The Adventures of Captain Entropy!!!!

Captain Entropy is Cameron's superhero identity and his superpower is creating messes and chaos.  I've started thinking of his destroying and messing as "The Adventures of Captain Entropy."  I will sometimes just take out the camera and snap a picture, just for my own entertainment, because I have to get SOMETHING out of all my effort cleaning up after him, right? 

In a rare moment of attentiveness in a high school science class, I remember hearing entropy being described as the tendency of the universe toward disorder and chaos.  I also remember thinking that this could easily account for the condition of my room and I should really be sure to fill my mom in on that when I got home from school.   It's science, Mom.  Ya don't argue with science.  I'm quite sure that is not how the wicked smart folks who originally defined "entropy" intended the concept to be applied, but that potential application of the term gave me a chuckle at the time, caused me to actually remember something from high school science, and now it's getting me through toddlerhood.

Anyone who currently or ever has had a toddler can relate do the perpetual, thankless job of cleaning up the messes that a toddler creates.  It. Is.  MIND-NUMBING, and the only response is humor...the only response that doesn't result in me ending up in the loony bin, that is!  The chaos and mess that Cameron almost constantly creates threatens my ever-loving sanity.  I have never been a neat and tidy person. I have never been THAT GIRL who says, "OMIGOSH!  I'm like, SO TYPE-A/OCD! Everything has a place in my house and it must be tidy or I, like, go CRAZY!!!" and SECRETLY you know that behind the feigned disgust with herself, she actually takes pride in how tidy her house is.  Picking up, straightening, and organizing are loathsome and burdensome tasks to me, to be avoided at all costs, and Cameron causes me to have to spend more time doing these tasks in a single day than I would do in a week or even a MONTH pre-baby. Some days, I feel like I'm being punished for past dastardly deeds of disorganization. Another piece of learning from school which has stayed with me are the legends in Greek mythology in which folks who are sent to Hades, the underworld, are forced to perform tasks of perpetual failure as punishment for the bad things they did in their life.  The man who has to push a boulder up a hill, only to have it roll down just inches before reaching the peak EVERY SINGLE TIME.  The parched man who lowers his lips to take a drink only to have the water dry up instantly.  That's how life feels sometimes, like I'm CONSTANTLY cleaning up messes that appear seemingly out of NOWHERE as punishment for the messes I created and/or ignored in the past. THAT ONE TASK which gives me no satisfaction is mine for all eternity, MWAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!

 

 It's not just picking up his toys, I was prepared for that.  It's pulling the books off the shelves in the living room. It's dumping out the single sock bin as I'm trying to sort.  And my LEAST favorite of all, picking up random items he finds in other rooms of the house and dropping them in the living room. THE LIVING ROOM!!!  . It's not where our TV is, it's not where his toys are kept. The way our house is set up, you walk in the front door and there is our living room/dining room combo. There are WINDOWS INTO IT FROM THE FRONT PORCH for crying out loud. And yet this, THIS ONE ROOM WHOSE APPEARANCE ACTUALLY MATTERS, is his depository for whatever he's decided to toddle around with.  I'll clean it up during nap time and by the end of the day, it looks like Ariel's collection of random found objects in Disney's "The Little Mermaid." Whosits and whatsits GALORE, if you will.

OK, wait. I was wrong, that's not my least favorite.  My ACTUAL least favorite is when he's all up in my business, making already hated tasks that much more difficult.  For example, putting away his laundry. I can't do it when he's sleeping in his room, so I have to do it when he's awake AND keep him in the room with me so I can make sure he's not killing himself.  So, he pulls things off of hangers almost faster than I can hang them up.  He takes ALLTHEBOOKS out of his book bin.  He pulls ALLTHETOYS out of his toy bin.  And then when I'm done putting away his laundry, I go behind him and pick it all up.  He, of course, goes behind me and takes it out again and around and around we go until eventually, I get it all put away quickly enough that he doesn't have time to take it out again.  And don't even get me STARTED on the dishwasher.  That's an unmitigated disaster and I have been known to enlist them help of Elmo and Thomas the Tank Engine to get that done with no interference.

