No Frills

Perhaps I should blame myself for Dear Daughter's slob-ness. After all, I have never been the pink frilly type. Unlike many proud pregnant parents-to-be who are thrilled to be bringing a little baby girl into the world, we did not paint the nursery pink and buy every girly ruffle and fluff we could find. No, I painted the nursery green and didn't buy a single pink item.

Oh, we were excited to be having a girl, and there was no doubt about that. After all, the odds were stacked against us. Historically, the sperm on the husband's side of the family are gender-biased towards boys. I had resolved myself that despite our crazy attempts to conceive during the window of time that science has suggested improves the odds of a girl, we were likely to bring a boy into the world. Dear Husband's brother had managed to sire three boys already and a fourth boy would come later.

The ultrasound technician seemed to have no question whatsoever. It was a girl. I was beside myself giddy over this concept. A baby girl: my dream come true.

Despite my "never buy a pink frilly thing" attitude, there were many in the family that doted on my baby girl with frilly stuff. Who can blame them? They had been repressed, after all, with no girls to go ga-ga over. I was the one to hesitate to dress Dear Daughter in skirts and gowns and such, especially in the toddler stage. They just seemed so impractical--difficult to play in or even walk in sometimes. I must admit, however, that I adored the matching hats, shoes, and bags that came with some of these outfits. I can still remember my little diva, at two years of age, grabbing her hat and matching purse (and often matching sunglasses, thanks to Great Aunt Pat) each time we were heading out of the house. She was the first to the door, and looking over her shoulder with a grin and eager anticipation, she would say, "Let's go!"

To this day, my little girl, who turned seven just 10 days ago, still loves to dress up. She pleads with me to buy her fancy dresses in the stores and loves to look all pretty. I indulge her at times with the fancy dresses and shoes, but it always seems so ironic. The truth of this matter is that my girl-child is...a slob!

Before you start tsk-ing me, let me defend my statements! While we chose "Grace" for the middle name of this treasured little girl, she is generally about as clumsy as a child could be. She trips over flat surfaces and imaginary cracks in the ground. She spontaneously falls off her chair or out of bed. She lands on her head when she falls off her bike.

Even though Dear Daughter is a full 28 months (that's a full two years and four months) older than Dear Son, it is Daughter's chair that is surrounded by food and stains after a meal and not Son's. And it's Daughter whose clothing is full of stains and not Son's. It's Daughter's pants that have ripped holes and grass stains, and not Son's.

She wants to be a princess, and in her heart she is. But bless that same little heart if in reality she is so much less than polished! She would go days without brushing her hair if I didn't remind her. She nearly always has food or ketchup stuck to her face, and sometimes in her hair. Her clothing, as I previously described, is always stained or ripped. She doesn't bother to check herself to see that her clothing hangs straight or gets tucked in neatly, so it is usually hanging this way or that and crumpled and crooked. She is a nose picker no matter how much I nag her to use a tissue. She forgets to sit "ladylike" when she does wear a dress. And she apparently doesn't even notice when her feet smell so bad that she can clear a room. If it's pointed out to her, she just giggles and thinks it's really funny. She also thinks it's funny to belch and fart like a sailor. I console myself that if nothing changes, at least we won't have to worry about beating the boys off of her in a few years.

But oh how she longs to be princess-y.

Recently the daughter of a good friend of ours got married and asked Dear Daughter to be her flower girl. Dear Daughter couldn't have been more pleased about this whole thing. She got to pick out a gorgeous floor length gown and get all primped and prettied up and carry a lovely white satin basket and sprinkle flower petals. What more could any little girl want? She was on cloud nine, and she ended up pulling it off well. It was an outdoor wedding, and I was nervous for many reasons. The most obvious concern was that she would be wearing a white dress. Somehow, somewhere I was sure she would come up with some grape juice and spill it down the front of her dress before the ceremony. She had to walk down several yards of stairs in her floor length gown as she sprinkled flower petals. My girl, who trips on a flat surface. Also, being an outdoor wedding, there was mud and dirt and grass to attract her. They wanted her hair done and dressed for pictures by 3:00 even though the ceremony didn't start until 7:00. So I hovered around her constantly for those four hours. We made it, with only a tiny stain that no one could notice. When Daughter had made her way down the stairs and the ceremony had begun, Dear Husband leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Well, she's made it halfway through without tripping...." Indeed. It was a proud moment for her daddy and I.

With all that said, what happened today really should not be a surprise at all. Daughter has made mud pies before. Within reason, I just let her be. It was a hot, dry, day. I let her play in the sand and dirt and make a mud pie while I weeded the garden. I reasoned that it was not like that day that I let her stomp in the rain in her rain boots and next thing I knew she had mud sprayed to the top of her head and all across her face.

The neighbor boy had come over to play, and he is a good two and a half years older than my girl. We tend to supervise well when he comes over, for a variety of reasons that I won't describe at the moment. However, as the kids have gotten older, we've tended to relax just a bit on the eagle eye attention when they are all playing. I was busy hanging clothes on the clothesline and only aware that the kids, Daughter, Son, and the neighbor boy, were all playing well together in the backyard. Before I had brought the clothes outside I had noticed the sound of the outside water spigot being turned on and off. I wasn't concerned; it was really hot and I had previously told the kids they could play in the water. As I pinned the clothes to the line I heard the kids talking about being Oompah Loompah's and I still didn't pay too much attention. Then I heard more talk that made me realize that the kids were playing "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." I got curious now, and turned my attention to the backyard at what the kids were doing.

