Clown Car Condo

by Cathy

We are a family of four, living it up city style. That means, we have a two-bedroom condo in a six-unit building in a bustling, trendy neighborhood in Chicago. Although we looooove our neighborhood and our place is more spacious than your average two-bedroom condo, we're kinda bustin' out at the seams.

First off, we have two girls. Girls have a lot of stuff. And since one is still a young seven year-old and the other is on the brink of teenageapalooza, the stuff varies from dollhouses, zillions of stuffed animals, coloring books, legos and Barbie/American Girl accessory overload, to an unGodly number of scarves, purses, shoes, makeup, hair products, hair accessories, techy gadgets and...clothes. My God, the clothes. They are simply. Everywhere.

Our condo goes through a sort of rebirth every few years or so, which is imperative if humans are to live there. I've purged, reorganized, rearranged, redesigned, remodeled, rethought, recycled, reused, stored and purged again all of the stuff we've accumulated over the course of the 16 years we've lived there.

About a month ago, a teenage cousin of Joe's flew in from Mexico and will be our houseguest for six months, which spacewise, translates into half a century. A whole different type of flurry ensued in the two weeks I had to prepare for this. I desperately stacked stuff into Leaning Towers of Pisa on the shelves of my closets, based on the urging of my husband to "Use the space going up!!" So dangerously high are these stacks of blankets, sheets, sleeping bags, comforters, pillows, duvets and bedspreads, that one strong breath or slight nudging of a hanger below them, will send the entire cotton/polyester blend of a mass tumbling down upon us, whereby we will literally be suffocated by stuff.

Since our guest is sleeping on a pull-out sofa in the living room, the front hallway closet, where we normally keep all of our outerwear, has now been assigned as his closet. This means, there is no rhyme or reason to where any of the former contents are stored; each one-fourth of our coats, sweaters and jackets are respectively downstairs in storage, in my bedroom closet, on the kitchen/mudroom coat hooks and a portion still stuffed into the corners of the original closet he is now using.

That closet was also being used to store my handbags. Behold, now, their temporary storage space:

Why, yes. That is the toy chest in my girls' bedroom you're lookin' at there. I have become that mom who tells their kids that handbags are more important than wads of stuffed animals. But have no fear, they aren't going without; we still have clusters of cuddly thingamabobs dangling from the rafters in their room, piled high on their beds and crammed into their closet, so as priority would have it, the plush critters from the toy chest are tucked in our basement storage space for now....or...for EVER.

No, it's not fun finding the space within an already confined space but it really is fun having a houseguest through which we get to experience the great city of Chicago as tourists all over again and whom the girls can hang out, chat and play with as the older brother they never had. And bonus! Joe and I get a built-in babysitter for some much needed time out of the house.

Now, if we could only find our jackets...


(*For more clown car fun that is our lives, check out Patti's "Clown Car Purse" post!)

Full House

by Patti


I live in a 2-bedroom, 2-bath, charming little house. To give you an idea of just how charming, when I was in real estate, those in the industry knew that the word "charming" in any description  meant that the house? Was Ti. Ny. So yes, our house ain't no mansion, but it suits our little family of three just fine.

Fortunately, we have a finished basement, and a family room in addition to a living room, so even though our house is small, the layout makes it seem deceptively big. Until you throw in three grandparents and 11 screaming 11-year olds. Then, suddenly, that charming yet deceptively large little house becomes a clown house, with people spilling out of every nook and cranny while wacky circus music bleats its beats right into your head.

This past weekend was S's birthday party. In true Aries style, it's not enough for her to have a little gathering around a small, candle-lit cake. No, the kid has to have every human she has ever known admire her as she blows out her candles, and if they can all spend the night afterwards to further extend the festivities, the better. I figured, eh, it's her 11th- the big "tween" birthday - so let's let her have her night of horrors fun! This party was planned weeks ago, long before I knew my in-laws would be popping in for a surprise visit from Argentina, so imagine my freak-outedness when they appeared and I had to figure out where the hell to put them. Normally, they sleep in the basement when they come, but this time around, the basement would be teeming with tweens. M suggested we give up our room to them, give the basement to the tweens, and we would sleep in Sofia's loft bed. Her bed is one of those Ikea numbers, where the bottom part is really a fort with a mattress on the ground, and the top part, while suitable for a 50-something pound 10-year old, is a rickety Fear Factor experiment for anybody over 95 lbs. But we knew it'd be for one night only, because as soon as those tweens were gone, S would be back to her bed, and we'd be in the basement for the duration of M's parents' visit.

