Tuesday, April 29, 2014

The summertime plan he CAN'T not agree to

I think most of you are aware of my "What if we..." disease, but just in case you're new or you've forgotten, it goes something like this.

"Hey honey?"

"Yes?"

"I have an idea."

"Uh oh..."

"What if we insert-thing-that-makes-my-husband-want-to-puncture-his-own-eyeballs-to-avoid-doing?"

Sometimes it's "paint the living room and dining room" (done).  Sometimes it's "tear out these gross tiles and replace them with glorious vaulted ceilings in the main areas of the house" (not done. YET.).

This spring it's "get our poor, deprived children a dang play set for outside so that in the summer when I'm just too postpartum to take them anywhere interesting, at least they won't be wandering in circles around our house, barefoot in threadbare clothing, dirt streaked across their cheeks, praying for something, anything to ease their suffering."*

Will you just look at that sad, lonely tire swing, mourning its lack of compadres?

If we put our able-bodied children to work, SURELY we can clear out that space right there and jam in a swing set with a slide and one of those little roofy cover thingies and possibly a sand box.  I mean surely. 

I even went out and had a famous artist draw up a little sketch of how fabulous it could look and WOW, if this doesn't convince the man to spend $500 right before a new baby is born, I don't know what will.


*slight dramatization




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30 comments :

  1. hahaha! My husband is the same way... He rolls his eyes at me often.

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  2. I'm on your side - our playset has bought me tons of children-happily-engaged time, which was a lifesaver when hugely pregnant (and postpartum, I'm assuming, but we're only a few days into that and it's rained the whole time).

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  3. Replies
    1. AbsoLUTEly Craigslist. We paid $160 for ours, replaced $75 with of lumber that was a little squishy and found it later it was a model that would have been $1500 new!! Best deal ever!

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  4. Love your "power point"!! Hope it comes a reality. I'm still waiting on mine :)

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  5. That's a great idea! Get the whole fam (by which I mean older kids and your spouse) to pitch in and you can git er done in no time!

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  6. I love backyard swing sets with lots of kids. It covers so many of my mothering problems as you mentioned. Here's my list:
    1. I'm an introvert
    2. I hate park play dates (see #1)
    3. Repeat #'s 1 & 2
    4. I can't send kids out the back door & sneak a snack while sitting at the park
    5. Supervising kids at the park wears me out so
    6. Repeat #'s 1-5

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    Replies
    1. My list is completely identical to this!

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    2. Then we should be backyard friends instead of the normal park friends.

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  7. My last "great idea" was actually a terribly horrible idea. It seemed so simple: tear off wallpaper, prime and paint walls. What could go wrong?

    Weeeeellll.... apparently the walls underneath said wallpaper are actually nasty particle board. And have a lovely accent of mold along where the baseboards were. So now (and by "now," I mean someday) we're gutting the room (taking down ceiling tiles, pulling off the particle board walls, and taking out the carpet) and then putting up drywall, priming, and painting, and putting in a new floor. I'm now thinking the wallpaper wasn't really that bad. Whoops.

    But a swingset? What could go wrong!?

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  8. I fully endorse this idea! You can't underestimate the powers of a play set. For little and big kids.

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  9. I think you have a future in play-set design. Can you draw me one with one of those monkey-bar trapeze things? :)

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  10. I hear your plea, Dwija!! I've been on the same beg/plead bandwagon for about 6 months now. I've got my goal of sitting on the porch nursing the babe while the boys tear around the yard in a tight grip, and I'm not letting go until it's DONE!! :)

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  11. I convinced my hubby last fall and it was a wonderful decision. My youngest is 4 months and it has been super helpful having a place for my other two to play while I'm nursing the baby on the couch. I can just watch them through the big living room windows and don't have to even bring the littlest out into the elements! Love it! You should totally look on Craigslist...ours has three swings, a built in picnic table underneath, fort up top, and slide...and I was able to get it for $100. Hubby had to disassemble, re-stain, and assemble, but it saved a lot of money! :) Good luck!!!

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  12. I agree, play set is a must. Definitely look for a well loved set on craigslist ( a lot of times in the free area ). Sometimes you can even find wood chips & mulch for free on there too, when you are ready to finish the play area off.

