The dead bird {selling the house with 5 kids}

Having my house on the market with 5 kids has been nothing short of a cluster f*ck. I say that with all due respect. To have your house show ready, you need:

• The beds made. All 6 of them that we are sleeping in.
• Laundry put away. Laundry for 6 people. Meaning, the 1 adult adult, me-- who does the laundry-- and the 9, 7, 7, 3, and 1 year olds who create most of the laundry.
• The laundry situation is a nightmare. Can we please talk about the sheets? The kitchen towels? The bath towels?
• Did I mention the laundry?
• Neat and tidy. We are talking toys in the bedrooms. In the loft. In the halls. In the bathrooms {why are there toys in the bathroom?!}. On the stairs. In the family room. In the kitchen. In every single nook and cranny of our house.
• Horizontal surfaces cleared. This means the folders from school that get emptied x3 everyday have to be immediately taken care of. The bathroom counters in all 3.5 of our bathrooms have to be cleared. The kitchen counters. Nightstands. Bookcases. Do you understand how many horizontal surfaces a house has?!
• Rooms presentable. Pillows arranged cute. Curtains pulled back. Beds arranged pleasantly. Inviting and welcoming.
• Smells good. My house. With 4 boys and a toddler, smell good. I just... can't begin to explain the struggle.
• Dishes. Breakfast means 5 dishes. {Do you think I get to eat my breakfast off of a plate? No. I eat their scraps. I shove my face with my food wrapped in a paper towel. Or my breakfast is some sort of protein shake and granola bar. Moms don't eat in the morning.} Lunch means packing 3 lunches for our elementary kids every day and feeding 2 toddlers + myself every afternoon. They also like a snack. And dinner. Making dinner for 6 people. And then letting them eat in the house. 
• The yard. Cleaning the outside toys up. Keeping the garden beds weeded and the grass cut. The yard work was easy to hire out. The watering and the cleaning is not.
• And let's not forget the quick "wipe down the kitchen counters and do a quick sweep" before I head out of the house. The toddlers love when I strap them in their carseats and run back in for a quick clean.

The timeline for this has pretty much been keeping the house clean to this level every day so I'm wasn't having to do a full clean for every showing. Maintaining this level of clean meant a lot of meals out since cooking dinner and feeding 5 kids at home basically meant a full kitchen clean each time. We also spent a lot of time outside, in the backyard or in the front yard. I cut down on cleaning bathrooms by having everyone use my bathroom... annoying, yes, but far less bathrooms to clean. As soon as we got home in the evening and showings were over, I started a load of laundry. I did 2 loads of laundry every night and did any cleaning I needed to do, like mopping or bathrooms. I would get the kids to bed about 7:30/8 pm and then clean most nights at least until 9 pm on a good night and 11 pm or later on a bad night. It was grueling at first but became routine after a bit and then tedious and monotonous. I was really looking forward to when it would all be over.

As for dealing with the kids during that time, it was stress. Lots of frustration when they would walk through the house with dirty shoes or when they would dump out a bucket of Legos. I would get so frustrated when I would walk in their rooms after they went to school and the closets were all ajar, laundry was on the floor, art on the tables, books sprawled all over their beds. I sent them up every morning before they left to do a clean sweep and it usually still left a lot for me to do.

Getting the toddlers out after the older 3 went to school was a nightmare. I would be putting things away while the 1 year old followed after undoing all my work. The 3 year old would be somewhere else throwing the pillows off the couch or unloading drawers. Hence why I tried to do my last clean sweep after getting them strapped into their carseats, containing their destruction. 

The other day the house needed a good cleaning. I spent a lot of the day cleaning the house so I wouldn't be up all night mopping {which I hate}. I struggled to clean with the toddlers, who of course are not helpful when you are trying to clean, and then the older 3 came home from school. I gave them all popsicles and sent them in the backyard. The kids kept coming in and out and in and out of the house, tracking grass each time. I laid a towel down on the floor by the sliding door to help with the debris. "Mom, can you guess my popsicle flavor?" as the green popsicle drips all over the towel and clean floor. I sent them outside each time.

Eventually my oldest comes back in with the 1 year old. "She doesn't want to play outside." I tell him, fine, turn on some shows for her. He slides the backdoor shut and she starts screaming to go back out. They go in and out and in and out a few times until I'm all done with that game and the 1 year old had successfully shoved her hand through the screen door {which I'm sure will be noticed on the home inspection}. They finally decide on "in" and settle their filthy selves in the family room.

One of my 7 year olds creeps up next, "I'm all done outside. I want to go upstairs and work on my cat's cradle." Fine, but don't make a mess upstairs. He slinks up the stairs after slipping his shoes off and putting them away.

