Flushed Away

Today I realized that for me, motherhood pretty much begins and ends with the toilet. In just two days, I will launch the last two monkey-men out of the house for a time. The Princeling leaves tomorrow for his summer job, and the Baby Monkey leaves for a 12-day backpacking trip in New Mexico. That leaves me and Kong home alone for about two weeks. The prospect of being empty-nested, even if only temporarily, has spurred me to clean our nest. It is very near to impossible, for me at least, to keep this house spotless when the men-children are in residence. The best I can hope for it to maintain the place in "a bit of a tip."
But, knowing that they won't be home has me a bit excited. I am cleaning in anticipation that the place will stay clean for a bit. I also have two leaky faucets to contend with, and the plumber has been called. I have to admit that I'm embarrassed to let him see my bathroom and kitchen in a mess, so I spent some time cleaning those two rooms today. The upstairs bathroom has been particularly shameful, so that's where my efforts were focused.
I went upstairs on this lovely summer day and opened windows, letting a sweet breeze pour into the room. The idea was to air out the space, but more than likely, I let loose zillions of harmful bacteria into my unsuspecting community. For an hour I tackled mildew, scrubed soap scum, wiped, and polished. I left the beast, the toilet, for very last.
By the time I turned to the toilet, something came over me. It may have been the fumes of harsh chemical fluids, but I felt a rush of sentiment come over me. We live in an old home which was built in 1915, long before the invention of the master bedroom suite. Our upstairs bathroom is just that -- OUR bathroom. All five of us share it. Four men and me. When Kong and I first bought this house at the tender ages of 23 and 25 (he's older!), the bathroom was a horror. A tile tub area had basketball-sized holes bashed through the walls. These were covered with sheets of plastic taped down with duct tape. A sink hung on the wall and was propped up with 2 x 4 lumber. The whole mess was awash in lavendar paint, including the cunningly painted lavendar 2 x 4's. Oh, and there was a hideous black carpet. I choose to believe it had always been black.
One of our first big projects in our handyman special was to do something with the bathroom. It took a year of scraping to be able to afford a good plumber who replaced every bit of old rusted and leaking pipe with beautiful gleaming copper. I hung heavy vinyl wallpaper over the plywood walls. We cut and cursed and laid out a vinyl floor ourselves. I stayed home from work and installed a fiberglass tub surround, and we had our 1922 bathtub refinished. A new sink and vanity went in and lastly, FINALLY, a brand new toilet was installed.
And nearly as soon as it was installed, I found out I was pregnant. The toilet and I became intimate friends. "Morning sickness" does not do justice in describing what came over me morning, noon, and night for nine months. I did not feel nausea. I did not vomit. I did not upchuck. I PUKED. I SPEWED. And I PUKED AND SPEWED right up until the moment I left for the hospital to deliver that child. I spent many a night lying on the floor next to the toilet, because it was simply the best place to be. And because I spent so much time with my head in the toilet, I decided it may as well be clean. After all, there was no need to make the situation any worse than it had to be. In the brief moments sans nausea, I cleaned the toilet and kept it sparkling.
And today, as I knelt once again before my porcelain friend, I remembered how well it served me, even as my husband turned away from me in my hour of need, my loo was there for me. I abused it during two pregnancies, and it faithfully served. Three Monkey Boys and Kong treat this poor servant with disrespect. And now, as the boys leave for a time, I am cleaning, returning bleached dignity to our faithful friend and servant. I began my adventure in motherhood kneeling before this American Standard, and as I begin my short stint as a childless occupant of this house, I find myself still kneeling there.

Accomplishments

Today I feel a sense of accomplishment. At the end of this day I am finally able to sit in my bedroom, cross-legged with my laptop balanced on my legs as I type a new blog entry. Oh, and while I do that, I've got my iPod in my ears playing sultry vocals by Corinne Bailey Rae. I'm pretty happy in my electronic cocoon.

It's been an interesting day. I tried to get out of bed promptly at 5:30 a.m. I've been diligently trying to do that for weeks. What is actually happening is that I've diligently snapped the snooze button, alarm after alarm, day after day. Late start after late start, I've dragged myself downstairs to work. I can't keep a regular routine. But there has been nothing regular about the household routine for over a month. The Princeling has been finished school since early in May. His first year of college is out of the way, and he's preparing for another summer working as a camp counselor. In between he's taken a month off to rest, and to rest, and to rest some more. He's been lounging in various soft spots around the house, occasionally socializing with friends, and then bringing his friends home to rest and lounge, as well. I haven't minded the company too much. He doesn't emerge from his cage until mid to late morning, and now and then he even makes me coffee. He's a nice enough guy.
The other two teenagers were thankfully about the usual routine of getting up early, scraping sadly out of the house to school, and then returning home with an attitude befitting someone who had been breaking rocks in a quarry all the live-long day. That was until about a week or so ago when the end-of-year school schedules began to kick in.
The bizarre, irregular half-day/full-day/no day schedule of two different high schools has caused chaos. I woke up Middle Monkey one morning thinking that he was late for school, when in fact, he had no business being in school that day. A bunch of other people were taking exams, but not him. Then there was the day that Baby Monkey had a lie-in because seniors were graduating. School was closed. I just couldn't keep track until today.
This was the day. The first full day of summer vacation for everyone. Kong escaped the house by 7:00 a.m. and left me alone with snoring growls coming from the upstairs cages. I went down to my office and began a day's worth of transcription. I think I had all of one hour's uninterrupted work before the baby appeared. He didn't seem to want anything of me, but his presence had me thinking that an interruption was about to come at any moment. It wasn't long before the Princeling came down to see his brother home. "Great," he said. No enthusiasm there. It must have been a reminder that his time at home on the couch was coming to an end. The Middle Monkey didn't come down until much later, grunted as he walked past me on his way to the refrigerator.
The rest of the day was a stream of text message sounds, phone calls, people coming, requests to be driven somewhear, requests to be picked up from somewhere else, requests for money, inquiries about food, girlfriends in the house, girlfriends leaving the house, people wanting to play basketball, and more.
In the midst of this, I managed to go to the big giant office store and finally get myself a wireless card for my dinosaur laptop. I want to be able to escape and hide from them,and for that I need the mobility granted by a wireless connection. I managed to install the card with no problem, make two day's worth of family dinners, go to the Italian market, take Middle Monkey to get a new pair of shoes (black again - it's the only color he wears), and gassed up the van without getting too dizzy watching the numbers whir round and round as the dollars flowed into my fuel tank. I came home, tried again to get some uninterrupted work done, but Kong came home wanting me to do banking as well. Over the phone. Right. Sat on hold, hold, hold, hold. Refused to do it any longer, fought with Kong, and left to pick up Baby Monkey and his girlfriend. There was more working, more feeding, more people, less people, and at the end of the day . . .
My wireless card works, and my iPod is playing Corinne Bailey Rae. I have accomplished something.