Thursday, September 2, 2010

My Convolutedly Complex Road to Simplicity in Day to Day Life


With six children under the age of thirteen, I am always looking for simple ways of doing things. The flaw to this philosophy, of course, is obvious: "With six children." You see, my path to simplicity is, well, complicated.

I first began thinking about this as I was scratching my kids' names into their new toothbrushes. You heard me correctly; I was scratching their names with a thumbtack into the more expensive, vibrating toothbrushes I refuse to buy more than once a month. It is the only way to know, after the first or, if I'm lucky, second time of using them whose is the only one properly rinsed and put away.

See the simple solution for brushing teeth? See the complexity? Scratching because permanent marker wears off too quickly. Vibrating toothbrushes because regular ones require more parental involvement to properly brush than I can give every single night. Just memorizing the colors I assign would only work if I had any brain cells left after 6 pregnancies. Without the scratched evidence, I would have six kids claiming they specifically remember putting their toothbrush away. Unlike King Solomon's solution, none of them care if I cut the thing in half either. Although, King Solomon couldn't have insisted the mothers share the lone baby until the end of the month when it would be replaced, so maybe I do have it easier?

Of course, the complexity of that simple solution is nothing compared to "the System for Rotation of Seat Assignments in the Suburban with Contingencies for Only One Parent and the Resulting Empty Front Seat and/or the Taking of Two Cars with Resulting Opportunity to Drive in Dad's Car." Actually, over the summer I had another kid turn twelve and the last kid leave the 5 point harness car seat for a booster and have yet to revise the system. Chaos has ensued, but I need a refresher course in linear algebra before I can figure out the new system.  Still more simple than the brawl of letting them sit where ever they feel like.  Because they all feel like sitting in the exact same spot.  Which spot doesn't matter; if one wants it, they all want it.

Even making lunch involves a mountain of complexity.  And a mountain of food, six kids eat A LOT!  Take making the sandwiches.   Who currently prefers mayo over Miracle Whip?  Who will freak out if the mustard is forgotten?  If it isn't left off?  Whole wheat or white bread?  Maybe they prefer instead peanut butter and jelly (or is it honey, or fluff)?  Get an answer wrong and simple lunch turns into wasted bread and punishment for whining.  Far more simple to remember the preferences before I make them then deal with the consequences of making them all the same. 

Now at least  you know the information my few remaining brain cells contain.  No wonder there is no room for toothbrush colors.

If these things aren't enough to convince you of my ingeniously complex ideas to simplify my life, there's always my systems for wrapping Christmas presents* or hiding Easter Eggs.  It takes roughly 1000 more hours of prep time, but prevents headaches and/or meltdowns on the actual day.  Of and it is easier for the kids, too.

So if it looks like I have my household running smoothly (after you get your eyesight checked) I can assure you the behind the scenes of any simplicity is a system so convoluted it makes quantum theory look like child's play.  It is simple, really, having a large family is complicated. Make sense?  I didn't think so.

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*I CAN'T BELIEVE I'VE NEVER POSTED MY SYSTEM FOR WRAPPING CHRISTMAS PRESENTS. IT IS THE MOST COMPLEXLY SIMPLE SOLUTION I'VE EVER COME UP WITH. LET'S SAY I'VE INVENTED THE WAY TO HAVE EQUAL NUMBERS OF PRESENTS WITH EQUAL MONEY SPENT ON PRESENTS AND WRAP THEM SO EVERY CATEGORY OF PRESENT HAS IT'S OWN WRAPPING PAPER AND EVERY CHILD HAS ONE OF EVERY SORT OF WRAPPING PAPER. IT SOUNDS MORE COMPLICATED THAN IT IS. ACTUALLY, NO, IT DOESN'T.

41 comments:

  1. #1 - you need to invest in Santa Sacks - each child gets a sack full of loot and the only wrapping mess is the family gifts. I love our new change.

    #2 - you need something called "The Inscriblio" (or a Dremel would work... but I like my fancy girly tool. It's great for quickly etching names into things like toothbrushes.

