So Much to Do...

Holy Canolies, Batman, this baby is coming in less than two months. It's not so much that we are needing to get things ready for the baby itself, sorry kid, but the fourth child just needs a bed and some clothes and a car seat, all of which are in the shop and just needing to be washed. There will be no painting of the nursery, or picking out coordinating bedding and decor. He has the honor of choosing from not just one, but two sets of hand me-downs, since he has older twin brothers. Someday, he will realize how un-cool that is, but we are not going to tell him that for a long time.

The biggest concern is after this baby comes, we will have four kids under the age of five. I have no delusions of a happy, smiling, patient and content baby who does not mind older siblings stealing toys and binks, or that this child will sleep well, or not have colic, or that the other children will adjust easily and not act out for attention. I am not assuming I will be able to accomplish anything at all for at least the first six months, maybe longer. My goal during that time will be to shower at least once a week, and keep laundry going so we can fake cleanliness out in public, since we all know I won't be having anyone over to my house for a long time. Oh, and also try to keep all the children alive and their future therapy to a minimum. That's it. So, we have to accomplish the next eight months worth of tasks before baby comes, but not by over-exerting myself to the point I go into labor. Easy enough, right?

We started feeling extremely overwhelmed yesterday, so we started a to-do-list. I am going to break it down and accomplish a little bit every week. This week's goal is to get the boys' room painted. It has been needing paint since we moved in, the previous people had that room as their office and there were cabinets on one wall, so the wallpaper did not cover the entire wall. They removed the scraps of paper, but behind it was a wall without anything covering various spackled holes and different shades of white touch up paint. The rest of the room still had wallpaper, but last winter when the boys had colic, we used a humidifier in there so much that the paper peeled at the edges and the boys found great fun in ripping big pieces off when they were supposed to be napping. We finally got all the wallpaper down and in the process have removed shelves and coat hooks that have completely eliminated any semblance of organization in there. It needs to be finished. My goal is to paint this week so we can put the room back together, bolt the furniture to the walls, and actually let the boys play in there if they wish. We do not have a big house with multiple rooms to run around in, we are soon to be six people in 1,400 square feet and we need as much room for kids to roam as possible. And if you think I do not need to worry about bolting furniture to walls before letting the boys play unsupervised, come on over for a while and I'll let them give you an education in twin-two-year-olds.

So that's my goal this week. I'll let you all know how it is going, and if I am able to accomplish it all. I think I can, I think I can... Oh, who am I kidding, I probably can't. But I will give it a shot!