When our first son Ron was a baby, we bought a beautiful old home with the intention of fixing it up. It was one of those charming old houses with great potential. Built in the early 1900′s, it had oak mantels, crown molding, French doors and high ceilings. But — and that’s an incredibly large three-letter word — it needed a lot of work.
Take the living room. A fabulous set of double doors led into a large room of musty-smelling rust-red long-pile carpet. A classic iron chandelier had been repainted with silver paint that flaked every time the wind blew….and sometimes when it didn’t. The stately fireplace was framed by decidely un-faux cracks that extended like two antennae stretching toward the original crown moldings.
Our attempts at decorating didn’t improve the situation. The faint rose (yes it was on clearance!) paint turned out to be a dark pink, which sort of matched the flowers in the early attic style couch. It certainly did not match the carpet, nor the two hideously ugly chairs – one brown with beige piping, and one beige with brown piping.
As an aside, these chairs were the only place in the house our kids were allowed to have a tantrum. Our boys didn’t pitch many fits, and at the time, I smugly assumed it was our superior parenting skills. Looking back, I think it was because they were avoiding the ugly chairs.
Unsurprisingly, it took longer to remodel the house than we anticipated. (Think “Rome wasn’t built in a day” and other seemingly wise snippets.) In our case, this was partially because by the time our first son was getting ready for pre-kindergarten, I was pregnant with our fourth son. The other reasons were money, money and money.
And so, four years later, my most infamous housekeeping (or lack thereof) ‘adventure’ began. You see, Ron’s prospective preschool required a home visit before a child was admitted. I was in the throes of morning sickness, and with three toddlers and a husband who worked two jobs, our house was none too clean. We’d had a particularly rainy spell, it was the middle of a hot and humid August, and the carpet smelled worse than ever.
The dad and I went on a cleaning spree, but despite our efforts, the pink-walled-and-rust-carpeted room still stink, stank, stunk. So we decided to mask the odor. We used plug-ins and carpet powder, potpourri and air freshener. We even put mothballs in the couch and chair, hoping the naphthalene would make the house smell fresh.
The two teachers arrived, and we graciously led them to the flowered couch. My husband and I sat across from them in the tantrum chairs. The interview started out nicely, but after a few minutes passed, my legs started to burn. I mean – really burn. It was the oddest sensation – like someone was rubbing them with an chemical irritant. It was almost unbearable. As the mother of three little ones, I could simultaneously nurse a baby, make a sandwich, give the evil eye to a toddler, and still give rapt attention to any conversation at hand. But I could hardly keep up with what amounted to a “tell us about your whole life and your theories on child rearing….in a nutshell” interview.
When our visitors finally left, I started rubbing my legs in an attempt to put out the fire. That was when my husband told me that his legs were burning too.
Turns out that the chemicals in moth balls include naphthalene and camphor, both of which will seep right through the zip-on cushion covers of two tantrum chairs – a brown one with beige piping and a beige one with brown piping. And if you are wearing shorts in the heat of August, said naphthalene and camphor will burn the crap out of your legs.
But if you are stoic, and don’t let anyone know of your discomfort, you can still make a good impression on prospective preschool teachers. We apparently did because Ron was able to start – and finish – preschool.
He might still be diploma-less, however, had we not seated the teachers on the couch.
PS I’m sorry that I couldn’t find a picture of the tantrum chair in the pink walled room – although I declare that wall is even worse. Now I remember why we really did feel like we were moving up in the world.