Friday, March 6, 2009

An Unofficial Poll....

Ok, so I need your input on this one - so if you are an eavesdropping blog-reader (I do that too!) join in this time around and give me your input with a comment. I seriously want to know (need to know) if I am a weirdo. And yes, I probably am to some extent, but I want to see how much...

So the first subject is toys. If you have ever had kids (so even if you're now an empty-nester, you qualify!) how often did you get the kids a new toy? What brought this line of questioning about? I will tell you....here is a conversation I overheard this morning between my older boys...

Huston: Daddy said that he's going to get me a light to put on my bike! He told me last night.
Isaiah: Huston, daddy doesn't get us anything. He only gives us stuff he doesn't want or stuff that he got from work...he's not going to buy you a bike light.

Now I will admit that I can probably count on one hand the number of times I have taken my kids into the toy aisles of a store....and the majority of those times we were buying for someone else. And as the above conversation suggests, Steven is not much of a gift giver - he would categorize the good majority of stuff out there in the stores as a waste of money and space. (but if the junk is old, cheap, or free....well, that's a different matter entirely!) And to his defense I agree with him for the most part - I usually just buy toys for the kids during their birthday or at christmas - rarely in between. Most of the reason I have come to be this way is that A.) they usually will lose interest in the toy just bought, B.) I will be the one constantly picking it up or reminding them to pick it up and it's not worth the effort to me.

Don't worry - these kids have toys - family helps to insure that happens - and I can't tell you how many things we have packed up and given away, taken to the grandparents house for them to use when they visit over there, or donated to classrooms in the church. We have had an overabundance even with my rare-to-buy toy policy. I just want to know how below or above the norm I really am! My kids seem to think they have a better chance of getting hit by lightning than to receive a new toy!

Now don't think that I don't indulge the children at all - but I choose to waste my money on cheap drinks at a fast food restaurant, cause that is a weakness of my own and I pull my kids along for the ride - we don't do it every week, but pretty close and I've been known to do it a couple of times a week as well...

Ok, next inquiry....how often do you deep clean your house - I mean stuff like cleaning your appliances, scrubbing the shower, dusting off the fan blades - that sort of thing? I just can't keep up with it all - I can't remember the last time I have done this sort of cleaning. I barely manage to keep the house swept and straightened. Let me just say the dust bunnies have tons of opportunity to multiply before I get to them again. Isaiah is getting to the age where he helps quite a bit, but my oh my, I just can't keep it going.

So needless to say I am feeling like a fuddy-duddy parent that also requires her toy-deprived children to live in a filthy house. Doesn't all the dirt and germs build up the child's immunity???

6 comments:

RK said...

Holy cow, Jess...you crack me up. I have to be quick here, but you are SO not alone. I don't know how the normal scale works, and I don't think I've ever been on it, but deep clean?!? I moved in to this house in August, and I cleaned it before we moved in. Since then, I've handled the kitchen fairly deeply because it annoys me, and when we rearrange the furniture in a room or something, then I vacuum under stuff and dust the hidden areas of their massive bunnies. But the bathroom! Ick... it's bad, and it rarely ever gets cleaned, I'm embarrassed to say. Sometimes we do a quick vanity, mirror, toilet, and wipe down of the obvious spots, but to truly clean the shower and the floor and so on... far too rare.

And now that I'm trying to feed all four of us, four different meals unfortunately, yeah... it's not gonna get any more clean around here for a while.

OH yeah! And the toy thing. I have young ones, of course, but I have yet to buy Braska a toy. All of them have been supplied by family and friends, and I'm totally fine with that. It's an interesting thing to think of, I must say, when or how often to get new things. I'll be watching to see what the others out there have to say.

RK said...

Ha! That was SO not a quick comment! I got carried away. :)

Brook said...

Besides small gifts for Christmas stockings and Easter baskets, I think the only new toys I ever bought for the boys were if we were spending the money someone gave them. We are given way too many, new and used, to ever buy a new toy.

I used to be a deep house cleaner. But the older I get the less I care, esp. since our bedroom furniture and couch are so heavy. Since our table area is not so big, I had to scrub walls down and the table/chairs good at least once a month. But otherwise, if someone notices it and doesn't like it, they're free to clean for me!

I did notice that our shower/tub needs cleaned when I was using it today, but did that motivate me to clean it? No!

At this point in your life, deep cleaning is unneccessary unless it bothers you. Your children are the most important thing and if your house is a mess, so be it!

Brook said...

That said, I was contemplating what to buy Huston for his birthday. Any suggestions? I have Lillie's gift bought and was going to wrap it today. :)

Mom H said...

Guess there is no reason to comment here. :) You know that you learned most of your housekeeping skills from your mother. :) I think we probably bought more toys than most simply because we were farther from family most of your toy years. :) I don't think they are deprived too much. :)

Anonymous said...

I buy my kids a toy a week, and I deep clean my house each week, too. HAHAHAHAHA! Ya, right!
We get our kids something for their birthdays and Christmas, but they get toys from family at those times, too, so they've always got more than enough.
Every now and then (as in, twice in the past 2 years) I'll give them each a dollar or two and take them to Goodwill. Other than that, it's strictly holidays.

As to the house... I am forced to do more deep cleaning than I want because we're trying to sell it. Even with that I don't do major cleaning until I need to or until I notice it's bad and just do it to get it over with before a showing.
Now that my kids are older (5,7,9) I have them do some of it-- things like wiping down dining room chairs or dusting baseboards. It's not done perfect but it's better than nothing. When my kids were little it was all I could do to keep the high chair decent...
Someone criticized me about the house mess back then, but I stand firm in the belief that what matters is my relationship to my kids, my attitude, and giving my kids time and space to play. Seriously, I don't remember whether our house was clean or not when I was a kid, do you?