Twin Momma sets up house

Did you know they make floppy-head mops that you can squeeze without getting your hands wet? I found one on a recent trip to Target to buy some of my stay-at-home mom (SAHM) supplies. I was annoyed that I couldn’t find a metal washboard in the same aisle. I need something to scrub the brown out of Turtle’s Mr. Lovey. It may be a lost cause at this point, but that thing is nasty. I bought a new one, a back-up Mr. Lovey, hoping it would buy me time to really soak and clean official Mr. Lovey. She took the new one, put it in her mouth, and then promptly threw it on the ground. I’m not sure how to give back-up Mr. Lovey that “rotten formula mixed with slobber and old snot” smell she seems to enjoy so much. But I digress.

So back to my Target trip. I haven’t used the mop yet, but I’m feeling very proud to have it. We’ve had a housekeeper who brings her own supplies for a long time so I’ve stopped keeping up with cleaning products. Before, we could get away with not lifting a finger between her twice-a-month visits, but with my cooking messes and two babies throwing food, milk and juice on the floor all day (and eating any peas or cheerios they find, no matter how old), the kitchen needs a tad more attention.

In addition to the mop, I got an egg slicer at Target. I was so excited to use it the next morning. Why did I waste so much time with knives and cutting boards? How could I have forgotten the beauty of the egg slicer? We had one when I was a child, but I haven’t had much of a need to chop boiled eggs for the past 25 years. So the egg slicer was a lost memory until I started brainstorming about all the things I’d like for my life as a SAHM.

I mentioned a few items on my list to N before Christmas but he flat out refused to buy me a new vacuum cleaner or laundry basket or a washboard or a mop. And he told me not to bother putting any of those things on my Amazon wish list either.

“No one wants to buy you a mop for Christmas,” he said.

“But I really need one,” I said, “I think it would be kind of neat to get a laundry basket full of all these cool housewifey supplies.”

“I don’t think you really ‘get’ Christmas,” he said.

What I couldn’t explain at the time that I understand now is that getting me a basketful of domestic gadgets would be like getting Turtle and Monkey a play kitchen. In my mind, everything I do at home is cute because it’s like I’m playing house. I had that feeling soon after the girls were born, when I was walking across the living room and I pulled a pacifier out of the pocket of my robe. “Look at me,” I thought to myself, “carrying a pacifier around for my baby, like some kind of grown-up woman!”

I thought the “cuteness” would wear off after months of diapers, loading and unloading the dishwasher, cleaning high chair trays umpteen times a day, and the sheer grind of “every day is groundhog day.” But it didn’t. Even in the most challenging moments (several of which I’ve described in this blog) I can feel a part of me – the part that isn’t panicking or suppressing a scream – looking down at myself in total amusement. Just LOOK at you, that other woman says, laughing. You get to be the mommy today!

And so I’m having a ball collecting all these little things for the house, the toys I want, to help me play house with gusto.