I hear my other 7 year old and my 3 year old giggling outside. It makes me happy that at least 2 of them are successfully playing outside for an extended period of time. They love playing "Mom and Dad" which is basically where everyone pretends they are members of a family. Someone is the mom, someone is the dad, someone is the baby. I poke my head out the window to see what the "mom and dad" are doing and I see them cooing over their little baby, cradled in my 3 year olds arms. The baby was a dead bird. And not a teeny tiny bird either, but one about the size of a large potato. I grab a plastic Target bag {thankfully I've been well stocked lately with all my Target runs} and sprint outside. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING." "It's our baby, Momma." "We found him!" I snatch the bird out of the 3 year old's arms and he starts crying, "That's my baby." I try explaining that he can't play with dead birds, but the 7 year old is rambling about where they found it and what possibly killed it, "It could have flown really, really fast into the side of our house, but then it's head would be flat... so it probably saw the biggest worm every and choked on it... or it had a heart stop and couldn't get a pacemaker in time..."

With a dead bird in a bag in one hand and a wailing 3 year old in the other, I march inside, fling the bird in the garage, and start cleaning up the 3 year old. I decide to wash him off before I bring him upstairs for a bath. As I'm washing, the toddler comes in the bathroom and mumbles something. There is a strong smell in the bathroom now, very unpleasant. I look down and notice brown hands, a diaper pushed to about mid-thigh, and a very concerned look on her face. Good Lord.

So I make bird hands walk up the stairs and I carry shit hands. We make our way to the master bath, where I'm only letting the kids bathe, and start screaming for the 9 year old. He isn't coming, which isn't usual. I'm starting to panic. How will I set down this 1 year old? How will I get them both in the bath and preserve all the hard work I've done cleaning the house today? I round the corner at the top of the stairs and come face to face with... beads. Beads everywhere. Who gave my kids beads? I thought I put the beads up? My 7 year old looks up and beams at me, "Mom, I'm making you something. You've been working so hard so I want you to have something special." I mumble thank you and start wondering if I can give the 9 year old instructions on how to make a cocktail... {when I realize, he could just bring me the whole bottle of vodka} and I think... wait, where is my 9 year old? I call again and he responds this time, "Mom, I had a problem." I holler back, "Don't worry about it, bud, I will help you in a minute. Can you come help me real quick?"

He plods up the stairs and follows me into the master bath. I set down the toddlers and start giving instructions to the 9 year old. He doesn't move. I look up at him and it's like someone hit him in the face with a water balloon filled with blood. "WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU." He mumbles, "I got a nose bleed," his voice nasally as he has shoved tissues up both nostrils. "No..." I reply in disbelief, "...no. Not in the..." "Yeah," he says, "in the family room." "It's okay," I tell him. It's okay, I tell myself. He is prone to nosebleeds and he is really, really good about taking care of them when they happen. Seasons changing gives him nosebleeds and he's had quite a few over the past couple weeks. A big one like this isn't unusual for him, but they don't happen as often as the smaller ones.

He follows my instructions and we get the toddlers bathed. While he drains the tub and dries the toddlers, I start on the bird, shit, and blood laundry. I really watch my tone talking to my beading 7 year old, but I strongly suggest we bead, you know, not ever again in this house. We get the toddlers dressed and head past the bead mess. Come downstairs to my blood and dirt coated family room.

My other 7 year old is lounging on the couch, dirty feet up on the cushions, back door ajar. "What. In Fresh Hell. Are you doing." Thankfully I only say it in my mind. What I actually say comes out in a very high pitched voice, "Hey, bud, what you doin'." "Watching shows." Watching shows. I ask if he cleaned his feet and he says, "Yup." And points to the towel that I had put by the back sliding door to catch dirt. He dragged it in the family room and had rubbed the dirt off his feet in there. There was a trail of outdoors from the backdoor to the couch.

I start laughing. Loudly. My floors are filthy. My family room is filthy. My upstairs is on it's way to being destroyed. I did so much work today and it was ruined in an hour. I throw my hands up and decide, "What the heck. I'm making dinner." And so even with our house on the market and 5 kids, I made dinner. I stayed up until almost midnight that night cleaning.

While I was cleaning after the kids went to bed, I ran out of Method Antibacterial cleaner. I remembered I had bought some at Target. I looked everywhere for my Target bag and remembered my 3 year old brought it in the house for me, but I couldn't find where he set it. I realized he probably left it in the van and so I went out in the garage to grab the bag, and, what do you know, there it was sitting on the floor of the garage. I scoop the bag up, plunge my hand in, and grab the cleaner.

Except, it's not the cleaner.

It's a potato size dead bird.

And that's pretty much how it was having our house on the market with 5 kids.