What I saw was a four foot mud puddle with shovels and molds and stuff buried in the mud and the neighbor boy with his hands buried up the elbows in mud, but not a bit of mud anywhere on his clothing. I'm still not sure how he did that. Dear Son had not a bit of mud on him at all. Apparently he was assigned to stand by the spigot and turn the water on and off on command. And then there was Daughter. She was muddy from head to toe. She had mud in her hair and across her face, on her shoulders and chest. Her legs and feet were covered, and she looked like she may very well have been rolling in it just like a little piggy. As usual, she was oblivious to her slob-ness. She acted like she didn't know what I was talking about when I exclaimed about the mud from head to toe. The neighbor boy had made a fast exit, stage left as I hosed Daughter down in the yard before she was even allowed in the house for a bath. She confirmed that they were playing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and didn't understand at all what the issue was with her four foot mud puddle, the shovels and toys and random objects planted in the mud hole, and the mud that caked her from head to toe. My boy child had ducked out stage right at the same time that the neighbor boy ducked out stage left. I've never seen kids scatter like cockroaches that quickly. I found Son inside the house, completely spotless without a bit of mud on his entire body, as his sister passed through the room on her way to the bathtub. Despite the hose down outside, she was still completely unrecognizable.

That's my girl.

Where I've Been

Amazing how fast a week can go! I didn't realize it had been so long since I posted. I guess we've been busy. Dear Husband has been busy for the past few weeks tearing apart the floor trim in the entire lower level of our home (which is approximately 1700 sq feet) and trimming the perimeter of the wood laminate flooring that covers every room except the lower bathroom and lower kitchen, in which there is tile. Several weeks ago the flooring on that level began to create a massive bubble. Dear Son wouldn't walk on the floor and would stand to one side screaming, "No! It's bumpy! It's bumpy! I wanna hold ya! (which means, 'I want you to hold me')."

I did what most every American in my generation does to find out about things of which one knows nothing: I G**gled words and phrases like "laminate flooring bumpy" and "laminate floor bubbles" and within 24 - 48 hours I was informing my husband that I my theory was that "Bonehead" (otherwise known as our home's original owner) had not allowed proper expansion room for the floor to swell in hot muggy weather. Bonehead was the one who finished out the basement, just prior to selling it to us. He was, indeed, the nephew of the original builder of the rest of our home, which was built only about 3 - 4 years ago. Apparently he didn't inherit his uncle's building talent. I found all this out by chatting with our closest neighbor, who, despite hesitating to gossip, spilled the dirt to me when I quizzed her if she knew if Bonehead had installed the basement flooring himself.

During my chat with the neighbor, I found out why it looked as though no one lived in this house when we originally took a little look-see at it before deciding to purchase it. It looked like no one lived here at the time, because, in fact, no one did. It seems that the home furnishings were all "staged" to appear as though someone lived here, though we thought it odd they didn't have a washer and dryer. They did have a crib, a highchair, and living room and bedroom furniture. There were clothes in the closets, etc. etc. It seemed that someone must live here, and yet it seemed sparsely furnished, and exceptionally clean for having three or four children living here as we were told.

Apparently the couple, who each had previous marriages, had a combined total of at least four children. During the epic ice storm of the winter previous to our purchase of the home last year, the wife apparently ran off with the tree-trimmer who was out early spring doing his job of trimming damaged trees. So she didn't live here anymore. I don't know why the husband moved out before selling the house, but apparently he did. This would fit with the approximate time frame that the house hit the sale market in April, and would fit the approximate time line for when the wife would have met the tree-trimmer and begun her affair and moved in with him. He apparently lives only a couple miles from here. It also fits the story our Realtor told us, which was that the previous owners were in need of a quick sale because they couldn't afford this place anymore. What we didn't know at that time was that they had both moved into different dwellings and needed to ditch this joint. The husband's aunt was their selling Realtor, and so she apparently thought it important that the place not look vacant.

I digress.

So I did my research on the floor thing and called Dear Husband at work the next morning to tell him that apparently Dim Bulb had ignored one of the cardinal rules of laminate floor installation: you MUST leave up to 5/8 of an inch along all sides for expansion. "This is a floating floor," I informed my husband. "It expands and contracts with the air temperatures. You're also not supposed to lay the flooring through doorways without installing a T-molding, as each room is to be able to float and move independently." I went on, "Also, you're not supposed to install a solid length of flooring that exceeds 30 feet." The basement is quite open with only one completely walled off room in the back that serves as the fourth bedroom. Or, in our case, the office. This means that there is much much more than 30 feet from one side of the basement to the other. I went on to explain that this wasn't as bad as it sounds, as one could "simply" trim the perimeter of the flooring to allow the proper expansion space.

