Finding the Carpet

We are having a very rare thing - a free weekend! There were various vaguely tempting things on in the local area that could have made for a nice family day out, especially with the beautiful weather, but instead I dug out my Boring-But-Practical-Mummy hat and insisted we should stay at home and GET THINGS DONE. The housework has been bottom of the priority list for so long that I'm surprised I could even remember where the hoover was. Now, however, we have an old friend visiting tomorrow, I have a real live student actually coming in person on Monday (usually I teach on Skype and judicious positioning of the webcam can make the bombsite that is our dining room/office look positively minimalist), midwife visits happening every so often, and there will be the usual extended family dinner for Erev Rosh Hashanah. Plus the need for a bit more space to do the more formal home ed stuff we appear to have fallen into, and the arrival at some point of my grandparents' piano which will create a domino effect of furniture-shifting around the entire house. Oh, and a home birth some time around the end of the year. 

Not the best start as DH disappeared shortly after breakfast to run some errands. By the time he got back at midday, I had managed to clear off the breakfast things, get one child dressed, feed the kids a snack (about 45 minutes after they had finished breakfast!), cleared up after the snack, written a list and discussed lunch plans with Adam, who claimed to be hungry again at 11.30. At midday I was preparing lunch for everyone and had achieved absolutely nothing on the list. Oh, I had supervised Daniel doing some laundry jobs and put away some clean towels but that's everyday stuff. 

After lunch I went off to get Adam to sleep for a bit while DH and Daniel mowed the lawn, thinking positive thoughts about tidying and sorting while everyone was otherwise engaged in gardening or sleeping. Good plan, utterly foiled by me falling asleep with the toddler. We were both woken up after three quarter of an hour by the phone ringing next to us - a pre-recorded cold call. Those irritate me most of all because I can't even have a good rant at the caller! 

Staggered downstairs to make a coffee and sat nursing it, trying to persuade Adam not to park his trike in the middle of the doorway, especially as it's the one with a screw missing that comes apart in the style of a clown's car when you try to pick it up. I notice that the two year old has developed a technique for carrying it similar to the way one might hold a puppy, cradling all the pieces together, which seems more civilised if less satisfying than my usual technique of shoving it out of the way (sometimes rather harder than necessary) with my foot. 

By the time I reached the bottom of the mug and had managed to make a start by picking up a whole three things from the floor, it was mid-afternoon. DH suggested that he should take the kids out to play tennis at the park, as they clearly needed a good run. Thus my clearing momentum stalled once again while I helped to find shorts and sandals, held a long and garbled conversation with Adam about the ownership of Daniel's old toddler racquet, denied all knowledge of the whereabouts of tennis balls, and (in a superhuman feat of self-control) managed not to crack up at DH's disbelieving exclamation "It's taking forever just to leave the house!" Eventually they departed, leaving the front door wide open. 

In the next two and a half hours, I managed to clear one room out of the four I would like to sort by tomorrow. In fairness, it was the worst of the four and I did a properly thorough tidy that created new sustainable homes for various categories of things. On the other hand, it is now 10.15 and I am about to tackle room number 2. 

After I've had a cup of tea, that is...