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By Mom Unplugged, March 13, 2007 7:44 am

I have a love-hate relationship with stuff. I am, by nature, a neotoma albigula, more commonly known as a “pack rat” (see photo). Yet I yearn to simplify my life by shedding all the excess.

Whenever I get stressed about mess and excess, I go on a cleaning frenzy. I tidy, I throw out, I donate. I always feel so good afterwards. Cleansing the closets equates to cleansing the soul!

However, there are always some strange things that I have trouble parting with: stuffed animals from my childhood (they are my friends, and besides, their feelings would be hurt), the swizzle stick I saved from that family vacation to Maine when I was six (the prettiest shade of red I have ever seen), a box filled with every work schedule I ever had as a flight attendant (cool places!), another box with every letter my Mom or Dad ever wrote me (sentimental attachment), old board games I plan to sell on Ebay (when I have time-ha!), etc. How can I teach frugality and simplicity to my kids when my life is filled with odd and unnecessary items?

I have a particular weakness for cardboard boxes. I like to save them. You never know when you might need one. Plus the kids play with them, and one day I will use every single one of them when I sell all my extra stuff on Ebay and make a fortune.

My husband hates my stuff, especially the boxes. He says we need to just rent a dumpster. I told him, we’ll rent a dumpster when he agrees to put at least half his precious garage junk treasures into it.

I continue to fantasize that my house will one day be transformed into a zen-like sanctuary of simplicity and spiritual living. It will look like one of those minimalist spaces you see sometimes in House Beautiful or even Architectural Digest. My furniture will all be white. My few, artfully arranged books will have matching spines in a soothing palette of neutral colors. I will have miniature zen rock gardens on my coffee table instead of the zen scattering of Cheerios which sits there now.

One day…

Oh…are you going to throw out that box? Can I have it?

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By Mom Unplugged, March 10, 2007 8:59 am

I recently had a birthday. Yes, another one, but as my mother used to say: “At least it’s better than the alternative!” For my birthday my two oldest made me cards. Well, they didn’t exactly “make” the cards themselves, they used some blank cards someone had given them and wrote sweet messages inside. I tried not to take it personally that the pictures on the front of the cards were of dinosaurs!

The dinosaur thing got me thinking. I know my kids can’t understand time yet. I don’t think they believe me when I tell them that even though Mommy is old, she is not old enough to have gone bronco-riding on the back of a T-Rex.

When I tell them that there were no computers or cell phones when I was a child, they look at me like I have twelve heads. We didn’t even have cordless phones! “How did you talk?” “Well, we talked fine, but we just had to stand there tied to the phone by a long curly cord.” STAND THERE? I can see the wheels turning in their brains. You mean you had to just talk? You didn’t do the dishes, make beds, and change a diaper all while talking on the phone? Wow! What an odd concept!

Technology gives us the gift (?) of multitasking. We no longer do just one thing at a time. The Buddhists believe that you must “live in the moment,” savor every experience, enjoy the feeling of the water on your hands as you do the dishes, the texture of the sheets as you tuck them in, the smell of your baby as you change a diaper (well, maybe not then, not even for Buddhists). I believe that there is a lot to the theory that real happiness is indeed, living in the moment. Can we truly appreciate life as we race headlong through it, crazily attempting to accomplish five things at once?

How on earth did I get from dinosaurs to the meaning of life? This post has certainly taken on a direction all its own! There is another dinosaur-inspired post brewing in my head. More on that later. But for now, have a peaceful Saturday with your family and remember to put down that phone and enjoy life!

Thanks to morguefile.com and photographer Melodi2 for this unusual photo!

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By Mom Unplugged, March 8, 2007 10:53 am

As I sit here watching my 14 month-old doing an “Ozzie” by trying to bite the head off a plastic bat that has somehow found its way to the kitchen floor, my thoughts turn to “mess.” My life never used to be like this. My house never used to be like this. I was truly, AN ORGANIZED PERSON. Those days are gone.

A brief survey of my living room floor reveals: one clean sock, one dirty sock (Where are the mates? Who knows!), a cardboard box “rocket ship,” one of my shoes (Where is the other? Who knows!), an inflatable bouncy pony, a penguin backpack, one piece of a baby stackable toy, a miniature plastic airplane, and a “Sunset” magazine with most of the pages torn out.

Why can kids live so comfortably with mess? I used to be a slob as a child too. My mother constantly lamented the sorry state of my room. When did I turn into a neat freak? Why can’t I simply be at peace with clutter?

I suppose there is some false feeling of security or of having control of life if we have control of our clutter. If we control our clutter, we control our environment and thus our life. Right?? Probably not, but at least it feels good.

I was intrigued by this post from Wife Mom Maniac’s blog: Appreciating Messes. I guess I am not the only one who struggles with this issue.

This post brings TV watching into the mix. What do kids do when they aren’t watching TV? Often, they are making a mess! The cardboard rocket ship in the living room, the seemingly random collected objects that are somehow absolutely essential for the “show” that they are producing, the “craft” project they have dreamed up, etc. It is much easier and tidier to plop them down in front of the tube for an afternoon. I love the discussion of mess and what to do (or not do) about it on Sandra Dodd’s site. It’s definitely worth a read.

If we are going to choose not to have TV in our lives, then I guess we must accept some degree of clutter. After all, those highly imaginative games that I love to see my children play often involve mess. So I’d better just get over it and be happy that there is a plastic bat on my kitchen floor and a “rocket ship” in my living room!

PS. Sorry to expose you all to that truly terrifying photo of our playroom closet. I think we shall be having a dreaded “Playroom Tidy” this weekend!

Also, a big THANK YOU to Toddler Planet for her endorsement of my blog. It is so exciting to finally have some readers find me!

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By Mom Unplugged, March 2, 2007 10:41 am

“Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom,…” Have you ever wondered how many times a day you hear that word? Read on for the answer (scientifically proven)!

We are so eager for our little angels to speak. After many months of toiling selflessly for them, losing sleep for them, catering to their every little need, how we long to hear that first amazing “mama.” However, a few years of ever increasing use of the “M-word” plus a few siblings added into the mix can make Mom go seriously crazy!

I finally became so crazy, and curious, that I bought a click counter (like they use at theaters and such to measure attendance). Each summons got one click. The results of my first weekend experiment with two speaking children:

Saturday: 129 “moms”
Sunday: 119 “moms” (and they were away for three hours in the afternoon that day!)

Aagh!!!! No wonder we Moms can get a little nutso from time to time!