 

People say all the time, "As moms, we need to let our messes go." And they're right, and I do. What we are talking about here is on top of and above all of that.  You can only "let it go" for so long. And I'm also getting wise.  I've GREATLY pared down the number of books in the book bin in his room and completely removed the toy bin. Less to destroy means less to clean up.  We are also baby-proofing a lot of stuff, but we've hit some speed bumps there (our drawer latches keep falling off) and Jeff doesn't exactly come home from work SUPER EXCITED about trying AGAIN to fix THE SAME DANGED DRAWER.  I think he might be more excited about it if he were the one picking up the measuring spoons from the living room floor for the third time today- oops, did I say that out loud?  Hee hee hee. You get it though, right?

 

 Cam's also getting pretty close to that stage where he'll be able to help me with picking stuff up. Right now, he's still in the phase were he sees the purpose of setting anything up or putting anything away making it so you can of destroy it again.  Immediately. However, I think we are getting close and I'm looking forward to that time because actually using pick-up time to TEACH HIM SOMETHING will make it feel more like a step in the right direction and less like throwing deck chairs off of a sinking ship.

 

As in all aspects of life, humor and perspective are two of the best ways to get through parenting challenges.  In this situation, the perspective part for me is looking at this tendency toward disorder and chaos as the manifestation of how he processes the world.  He learns by doing right now.  He is fascinated by how stuff works and he wants to do for himself what he sees other people doing.

 

Why are my jammies hanging all together over there, what are they hanging on?  If I pull on them will they come down?  Hey, that was fun!  Let's do another one!!!

or

Why is mommy putting those shiny things in the big noisy silver machine with the racks?  Lemme take all the spoons out and see what she's doing with them...

 

 He also enjoys seeing his impact on things.  How the water splashes when he hits it, how the books are all off the shelves now that he's pulled them out.

 

Look, I can pull down ALLTHEBOOKS!  They are no longer on the shelves, AND I DID IT! ME!  I MOVED THEM ALL!!!!  Let's go find something else to move around!!!

 

Also, his interest in carrying objects around is a continuation of something he started when he was still crawling. Even then, he would pick up an object and examine it and then pack it around with him like our Yorkie used to do with a toy he liked. Except instead of carrying it in his mouth, he'd have it in one hand when he was crawling.  The result is that if the object was hard, it would tap on our laminate flooring and he'd sound like a peg-leg pirate crawling around, "Thump-click, thump-click." Same thing now, he explores an object and then rather than leave it, he carries it with him until he finds the next object of interest, at which time he drops it...somehow always in the living room. ALWAYS!

 

Perspective, thinking about WHY it's happening and what is says about where he is developmentally and about his personality, does help. But humor is necessary as well...enter CAPTAIN ENTROPY (dun-duh-duh-DUNNNNNNNNNNN)!!!

 

 

Around others, he is mild-mannered, easy-going toddler Mister Cameron.  When company leaves, however, he becomes CAPTAIN ENROPY (dun duh-duh DUNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!) PURVEYOR OF CHAOS AND CREATOR OF MESSES, PERPETUATOR OF THE UNIVERSE'S TENDENCY TOWARD DISORDER!  Faster than a cleaning Mommy, able to destroy entire bookshelves in a single motion of his pudgy wittle arm, toddling to the living room with the most random objects imaginable.

 

So, I leave you with this.  A few recent snapshots of The Adventures of Captain Entropy.  Who, fortunately for all of us, has the additional superpower of being ridiculously adorable.

DUCKS!!! (I mean, MERGANSERS!!!!)



