot?" I ask. "Yes," she says. She then throws all of her other matches into the pile, messes them up so I can't see which one is which, and starts flipping the other cards, looking for the bunnies. When she finds them she lays them over the carrots and announces that she. is. done. Nice. Good learning all around.

I keep thinking back to Friday night. After putting the girls to bed, Trevor went over to his parents' house because his brother and his brother's family were staying there. So I put on my earbuds and listened to an audiobook while I made cakes for Berit's birthday party. Before I knew it it was 1:30 a.m. and I was wrapping up both the book and the cakes. It was so peaceful, so entertaining. I love the quiet of a sleeping house. And even though I love my husband and I enjoy spending time with him, I also really like being alone. For me, being alone and doing something like baking or cleaning while listening to an audiobook is completely restorative. I feel efficient and productive and totally relaxed. I should make a point to do this once a week, as it's only Monday and I keep wishing it were still Friday evening.

We have recently hung a birdfeeder on our sliding door; the kind that's see-through so the kids can watch the birds eating. It's great because the birds are already used to us peering in at them, and rarely flinch when the kids walk right up to the door and bang on the glass. This prompted a little red squirrel to be interested in the crumplins that the birds dropped on the deck, so we had to put a tray of sunflower seeds out for the squirrel, who doesn't care if Marta walks over, picks it up, puts it in her pocket and takes it to the grocery store. Seriously, it just hangs out there all day long, watching us watching it. But then we had a huge snowfall that covered the tray, so I put a big old roasting pan on top of the snow, and the birds and squirrel climb in to munch. I guess what I'm saying is that we've got a tray, a roasting pan and a bird feeder within two feet of our sliding door and it's a mess out there. I'm considering cleaning it all up, but really I'll just wait until the cursed snow melts and it's time for spring cleaning. I think I'll just keep dumping seed in the vicinity of the tray and pan and hope no one calls for a house showing.