Temporary Insanity?

I think I'm going crazy. Last week I just lost it. I looked around our house and I think something just popped in my brain. A brain fart maybe. I hate the paint, the dirty floors, the fact that we have no lamps and now that Fall has arrived we have to sit in the dark after 7:00 p.m., ah but mostly it was the toys, they were everywhere. Not one inch of floor space, toys, toys, everywhere. So I got a really big bucket, I mean really big and I filled it with toys, then I walked down to the basement and dumped it upside down, went back upstairs and did it again and again and again and again, until there was not one toy left in the house. The whole time I was thinking "Uh Hun, this is not normal behaviour, keep your cool you're gonna freak out the kids"; but I couldn't stop myself. Once I had all the toys cleared out of the room I took a very large cubed shaped wall unit out of the room and dumped it into the garbage. When I was done there was one television, one television stand (because they were too heavy to move) and one futon left in the room, oh and the fireplace - it's permanent.

I felt better for some reason. I think being crazy is just better somehow. Al the Man came home raised an eyebrow and said

"Looks like somebody cleaned up"

"Yup"

"Where's all the stuff?"

"In the basement"

"Oh"

Anyway my insanity kicked started a weekend clean up, we finally went down into the basement after two years and started to sort through boxes and boxes of stuff. I organized all the toys, kept some and sent Al the Man off to Value Village with two whole van loads of stuff we have accumulated over the years. The boys played downstairs while we cleaned, Matt asked what we were going to do with all the toys in the bags and I told him that some kids don't have any toys so we are going to give them away to kids that need them; he seemed fine with that. We still have a lot of work to do but it's a start. I also took off to the paint store and ordered some paint, finally after two years I will not have to live in pea soup green any longer. Oh and we shampooed the carpets, I think Al the Man finally realized that I had gone over the edge and that he better go rent a steam cleaner before I took a utility knife to the carpets, the thought crossed my mind and well it's not like I haven't done it before.

The best part though is that since all of the toys have been gone, there is a lot less fighting as there are no toys to fight over or trip over for that matter. I have also rediscovered some really cool stuff that was stashed in bins and Matt and I have spent some quality time practicing his writing skills and making puzzles. I also realized that we have a ton of books, many of which we have not even read, so each night I go downstairs and bring up three books and the boys and I cuddle up on the couch and read stories together which is truly a wonderful tradition that I hope to keep going. We have always read the kiddos a bedtime story but this for some reason is more special and meaningful, we've made it our special time together rather than just a nighttime duty or routine.

I need to bottle some of this insanity, it's been good for me.