 

The pond behind our house has a regular crew of ducks and geese who make their homes therein.  A bunch of mallards, a pair of ducks I've not successfully identified yet, a flock of grey (and noisy!) barnyard geese, and the occasional flight of Canada Geese will settle in on their way north or south.  Today, I spotted flashes of white that I didn't recognize, and it turned out to be these little buggers! I have no idea what they are, anyone know?  I feel so blessed to have THIS in my backyard!

 

Update:  They apparently are Hooded Mergansers.

 

Remodeling

So...I may or may not have mentioned that we moved. Like, seven months ago now. I know, I know, I promised to get better about updating. We had a happy three and a half years in Jeff's bachelor pad condo and we made it work, but it wasn't going to work for us long term and we knew we needed to get out.  We'd been busily paying down and saving up for the first three years of our marriage, praying and wondering about exactly how the logistics of getting into a house while still having a condo under water were going to work out. We figured the Lord had a plan, and indeed He did.  What we got surpassed our expectations: 2,300 square feet, three bedrooms, 2.5 bath, finished daylight basement, large lot that backs to a green space WITH A DUCK POND, huge deck, epic storage, dead-end cul-de-sac (as in one end of our street is a dead end and the other is a cul-de-sac, traffic is minimal), full view of Cam's future elementary school, room to add on and grow should we decide to make it our forever house.

 

 

Ain't it purdy? It really is absolutely amazing and we are beyond thrilled.  However, all of this awesomeness does come with a catch, at least it did on our budget.  :-)   The house hadn't been updated since 1978. That's right, nineteen seventy-eight.  The year I was BORN!  The people we bought it from (original owners, how cool is that?) had done all of the big stuff for us: new roof, new windows, new heat pump, and they had redone a bathroom, presumably because the roof had leaked.  And really, they left it immaculate for us, it wasn't AT ALL like they'd let the place go.  It just...needed to be brought into the 21st century.

There was wallpaper:

Carpet in the master bath:

And the kitchen? Oh, the kitchen...

 

 

It featured a dropped ceiling with fluorescent lighting as was all the rage in the year of the my and our house's birth:

 

 

And a floor plan with the cabinets that really closed things off:

Also, all of the tracks from the drawers had come loose from the cabinets, making them "slide" in and out at impossible angles, coating the pots and pans on the shelves of the cabinets below in a layer of sawdust with each open and close. Oy.

We started by ripping off all the wallpaper and painting, and then replaced all the flooring with new carpet and laminate before we even moved in.  Cam was crawling still, not yet walking, and it needed to be done. I will work on putting together some before and after shots of that stuff.

For now, however, I want to focus on the kitchen remodel because it has been the biggest deal!  We had to do it on the cheap. We got screaming deals on our appliances at Best Buy right when we bought the house. Then, Jeff did all the demo and prep work himself: drywall, lighting, plumbing, finishing, the works. For the cabinets and countertops, we got them at Beaverton Kitchen Cabinets.  They buy in bulk so while there aren't tons of choices and the cabinets aren't custom, it does keep the cost down.

First, we tore out the cabinets.  Then, Jeff and his parents spent a whole day tearing out the false ceiling that was put in place to accommodate the fluorescent lighting.  I think they spent half the day vacuuming up cellulose insulation! Jeff was relieved to discover that, just as our amazing home inspector had said, there were actually ceiling beams up about 8 inches from where the dropped ceiling had been, just waiting for us to sheetrock.   It would have been a lot more work if he'd had to put those beams in place.  Here is what it looked like with the cabinets gone and the false ceiling ripped out:

 

 

Next, Jeff Sheetrocked the ceiling and installed the can lights.  After it was taped and mudded, I did my part of the job which was to texture the ceiling.  Feast your eyes:

 

Then, he replaced the old sheetrock and taped and mudded, I painted, and at long last, we were ready for the cabinets!

The next day was SO exciting!  The installers from Beaverton Kitchen Cabinets did it all IN ONE DAY!  Cabinets, countertops, and hardware!!! It was amazing to watch it take shape.

