Messes

Mess #1

We've gotten to the point in the school year where I no longer care all that much about combing the boys' hair in the morning. Jack, whose hair is thick and heavy, usually can get by with a gentle hair patting to smooth everything down, except on those mornings after he's had a shower. Then water must be applied. Will, whose hair is fine and light, is another story. It's amazing to me, his hair configurations. What does this child do while he's sleeping to cause such follicular combustions?

The last week or so, if Will's hair isn't too wildly out of whack, I let him walk out the door with various strands sticking out here and there. I've noticed at drop-off I'm not the only mom at Our Fine School who's given up the ghost. It's a regular parade of kids having bad hair days.

It goes without saying that I stopped combing my own hair sometime around February.


Mess #2

So I casually mention to the Man the other day that I might have accidentally torn a teeny tiny little rip in the wallpaper in the living room, oh, two or three weeks a go, and if we ever decide to sell the house we'll have to do something about it. The Man massaged his temples the way he does when a tension headache is in the making, and gently, through clenched teeth, asked me to show him where.

Thus began the Great Wallpaper Peel of 2010.

So, we have an L-shaped living room/dining room area that's not humongous, but it's a nice sized space. The wallpaper, applied by the previous owners, is tasteful but bland--a mottled cream with gold and brown squiggles. It's the sort of wallpaper you can live with while simultaneously hating it with every fiber of your being.

The bad news here is also the good news: it comes off easily. As I found out removing a bit of tape from it a few weeks ago, and as the Man found out Sunday as he began, with reckless abandon, stripping it off the walls. Once he realized it would be an easy job, he took to it with gusto.

Not satisfied to stop with the living room, he soon ventured into the front hall, with its dark blue paper that sucks every drop of light from the foyer and stairway. Turns out that comes off pretty easily too!

So now much of the first floor of my house is littered in wallpaper scraps, and the walls are standing around naked and self-conscious. I'm happy for the wallpaper to come down, but a little scared that the Man will run out of steam before the priming and painting begins.

Messes I Don't Have the Energy to Think about Right Now:

1. Will's room
2. My study (which has become a repository for all the upstairs recycling and the stuff that gets carried upstairs from the living room and family room, but doesn't quite make it to its proper place)
3. Will's room
4. The bathtub in the master bathroom
5. Will's room
6. The mudroom
7. Will's room

Did I mention Will's room?