I Don't Feel Like...

Scrubbing the windows. It's normally a pet peeve of mine to have sparkling clear windows. Now there are actual body prints made from sun screened bodies smudging the back door. It was so bad the other day that The Man even scrubbed it off. Not even five minutes later we turned to find our Little Man's face smashed flat on the other side of the glass, the way only tiny people who haven't developed cartilage yet can manage. He looked at me like, "Oh." and I just shrugged. I did finally spray the bird poop off the living room window when I was
watering my clematis but only because it was hot as heck outside and so any reason to hold the hose was worth the effort.

Sweeping and mopping the floors. It's ridiculous. I think I'd like to go old school and have actual dirt floors.  Think of it, they're absorbent and they're ALREADY dirty. It's right in the name. It would be awesome, when people come over I could wait for them to look in surprise at the filthy floor and inform them proudly, "It's a dirt floor" and then they would nod knowingly, and pretend they knew what I was talking about in order to avoid seeming out of the loop in green living.
Doing the dishes. I used to empty the dishwasher fast. I thought that if I got all the clean dishes put away right away then everyone would just put the dirty ones straight in the dishwasher. I mean… isn't that obvious? Who the fuck wants to do something twice? They take the dish all the way TO the dishwasher, and even rinse their bowl or plate and then they just leave it sitting there ON TOP of the counter over the dishwasher! What the fuck IS that? I can NOT understand it. So now my plan is to just eventually run out of clean dishes. End of problem. I hope everyone likes tortillas. That's a lie. I don't care.
Feeding people. If my appetite is minimal in winter than it is positively non-existent in the summer. Now if the feeding of the people was just once a day I think I could bear it, but it's NOT! It's at least four times a day, usually closer to six. And it starts right away. I've barely crawled out of bed before Little Man is chanting "I hungy. Hunny! Hunny! I hungry Mama!" And so it begins. Rustling in the cupboards for nutritional but appealing foods. Preparing them, serving them and then cleaning up after them.

Two hours later Little Man pipes up with "I need a nack! I hunny, Mama!" while pointing and hopping in the kitchen. I pour something crunchy or chewy on his tray to tide him over til lunch. Whatever it is; he usually gets tired of chewing it and spits it or throws it somewhere in the "great room". By the way, in case you don't know "great room" is code for "food all over your house".
The lunch fiasco begins approximately an hour later when one or the other of the girls starts hinting about how ready they are for it. "When's lunch?" or "Do you already know what you're making for lunch?" or  "We're not having sandwiches again are we?" or my favorite sly little comment "I think I might be starting to get HUNGRY!" I put them off for half an hour or more… I've found if I give in and feed them lunch at eleven they don't actually eat much and then there are two snacks in the afternoon. Then I finally give in and begin to prepare lunch (while they surround me tantruming and lamenting about their incredible hunger pains) which one or more of them will hate and refuse to eat on the grounds that they "don't like it.". It makes no difference that it was their favorite two weeks prior. The only good thing about lunch time is that it is followed by naptime. But then…
As soon as Little Man's little eyes open again it's time for snack. The girls will have been pestering me about snack time for forty-five minutes by that time and I'm usually either relieved to have the chance to serve them (eyes rolling) or so fed up I nearly throw their peanut butter covered apple wedges at them. Don't worry, they think it's funny.
Next comes dinner… the big main meal. There are usually six people to feed, one of whom is vegetarian. Everyone except The Man is picky. By the time we're eating dinner I nearly always say "This is dinner!" to The Girl. Of course what I mean is "By god you better eat that or you're just going to have to starve because I will be damned if I'm going to make you something else because you "don't like" what we're having."