Saturdays are cleaning days at our house. It is not always a day welcomed by the wee ones, but when we all work together there is not a lot that needs to be done. The last couple of Saturdays various things have gone on, and I haven't been able to do a very thorough cleaning. Today's agenda was pretty relaxed, so I wanted to get some heavy cleaning done. This included a scrub down of surfaces such as the kitchen, laundry area, shower area, and toilet room floors. These get swept day to day and or week to week.

I also managed to get three loads of laundry done. Two loads went up in the sunroom drying racks. I will confess that the third load a dried in the washer. When we moved, I wanted a washer that if in a pinch I could dry clothes in it. Since it is winter, I usually end up using it once a week. It takes one load of laundry about 3 and a half hours to dry. Perhaps you understand why I do not use it often, but when the drying racks are full and the cold, damp air just isn't getting the laundry dry, then it does help. I am also glad that I have it on days there are pukey kids; since taking icky laundry to a laundromat takes even more time and money.

Corey made dinner tonight. He made a rolled cabbage with some Irish sausage that was very delicious. At least, I thought it was really good. The kids didn't like it, and in spite of their growing manners in this area, they made a heap of noise over it. My final project of the day was...
Hamantashen cookie.

Tomorrow as a church we will celebrate Purim. This is where the story of Esther is read, and Israel celebrates being saved from Haman's plan to kill off the Jews. We will read the Esther story tomorrow and we will have the kids boo whenever the name of Haman is read, but we will have them cheer the good guys, Esther and Mordecai. The cookies are to go with the story. I have never celebrated Purim before, so this is an entirely new area for me. I have done the Esther stories a number of times. I do like the story a lot, and one of my favorite verses of the Bible is from Esther. Esther 4:14 "For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jew will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?"

I leearned a lot tonight about making Hamantashen Cookies. The first round into the oven didn't go so well, but after that I caught on to a very simle trick...water!

This is the often rejected thinking room.

Living in the house with boys can sometimes offer its challenges.  You wouldn’t think that bathroom times would necessarily be points of challenge with boys, but sometimes it is.  Today was one of those kinds of days.  One child steps into the toilet room and another one decides it is his turn to go too.  Mind you, there are TWO---yes, TWO toilets in our house.  Now you would think the most logical thing in the world would be for the 2nd child to head to the hills and take care of business, BUT that idea is usually always balked at.  Today was one of this kinds of days.  Child one needs to go for a long time...perhaps longer than really necessary...  I just love bathroom stall tactics (rolls eyes).  Second child claims the need for toilet is urgent and creating quite a fuss.  Why not do upstairs?  It is really quite simple, they don't like squatting over the squatty potty when their need doesn't involve standing.  I know, more than you all wanted to know, right?! 

First child finally makes it out of toilet, but second child now refuses to go claiming he is fine.  Uh huh.  Really?

Fast forward through a few more school subjects, and I am ready to take a break too.  Then, second child needs the toilet as well.  That child enters the room with the beautiful blue bowl.  No, our toilet room is NOT heated.  No, our toilet does NOT have a heater on the seat.  Just incidentally, I have never lived in a house with a heated toilet seat ever, but I think that I would like to plan on getting one on our tenth anniversary of living here, which happens a year from this May.  Best start saving our yens.  No there is nothing to do in the room...no books, no games, no iPods; just three walls done in pastel blue and a door.  Back to the coveted toilet closet.  It is really all the room amounts to, a closet under the steps, but it is like this weird man cave or something.  Not me, all I can think is get in, get out, and don't freeze the tushy. Second child enters to "camp out" in the freezing toilet closet with the highly coveted blue bowl.  I wait my turn, but as I realize that waiting is not the most practical thing to do, I do what any sensible person would do, I hiked up the steps and entered the squatty room.  No, it isn't the most pleasant of places, but when you really have to go, I don't understand what the big deal is.  When you gotta go, you gotta go!

The morning session of school came to a close, when I stepped into the highly coveted toilet closet, to discover that a boy had struck.  I am sure that you know what that means.  A boy struck yesterday as well.  On that occasion, I simply cleaned the mess and went about my business.  I do not usually do that, but I had just come home from a 20 minute walk where I had been plied with two hot cups of absolutely delicious tea, but between the tea and the cold air and the walk, I needed the toilet urgently and didn't have time to have an offender clean it.  I keep a bottle of vinegar water available for errant urine streams to be cleaned up by their producers.  Usually, the boys, the girls, and the vinegar bottle manage to peacefully co-exist.

Today, though, I wanted to try to get to the heart of the matter.  Errant urine streams gone unchecked are not acceptable.  Just ironically no one knows how the back of the toilet seat top and bottom were wet.  I even heard Maya get blamed (insert quick anatomy lesson here).  Um, no.

So....
What's a gal to do?

The boys are banned from the downstairs bathroom the rest of the day.  They may only use the bathroom upstairs for the rest of the day for the remainder of their toileting needs.  Tomorrow I will run checks on the toilet before they enter and when the leave.  Yes, I am just that mean.  If they are smart, they will clean up before they leave the room.  If necessary, I will go back to banning them from the downstairs bathroom.  If you were curious, Maya, not at fault in any of this, is very capable of using the squatty even with out assistance and does so willingly.  With that being said, complaint toilet girl, is done from here bed claiming her nose needs to be wiped.  She is grinning ear to ear, so I can tell it is just an excuse she created to be out of her bed.  Time to return Little Bit to her bed.