Baseboard Stories, part 2

Cleaner. Cloth. Dirt.

Simple, right? As in, a four year old should be able to do this task without destroying any major appliances? Apparently not.

I decided to clean the baseboard in our bedroom today. I still haven't finished cleaning all of the baseboard in the bathroom, but adulting is all about choosing your battles. I chose to move onto another room, because I thought there might be more interesting things to write about in the master bedroom. It basically just turns out that there are interesting things to write about whenever Owen is involved.

Per usual, I offered the kids options after they got up from nap. Option 1--draw pictures to mail to Grandma and Pop-Pop. Option 2--write letters to the Hamways. Option 3--put boots on and stomp in puddles outside. Option 4--work on baldrics for their swords and shields. Option 5--help with dusting and cleaning the baseboard upstairs. Option 5 was the only option with any kind of consensus, so I dug out our last two clean dusting cloths from the upstairs closet, (where are all the dirty ones?) pulled out a spray bottle of all-purpose cleaner, and set to work moving furniture.

I should probably mention the bribe. What really interested the boys in helping out upstairs was the promise of plunder--they would be allowed to keep any treasures (including money) that they found behind or underneath furniture items. Money is an especially big deal to Owen. What was his biggest temper tantrum of last week? James found a quarter on the floor and he didn't. He HATES it that James has more "money" than him. He was all about finding coins.

We pulled J's cherry dresser out from the wall and surveyed the first haul--six LEGOs and a marble. Normally the marble would have been cause for excitement, but they were just disappointed that there wasn't any cash. I showed James where to spray on the baseboard (further apart, we don't need to use that much spray) and where to aim (higher, and then gravity will make it trickle down over all the parts we need) while Owen complained about when it would be his turn to spray. He took one of the dusting cloths and helped me wipe behind the dresser, stepping over the short extension cord we pilfered from the Christmas box (just the right length to plug in tree lights) and the two strands of Christmas lights that we have framing the mirror in our bedroom. (Our "twinkly" lights, as J calls them) We have Christmas lights up around the house pretty much year round now.

We moved the ironing board out of the way, one of the relics (maybe a wedding gift?) that's survived all of our moves, even outlasting the original iron that came with it. It has a faded blue and white floral pattern and usually sits behind our bedroom door, except when J is wearing something that's particularly wrinkle prone. I tried to iron my clothes more often a few years ago, but then we had three kids and I just got used to wearing a jacket over my dress shirt if it wasn't completely presentable.

Felix toddled into the room and started inserting himself behind the dresser, but wasn't being a particular nuisance, so we let him stay. Then we moved onto the north wall. The north and south walls are the long walls in our bedroom, and to get at the north wall I had to move J's hanging clothes rack out from the wall, as well as our two dirty laundry hampers and the cube shelf that also serves as our TV stand.

It was Owen's turn with the spray bottle. He started at western corner and started working his way towards the rest of us, humming to himself and spraying just like I'd showed James. (Owen hums to himself constantly. It's telling that when he's with Silas he sings that main theme to "Animaniacs," and when he's just around James he sings the "Pinky and the Brain" music. When he's with Felix it's the Imperial March.)

I realized what was going to happen about three seconds before it all went down. The TV was still plugged in, and a mess of wires from that, the Wii, and the DVD player were all trailing from the cube (which was pushed several feet away from the wall) back to the outlet.

"Owen," I said "be careful that--"

Owen, of course, overestimated how high he could step, and tripped as he tried to go over the TV wire. Whichever combination of wires he caught on the way down brought the entire top of the cube shelf down with him, and the it all smashed into the wall and on top of him.

Owen was fine. He just wanted to keep on spraying. Felix started crying. I picked the TV up the floor, expecting to see a shattered screen. Incredibly, it looked intact, though there was something white on one corner. I touched it, and realized it was a paint fleck. Then I looked down and saw that the HVAC vent behind the shelf had been dented and wrenched away from the wall. Somehow the TV landed like a wedge, and pushed it out.

There was damage to the baseboard and the wall as well. Some paint was chipped and some wood was missing. I kicked the kids out of the room and went back to take a closer look. Yes, my efforts to clean the baseboard had definitely left the baseboard in our room in a considerably less presentable condition. I turned the TV on to see if there was any obvious damage there, and it appeared to be working just fine. (I briefly considered pretending that it was irreversibly damaged so that I'd finally have an excuse to get rid of it altogether.)

I ended up taking the vent out and pounding the metal (mostly) back into shape with a hammer, but the base shoe came even more separated when I slid it all back in. Thoroughly frustrated and annoyed, I kept on working along the north wall wiping the baseboard, and then started to get behind the end tables and the headboard of the bed.

I unplugged our phone chargers, lamps, and alarm clock from the outlet under the headboard to make sure that nothing would get yanked out again when I pulled the bed back. I found a grip on the frame and then started to yank it back, but stopped when I realized that the headboard was coming loose from the frame again. This is one of those things that we have to deal with about once every six months or so...our headboard (somehow, and you can use your imagination) doesn't stay firmly screwed into the frame, and gets all loud and wobbly and creaky. I pulled some more on the frame, and saw how wobbly it looked, and at that point gave up on cleaning the rest of the bedroom baseboard. Adulting is all about choosing your battles.

I'll do the rest of it at some point. And I'll get out a bunch of wrenches and pull the mattresses off and grunt and contort myself to get the headboard on tight again. I'll wipe down the baseboard behind everything while I'm at it. And I won't let the kids in the room.

So that means I've done two rooms, although I didn't finish either room and I'm not sure that what I did left the room in any better shape than when I'd started. But, if nothing else, we recovered six LEGOs. And a marble.