Somewhere between

It may seem weird, but I find myself needing good organization more now as a stay-at-home mom than I did when I was employed.

Until recently, I felt I could mostly keep it all together in my head. The child-less will scoff, but I feel like there’s just more in there now, and it’s finally getting harder to keep it all straight.

I’ve always known that organization would make me more efficient, more effective, and I’ve tinkered around with various to-do list organization and format over the years but nothing has stuck.

I’m always trying out some new variation – post-it notes, big notebooks, little notebooks, electronic – in a New Effort to Get My S*** Together. It’s probably partly just because I’ve always loved making lists. I just never seem very good about using them.

Then there are the mosquitoes.

Ronnie gets mauled every time he leaves the house. To take out the trash. To water the plants. To put the car seat in. Every time.

He’s taken to dousing himself in bug spray, wearing repellent bracelets and lighting up citronella candles and torches and still gets bit. It’s a phenomenon.

I, a bit guiltily but eternally grateful, seem to be immune. For years I’ve sat by as my mom, sister and good friend have gotten eaten alive, escaping with nary a welt. I can’t explain it – I feel bad for them but am thankful for me. No need for us all to suffer, right?

But still, I can’t really enjoy our outdoors if Ronnie can’t. Visions of cookouts and picnicking and camping in the back yard are out the window, figuratively, regretfully, rather than literally. 

So why do I say we may have moved a bit quick? Oh, only because our rental house has turned out to be pretty much a House of Horrors. But in other, arguably far more important, ways, it’s great.

Who’s to say what would have happened if we looked more before we leaped. We probably would have saved some headaches but suffered others, so I’ll take the ones we got.

The big one – and it’s a biggie, maybe one that could drive me off – is the bug situation.

It is a situation. The ants, having taken over the whole big yard we were looking forward to enjoying, mount periodic campaigns to invade the indoors. We keep beating them back, but each maneuver is gaining further ground: the sunroom, the dining room, the kitchen. The latest assault on the pantry was severe.

Babies and toddlers are fascinated with cell phones – there are buttons and sounds and of course that adults seem pretty fascinated with them.

I’m not the mom who hands her $300 phone over to be slobbered and chewed all over then dropped, but I do let him handle it a bit, providing he’s sitting on a soft surface and it doesn’t go near his mouth.

Now, before he gets his hands on it and calls someone or loses the email I was writing (yes both have happened), I hit a button to start Toddler Lock. It’s a free app for Android phones that locks up the phone for doing anything but drawing little squiggles on the touch screen.

So we ended up in Greenville, S.C. – didn’t mean to be dramatic with the suspense, just trying to catch up in bursts.

To reiterate, this is Ronnie’s hometown, where his parents live. Despite their good-natured campaign, it wasn’t really on our radar when we were considering where we’d go next.

We had a notion that we’d end up around Asheville, in the mountains with a notable music and beer scene. But a recent actual visit hadn’t won us over. We haven’t given up on the idea that there’s a home for us up there, but it’s gonna take more exploration.

“What if we thought about Greenville?” I threw out one evening, and it was like it was almost decided by that.