    #3 - and yes, this makes me neurotic - each of my children has a color for life. Cheap plastic dishes come in enough colors... I've had to buy multiple sets of plates, bowls, and glasses to get all the right colors (the extra I gave away long ago) and I will never again wonder who left their bowl on the table... or towel on the floor. Saves a ton of time because I never have to think twice about who to yell at.

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  2. Been there, done that.
    I'm down to 3 kids at home and have decided it's time to start drinking.
    I've earned it.
    As for sandwiches--let them make their own. That's my best advice.
    It saved whatever sanity I have left to let my yahoos do as much for themselves as possible.
    Rule in the car?--youngest sit in the safest spots in the car--middle rows, center.
    The good news? You'll all survive.

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  3. LOL. Loved the post. I also love all the comments. I'm all about efficiency systems, especially after just finishing Cheaper By the Dozen.
    If you have any more posts about efficiency, bring 'em out!
    And the west coast teaser on your previous post?!?!? Are you moving? Did your house in NC sell??

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  4. I SO hear you on the rotating car seat cononundrum! As for lunch...my simple solution? Make them make their own.

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  5. I was going to suggest nail polish dots on the bottom on the toothbrushes. Each kid has their own color.

    As for the sandwiches. If we wanted Mom to make ours, the condition was we got whatever she felt like putting in the bag. Didn't like miracle whip? Too bad, next time make it yourself. And so on.

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  6. I was going to suggest a dremel to do their names as well....much faster than a thumbtack! I thought my kids were bad about fighting about where they sit....couldn't imagine adding 2 more to it. What do you do about dinnertime? My kids have a constant battle about who sits by dad. Seriously, a fight every night. Makes me feel so fabulous that no one wants to sit by me, chopped liver mom.

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  7. WOW! this post was amazingly hard to read. but only cause it actually made me think and that is hard to do at 7:30am. i am glad i stopped at 5 kids...i am pretty sure 6 would have put me over the edge, and right now, i am barely hanging on.

    why do we have kids again, i forgot!?

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  8. You are definitely a super mom. My husband and I have the mayo/Miracle Whip fight. But he is crazy. He tries to tell me they are the same thing, but when I buy mayo, he gets mad. They are clearly NOT the same thing, and MW is wholy disgusting.

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  9. Hilarious! You're a saint for doing all that. Seriously. And I can't wait for a more detailed post on your Christmas wrapping system. It sounds amazing.

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  10. Totally understandable! There were only three of us growing up, but my mom still had the specifics of "you sit in the same spot at the table until you move out," same went for the car most of the time. We made our own lunches once we were old enough and had chore cards which told us what we were to do around the house. I will have to remember this advice (from the comments too) once I have my hoard of children!

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  11. I have been checking everyday to hear about your West Coast move. Well?????

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  12. HAHA! your line about the configurations of rotating seats in the Suburban (it was a long sentence, forgive me for not remembering it all) was hilarious! I love it!

    And, I totally understand why you do things like that, it makes perfect sense. Big families have to work a little differently, and I think you have a good system :)

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  13. Charlotte's blog: more effective than an IUD.

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  14. You make it sound so hard. Sharing the same toothbrush? UCK. You are far more organized than you give yourself credit. You routine runs so smoothly. You are a great mother and wife.

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  15. Scratching their name into the toothbrush. Brilliant. I'm in the "reapply the initial with a Sharpie every two weeks" camp. Or buy them all the same color and let things work out how they may.

    I'm afraid I condone the Christmas bags. Wrapping paper is really the only thing I enjoy about Christmas. I love piles of it everywhere. It brings me such happiness.

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  16. Have you read "Cheaper by the Dozen" yet? You're half way there . . .

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  17. Oh babe you describe MY life so well.

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  18. What is this wrapping system? I've not heard tale of it before! Have they learned about calling shotgun yet?

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  19. You crack me up. I can't even wrap my brain around having six kids. Let alone getting everything to run to smoothly. You are amazing.

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  20. You are kind of my hero. Mostly because my brain throbbed just thinking about all that you do. And I would have a stroke after one day. The fact that you are still alive means you are some sort of super genetic masterpiece that should be worshiped.

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  21. I bow to your wisom and ingenuity.
    I want to be like you when I grow up.

