music in the playroom is like magic!

As you know, I've been rearranging, revamping, reorganizing, redoing, reframing, basically all things "re---". So I had a little cd player that needed a home, so up to the playroom it went. I turned it on just for kicks, and it was almost hypnotizing to my 4 year-old and 1 year-old.

There was a little dancing, but there was a lot of "organized play". They just went about their business and played so great independently and together. WHY DID I NOT THINK OF THIS BEFORE??

The Domino Effect...

... the consequence of one event setting off a chain of similar events...

This has been happening at my house lately.

It all began when I decided to move an armoir upstairs into the playroom to hold the Wii, DVD player and computer. My husband and a friend tackled the treacherous and death-defying stunt of carrying the armoir up the stairs in our 2-story foyer... They wrenched their backs with every step, and I swooned in fear at every pivot. According to my calculations and knowledge of angles and physics, I was certain, on 6 separate occasions, that it would topple over the railing and crash to it's demise. After what seemed like forever, and nothing short of miracle, the armoir found a cozy little corner of the playroom for its home, hopefully for a long time, since I know Mike will never want to move it again!


In the meantime, we inherited a free red couch from a friend. After much debate, we decided to put the couch in the playroom for comfy seating. But after unhinging the door and entertaining the thought of cutting off the legs, the couch would not fit through the door. So back down it went. Shoved into a corner, it sat there unbalanced in the room. At first, it seemed like there was no way to make 2 semi-large couches fit into this small room. But, I made a 911-call to another friend to help remedy the "dilemma of 2 couches" in the living room. We brainstormed... we shifted and moved... we imagined and visualized for almost 2 hours. This is testimony that ANYTHING is possible when 2 moms put their heads together to rearrange a room. It may be breaking a few rules, and it's far from perfect... but it will get me by for now.


All of this triggered a series of unavoidable events... "bring the desk upstairs downstairs and put it behind the couch, take apart that playhouse and move it outside, move the bookcase in the hallway into the playroom, move these pictures there, and put those pictures over there, bring that table out of the garage and put it up there, move that end table over here, move the piano over there"... and all of this moving around calls for "uh-oh, vacuum over there... sweep up over here..." It also invoked some serious motivation to "frame this picture and put it there... and hang up that mirror there... and scour the attic for something to fill up that wall there... and spend all afternoon painting some artwork for that room". Then there's the endless task of "clean out that basket so I can put it here... and dump out that one because I think it will look cuter over there... and now what do I do with all these piles HERE?"

It's an endless process, and I'm not even close to being done. But it's been an adventure and it keeps me busy, my husband guessing and the kids tripping over everything in sight! Despite how it sounds, this has not been a series of unfortunate events... but rather a chain-reaction of little jobs that will hopefully help things to run smoother around here. And in the end, maybe I'll be able to enjoy it before the cycle starts all over again!

what's the big deal about a dropping ball?

Here is a summary of a phone conversation, or rather, a series of random thoughts, I had with my sister, ShaLene, on New Year's Eve...

"New Year's Eve is so overrated... especially when you have kids, you don't drink, and you'd prefer not to stay up past midnight. So, why people flock to New York City to watch a giant ball of lights fall slowly down a pole has always been a mystery to me!... it actually seems a bit backwards...a ball dropping? Really? ... I would much rather see a ball of lights shooting into the sky and exploding, triggering a full-blown fireworks show that was put to music! ... and now that I think about it, who really cares about a big ball?... what about a screeching rocket, that upon the stroke of midnight, explodes into fireworks... And better yet, they could have something parachute down.... what about penguins? yeah, and once they reach the ground, they could perform a choreographed routine similar to, but better then, their original debut on Mary Poppins!.... But that would be hard to train penguins to parachute and dance... So let's just stick to the screeching rocket exploding into a fireworks display. But then what about the rocket pieces plummeting out of the sky and hitting people in the streets? Hmmm... Well, maybe it shouldn't actually explode... Hmmm... I guess something shooting into the air does have it's down-sides.... Well, maybe instead of the ball floating slowly down, the ball should come crashing downward at an unbelievable speed and explode down at the bottom?? Ooh yeah... that would be cool... and the anticipation of waiting for the crash would be a lot better then just waiting for the ball to eventually reach the bottom after 30 seconds, and then light up. Yes, a fast-dropping ball would be much better.... But then again, if the ball crashed into a million pieces, they would have to make a new ball every year, and THAT would get expensive...and who would be paying for that??? Taxpayers.... so no, scratch the idea of the exploding-lightning speed-dropping ball.

Hmmmm.... ya know, maybe the "National New Year's Eve Committee" already thought of all this... they wanted to do something dramatic and exciting like screeching rockets, dancing penguins and fast exploding balls... but there just wasn't enough resources to do it every year. So they had to just stick to the basics.... Yes, I think a ball dropping slowly 30 seconds prior to the stroke of midnight IS a good idea. And ya know, they DO have the new year light up at the bottom... so that's pretty cool. And they drop a lot of confetti, and that's kinda fun.

So, I guess a ball dropping is pretty cool... and it's what people are used to and have grown up watching... so I guess it's a fun national tradition! I guess it would be fun to go to NYC and see it in real life someday."

Hope you all had a Happy New Year!!!