Anybody got some pots and pans???

Jeffrey loves to tell the story of how during the Great Leap Forward in communist China Mao Zedong identified four great pests: rats, mosquitoes, flies and sparrows. Each was to be eradicated for the benefit of the Chinese people. (Ecology aside, I have to say I have always agreed with the first three.)

Eliminating sparrows, who were targets because they would feed on grain, posed a particular challenge as they were not to be killed through traditional traps or pesticides. Instead, the Great Sparrow Campaign enlisted the Chinese peasantry. Peasants throughout China were to run around banging pots and pans after the sparrows, startling them and preventing them from landing and resting. Consequently, the birds would die off of sheer exhaustion.

After giving up 2008 to sickness and pregnancy, I have had one goal for 2009: regain my life. As a stay-at-home mom, I do not expect to do this in any grand way, such as going back to school or cultivating a new and time-intensive hobby. All I want is to get back on some regular schedule where I can consistently exercise, read, study and have a few quiet moments to myself. I want the boredom and rhythm of a simple schedule in life.

But, my efforts have been thwarted by the Four Great Pests of Normalcy: holidays, snow, company, and illness. Every time I think I am going to get ahead, to resume some normal function, one of these four creeps up on me. There is another birthday, school gets canceled and Jeffrey works from home, visitors arrive in town, or someone in the family gets sick (most often me!). I just can't catch a break.

I have figured it out; I have not had one week since the middle of October without one of the great pests. I have had three snow days plus some threatening ones with early returns from work, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, five birthdays, MLK Day, Inauguration Day, Valentine's Day, President's Day, eight weeks of company in my house, and more sicknesses and trips to the doctor than I care to count.

This week, when I took Mia in to the doctor and in one visit she was diagnosed with Strep throat, an ear infection and pink eye -- all of which began making their way through the rest of the family, in addition to the cold Maggie came down with, and bringing my total to three rounds of strep in 7 weeks -- I decided I have had enough.

It is time for some serious pot banging at my house!

I am swearing off holidays or even the thought of festivities. Visitors beware -- no one will be welcomed at my door who intends to stay over two hours (at least not for the next month, or so:)). And, I have been aggressively sanitizing the surfaces in my home, washing all the linens in the house, and doing boot-camp training on hand washing and the proper use and disposal of kleenex.

I will eradicate the great pests through sheer exhaustion if nothing else.