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  13. Rosie loves hers. It keeps the "big kids" (ages 3 and 4—oh, sorry, 4.75) busy while she does frivolous things like cook and read to toddlers.

    Pretty sure she had the same professional swingset designer as yours, too. It looks just about identical.

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    Replies
    1. The artist's rendering is beautiful. And YES you really really REALLY need one. REALLY a lot. Ours is worth its weight in gold and it's only going to get more and MORE use over the years as the kids get older. It's absolutely impossible to get them all out of the house to a playground that isn't one ginormous safety hazard, but having our own means the big kids can get out whenever they want, and next summer the twins should be old enough to be out there on their own too!

      Think you can find a cheap one on the internet and buy it, sight unseen?

      New blog name. Swingset Unseen.

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  14. I am afflicted with this disease as well. It's like tourette's, I truly can't control myself from saying "I have an idea....what if we....?" My husband just rolls his eyes at me and usually agrees :)

    Have you seen the totally-awesome natural playscape ideas on Pinterest? They look fantastic and might be easy on the budget! We got a fantastically-huge swing set from friends on Facebook who moved into a house with a swing set but had no kids (or apparently plans for kids....clearly not Catholic, lol!). Since I AM Catholic and we already had two boys we took them up on their offer to take it off their hands. So we got a $2000 swing set in solid if grayed condition for $0. It's huge but totally worth it :)

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  15. Look how happy that lonely tire swing looks now! He should totally agree to this, if for nothing more than the happiness of the tire swing!
    ps: we have a play set that gets very lonely at times. hint hint

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  16. I love a swingset but not a sandbox. My eyes see a sandbox and my brain interprets it as more work!! Sweeping, vacuuming, wiping it off little feet and hands. Sand in hair, sand in shoes. Sand in eyes....and then the screaming and crying and gnashing of teeth. I do not like a sandbox. We did have a sand table once and some brilliant internet person said to but rice in it instead. Fabulous. Until it molds. Talk about a husband rolling his eyes...

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  17. This is when I'm glad I have neighbors...they let us use theirs any time!! Free.99, you know. Can't be that.

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  18. Looks like a good Mother's Day present.

    I do this to my poor husband all the time. Despite having number six due in June, I convinced him this spring was a good time to get back into raising chickens, despite the fact that they're a pain in the butt and always get eaten by the local bobcat.

    I can't find this word anywhere else but our priest the other day joked how he knew his former teacher, Sister Somebody, was in heaven because he was her "purgator". I figure that's what I am for my husband - just helping him to hopefully skip time in purgatory and go straight to Heaven as I help him become ever more saintly.

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  19. I'm sure if you showed him that amazing artistic rendering of your future backyard that he would immediately start working on it. Speak his language and all that.

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  20. So worth it for exactly the reasons you give. I have four children all approximately 2 years apart. We got the exact playset sketched by your artist when number 2 was 2 years old, number 3 soon due. We got more than our money's worth out of it in hours of semi supervised play by me. Even when girls got older they would go down there for peace and quiet. Months of my son's life were spent in that sand box.

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  21. Not to make your lust even worse, but your fabulous design looks just like the one that we have. We found the plans online and I lusted after it for a few years before I finally convinced my husband to bite the bullet and do it (with the help of my father and FIL...in stages). Without being able to share a pic of ours, here is the pic of the design. We. Love. It. It's 2 years old now and still gets hours upon hours of playtime. - Lauren (sorry, I know Google likes to call me "unknown," I don't know why!
    http://www.rockler.com/backyard-playhouse-plan?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=&utm_content=pla&utm_campaign=PL&sid=V9146&gclid=COPhm9Szib4CFZRcfgodqSIAEw

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  23. According to the article I'm pasting, it looks like you don't need a swingset, you need what you've already got + some dangerous stuff. http://www.theatlantic.com/video/archive/2014/03/europes-adventure-playgrounds-look-way-more-fun/284521/

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  24. My own dear husband said "Gee, that sounds sooooo familiar!"

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  25. Hahahaha! I LOVE THIS! I actually copy/pasted your "get our poor deprived children..." quote into evernote to use when I need said playground in the very near future! good stuff! ;)

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