Note to readers:
I wrote this post once already…and it was terribly witty. Right as I was ready to hit the button to publish it, my dog literally pulled the plug on it. She did. I swear it. She lay on the computer’s electrical cord and pulled it out of the wall. My entire post was lost. What you see below is my attempt to re-create what was going to make you laugh, nod in agreement, and write wonderful notes to me at 1downtoearthangel@gmail.com. You see, my blog is about the lessons and values I learned from my forefathers and foremothers and so I press on; because “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

HERE IS A NICE HAIKU 🙂

Playpen

mesh and metal box
limits liberty and toys
clean, organized, happy home

When my grandmothers were bringing up my parents, aunts and uncles, they used collapsible, thinly padded playpens made of netting and metal to contain those children from destroying everything that they could get their grubby little fingers on. Today’s experts pontificate that the least restrictive environment is best for babies’ development. Today’s experts apparently have one child each–and a nanny.

As I was sitting down to post something creative, insightful and amazing on this blog last week, I heard a clanging sound. It was coming from the living room. One of the twins had overturned a basket for toys and used it instead as a stool to climb up on so she could reach a picture frame. The clanging sound was the babies sitting happily on the carpet, playing with the broken glass. My creative, insightful thoughts went skittering out of my brain as I cleaned up the glass.

Neither baby was cut and the frame is replaceable. The twins were understandably angry with me for taking away their cool new toy, but I placated them and got them situated and came back to the computer to give you something nice to read. (I’m working on a new song about friendship. You’ll like it. But it’s not ready yet. But I digress…) In the middle of that, I went to check on the little darlings again. Rebecca had got the nipple off her bottle and had dumped eight ounces of apple juice onto the carpet AND taken off her diaper and marched around the living room, marking her territory. Skitter away again, creative thoughts…

So, I put the babies down for a nap and pulled out a sharp utility knife and my trusty “do it yourself” attitude passed down to me from my parents and grandparents and proceeded to tear out all the carpet in my living room and hallway. My ugly carpet is a thing of the past and we are walking on a painted plywood sub-floor until we decide and can afford what is next. Walking on sub-floor isn’t exactly how one ‘keeps up with the Joneses’ but I couldn’t care less. I imagine Grandma would have said something like, “Clean and ugly is better than dirty and ugly.” Anyway, that’s what I say and I have hated that carpet since we moved in. I could never keep it clean and it was a hideous 1990’s mauve-pink color. Plus, it gives me a good reason to work faster on my braided rug (another lesson from the past, YAY!)

The babies are napping which has given me the opportunity to write this blog post (Twice!See note to readers above) but the living room sub-floor is covered in toys and I know I’m about to run out of the time I need to mop the kitchen floor before they wake up and start terrorizing the house again…so, does anyone have a giant playpen that my little raccoons–ahem, I mean babies–can’t climb out of?