In the same conversation, Dear Husband informed me that he had taken a trip to Home Depot on his lunch break and found they still carry the same brand of flooring as the partial box left in the storage room of our home. Given the completely unnatural amount of rainfall we've had since February, we hadn't ruled out our worst of horrifying possibilities: that moisture had seeped through the concrete and we had water damage causing the floor to lift.

I had all but ruled this out of my own thoughts as the evidence of improper floor installation was mounting as I did my research. I resumed discussion with Dear Husband about the likeliness of improper floor installation, and Dear Husband said he spoke with the associate at Home Depot about trimming the perimeter of the flooring with a dremel saw. "A dremel saw!" I exclaimed. "Oh no! You'll burn that thing up! It won't be powerful enough! You're gonna need a toe-kick saw for this job!" On his next visit to Home Depot, Dear Husband spoke with another associate about the circumstances, and the older and wiser associate supported the theory of lack of proper expansion space as well as the proper fix of trimming the perimeter to establish the proper space. He also asked my dear husband if he had the right kind of saw to do this job. Dear Husband confidently replied, "I'm planning to rent a toe-kick saw." To which the sage associate enthusiastically replied, "Yeah! That's the only way to go!" As Husband proudly told me about this conversation later, I smugly asked him if he had told the associate that he had learned from his wife that this was the saw he needed.

We were (relatively speaking) relieved that when the trim came off the walls, we discovered that Bonehead had, indeed, snugged the flooring right up against the walls. To Dear Husband's credit, he was the one that ripped off all the floor trim, trimmed the perimeter of the entire 1700 square feet with that crazy bad-ass saw, added the necessary T-moldings between rooms, made one helluva mess, and then reinstalled all the trim and retouched the paint as needed to make it look good as new.

Jobs like this take a long time around our house. The kids are at ages that require almost complete constant oversight, and Dear Son is a total Daddy's boy. This means that her requires lot of personal attention from his daddy. Our schedules do not allow time for these sorts of chores during the week. And so, a couple hours here and a couple hours there weekend after weekend after weekend has finally seen us to the end of this most annoying chore.

Additionally, sometime in the past couple weeks, in the midst of the flooring mess, there was a massive thunder storm that blew out the main computer in our home. I really don't understand all of this stuff the way my power-sawing, computer geeking husband does. What I do know is that I tried to boot up the desktop computer one day, only to discover that nothing happened. It think it was nearly a week after that before Dear Husband had the chance to do enough of an autopsy on the machine to determine that it was not the power supply as was his original (and hopeful) theory. Apparently the machine took a surge that fried the motherboard, and something about a network interface. All I know is that the flashes of blinding lightening and the accompanying kabooms were enough to light up the bedroom in the wee hours of the night.

This has happened before. Apparently the electrical currents in such storms are enough to turn on the overhead lights in every room in the house that are controlled in tandem with the ceiling fans by remote control. And so, during deafening thunder and lightening storms in the wee hours of the morning, we find ourselves lying in our king sized log bed jolted from our slumber by the blinding overhead light. Well, actually, during storms like this Husband is usually already awake, being unable to sleep through the racket. I, however, sleep with earplugs (which is another story of its own) and so I don't typically wake up. Not even in deafening thunder storms. Last time I even slept through the overhead light coming on. Dear Husband told me about it the next day. This particular night, however, I was jolted awake by the overhead light. I am not as thoughtful as my dear husband (who let me sleep through the ordeal the last time), and I'm quite foggy in the head when awakened from deep slumber. So I began poking with annoyance at my husband who was still snoring this particular time, and inquiring with great aggravation, why in the heck the light was on in the room. I am supposing that it was the same moment the electricity in the air caused the lights to turn on in specific rooms of the house that the desktop took a surge and fried the motherboard.

All this to say that we fortunately have two laptop computers in our home, as we don't function well around here without computers. I have been crippled, though, by not being set up to download photos directly to my laptop as we always store them on the desk top where they are backed up frequently. We've since remedied the situation with proper software to my laptop, and so hopefully I will soon be posting some pics of Dear Son helping his daddy cook, playing soccer in the backyard, and Dear Son tackling his older sister. Unfortunately, I forgot the camera when I took the kids to play in the downtown water fountain, so there won't be any pics of that.

Now that the basement flooring is fixed, Dear Husband can start rebuilding the desktop computer. I suggested maybe taking the toe-kick saw to it would help, but he has other lofty ideas about rebuilding it with new parts he has already ordered for the task. Whatever. That's the kind of stuff I don't even bother trying to G**gle.

Honey, Where's the Baseball Bat?

Dear Daughter likes to play with the closest neighbor boy who is seven years old. He's the only child remotely near her age that lives anywhere close to us, so she can't be too picky. She refers to him as her "best friend." He seems to love to play with her as much as she loves to play with him.

