The B-List: YEP, IT'S A BIOHAZARD

I spent a good deal of time this past weekend doing the cleaning that was supposed to happen last week, which was actually the cleaning from the week before, pushed to the limits of reasonable procrastination. Maybe it's the humidity, but lately the most I can seem to manage is to gather up the toys, laundry, paper goods, etc. that accumulate hourly on every available surface. Bugglehubby defines this process of straightening as cleaning, a discrepancy which, back when we employed a housekeeper, used to provoke this exact conversation every other Tuesday at ten p.m.:

"The cleaning lady is coming tomorrow. So I need you to pick up all of your crap."
"That's what a cleaning lady is for."
"But if you don't pick up your junk, she's just going to clean around it."
"Sounds like we're paying her too much."

Anyway, by the time I get all of the straightening done, I'm too tired and demoralized to proceed to actual filth removal. So this weekend I put the Bugglekids on dusting duty, and vacuumed the floors. But I just can't bring myself to tackle the bathrooms. To wit:

• There is some mysterious reddish ring forming around the drain in my bathroom sink. Every time I wash my hands I can't decide whether to chastise myself for not scrubbing it with Lysol yet, or to push on through to what must only conclude in the discovery of a powerful new antibiotic thriving in there.
  
• During tubby time, I have to sit with a flyswatter to whack the kids' hands away from the icky mildew growing where the tub meets the tiled wall. Why do they always have to touch there?
• I'm sure that if I scraped all of the dried-up purple "soamy foap" and electric-blue-sparkly toothpaste petrified around the basin of Bugglegirl's sink, I might not be so surprised that we have to make a Target run already.
  
• After removing Bugglegirl's nasty potty seat, I actually put paper down ON MY OWN TOILET this afternoon. Something I haven't felt compelled to do since the spring quarter in college I spent crashing on one of those foam couch/beds covered in burnt-orange velour, sleeping off a Vicodin buzz.
  

Call me spoiled, but I'm just not cut out for cleaning toilets. Unidentifiable bits and man-hairs are just not my forte. Don't misunderstand; I'm not a total heathen. All I need is the threat of unexpected company and I'll be in there in a HAZMAT suit with the Clorox channeling my inner OCD in no time flat. Please, just don't drop by until tomorrow.

The B-List: LIKE CAMPING, ONLY CROWDED

Since you're reading this, you'll surmise that I survived the Fourth of July weekend at the Grandbuggles' lake house. Better known in my internal dialogue as Place Of 1,000 Ways My Children Might Die, Or Simply Make Me Miserable.

Here's a tally of the most notable happenings:

• I wore a swimsuit. Not as underwear, which is routine for me at the beach - but without camouflage. And not just any swimsuit, but the one Bugglehubby bought me for our Caribbean vacation (where NO ONE knew me). Apparently my butt has grown since last September. I couldn't manage to tug the thing down over my cheeks without showing cleavage. Isn't that "in," these days?
  
• Buggleboy slept soundly in the pack and play. Thoughts of the sleeping situation (four bedrooms for seventeen adults and kids) were giving me high anxiety for days. But he was content as could be, if a bit sweaty. Worried he might discover how to climb out of the playpen, I left only the window at the far end of the room open. I decided that stuffy air was preferable to my child plummeting through the screen onto the pine-needle -blanketed forest floor below.
• No one was struck by a car as we crossed the street to the lake. Last year my niece was nearly hit. This year her little sister scraped up both knees trying to bolt across. I realized that the drivers who don't stop or even slow down when they see three adults trying to wrangle a wagon, two coolers, four beach bags and six little kids across a windy mountain road with no sidewalks are probably thinking the same thing I'm thinking: What are you, some kind of moron?
• I only uttered "I'd so much rather be at home right now" two times. After one of which Buggledaddy actually stepped in and removed the screaming child gripping my kneecaps.
• Bugglegirl slept down at the dock. In a pack and play, without sedatives, surrounded by cousins playing. This is the kid who chased me around the airport from midnight to four-thirty in the morning when we were snowed in. Who hasn't slept in a stroller since she was six months old. Can mountain air be bottled?
• I drank beer. In the middle of the day. Even though the chances of Buggleboy toppling into the lake were certainly higher for my doing so. Oh, and get this - I had fun. For this I'm mainly crediting my efforts to complain only minimally beforehand. And perhaps the aforementioned mountain air. And naturally the beer.
  

The B-List: SOME THINGS I MISS MOST

• Shopping. I know a mom who's taken three kids into the Nordstrom dressing room. I'll show up at your wedding in my puff-sleeved floral junior high cotillion dress before I endure that kind of torture.
• Boobs. Yeah, I know - there really wasn't much to begin with. Thanks, Bugglekids.
• Movies. Bugglehubby and I used to see so many films we had to comb the fine print of the entertainment section for anything worth seeing. We spent hard-earned cash on flicks like Driven, eXistenZ and The Mummy Returns.
  