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  22. My head is spinning. I guess that's a constant state for me anyway, though.

    We accidentally stumbled on a toothbrush solution. My kids have electric toothbrushes that look like different characters: Barbie, Spiderman, Cinderella, etc. But when one child can't find hers, I just hand over someone else's. I guess that's gross. Don't tell my kids that the three-year-old I babysit likes to suck on their toothbrushes while they're at school. She's too cute to yell at. Besides, she's helping my kids build their immunities.

    Amazingly, my kids rarely fight for spots in the car. My only requirement is that the two booster seats go in the middle. Beyond that, it's first-come-first-seated. I think they used to fight for seats until I started just driving and then suddenly braking to scare them all into their seatbelts. Now they just scramble to get seated and buckled before I pull out of the driveway. Plus, we have a highway patrolman in our neighborhood, and I've told stories to make the kids nervous about getting caught without a seatbelt on. I think a good dose of fear of the unknown can be healthy.

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  23. This post scares me! I don't know how you do it all :)

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  24. Holy smokes, I am exhausted.

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  25. It's a good thing you went to college...seriously, who knew that it took so much brain power to raise children....ironic as you said, because the sheer feat of bringing them into this world and maintaining any kind of order from day to day sucks those brain cells away like goldfish up my vacuum cleaner.
    That was a really great post. Love the toothbrush idea except that we could never do fancy ones because I'm pretty sure that one or more toothbrushes touches something like toilet water more often than I would care to know.

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  26. I can so totally relate to this post. It is ironic how much effort we put into things working at our house... esp. inane things like kids brushing their teeth. Maybe I should get fancy ones for my kids too.

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  27. We have this girl that lives with us and every once in a while she'll come upstairs and go "All the Popsicle (insert food packaged by the #) are gone!? Who ate them all?"

    Finally, after hearing this for a million times I said, there are 8 people that live in this house! 8! Do you know how many popsicles are in one box? So mathematically if we all ate one they would be gone!!!
    No one is gorging themselves on the popsicles!

    I actually don't think I convinced her.

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  28. Haha...lovely peek into your lovely craziness...

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  29. Oh, man! I'm glad my kids are raised -- I couldn't do it over again! But enjoy them while you have them, because it all goes by too quickly. Keep smiling!

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  30. At this very moment I'm contemplating a nap. I was tired before your post, but reading this and thinking of your choas made me more tired. I really don't know how you do it - two leaves my head spinning.

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  31. At this very moment I'm contemplating a nap. I was tired before your post, but reading this and thinking of your choas made me more tired. I really don't know how you do it - two leaves my head spinning.

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  32. I just love you. You are a genius and I only have three kids, but still don't know whose toothbrush is whose. Especially since right now they're identical and, you guessed it, the dang permanent marker has worn off.

    Sigh.

    I'm intrigued by your Christmas system. Very, very intrigued. :)

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  33. I found that my mind was fragmented yet again every time I had another child. Yeah, with six life is a series of interruptions, interrupted by more interruptions, which in turn got interrupted....what was I talking about?

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  34. It's so great to "hear" from you again.

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  35. I can't even imagine how you do this! You mothers are wonderful.

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  36. I can't even imagine how you do this! You mothers are wonderful.

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  37. Oh my goodness. You are my hero. I'm taking notes. Honestly, I am!

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  38. HA! I remember talking about this same thing with you a few months ago. In my mind, I think it really is simple! The less melt downs, the better, right?

    Really, isn't parenthood about conquering the complex issues to make the outcome easy, simple, calm, or whatever?

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  39. I'm exhausted just thinking of all of that...and I can't keep clothes straight for 2 kids some days.

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  40. I need a system. Or 12. Pretty desperately.

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  41. Uh-oh. Next year we'll have 5 under 8. I don't think I'm up for this kind of complexity! :)
    I'm thinking that mine would LOVE to desecrate their toothbrushes with a thumb tack, though I probably wouldn't let the 2 year old do it.

    And as for Christmas... We're simplifying by just getting each kid one present. That's right. Santa gets to bring them one cool thing and that's it. He doesn't even wrap it. Sooooo much simpler.

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