Our properties border each other, and if he's looking out the windows at the front of his house, he can see us walking down our long driveway to the mailbox. Dear Daughter and I often walk out to get the mail right after Dear Son settles down for his nap. One day last fall, as Daughter and I were walking back towards our house from getting the mail, he must have spotted her from inside his house because he suddenly came running across the expanse of grass towards us calling, "Zoe!" And Daughter, hearing him calling her name and seeing him running towards her began to run across the expanse of grass towards him calling, "Eddie!" I watched as the two ran toward each other calling each other's names. It was like a scene from an over dramatic chick flick where the two lovers run in slow motion across the prairie towards one another, and as the girl runs into the guy's arms he swings her around in circles as the sunlight illuminates the girl's hair and sappy music plays in the background

I watched and waited, partly with simple curiosity at what would happen next, and partly with smug horror, wondering if my daughter and the neighbor boy would embrace when they mete each other in the middle. When they came to face to face, they stopped short and stood awkwardly looking at each other. I finally exhaled with relief as my mind raced forward another decade when the two are teenagers, and that's when I forced myself to stop short in my thoughts.

A few days ago, as I stood pinning clothes to the line, the smell of a warm, gentle summer breeze mingled together with the scents of sunshine and clean laundry. I got lost in the memories stirred by these smells. They were memories of my own childhood, when I would stand at the clothes basket and select item by item one at a time from the basket and hand them to my mother, who stood next to me pinning the clothing on the backyard clothesline.

Dear Daughter was playing several yards away with Eddie and his six year old friend, who is the grandson of our neighbor to the other side. Suddenly, I overheard something that quickly pulled me back from the depths of my memories. Eddie said to his friend, "Hey! I know who I'm going to marry!" He then asked my daughter when her birthday is before saying again that he knew who he was going to marry, and then he boasted to his friend that he intended to marry my daughter. I quickly tried to remember if we owned a solid wood baseball bat or not, and if so whether it was readily available. I wanted to scream loudly that my daughter is only FOUR YEARS OLD and while it's true that her birthday is coming up in several weeks, she will still only be FIVE YEARS OLD. BARELY! And that he needed to put away these foolish thoughts for at least another twenty five years if not FOREVER!

I thought seven year old boys still thought girls were "yucky."

You can bet that I will be watching my daughter, AND the neighbor boy, like a hawk until my girl is at least thirty!

Dumpage, Pure Dumpage

Bling bling! So I recently discovered that Tracy had also granted me an award, and I had not yet seen her post in which she bestowed this flattering honor onto me. Thanks, Tracy! It's so awesome to feel loved! Especially since I had long ago accepted that I did not expect to win any blogging popularity contests. It's flattering to be recognized by so many of my peers that I've only recently met via blogosphere. It's especially flattering because I haven't been my blogging self these days. I haven't had time to visit or comment at my regular blogs. I haven't had time to write all the posts that I'd love to write. I haven't even noticed that my peers have honored me with recognition and said esteeming things about me at their own blogs. I've been a crappy blog friend. For these reasons, I feel a little guilty about the bling on my blog! I also gotta come up with some good stuff to write about, since apparently a whole lot of people liked hearing about The Neighbors who are NOT (YAY!) my neighbors anymore!

I've also whined a whole lot recently about being so swamped with moving and settling into a new house and trying to climb out of the hole I call "two weeks behind in work." It just so happened that I doubled my work load just before we moved by adding two anger management groups to my summer work schedule. This is good, because I love what I do. This is also good because it doubled my part-time income (handy for times like moving to a new, larger, more expensive home). This boost in work is good for at least ten weeks and probably longer, as I hope I will continue to be contracted to do more groups. I love to do therapy groups. The interpersonal dynamics are so much fun. The only not so good part is the timing of it all. I'm plenty busy without doubling my paperwork and administrative duties right now. I think I need a secretary! Ha! Boy does THAT feel good to say. For several years post-college, pre-becoming-what-I-want-to-be-when-I-grow-up, I WAS a secretary of sorts. I just had glorified names like "Senior Secretary," "Administrative Assistant," "Program Coordinator." There's no shame in doing this kind of work, it's just that I was really bored and discouraged because this was not what I paid an ungodly amount of money for in college. I guess that's what happens to people who complete a dual bachelor's degree in classical piano and creative writing. We graduate college neck deep in the cost of loans to pay for an artsy-fartsy degree and then we discover we can't pay the bills with that degree. We then tend to feel miserable as we suffer through jobs that are not in our field of expertise but for which we are still overqualified and underpaid. Some of us, like me, get so bored and miserable, that we enter graduate school for the mere stimulation of it. For me, I also stumbled upon my calling when I took graduate level courses out of boredom. Somehow I started this post with being busy with my work and totally digressed. All my blog posts turn into brain dumps these days.

I'm beginning to see the light. Really, I am. And it's not because I've been to a Billy Graham revival, though some days I feel like I need one. I'm nearly caught up to real time in my work load, and now I just have some old paperwork to catch up on. Like eight treatment plans. I could knock it off in a half a day if I didn't have my full time job, namely MOTHERHOOD, demanding my full attention every minute of every day.

Speaking of motherhood, I've realized that I've been writing a whole lot about myself and not so much about my wee ones lately. So here's a plug. Son is now saying more words than I can count. He is also pushing a couple more teeth out, which helps explain why he was having so much trouble sleeping through the night and napping, which (true to Murphy's Law) coincided nicely with the timing of our move. It's always nice to be doubly exhausted and fatigued and to come a hair's breadth of blacking out at the Stuff-Mart after a bout with two kids' flu bugs, your own flu bug, several days of packing boxes, two solid days of moving, and then trying to purchase groceries to feed your children so they don't starve in your nice big new house. And will ya look at that? I've managed to digress into whining and focusing on myself again.