• Personal time. All I'm gonna say here is that I look forward to the day when Flush the Potty isn't one of my kid's favorite stories.
  
• Exercising solo. So long, spur-of-the-moment hike. Farewell, spontaneous yoga class. Now when I leave the house I've got more people and equipment than J-Lo backstage at the Latin Grammys.
• Adult interaction. I think I'm becoming one of "those people." You know, the TMI mom who tells the clerk at Sport Chalet the detailed history of her tendonitis, then chats up the guy at Starbuck's with the reasons why it makes total sense to order whipped cream on a nonfat latte.

Alas, I wasted so much time. I only realize it - and miss it - now because it's gone. Of course I wouldn't trade it for what I've gained in return. Not right at this moment. Hell, it's naptime.

The B-List: THINGS I SHOULDN'T CARE ABOUT BUT DO

• My pores. Yes, Bugglehubby, that's what I'm doing in the bathroom - checking out my sun damage in a magnifying mirror. I'm sorry to say it involves neither magazines nor lotion.
  

• My obsessive-compulsiveness. Oh, the bittersweet irony.

• My kids' television viewing habits. Which is worse: an extra episode of Jack's Big Music Show, or a real-life version of Mommy's Big Breakdown Show?

• The cluttered messiness of my house. It's not like, TLC-organizer-intervention-worthy or anything, but I'm pretty sure this is not what Rachel Ashwell had in mind for the term "shabby chic."

• Aging. Read: sagging, wrinkling, bagging, dimpling, slouching, jiggling. Oh - and sometimes peeing just a teensy bit when I sneeze. Thanks, Bugglekids.

• Trash TV. Specifically: Would Lindsay Lohan rather go back to rehab than be caught dead in her family's reality show? Will Kim Kardashian's butt be featured as a balloon in the next Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade? What the hell is up with Kimora Lee Simmons' neck?

The B-list: THINGS I SHOULD CARE ABOUT BUT DON'T

• Parabens. Though I have started checking labels before I buy, I could eat L'Occitane hand cream for dessert. I don't much care if there's kangaroo dung in it.

• Kaipo, our miniature parrot. The thing might live thirty years. But I'm sorry, anything that poops in its own bed is Buggledaddy's domain.

• Our "emergency kit," completely inaccessible in our junkyard garage, that consists of an economy pack of Ivory soap and a roll of paper towels. We'll be the cleanest survivors ever.

• My recent, unconscionable neglect of my feet. If I'm suddenly broke and homeless I can earn spare change by demonstrating to pedestrians the Velcro-like action of my heels.

• Our inexcusable lack of grown-up documents. Every time Buggledaddy and I go away for a couple of days I'm up late the night before, scrawling notes about where to leave the kids in case I don't make it back. This is why I'm going to get hit by a bus a block away from home.

• Buggleboy's finger sucking. My mother's direly pessimistic world view has for the first time proved useful. "Don't worry about it," she said. "Your kids are destined for orthodontia no matter what you do."

• Sports. Poor Bugglehubby. The only reason I go to any game is to nosh on hot dogs. And perhaps to rip on the dancing girls.

• Our next president. I know, I can feel your ire through cyberspace. But unless he's delivering a basket of Snookie's Cookies and a per-diaper-change compensation check, que sera, sera.
  

• American Idol. I could sit on my high horse right now but for the fact that I am completely up to date on Kim Kardashian's sex life. Look out for more trash t.v. in next week's "THINGS I SHOULDN'T CARE ABOUT BUT DO."
  

The B-List: NAME THAT DOLL

After some initial prodding, Bugglegirl has finally embraced wholeheartedly the task of naming her dolls. At first she wasn't particularly jazzed on the idea, which yielded her Bitty Twins' fairly ho-hum monikers, Dolly and Eddie. But now she's branching out, a pint-sized linguist synthesizing culturally-sensitive names from around the globe. Some of them sound Russian. Others, vaguely scientific. I'm pretty sure at least one is an STD.

• Peta
• Chipson
• Brianna
• Crunchdents
• Ezra
• Colacha
• Katrina

I'm sorry to report that Colacha's dog recently passed. Services are being held near the toy basket, snacktime to follow.

Like Lindsay Lohan. Only neater. And old.

I've been thinking that I need to whip this whole blog thing into shape. In case any of you were placing wagers, I managed to leave well enough alone for 28 days. My own little OCD rehab stint. But also plenty of time for me to overANALyze it, to use Bugglehubby's catch word for all of my compulsive quirks. Can you feel the love?

In order to provide a bit of focus and motivation, as well as to satisfy my inherent, maniacal need for absolute control, I'm hereby implementing a schedule of sorts, subject to change depending on whateverthehelliwant. Stay with me here. I'm much more fun when I get my routine fix.

We'll start off slowly; no need to hit the hard stuff yet. A tidy little list to kick off the week. I'm marking it down on both my schedule and my to do list for Monday, which kinda makes my toes tingle. Good stuff.