"Butt-fry!"

I've been feeling like I have a permanent hangover these days, and it's not because I'm drinking a bottle of wine every night. It must be because I'm doing well to get six restless hours of sleep each night, commonly interrupted by Daughter, the Drama Queen, who cannot find her beloved Taggie Book that is twisted up in her sheets at 3 am. Or because she needs help going potty in the middle of the night. Or it could be because Son also recently came down with the barfy flu that Daughter just had a week ago, and although he did well overnight (all things considered), there were still a few incidents of waking up heaving stuff into his bed and filling his pants with poo.

Good news is that we have no roof repairs, and the sale of our house is on as scheduled. Other good news is that in addition to the profit off the sale of our current home, our new house appraised $25,000 above the sale price. We are going in with a generous amount of equity.

I'm hanging on, if by a thread these days. The packing is not going as quickly or thoroughly as it needs to. The wee ones don't make the process easy, especially when barf is involved. We sign papers Thursday morning and start moving Friday. There probably won't be any new posts for awhile.

Also, the forecast calls for MORE heavy rain for the next few days. We are already way too wet with way too much rain this season. If we do get lots of rain, I don't know how we are going to move all our stuff into the basement of our new home, including the entire room of new furniture (and a queen sleeper sofa) and the extra refrigerator. We planned on the 26' moving truck being able to pull up on the grass to make it easier to reach the basement through the basement entrance. I'm too stressed to think about the implications of what we may be dealing with if we continue to get rain.

Other dumpage...I tackled our .34 acres with the push mower last night. We always push mow. I needed some stress relief, and I figured it would be good exercise. It was really hot, and I thought I was going to completely melt away. As I pushed the mower and jammed to Casting Crowns (via Dear Husband's MP3 player--a birthday gift from me last winter), I pondered how many people we see in our subdivision riding around on tractor mowers in their postage-stamp-sized yards with their fat asses hanging over the seats. Husband and I are always appalled at this At .34 acres, I am certain we have the largest yard in the entire 350+ house subdivision we live in. Yet we may very well be the only ones pushing a mower while the rest of the neighborhood bounces around on their tractor mowers with their love handles waggling, struggling to turn around in their 10' by 10' patches of grass. Unbelievable. No wonder Americans are so fat! What happened to good ol' fashioned blood, sweat, and tears to get a job done? Part of the exchange of me mowing the lawn last night was that Husband agreed to first clean up the dog crap piles that Woolly Mammoth Dog continues to deposit. This leads me to the next "dump" (pun intended)...

This morning as I was loading up the wee ones into the family mobile to deliver them to Grandma's, I caught a strong whiff of dog poo. It's hard to know if it's just wafting over in the breeze from the crap bonanza next door, or if Woolly Mammoth dropped another doozer in our yard. I felt my blood boiling as I sighted the offending fresh pile next to our driveway. I've tried to confront The Neighbors about this, but they always run the other way when they see me (hmmm, wonder why?) I've called animal control (there's a leash law in our city). I've knocked on the door and requested them to clean up the crap piles in our yard and to keep their dog confined--to which I received a sheepish apology followed by willingly cleaning up the crap piles. Come on, people, aren't these messages strong enough? At least he finally mowed his lawn for the first time since Mother's Day.

I ended my work day feeling barely able to move. It's either all stress related or I'm getting my own turn with the bug the kids have each had. The best hope is that it's a fast-moving one. Son was back to near normal in less than 24 hours.

I'll end my brain dump with some more cutenesses, compliments of my sweet little boy. He is adding about three or more words to his vocabulary daily. Recently he added "fre fry" (french fry) in honor of the Ore Ida Crunchers I bought for the first time because I had a good coupon. He was all about them the first time he tried them. The second time he saw me get them out of the freezer, he started going nuts, "Fre fry! Fre fry!" He wouldn't stop until I stuck a frozen french fry in each of his pudgy fists. He scarfed them down frozen and pointed relentlessly at the oven while continuing to exclaim, "Fre fry! Fre fry!"

He also started to wave his little hand around and say, "Fry! Fry!" (fly). He is apparently imitating his big sister, who has a spasmodic episode every time a fly comes within 20 yards of her. She waves her hands like a child gone mad while screaming, "Shoo!" at the top of her lungs.
I don't remember if I stated previously that Son is also saying "Bloon" (balloon), shoes, "dow" (down), on, off, and most recently (and my current favorite), "butt-fry" (butterfly). That last one pretty much sums up how I look and feel these days.

Daughter also made me smile recently when we were heading home after running errands. I looked at her in the rear-view mirror, and her head was cocked to the side and her eyes closed. "You asleep back there?" I asked. Daughter responded (with eyes still closed), "Nope. I'm just thinking. I do my best thinking with my eyes shut!"

Indeed. I'm about to pop some Tylenol PM (first time in over a week), drag my "fried butt" to bed, and do some of my own "thinking" with my eyes shut.