Streamlining, Assembly Lines, and Reality

I had such a great time seeing pictures of everyone's cute kids in their Easter finery.  I enjoyed them extra much because I so did not pull off Easter pictures this year. But, let me paint you a word picture.

First there was Littles. Sure, his shirt was still on the big side and his shoes are threatening to walk themselves to the trash can, but on the whole, he looked presentable. No noticeable stains or tears. But in a show of solidarity with Tiny and an effort to avoid Bruiser's hair pulling, he buzzed off all his beautiful brown hair on the Saturday before so he pretty much looked like a stranger to me. Thankfully, he left his eyelashes. This time.

Then there was Tiny, who was impeccably turned out until his lip got split by a wooden block that some nameless brother decided to chuck at his face. The split lip got blood all over his white sleeves, but changing him into a clean shirt before church? Ain't nobody got time for that.

The twins both had snot all over their faces (and then got snot all over me). Bee got orange juice on her sweater before lunch, and Bruiser's new pants were a little on the long side, but it was so nice to not have a direct line of sight on both of his knee caps that no one minded. 

We may be a little on the rag tag side of things these days, but things are settling now, more and more. I'm starting to think in terms of streamlining, and that's helped a lot. Sure, sometimes that means thinking of my children as parts in an assembly line, but if it gets everyone dressed and out the door with a minimum of tears, yelling, and lost tempers, I call that winning.

I'm making To Do lists and then organizing those To Do lists by priority and cutting myself slack where it just isn't going to happen. I'm working to decrease wasted time so that the work we do is more efficient. And I finally got maps hung in the homeschool room, so evidently I'm rocking that too.

The Man has taken to running our budget from his phone, and we are sticking to it with glorious rigidity. Bills that can be paid on schedule are being scheduled as such. Daily and weekly schedules are being compared and meshed appropriately. Streamlining. It's a beautiful thing.

I'm starting to mull over terms like minimalism, as well. As in: if I get rid of more stuff, there's less stuff to put away. Fewer toys = less pickup = fewer fights. Hmm. Also, fewer clothes = fewer choices = nudist colony. Just kidding. But I am kind of obsessed with the idea of a capsule wardrobe right now. Unfortunately, the fact that my post baby body is still shifting makes things a little problematic at times.

Oh, we also moved the twins back into the nursery together. Which means that the Man has his office back! He's celebrating by going through all our files and culling the herd under the watchful eye of the creepy squirrel. (I feel like I just mixed metaphors there, but I really didn't. And I'm sitting in the study with him as I write this, and even though I tried really hard to sit outside of said squirrel's line of sight--he's still watching me.)

Is there a point to this blog post? Yes. Streamlining. Minimalism. And getting my ducks in a row. It's spring and I feel the urge to get my purge on. Wow. That sounded way worse when I typed it out than it did in my head. But what I'm trying to say is: that closet underneath the stairs that we shoved random boxes in when we moved because we were both too strung out on sleep deprivation and twins? I think there may actually be hope for it. And quite possibly for all the other things in our lives that have been left at loose ends.

{No pictures of the big boys today, but you get pictures of the twins from last Sunday. That bow stayed in Bee's hair for all of the 30 seconds it took me to take that picture. And you can see how well  my attempt to get a picture of them together went over. The two bottom pictures are actually from Easter because I may forget to take pictures of my kids, but you know I'm not going to miss the chance to take a picture of my table and our homemade, watercolor bunting--thanks, Littles.}