Somebody, please...either shut me up or shoot me!

Do you ever get near the end of a post and realize it did not go at all the way you intended it to? Do ever feel like you have Attention Deficit issues?

On a final note, I haven't gotten an answer to the circling copters yet, but the new "neighbors" about a half mile up the road (are they really "neighbors" if they are that far away?) said they thought the action was focused on a house behind them where there were apparently also four police cars with the copter. They said this was not the first time. Hmmmmm...may be some new neighbor stories coming along. While there haven't been any more circling copters, there were a couple vultures circling the same area of our woods the very next day. And you know the kinds of things vultures like to circle (do I smell something?).

Getting a Head Start on Superstition?

You may notice a little more blog bling at my sidebar. I was nominated by Jesse for a Rockin' Girl Blogger award, which is totally flattering. Also totally embarrassing since she nominated me over a week ago, at the same time that the "BIG MOVE" began, and I just realized it. I didn't read or post or even set foot in the Internet for a good solid week. Since returning to Internet Land, I am limping along with an air card that wants to disconnect me every 10 minutes or else swimming totally against the current with dial up. Being at least two weeks behind in my work, I've had to forget about catching up on lost time with my regular blog reads and pick up at real time rather than where I left off. I still don't have time to do any regular reading. I've been spending precious little leisure time on the computer, and yet I am still swamped and trying to catch up on work.

It's really hard to get any real "work at home" done if the job description doesn't include changing a certain 18 month old's diapers, providing undivided attention to both the Bambinos, fixing breakfast, cleaning up breakfast, fixing lunch, cleaning up lunch, going to the park (unfortunately NOT for my own leisure time), making phone calls related to work in between the demands of the smallest people who live in this house, sending a work-related fax here and there, putting the wee-est one down for a nap while desperately coveting my own nap, fixing dinner, cleaning up dinner, unpacking a box here and there, washing the wee ones, getting the wee ones to bed before racing to catch up on my work and working until I can't keep my eyes open, and then crashing to sleep for not long enough before getting up in time to shower and pull myself together before the wee ones wake up and we do it all over again. Sound like fun?

Tonight was actually my night for change of pace. I got to go lead three back to back therapy sessions with troubled adolescent girls, in the midst of which I had to do a crisis intervention and recommend hospitalization for one girl (whom I wasn't even scheduled to see tonight), then lead an anger management group comprised of about eight aggressive adolescents, followed by another crisis intervention that resulted in confiscating all razors and sharp objects to assist in the prevention of self-mutilation. Does THIS sound like fun? I felt like TODAY was Friday the 13th, but I'm still 50 minutes away from it. Fortunately I'm not on the job tomorrow, though I fully expect to get at least one crisis call. I even have adult clients that I see in my office wigging out right now. There is definitely SOMETHING in the air! Even if it's not the scent of massive poop piles this time.

Daughter commented today, "Isn't it peaceful being away from our neighbors?" Followed by, "Isn't it nice that our neighbors can't let their dog leave poop piles all over our yard anymore?" Yes, yes, yes. However, I'll have to find some new blog fodder. The only poop we're finding in our yard now is that of the unrecognizable sort, assumed to be left by some wild animal that meandered up from the woods long enough to have a dump near our house.

As far as wild animals go, I was thrilled to see my first live armadillo the other night. I lived in this area for four years before moving away. I've now been back for another seven years. In all that time the only armadillos I saw were the ones squished by moving vehicles. Obviously, if they were being hit by cars so frequently, SOMEBODY was seeing them alive (if only momentarily). I was really excited to finally see one that was its intended size and shape and not flattened and being carted off in chunks and pieces by vultures. Two of those fugly birds were working on one in the middle of the road the first day we started moving into our new home. First thing in the morning I saw the big ugly birds fighting over it, and by dark it was picked clean except for a discolored spot on the road. Yum!

I also saw a very large unidentifiable bird in my backyard this morning. At first I thought it was an ostrich. Then I remembered that we don't have those around here. Too big for a pheasant. Didn't look like the right shape for a wild turkey. I highly doubt it is responsible for the big gamey-looking poop pile near the house.

Other bizarreness includes the circling helicopter this afternoon that kept looping over the woods by our house. It was black and white with a large number on the top. It looked very official, and it was flying about 100 feet above the tree line. It went around several times before it moved slightly south and began the circling again. I thought of the decaying carcass smell we we've been getting faint whiffs of when we are in the backyard. I thought of the dead woman's body that sweltered in the heat of a parked car for several days before it was finally found in the parking lot at a local Wal-Mart (Peeeee-yewwwww!). I am now theorizing that some criminal has stashed a body in our woods and the officials are searching for it. The dead armadillo has been picked clean for too long for us to still be smelling it. Besides, it was a mile or so up the road.

If this is all just a warm up, I think I better just pack it all up and go to bed before Friday the 13th hits. I wish I had the option to just hide in under the covers all day tomorrow, like Snoopy did in the old "Peanuts" comic strips when he was waiting for the world to end.