SO. This was the plan.

The party commenced, and while I ran around like a freak on fire, and M slung pizzas into and out of the oven, and my mom snapped pics, and my in-laws stepped over and around various bodies that were sprawled out all over the place making scrapbooks, the girls had an absolute ball. As luck would have it, it turns out that half of the invited guests had to be somewhere early the next morning, so only five girls ended up spending the night. WHICH WAS JUST FINE BY ME. As soon as the scrapbooking part of the party was over, and the going-home girls went home, the rest of them were relegated to the basement, where they sang karaoke, played board games, danced, and drowned in prepubescent hormones.

The house groaned all night with the weight of people, but it also danced with the laughter of girls experiencing that first delicious taste of freedom -- the kind that makes you feel that the world is yours and everything in it holds possibility. As I wandered around upstairs in the wee hours from couch to bed to couch to bed to, at last and for good, couch, I smiled through my exhaustion. The laughter floated up from the basement through the floor, and I remembered that feeling so sharply - those nights of giggles and late-night games that consisted of sticking the hand of the first girl to fall asleep into a bowl of warm water to make her pee in her sleep, and ghost stories, and whispered gossip about the red-headed, freckled-faced Gary that suddenly got cute, and it was all completely worth it, the sacrificed space and sleep.

My house was full, oh, so full. My heart, more so.

The In-Laws

by Patti


I've known my in-laws for almost 23 years.

The first time I met them, I found myself sitting across from my future mother-in-law, asking for seconds. Yes, I had just met the mother of my new love, and I was already revealing the inner glutton. But those mashed potatoes? Were the best I'd ever tasted.

My future mother-in-law didn't speak a word of English, but, as luck would have it, this "white" girl spoke perfect(ish) Spanish, and I saw her eyes widen when she realized that this one was different. This girl made her macho Argentinean son (secretly) swoon, and made the others at the table laugh, and, even though she hadn't cracked open a bible in, like, ever, she was still a decent person that somehow made that wary Spanish mother like her against her very will.

My future father-in-law was a boisterous, wine-swigging, "porteño " who was quick with a joke and a kiss on the cheek. He slapped M on the back and asked him where he'd found such "linda piva", and then asked me why I was dating such an ugly boy.

And that's how it began.

And now, nearly 23 years later, I can safely say I have the best in-laws on the planet. Some say it may be because I only see them once or twice a year. They live in Argentina, and visiting them isn't the easiest thing in the world. But I know it's not that. I know it's because they have never interfered in my relationship with their son. In fact, when their son has been a pain in the ass, they have taken my side. I know it's because when they come to visit, they turn my house into a festival of wine and homemade empanadas and folded laundry and entertained kid and late nights around the dinner table, all while still respecting the fact that it's "my" house. I know it's because they appreciate me for who I am; they get my sense of humor, they love how I challenge their son, they know when to close in and when to back off. I also know it's because, despite the distance, they fiercely love my daughter, and have done everything they can to stay present in her life, even if an ocean separates them from her.

Just one day after M came home from his trip to Argentina, my in-laws arrived at my doorstep. They came to surprise S for her birthday. M and I knew they were coming, because they would never dare come "without calling", but they wanted to surprise S, and so they did. The doorbell rang and S, in her usual nosy way, ran to see who it could be. She peered out the window and saw an "old lady with a wig". That old lady with a wig? Was my mother-in-law in disguise. When S opened the door, my mother - her other grandmother - standing behind her, she found that "old lady in a wig" donning oversized shades and carrying a handwritten sign translated from Google that said, "My face look like my grandaughter." S eyed that "old lady in a wig" with wonder, somehow knowing it was her "gue-gue" from Argentina, but not understanding how it was at all possible that it could be. But it was, and once S accepted this, she went to hug her, laughing and happy for the surprise.

Our house, a kind of tiny two-bedroom, is swelling at the seams now. But it is the kind of swell that is caused by too much conversation, noise and clinking glasses. I hear so many horror stories about evil mother-in-laws, or meddling, overbearing father-in-laws, or cold, uncaring grandparents, and then I look back on these 23 years, and I honestly can't believe my luck.