Seald
I’m a homeowner, and as such, I’m expected to complete certain routine chores to keep our home in excellent shape. I need to clean the gutters, care for the landscaping, and figure out why a large section of our front lawn is sinking. I’ve done none of those things in the almost year we’ve owned our home. I’m a homemaker first, and as such, I’m expected to keep three young children fed, clothed, and safe. The kids are my top priority, and consume most of my time. Routine home maintenance doesn’t help the kids, although if that sinkhole out front gets much bigger they might have trouble climbing out should they fall into it.
A few chores do benefit the kids, though, and those I have to stay on top of. Anything pool related has a high child benefit as long as I’m not closing the pool. Keeping the windows in their rooms lubricated so I can open and close them helps regulate the temperature while they sleep, plus turning the window crank easily provides entertainment while they should be napping. Playground maintenance helps prevent the thing from collapsing on them while swinging, which would force me to buy and erect a new playground set. Oh, and the possibility that they could suffer horrific injuries in the collapse is bad too.
I tackled some playground maintenance yesterday. Our play set is wooden, like one of those kits you buy at a home improvement store that uses solid metal fasteners to join sturdy pieces of lumber, except ours uses more malleable metal fasteners and toy airplane-grade lumber.
When I left my parents’ home, they gave my old play set to another family with young children. I expect our current play set to disintegrate long before the boys leave home, but I’d at least like it to last until they reach the weight limit a few years from now. To reach that goal, I need to take care of it. That means tightening the fasteners whenever the wood starts creaking at an alarming volume level, and keeping the wood sealed so it retains its appearance of a contraption that a responsible parent might let his children use.
The creaking wood is merely irritating for now, so I sealed it yesterday. I don’t know how often is should be sealed, but judging from the cracks that formed over the summer, I’m guessing it should be more often than once a year.
With Abbie in preschool and out of the way, and the boys roaming the backyard, I took my brush and can of sealant, and set about protecting my investment. I needed to keep the boys in the backyard where I could watch them, but I didn’t want them boys to touch the play set before the sealant dried. With all the toys in the yard, such as oversized balls, a sandlot, and freshly hung laundry, I thought they had plenty of entertainment. They rarely used the play set anyway unless I was actively swinging them.
Naturally they chose yesterday morning to fully explore the various positions in which a toddler could use a slide. Nothing attracts children to an object like a parent showing interest in it. I protected the boys and the play set for several minutes, yelling at them and pushing them away from wet surfaces as best I could with a brush in one hand and a sealant can in the other. After that I settled for resealing the wood with handprints, and thoroughly scrubbing everyone’s extremities when we went back inside. I knew I wasn’t going to keep the boys away from the play set, and figured a little spar urethane in their systems couldn’t be that toxic.
It took about a half-hour of screaming, pushing, and eventually ignoring the boys, but I finished. Every piece of wood got a coat, and the horizontal, cracking, or fingerprinted sections got several coats. Hopefully that’s enough to keep the play set intact over the winter until it warms up again for another coat. By then, maybe the kids will be a little more self-sufficient, and I’ll be able to work with them at my side without having to yell, “For the love of God, don’t touch the ladder!” every few minutes.
A few chores do benefit the kids, though, and those I have to stay on top of. Anything pool related has a high child benefit as long as I’m not closing the pool. Keeping the windows in their rooms lubricated so I can open and close them helps regulate the temperature while they sleep, plus turning the window crank easily provides entertainment while they should be napping. Playground maintenance helps prevent the thing from collapsing on them while swinging, which would force me to buy and erect a new playground set. Oh, and the possibility that they could suffer horrific injuries in the collapse is bad too.
I tackled some playground maintenance yesterday. Our play set is wooden, like one of those kits you buy at a home improvement store that uses solid metal fasteners to join sturdy pieces of lumber, except ours uses more malleable metal fasteners and toy airplane-grade lumber.
When I left my parents’ home, they gave my old play set to another family with young children. I expect our current play set to disintegrate long before the boys leave home, but I’d at least like it to last until they reach the weight limit a few years from now. To reach that goal, I need to take care of it. That means tightening the fasteners whenever the wood starts creaking at an alarming volume level, and keeping the wood sealed so it retains its appearance of a contraption that a responsible parent might let his children use.
The creaking wood is merely irritating for now, so I sealed it yesterday. I don’t know how often is should be sealed, but judging from the cracks that formed over the summer, I’m guessing it should be more often than once a year.
With Abbie in preschool and out of the way, and the boys roaming the backyard, I took my brush and can of sealant, and set about protecting my investment. I needed to keep the boys in the backyard where I could watch them, but I didn’t want them boys to touch the play set before the sealant dried. With all the toys in the yard, such as oversized balls, a sandlot, and freshly hung laundry, I thought they had plenty of entertainment. They rarely used the play set anyway unless I was actively swinging them.
Naturally they chose yesterday morning to fully explore the various positions in which a toddler could use a slide. Nothing attracts children to an object like a parent showing interest in it. I protected the boys and the play set for several minutes, yelling at them and pushing them away from wet surfaces as best I could with a brush in one hand and a sealant can in the other. After that I settled for resealing the wood with handprints, and thoroughly scrubbing everyone’s extremities when we went back inside. I knew I wasn’t going to keep the boys away from the play set, and figured a little spar urethane in their systems couldn’t be that toxic.
It took about a half-hour of screaming, pushing, and eventually ignoring the boys, but I finished. Every piece of wood got a coat, and the horizontal, cracking, or fingerprinted sections got several coats. Hopefully that’s enough to keep the play set intact over the winter until it warms up again for another coat. By then, maybe the kids will be a little more self-sufficient, and I’ll be able to work with them at my side without having to yell, “For the love of God, don’t touch the ladder!” every few minutes.
posted by Matt at
11:43 PM
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