I think I'm supposed to nominate some more Rokin' Girl Bloggers. I'll do it later. I'm too tired tonight.

"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.

Dr. Doo Doo

Speaking of knee deep (see previous post), I can't EVEN believe that I forgot to post the update on The Neighbors. Almost-eleven-year-old practically pounced on me in my driveway last weekend and announced proudly that Woolly Mammoth Dog had given birth. Of course I questioned just how many little poop factories she produced. THIRTEEN! I gasped in horror and squealed something like, "THIRTEEN! I didn't think that was even possible! THIRTEEN! You must be joking! How can a dog have THIRTEEN puppies? Are you SURE there were THIRTEEN?" I must've gone on for more than a reasonable amount of time with this, as Almost-Eleven-Year-Old backed away from me slowly, never taking her eyes off me, and she didn't respond to a single one of my questions or exclamations. I was having traumatic mental images of a steam hot summer with a yard full of smelly dog poop piles and flies buzzing. Husband called on his way to work this morning to tell me that he just saw a billboard for Dr. Doo Doo (not the one in the link, but same idea) and that we should pass a business card to The Neighbors. We are celebrating like crazy that we are moving in 10 days.

Folks, we now have 14 dogs, 3 cats, 5 kids, and two parents living in the 3 bedroom house an arm's length away from our own house. And they are renting. This landlord must be absolutely desperate. The only other tenants for the past 16 months were illegal Mexican aliens who lived there about 2 months before they were deported. Oh how we miss the elderly lady who smoked like a chimney and her little yappy dog that lived there for several years before selling her house to a rental company.

I managed to go to sleep without the Tylenol PM last night, but I'm sure that bottle of wine helped a little. I can't decide if my headache is due to a slight hangover, lack of sleep, stress, or a combination of all the above. It's a great way to start my day of therapy with dysfunctional adolescents. Ya think I should teach them some of my great coping skills?

Welcome Changes

I've been busy. Quite distracted from blogging. And it's going to be that way for while, it appears.

First came the plans to launch two simultaneous 10 week psychoeducational and therapeutic counseling groups focusing on anger management for a total of 17 adolescent girls in a group home. This involves a whole lot of paperwork and planning in advance of starting the group as well as considerable paperwork and documentation during the process.

Then came our decision to finally purchase a small antisocial acreage, complete with house. That was followed by putting our own house up for sale, and that was followed by selling our home approximately 16 hours after it was listed for sale.

We are moving in 22 days.

I will try to post semi-regularly, but it's not going to be a high priority for awhile. I do, however, have some pics I will post later.

Here's to abandoning the 18 children (another one moved in) that run freely about our cul de sac. Here's to abandoning The Neighbors and their five children that take over our yard whether we are home or not. Here's to abandoning their pregnant dog and his humongous poop piles and their cat and her two new kittens.

Here's to a new chapter in the drama!

That Was Fun

We don't get out much. This is partly because we don't have many babysitters to leave the kids with and partly because going out with a three year old and a 17 month old is not for the faint at heart, though I do feel like a wimp in this regard whenever I see our neighbors pack up their SUV with their five children ages 11, 9, 7, almost 5 and 2 and head out. They do this frequently, and if you've read any of my previous posts about the neighbors, you will be quick to recognize that this is a very good thing. We like it when they leave.

In a courageous moment, we decided to take the whole family out on Memorial Day. We then made it 3.5 miles down the road after picking up Grandpa and Grandma before Son started saying, "Done" and trying to get his safety belt off. He fussed the rest of the way to Wonders of Wildlife (Daughter's "favorite place to go in the whole world") until we freed him from his restraints. The next hour and a half went fairly smooth, but that all fell apart when we crossed the parking lot to get back into the family mobile and leave. That's when Son started running the other direction and screaming and arching his back when I tried to grab him. He then flailed like a fish out of water and screamed at the top of his lungs and continued to arch his back while three adults tried to stuff him into his car seat. We all tried real hard to go to our own respective happy places while Son continued his tirade all the way to the unlucky restaurant we chose. Son got over himself enough to sit in a highchair at the table for 30 seconds before he insisted on getting down and running around and trying to trip to wait staff with their big trays of food. Anything that didn't go exactly as he wanted it to was met with another outburst of screaming and head shaking and hand waving. I was sure he was just really hungry and that the crisis would pass when he got some food. I was trying to be optimistic, which is something I don't do well or often.

When the food arrived, Son was under the table refusing to come out. I was sure we could bribe him with the food, but he wasn't interested. He screamed when Husband drug him out from under the table and tried to hold him. He screamed when I tried to hold him. He screamed when Grandpa tried to hold him. I was getting tired of being the customers from Hell that were getting all the stares and annoying looks, so we let him do whatever he wanted just so he would shut up. He proceeded to go back under the table and try to climb out the other side where his big sis was perched in her booster chair. He was not gonna give up until he got his way. By the way, I am fully aware that having a strong-willed child is my own personal penance, so don't rub it in.

Fortunately, Grandma was with us and rescued him (or should I say, rescued us). With all four adults working at the task, we managed to move the table out far enough for Grandma (who was sitting next to Daughter) to pull Son up from under the table and hold him in her lap. He was finally happy, because he apparently wanted to go fishing in Grandma's salad. So Grandma continued to hold him while his chubby little fingers disappeared over and over again into the center of her salad and came out with a black bean. He wasn't interested in anything that was on his own plate. Just black beans from the middle of Grandma's salad. And Grandma let him do as he pleased, because, well...because she's Grandma.

Now that Son was pleased with his new quiet preoccupation, we could finally stop dancing around the table playing "pass the baby." We stopped getting stares and annoying looks from the other customers, and we all managed to eat our meals. Except Grandma, who wasn't very hungry after all. Who could blame her?

We dropped Grandma and Grandpa off with an open invitation to join us again whenever they need a little extra stress in their lives, and as we headed home, we felt freshly reminded of why we don't do this very often.

There Goes the Neighborhood

Twelve. That's how many peaceful days we had when the new neighbors took their whole clan for a road trip. Except for the pregnant dog and the pregnant cat. I know all this because they told me. Nine-Year-Old was waiting in our driveway the morning they were headed out. I was busy strapping the wee ones in their car seats on our way to the food mart. Nine-Year-Old wanted to let us know how much she would miss us while they were gone. Gone? I tried not to look too pleased about this news as I inquired just how long they were going to be GONE? (I tried really hard, but I couldn't help stressing the word "GONE?")

She told me ten days and that they were visiting their home state a few hundred miles away, and at this point it was impossible for me to mask my pleasure. I asked about the dog, and she told me they had put him in a kennel. I asked about the cat, and she told me the cat was staying in the garage (except that when they got home they found her in one of the upstairs bedrooms where she had given birth to her two new kittens). I only asked because I was morbidly curious as I envisioned a van packed with two adults, five kids, a pregnant dog (who is the size of a horse), and a pregnant cat for several hundred miles each direction.

Satisfied with the answer, I hopped in the family-mobile and watched Nine-Year-Old's face disappear as the auto slider doors closed. I must've giggled a little, despite myself, as Dear Daughter inquired what I was laughing at. I got a grip as I was pulling out of the driveway and spotted Neighbor Dad cramming their own family mobile with so much stuff that I couldn't imagine where two parents and the 11, 9, 7, almost 5, and 2 yr olds were going to fit. I decided to kill them with kindness, despite our annoyance with them for the way they let their kids run wild and unsupervised around our property (and everyone else's), don't clean up the massive poop piles their dog leaves on our property, and let their yard and every living plant in it grow over. I rolled down the window and offered to collect their mail for them while they were gone. I also inquired again how long they would be gone. This time the answer I got was 11 days. I was beside myself with relief and even had to call Dear Husband immediately on his cell phone because I couldn't wait to announce the good news.

Gleefully, 11 days turned into 12. But all good things must come to an end. Almost-Five-Year-Old is back to stalking us in our driveway and helping himself to Daughter's toys the second the garage door opens. I'm teaching him to have manners and ask first and put stuff away when he's done. Two-Year-Old is running aimlessly about the cul-de-sac exploring all the neighbors' yards unsupervised. Next time she comes into ours unsupervised I will have to pay a visit to the parents and request that they not allow her in our garage or yard unsupervised as we do not want her to get hurt on our property. Eleven-Year-Old and Nine-Year-Old are busy climbing the smallish maple tree in the front yard and breaking every tender branch in the process. When they are done it looks worse than any of the trees in the area that survived the ice storm four months ago.

We spent our Mother's Day bar-b-cue sitting on our deck yelling across the picnic table to hear each other above the roar of the garden tiller Neighbor Dad had attached to his weed eater. For cryin' out loud, he was only at it for about six solid hours. And that was AFTER he spent two days trying to mow down his overgrown lawn that badly needed a mow job BEFORE they even left for their 12 day road trip. It was rainy in between all the sun the entire time they were gone, so that ensured that the grass grew at record fast speed and had gone to seed before they returned home to tend to it. We had two solid days of loud obnoxious "wrrrrrr-chug chug chug....grnnnnnnnnnnn sputter sputter" sounds that came from the lawn mower since he didn't use the hay bailer he really needed. At least he was making an effort to clean the place up. I have always hated the fact that our home association doesn't back up their own covenant, which states that if lawns are not kept neatly trimmed they will bring in a lawn service to do it and bill you accordingly.

The other day I saw the clan at the food mart. They were steering their train of shopping carts to the checkout, and I was ducking behind a row of maxi-pads, praying that Daughter didn't spy them and that she wouldn't yell out, "Look, Mommy! There's our neighbors!" Fortunately she didn't, and I thought the coast was clear. However, when we got home, the brood was still in their driveway hauling food into their house (except for Almost-Five-Year-Old, who was stalking our driveway), and Seven-Year-Old hollered over to me, "We saw you at the store!" Great. I'm being stalked everywhere I go!

I keep having visions of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation when the uninvited cousin shows up to the party in his beat up old Winnebago. You know the scene where he is standing there in his undershorts and work boots and fleece lined hat with the ear flaps and the chin strap dangling while he smokes his cigar and belches and dumps the portable crapper down the storm drain. That's what we're dealing with here, folks.

On the bright side, Woolly Mammoth Dog has not dropped any king-sized crap piles in our grass since their return, so there's that.

New Neighbors and Other Unfortunate Events

The family that no one wants to live next to just moved in next door to us. Complete with five kids between the ages of 2 and 11, a pregnant dog, and pregnant cat. Did I mention that the dog is a HUGE chocolate lab, and while he has a great disposition, he also leaves elephant size poop piles in the yard? The biggest problem with this is that we live on an approximately .28 acre lot and the neighbors live on an even smaller lot on the side of our house that has the smallest amount of yard. That means that you can stand between the two houses and practically touch one with each hand. That also means we live way too close to said neighbors. And it means that our search for a new home with a small acreage has become a near desperate search.

The other day I counted the kids among the seven houses nearest ours. I came up with 17 kids under the age 13. Ten of those children are under ten years of age. I have to note that I am not anti-kid. I actually like kids. We have two of our own, after all. But out of these 17 kids, the only four that are monitored very well are our two and the two that live across the street. The other 13 pretty much run wild. Where are the parents when these kids are helping themselves to our kids' toys that are parked in our garage? Where are the parents when their kids help themselves to the swing set in our backyard when we are not even in the yard ourselves? Where are the parents when their dog is taking a massive, record-breaking crap in our grass?

Husband and I are very perplexed as to why we are the only parents (save for the one across the street) that are actually outdoors WITH their small children and monitoring what they are doing and teaching them to respect their neighbors. We are even more perplexed as to how a parent could let their just-turned-two-year-old run around without parental supervision. I end up having to monitor the entire neighborhood because I am apparently the only parent who cares.

Last week the about-to-turn-five-year-old that just moved in next door with his four other siblings and pregnant cat and pregnant dog was playing on the swing set with Daughter, while at least two other neighborhood kids were playing in Daughter's sandbox, including one of Almost-Five-Year-Old's sisters. Daughter is not used having so many playmates. In the midst of the chaos, she got kicked in the face by Almost-Five-Year-Old, who was swinging hard and fast when Daughter apparently walked in front of him. She was smacked so hard that she was spun around and thrown onto her face on the ground. There was blood everywhere, and I was sure that under all that blood were a couple of missing teeth. It was the last straw...well, before the last LAST straw of yesterday when I found the three mammoth-sized crap piles in the yard. I sent all the kids home immediately and took my bloody screaming daughter inside to find out how much of her face was permanently damaged. She had a fat lip for two or three days and the blow completely ripped the skin that attaches the upper lip to the upper gums, and she was bruised and bloody on the gums above one of her front teeth. Fortunately, there appears to be no permanent damage.

I realize that accidents happen. I'm not angry at anyone about the accident, especially not the little boy that kicked my daughter. But I am quite irritated that the parents of this child, and his seven-year-old sibling that was also in our yard when the accident happened, did not even come over later to see how Daughter was. I would have done so if their child were hurt while playing with my child. I am, of course, assuming that said five and seven-year-olds went home and told their parents about the bloody face of their three-year-old neighbor that occurred when Almost-Five-Year-Old accidentally kicked her with the force of a wild bronco.

Then there's the recent incident of Almost-Five-Year-Old returning a few days later to our door to ask if Daughter could come out and play. At least he asked this time. Apparently, he really wanted to play in Daughter's sandbox and on Daughter's swing set again. We went out with Daughter and Son to play with Almost-Five-Year-Old and his sister, Seven-Year-Old for awhile. Of course there was no sign of the parents of these kids except when their nine-year-old yelled inside the door to their father to ask if they could please come inside yet. Apparently that was met with a "no" as the kids all continued playing out in the street. My guess is that the chaos got too much for the dad, so he sent them all outside to play and be supervised by us, the only parents who seem to care.

This time Almost-Five-Year-Old had had some kind of poop accident in his pants. I didn't notice it at first. I kept catching some smelly whiffs, but I just figured he ate beans for his supper or something. Then I finally noticed he was grabbing at his rear a lot and there was a wet stain seeping through his pants. That was about all I could take this time. I told him that he seemed to have had some sort of accident in his pants and needed to go home and ask his mom to help him clean up. He didn't want to go and continued playing on the swings and the slide. I was envisioning poop streaks on Daughter's play equipment and thinking of how this is the way Polio was passed long ago. I wasn't concerned about Polio, but I still didn't want poop streaks on Daughter's play equipment and germs passed this way. I tried to send him home again, and he still wouldn't go, so we finally just told him he needed to go home because we were going inside. I don't know if he ever did go home to deal with it. Last we knew he said he was going to stand firmly in place in our driveway until we came back outside. Before going inside and pulling down all the blinds and locking all the doors and windows, we told him that he would be waiting for a long time...or something to that effect.

We are suddenly missing the elderly lady with the yappy rat-dog that used to live next door to us. It now doesn't seem so bad to have been awakened at all hours of the night and early morning by rat-dog's yap, yap, yapping. At least we never saw HIS poop piles. And his owner never left poop streaks on Daughter's play equipment, stalked us in our own driveway, or kicked Daughter in the face and left her to bleed to death.

If we don't find our own little anti-social acreage soon, I fear it's going to be a long, LONG summer!