early christmas gifts
after overwhelming awe of having a baby and all the adrenaline of childbirth runs out, the reality of what maternity leave really is about annoyingly begins to poke at your shoulder: spending any time at all doing housework - cooking or cleaning your home = time you are not spending with your child. and because the feeding, diapering, and general care of your baby is time suckage in itself like no other, the time you actually have to enjoy being with your baby is precious. so precious. and in the stillness of staring at my son and loving him so much i want to be the best mother i can be, it occurs to me that to be a good mother, i must have a clean home.
i honestly, and not without an awareness of my own obsessive compulsive neurosis, can tell you that there were times that in the holding of my sweetly napping little boy, all i was thinking about was the pile of dishes in my sink, the tumbleweed of cat hair that blew in baseball-sized tufts, and all the other cooking and cleaning that needed to be done.
very sad. very true.
i don't think domestic goddess is my calling. but my son deserves a clean home; not to mention mothers who serenely, and without house-keeping guilt, enjoy playing and spending time with him. so we've purchased some help to do our bidding, thanks to christmas coming earlier than expected (thanks mom, dad, and mama!).
favourite purchase #1: the gelpro gel mat
i spend a LOT of time in the kitchen puttering around - more before baby than now. i've been dreaming about buying this mat for a long time... a huge relief for when you're standing in the same position all day prepping for christmas dinner and all the other meals to come. seriously, no leg and feet fatigue after standing on it for a long period of time. so yay!
favourite purchase #2: the danby countertop dishwasher
in all the years i have lived on my own - and certainly since the wife and i have been living together (10 years now), we have never owned a dishwasher. the house we rented in hawaii had a dishwasher. and to be completely honest, we did not know what we were missing. 15 minutes to do all the dishes we used in the house - wha?!? so when we came back home, i clamoured for one of these. we live in an apartment, you see - no room for a full-sized dishwasher. but in the week we've owned "antonia" the dishwasher, she has been a huge help. so instead of washing tonight's dishes, i get to blog. yipee!
favourite purchase #3: the irobot roomba 405
this thing is FAB! between us, our cats, and the general accumulation of dust, our home does not stay pristine for more than i day - no matter what kind of deep cleaning we do, however hard our dyson vaccuum cleaner works. but the roomba solves the problem by doing our daily sweeping for us! we just set the thing free and our floors get cleaned while say, one of us feeds our son and the other eats a chocolate bar with the iroomba remote control. who needs to break out the big ass vaccuum more than once every 2 weeks (barring unforeseen messes), not us! hooray!
now back to prepping the house for some serious christmas decorating! it is z's first christmas, after all.
i honestly, and not without an awareness of my own obsessive compulsive neurosis, can tell you that there were times that in the holding of my sweetly napping little boy, all i was thinking about was the pile of dishes in my sink, the tumbleweed of cat hair that blew in baseball-sized tufts, and all the other cooking and cleaning that needed to be done.
very sad. very true.
i don't think domestic goddess is my calling. but my son deserves a clean home; not to mention mothers who serenely, and without house-keeping guilt, enjoy playing and spending time with him. so we've purchased some help to do our bidding, thanks to christmas coming earlier than expected (thanks mom, dad, and mama!).
favourite purchase #1: the gelpro gel mat
i spend a LOT of time in the kitchen puttering around - more before baby than now. i've been dreaming about buying this mat for a long time... a huge relief for when you're standing in the same position all day prepping for christmas dinner and all the other meals to come. seriously, no leg and feet fatigue after standing on it for a long period of time. so yay!
favourite purchase #2: the danby countertop dishwasher
in all the years i have lived on my own - and certainly since the wife and i have been living together (10 years now), we have never owned a dishwasher. the house we rented in hawaii had a dishwasher. and to be completely honest, we did not know what we were missing. 15 minutes to do all the dishes we used in the house - wha?!? so when we came back home, i clamoured for one of these. we live in an apartment, you see - no room for a full-sized dishwasher. but in the week we've owned "antonia" the dishwasher, she has been a huge help. so instead of washing tonight's dishes, i get to blog. yipee!
favourite purchase #3: the irobot roomba 405
this thing is FAB! between us, our cats, and the general accumulation of dust, our home does not stay pristine for more than i day - no matter what kind of deep cleaning we do, however hard our dyson vaccuum cleaner works. but the roomba solves the problem by doing our daily sweeping for us! we just set the thing free and our floors get cleaned while say, one of us feeds our son and the other eats a chocolate bar with the iroomba remote control. who needs to break out the big ass vaccuum more than once every 2 weeks (barring unforeseen messes), not us! hooray!
now back to prepping the house for some serious christmas decorating! it is z's first christmas, after all.