 

 

 

 

 

Here are close-ups of what the cabinets and countertops look like:

 

 

 



And here, drumroll please, is the FINISHED PRODUCT a few days later after Jeff had re-installed the appliances in their new homes, put in the pendant lights, and gotten MOST of the floor in (we had FIVE boxes of bad laminate!  GAH!!!)

He has finished the flooring since then and within the next couple of weeks he will finish the trim and the backsplash and then I can share a REAL after pic!

***PHEW*** That was a lot of work, both to do it AND to blog it! Just taking this walk down memory lane has stressed me out, I'm so glad it's done!

Lots more left to do, we still do not have anything except a toilet in our Master Bath, the next wave of renovations will have to wait until after the first of the year.  If you've stuck with me and read all of this, pat yourself on the back...and buy my husband a six-pack of microbrew, would you?  He worked hard to make this a reality for us!
 

19 Months

Cam is 19 months now and is walking, talking, counting (kind of), saying letters, dancing, and all kinds of stuff that delights us on a daily basis. He knows "Mickey," "Elmo," and "Tom!" (Thomas the Tank Engine) and can spot them from across the room. :-) It seems like every day he does something new that amazes us because it's something he sure couldn't do yesterday! We are loving this age. 

There are downsides, too, of course. He's currently on a "please" strike, just flat out refusing to use it even though he's been using it for months. He's also in that phase where he doesn't get it yet about being patient and when something he wants doesn't happen instantly (like when he sees me take melon or cheese out of the fridge and it needs to be cut before landing on his tray) there is whining and squeaking. But, this too shall pass and the positives definitely FAR outweigh the challenges.

He delights others as well. This week he was in child care twice, once at MOPS and once at church, and both times when I picked him up the workers in the child care room commented on how happy and easy going and "good" he was. They may say that to all the parents, but it sure is nice to hear :-)

Here is a recent anecdote:

Mister Cameron Goes to Costco

A few weeks ago, we went to Costco in the morning (in the morning before nap is when we usually run our errands). Before we left, I put shoes and socks on his feet and by the time we got there he was, of course, completely barefoot.

"Cameron Lauren!" I said, feigning scolding, "What did you take off of your feet?"

Cam grinned from ear to ear and replied, "SHOOSH!"

"Not just your shoes, silly boy, what else did you take off?"

"SHOCK!" He declared proudly.

So, I gathered his "shoosh" and "shock," which were strewn haphazardly about the backseat, put them on his feet, and off we went into Costco.

About five or ten minutes into our shopping, we were strolling by the aisle where they had their Christmas decorations displayed. Cam had been looking around the store, taking it all in and commenting on the occasional item of interest, but generally nonplussed by the usual array of Costco merchandise. That was until he saw the Christmas decor. His eyes got big,he drew in breath and squeaked (he does have a high-pitched little voice that elevates to a squeak when excited), "CHEESH!!! CHEESH!!! WAH!" (Trees, trees, wow!) "WAH!!! COO!" (Wow, cool!)

So, I strolled him on over in the cart and rolled him up and down as his dinner plate-sized eyes took it all in. I watched the wheels turn as he processed it. "CAH! MOOOOO!" He declared, pointing to the lighted reindeer that he clearly thought was a cow.

There was a lighted Mickey and Minnie climbing into a chimney. He hadn't seen those characters much at this point, so I told him their names "MEEK! MEEN!" He repeated excitedly.

We wheeled back down the aisle again with him pointing out the trees all the way, just in case I missed them, "CHEESH! WAH! WAAAAAH! COO!" And then we headed for the exit.

We walked away toward the check-out lines and while other displays we past grabbed his attention, he was clearly still thinking of the fascinating things he'd just seen because he said "MEEK! CAH! BAH!" And waved goodbye to Mickey and the cow, which I do promise to one day teach him is actually a reindeer.

Here are some recent pics: