The Watermelon Incident

There's always a surprise when I upload photos now...Jacob helps himself to the camera when I'm not around. And here is what I find. You have to look closely to see what this is, and at first glance it will appear that the watermelon is simply resting on the couch, but I promise you, it is not. That is the coffee table with a blue waterbottle (top off) on it, and then a whole watermelon balanced on the waterbottle. WTF? 

So I had no idea that this episode even took place until I saw the photo evidence. What was going through Jacob's head, and where the hell was I when this was happening? Oh right, I have three kids now so this is just what it's going to be like...complete chaos all the time.

Dear Summer: 2 Weeks

Dear Summer,

    You're two weeks and a few days old now.  At one point you were down to five pounds even, and probably less than that in the days between weigh-ins.  From that point you started to get the hang of nursing and gained 13 ounces in three and a half days!  That was ten days ago, so you're probably nearing seven pounds by now.  The weight is starting to show in your face, is forming little tiny legs rolls and, happily, has given you somewhat of a toosh.  You're skin finally stopped peeling right around the time I was able to give you your first bath (which is nice because now I'm not picking at it all the time) and your skin has become so silky soft!

    To Sabine you are still The New Baby.  To Jacob you are Summy because we realized there isn't an obvious nickname for Summer.  Daddy and I sometimes call you Sumsy because there is a Bob the Builder character with that name.  To Mango you are something interesting to sniff and to Ginger you do not exist.  To the bunnies, you are just one more thing in the long line of things that have pushed them further down the list of priorities.  And to everyone you are a nice something to hold, snuggle and adore.

    For at least the first week of your life I don't think you were put down.  Maybe for ten minutes here or there, but it's very possible you really were never out of arms.  For starters, I would have held you all day if there was nothing else for me to do.  And then there was Daddy holding you every chance he got.  Jacob and Sabine were constantly fighting over who was going to get to hold you.  Jacob especially would just sit there and hold you for a long time.  There were the grandparents and all the other visitors holding you.  And at night you sleep right in the bed with us.  Right now you do spend brief periods in the bassinet that we have downstairs, mostly because I'm really trying hard to put you down so you get used to being on your own because I don't want to mess you up for sleep like I did with the others.  But it's hard because mostly I just want to hold you all day long.      

    My favorite times with you are when your eyes are open and you look around.  I love gazing into your little eyes and wondering what you're thinking.  The extent of your abilities now is to turn your head around, lock you eyes on something, stick your tongue out at in and then make an 'O' with your mouth in approval.  If you like what you see you'll swing your jerky little limbs around in excitement.  It's fun witnessing your motions and realizing that they are familiar ones because they are the exact movements that drove me crazy when you were still inside.  In your sleep you practice your smiles, and sometimes laugh out loud.  The sleep smiles make sense, but we can't figure out how newborn babies laugh - like how do you know things are funny?  And if you can do it in your sleep, how come you can't do it while awake yet?  I guess it is just a mechanical thing at this point and there's no emotion attached to the laughing yet.

    Daddy has already coined a special term for you.  He calls it The Watchtower.  When you're fussy he puts you high up on his shoulder, as if to burp you, and lets you look out at whatever is behind him.  You look so cute with your crinkled brow and dark little eyes peeking out from above Daddy's shoulder.  Things must look very different from up there.

    Some days I don't think it can get much better with you, but I know the next best thing that is coming:  The day that you first smile at us for real.  It's going to be like fireworks going off inside my heart.  Your brother and sister were all over you for the first couple weeks, and have finally started to back off a little bit, but when you begin smiling at them, it's going to be all over.  And when you start giving us belly laughs, I can only imagine what goofballs they'll look like trying to evoke a laugh from you.

    Whatever is coming, it's going to be good.  There isn't going to be much downtime around here for quite a while.  We're going to be tired and cranky.  The house is going to get messy and it's going to drive me crazy.  You're going to continue to poop all over things and your spit up is going to reach greater distances.  You'll keep us awake at night (like last night when you were up for 2 1/2 hours straight).  But at the end of the day we'll look at you, fall in love a little more, and know that it's all worth it.

Love,

    Mommy

   

Day 3: Which on doesn't belong?

Need I say much here?  This is Reggie, our one rabbit that has house bunny status.  He roams around the house, messes with the dogs, and goes to the bathroom in his cage.  Also, he doesn't chew stuff that he shouldn't, which is the main reason it makes it so much more difficult to let the others run around the house.  The other day I caught Reggie hanging out on an empty spot on the toy shelf.  Cute, huh?

I call this one 'Perfect Timing'

 

Sabine was struck earlier this week with the stomach but that's been going around.  She threw up four times over the course of a day or so, with each one being more severe or more hilarious than the one before.  The first two times were while she was in bed.  The first one was not so bad; I thought it could have been a fluke.  After the second, it was clear that she was ill.  This picture shows the aftermath of the third time.  She was 'home sick' for the day, but insistent upon going outside to play.  I told her she could not go outside to play because she was sick.  But she did not care, and without my blessing, began to get herself dressed for the outdoors.  

I was in the other room when I heard the suspicious sound, and came around the corner to see this.  Just as I was walking over to her, I saw Zach in the window of the front door; he was just arriving home for lunch.  I got such a kick out of his perfect timing that I had to take a picture.  I wouldn't have left her standing there like that if the camera hadn't been right nearby.  But it was just too funny because he could see for himself what it was like to be home with a puking kid.  And as an added bonus, he was there to help me clean it up.

Part of the reason I took the picture was so I could prove to Jacob that his purple lizard really did need to be thrown out (there it is in the middle of the throw up at Sabine's feet).  Anyway, her snowsuit, jacket, gloves and hat all went directly into the washer.  Her boots had a good wipedown and that mat had to be taken to the car wash.  Later in the day Sabine threw up for the last time.  She was behind the couch, but hanging off of the back of it.  Zach was right in front of her and she puked all over the back of the couch, including the back of Zach's head.  I am sorry I don't have a picture of that.

Anyway, this is day 1 of a new stretch of 'picture a day' photos.  Hope it didn't ruin anyone's lunch, but I couldn't resist.

Dear Jacob: January 24, 2011

Dear Jacob,

I wish I could jump ahead into the future so that I could establish if all that nagging I did back when you were seven was really necessary.  Because it seems that's all I do right now, and I feel very badly about it.  You see, sometimes it's just so hard to be in the same room, scratch that, the same house as you.  You are so annoying these days.  I don't know how long it's been like this, a year?  It definitely became unbearable when you started school last fall.  The way Beckie puts it is that you (little boys in general) spend so much of the day 'toeing the line' in school, that when you come home, you just have to let out all that pent-up energy.

But why does that energy have to be in the form of the World's Most Irritating Sounds?  In order of frequency, here are the things you do:  Repeat random syllables in a high-pitched sing-song voice, clap your hands (loudly) in a random pattern (is random pattern an oxymoron?), laugh in a maniacal way that makes me have to stop what I'm doing to go investigate what you've gotten into, make gun-shooting noises, stomp your feet.  The list goes on.

For entire minutes in our house the only thing that can be heard is me going, "Jacob, pllllease!"  Followed by your continuation of said random phrases, followed by my going, "Jacob, pllllease!" again, and on and on and on.  If I were to actually leave the room I'm in to look you in the eye and tell you to stop every time you do sometime like that, I would never get anything done.  As it is I can hardly get any stuff done because I spend so much time with my blood pressure sky high that I can't focus on my task at hand.

Just in case I am being too vague in my description of the annoying stuff, as I type this you're getting so far under my skin that I can't think of a good metaphor for how far under my skin you are.  Here is what you are doing:  Creeping around the corner of the doorway to peer in at me, for what reason, I'm not sure.  But without taking my eyes from the screen I can see that you have put on your coat, with the hood pulled up and the little neck tabs pulled across your chin, and also, you have your little goggles on.  You are giggling because then you creep past the doorway and you don't think I have seen you, and perhaps you think you are getting away with something because I would not approve of you wearing your coat in the house?  How many times have I told you about peripheral vision?  I don't have to be looking at you to see what you're doing.

I won't even get started on your interactions with Sabine.

Also, it's like you're testing the power of words or something.  You say stuff sometimes that doesn't mean anything, I can figure out why you'd be saying it, it's not true.  Today, "Sabine, I have a razor, I could cut you."

WHY?

Is it because you are on your way to becoming a psychopath?  Or do I not need to worry about that?  Because if I knew that threatening to kill your little sister is a normal thing, then I would have a lot less nights where I lie awake in bed.  Is it because you are bored?  If so, that sort of sucks, but at least I would know the reason and I could assure myself that when it is not zero degrees outside, your cabin fever would wear off.  Is it that you are testing the power of your words?

All these things I could understand, but maybe there is some reason only a seven year old boy can internalize, yet not be able to come up with the words to express why it is a necessary part of development.  Maybe there is a purpose, and if someone, or if Future You could tell me, then maybe I could live with it without really understanding it.  Right now all the crazy behavior seems so meaningless.  If some expert could tell me to have faith, that there is a reason, I will take that.

Also, I'd like to know if I am damaging you in some way when I stand there above you screaming, "Why are you doing this?"  Because in these moments I truly expect you to give me an answer; when people tell me that you're seven and you don't know why, I just can't accept that.  When I tell you that you are acting crazy, am I negatively influencing your self-esteem in a way that can't be repaired?  If it can be repaired, is it enough that I apologize when I need to and that I can admit when I was wrong?

I really just wish that you could give me an answer as to why you do these things.  That would be the best thing for our relationship; if you could just tell me why.  I could be so much more understanding.  If I have a reason for something, I can deal with it.

All my complaining makes it sound like I don't enjoy having kids.  But then I go upstairs to get into bed, only to find my two cherubs asleep in my spot, snuggled in with their arms wrapped around each other and it all sort of seems worth it.

Love,
Mommy

They Come in Threes

That's the line, right?  Things tend to come in threes?  Last week, in the course of 24 hours, three big things happened.  The last one isn't such a big deal though, unless you're a seven year old kid.

A week ago on Friday afternoon I was at a complete stop on our road waiting to cross a lane of traffic in order to take a left-hand turn into our own driveway.  There were several cars behind me who were also stopped, so I guess the jackass in the big pickup behind all those cars decided he didn't want to wait in the line of stopped traffic.  He pulled out into the left lane, facing oncoming traffic, and proceeded to pass the entire line of cars.  I began to take the left turn as he was passing me (but of course I didn't look behind me before I turned), and I didn't see him until just after he'd slammed my front left bumper and kept on going, swerving back into the right lane to avoid a head-on collision.  And kept on going.  And going.

I was in shock because I couldn't believe that someone had hit me, and in even more shock that he left the scene of the accident.  It took me a minute to remember what I was supposed to do, and then I realized oh yeah, call the police.  All I could do was describe the car, he'd been going too fast to catch the license plate, and no one else who stopped had gotten it either.

About 15 minutes later when Zach had gotten home, I was in the driveway showing him the damage when a saint disguised as an ordinary citizen pulled in the driveway and produced the license plate number of the pick-up who'd hit me.  He'd followed him about 4 miles down the road before catching up and getting close enough to read the plate.  Then he drove all the way back here to give us the best pre-Christmas gift ever.

With the license plate number the police were able to get the guy and slap him with a bunch of tickets.  He's 19, a local college student (everyone had said, oh it must have been a college student) from the school down the road, and was driving an unregistered vehicle not belonging to him.

Anyway, we're all ok, the kids were in the car with me, so it could have been much, much worse.  A few feet more and I might not be here, or Jacob, or Sabine, because I figure he was going about 50mph.  But MY KIDS WERE IN  THE CAR WITH ME.  I am so pissed that someone could, and would, do something like that.  We knew it was only a matter of time before one of those ass-hole drivers that we see on our road all the time would come to affect us personally.  Now we have a real incident to refer to when Jacob wants to know why he's not allowed to go in the front yard.  I'm surprised that I'm not more shaken up about what could have happened, but maybe all the other things going on have kept me too busy to think about it that much.

The same night as the car accident, Jacob was on the kitchen counter and decided to jump off onto the floor.  he landed with both feet, but flat-footed.  I think most everyone knows the difference between landing properly and landing with your whole foot like that.  The impact rushes up your whole body and shakes you, almost like getting the wind knocked out of you, but in a vertical way.  In the middle of the night is when he started crying about pain in his foot but we just assumed it was growing pains like he usually has.

The next day it was still hurting him, so we gave it another night and then brought him in for x-rays on Sunday.  They didn't find anything, but that night into the morning brought even more pain so we took him to see a specialist on Monday afternoon and it was decided that there was, in fact, a small break.  He's got a cast now and is getting along pretty well.

The last thing that happened is that over the weekend Jacob presented us with his usual, "I think I have a loose tooth," which is usually wishful thinking on his part, because he'd never had a loose tooth before, and had been desperate for one.  But when I stuck my finger into his mouth to feel it, I was totally grossed out by a definite wiggle in the bottom left toother! 

I actually feel like he got a little cheated on the loose tooth thing because he's been waiting for so long, and now it's kind of overshadowed by the cast.  Two childhood rites of passage at the same time! 

It was hard explaining to people what happened to Jacob's foot, that's the reason we eventually settled on the jumping-off-the-counter explanation, because as best we can figure that's when it happened?  But I almost wish I could use the car accident as the reason, it would be easier to explain why both these things just happened to occur on the same day.  And I've been privately joking with Jacob that the car accident must have shook him tooth loose.

Anyway, I remember the Christmas when I was seven, I was waiting for my two front teeth to grow in and I thought it was so cool that I could sing that song, All I Want For Christmas is My Two Front Teeth.  Jacob keeps asking when his tooth is going to fall out; with his luck of late, I wouldn't be surprised if the tooth fairy and Santa Clause showed up on the same night.  I'll just make sure we don't leave the tooth anywhere near the cookies.  Santa would never forgive us if we accidentally fed him a lost tooth!

This is the life...

Laying in bed this morning, I pretended to still be asleep as Jacob and Sabine were snuggling with each other.  I had been working on teaching her to say, "I love you" and she's finally gotten the hang of it. I heard Sabine say the magic words, "I ofv ouu, JeJe." and little parts of my heart started shooting all over the place.

After a little bit they found out I was awake, or rather, they didn't care whether I was or not and just started climbing on me.  Each arm was filled with one of my kids as we laid there chatting with one another.  Hands down the best part of being a mom.  Then Jacob said aloud what I was thinking, "Ahh, this is the life!" he exclaimed.

Her Baby

I wrote this post on 10/7 (as the date above indicates), but one or another things kept it for getting published until now. As of this writing, 10/15, there have been some developments in the Baby Saga.  Stay tuned for updates.  Because I know you have nothing better to do.



This is Sabine's baby.  It's been three weeks now since she could not be without her.  I know where she came from, and it dates back to a project I had to do in school when I was a kid, but I have no idea just how Sabine got a hold of Baby.  Nor do I remember the moment when she must have pulled her from the deep recesses of some drawer.  I do remember the first day Sabine could not be without her and that was a Friday three weeks ago.  I can't think of how it actually happened that we realized Sabine couldn't be without her, but I recall Sabine bringing her to Playschool on the following Monday and I was so nervous that Sabine was going to lose her.  I remember telling people that day that Sabine had been carrying her baby around non-stop since Friday.

Pretty much every day Baby gets lost.  We all enter crisis mode and search for her until she's found.  I think it was the day before I took these pictures that Baby actually got lost in the backyard.  It was then that I realized I needed to take some pictures of her so that we would have something for the milk cartons in case her disappearance ever became more than temporary.  On this day in the backyard (about a week after the relationship began) Sabine was far too busy taking Baby down the slide and tossing her in the air (all the time going "Woohoo, my baby!") to hold her still long enough for me to get a close-up.  I had to hold her for this top picture and Sabine stood at my legs jumping and pawing to get Baby back.

The name Baby is overly repetitive in our house these days.  We already have a 'Baby' and that's an inflatable giraffe that Sabine loves to play with.  So I tried to get her to call this new one Little Baby, but she insists on simply calling her 'My Baby', so then we just refer to it as 'Her Baby'.  We've also got a Baby Honey; Sabine refers to dogs as puppies, so actual puppies have become 'baby puppies'.  I feel like pretty soon everything is our house is going to have some name variation of Baby.

     

Day 92: Free-Range Bunny

This is Reggie, sitting outside of the backyard rabbit pen that we use for them. We've mostly had him living upstairs, as opposed to the basement where the other bunnies live. Because of this, and because he has such a mellow personality, he does really well around the dogs, and likewise, the dogs pretty much ignore him, other than an occasional sniff from Mango. So we used to let him run around the deck during the day and he would always stay there, enjoying the fresh air and company.

The dogs just recently spent 2 1/2 weeks away from our house (1 while we were at Camp, and the rest of the time being housed at my mom's while the floors were being worked on) so I think Reggie noticed the difference and got a little more daring. One day, all of a sudden, he went down the deck stairs and explored the backyard. He loved it, and ever since, the first thing he does when we let him out is hop down the stairs to explore.

Maybe we should be concerned with large birds preying on him, but we've never really had a problem with that. Even though the dogs are good around Reggie, they are still dogs and we know that they might see him running fast out of the corner of their eye and instinct might take over, so we're being careful about letting them out together. Other than having to be careful, it's been really fun having a backyard bunny.

Day 90: Protective Gear

This is Jacob (in case you couldn't tell) during the sanding of the floors. What a mess that was and thank God it's over! Zach's dad came up a couple days to help out. Thank you again to him. We're slowly cleaning things up and moving furniture back in. Today we got our living room back into shape, but slightly rearranged. We almost switched the dining room and the living room, but ended up not doing so. And thank you to our moms for helping out with that process!

When we first moved in to our house we had a newborn and things we in a lot more disorder than they are now. I've always sort of felt because Jacob entered the world into a house of chaos, that the chaos naturally spilled over into the way we were with him. I feel like he didn't have a lot of routine and that's carried over into the rest of our years with him. I'm hoping that the disorder of the past few weeks (which coincided with him starting school) won't mark the rest of his school career. I'm hoping I can calm down soon and get to a point with the house where I feel like it's done and then concentrate on all the things I've volunteered to do for his school.

Day 52: Farmer Jacob

We've been doing a lot with cardboard boxes this summer - we always have. Currently we have a deluxe cardboard house residing in the front room. Just days after its assembly, it received a back addition, and is patiently awaiting the arrival of a two-car garage. But in the meantime there was this tall, narrow box that was just asking to be turned into some useful. So when Jacob requested a farm stand last week, I knew just the box. You can't tell from the photo, but this thing is complete with inner cardboard baskets to hold all the veggies from our garden, a cash register, a shelf, and a fully functional back door, as well as a full functional open/closed sign. That's part of the challenge of my photo assignment - it's hard capturing what I want to show in just one picture.

Jacob is really proud of the farm stand I built him and we've been playing pretend farmers' market all week. I had to make him cover the front if it for this photo because he went and wrote his first and last name all over it before I got a chance to take the 'internet safe photo'.

Now I won't pretend this farm stand game has been all fun and games; I have been doing a great deal of whining about playing along, as well as no small amount of yelling when it comes time to clean up after the fun's been had, but I will say that when someone asks about how I like being a stay-at-home mom, this is the exact kind of thing I have in mind when I tell them, "Well, we have no money and are totally poor, but I wouldn't miss a minute of it to go to work and be without them all day long." We may be forced to make our toys out of cardboard boxes, but at least I'm the one who gets to be present for the evolution of the box.

Day 38: Power Outage

We love power outages. And if you can guess what this drunk-looking toddler has to do with the power going out, then you win. Woohoo! Anyway, we really do love it when the power goes out because we get to do things that we'd never have the excuse to do in real life. Like, for instance, eat really mushy ice cream in bed at 10:30pm (or who knows, maybe it was even later, you don't know, your power is out!) from a cone, when normally, your parents would never-in-their-right-minds give you your own cone because you're only two and if they set the principle then you'll forever be wanting your own cone?

Yes, that's the kind of thing that happens when the power goes out.

And then in a flash, when the power goes back on and all the lights are like, "waaaaahhhh" in your face, suddenly everyone is laughing at you because they had no idea how you were faring over there on the other side of the bed with your first-ever-own-cone. And then you yourself realize what a mess you have become and stumble over to the other side of the bed for a long, cold drink of water to wash away the sticky, sugary taste in your mouth like there's no tomorrow.

Let me count the ways...

Sometimes I post on here and the time stamp says something crazy like 4:20am because I'll change the date or time so things show up in chronological order, and they're not all bunched up in one day in reverse order. I don't know how to explain that without writing entire paragraphs so you'll just have to believe me that I have a good reason, and it has to do with being extremely anal.

My point is, right now I am live blogging at 4:20am because what just happened next to me is the best thing in the world, and it's happened before; enough times that it was infinitely worth it to go get the computer, and with bright light hitting my eyeballs (risking the chance of me ever being able to fall back asleep), attempt to tell the world about the best kind of love that exists - at least in my world.

My kids, especially the older one, find numerous ways to aggravate me. There are so many different methods; each coming with its own particular course of action for inflicting irritation. However, I'm coming to realize that for each of these annoyances, there are at least as many different ways to love them.

Anyway, here I am in the family bed, also known as the Big Bed. But it is definitely not as big as some beds other people have for half the amount of bodies. I like to think of ours as the all-the-better-to-snuggle-you size. Sabine woke up, I got up, carried her downstairs because even though it's pre-dawn, it just felt like it was time to make the coffee. With the little one slung over my shoulder, I put together the necessary ingredients and hit 'on'.

I returned upstairs to await the liquid gold and Sabine appeared to be back asleep. So I laid her back down, but then she got all squirmy. The way we appease her when we want her to settle down and go back to sleep is that we gently and rhythmically pat her. I really wanted that coffee so I told her to sit tight and I'd be right back. Of course she was not going to sit tight but I left anyway and heard her pining for me get louder and louder. Then things appeared to get quite, and when I returned I could tell there was no noise coming from Sabine. I thought she had fallen back asleep, but then I heard Jacob doing the instinctual shushing that us parents do, then he whispered, "Mommy's coming right back." When I got closer I saw that he was also patting her. The best part about it is that his eyes were closed.

I can't exactly put words to why this detail made the moment, but it was like this action was just instinctual, like that of an exhausted mother of a newborn just trying to catch any shut eye she can. He just did it because that's what he's been doing her whole life. She's his little sister and he loves her, that is just how he shows it. And the fact that Sabine responded to that action; the idea that she could be just as soothed by Jacob in that moment as either of her parents drives home the meaningfulness of the whole thing.

To see my kids, the two little people I created, functioning in the world like that, independent of me, that's when I love them the best, in the most pure way I can.

I told Jacob how sweet that was and how awesome he is, and scooped Sabine back up. When she eventually went back to sleep (or so I thought), I laid her down again only to have her get right back up, all angry like this time. She was calling out for Jeje (Jakie). I showed her that he was right next to her, said that he was the one patting her. She got all calm, said, "Uhn," and settled in next to him.

So here they are now at the end of this writing, all nestled against one another in matching positions and Jacob's arm is around Sabine. I swear, there is nothing better in the world. If we got to pick our own version of Heaven, you know what mine would look like.

And my biggest argument in favor of co-sleeping is the fact that my heart is so full and big right now that it might actually explode. Seriously, before you put your kids in their own beds and their own rooms, ask yourself why you're doing it. Is it because that's what you've always 'known' it's the way it's done according to our culture, or because that's what is actually best for your family? For us, this is clearly the best.

Update on the corn

The trash goes out tonight. I am so excited to get rid of that rancking (I just made that word up) tub of nastiness . The garbage went out last week, which left the can empty for me to shove that bin in there. It just fit when I squeezed it in on its end, but to get anything else in the can, we have to lift the tub that held the corn out slightly above the lip of the garbage and shove whatever it is into the tub.

Even though it's out of sight now, it's still not out of mind. It was a real scorcher last week, we had one day that topped off at 99 degrees. The tub of rot was just sitting in there, turning into more rot. Remember, this is after the stuff has been dumped, it's just the empty tote bin now. When the Verizon tech came last Tuesday to fix our internet, she was in the vicinity of the garbage can so that when I went outside at one point to ask her if she needed me to do anything, I could smell it ten feet away and rushed over to move it. She said, "Oh, that's where the smell is coming from..I kept smelling myself hoping it wasn't me who stunk."

Also, one night when Zach was taking out a small bag of garbage, the kids and I were near the window that is closest to the big garbage can. We couldn't see him because it was dark, but we could hear him and for a minute I thought he was making spooky sounds to scare the kids, but then I realized he was gagging trying to get the bag into the garbage! I laughed my butt of for a good five minutes after that.

The only thing that could have been worse than puking from the smell of the that (which we have decided smells like actual puke) it if the mess of corn and mold and unidentified liquid had actually come in contact with our skin. I had a real close call on the day that I took the photos of it. Notice below that the lid is askew on top of the container. Well that's because I took the close-up photos first and then when I went to put the lid back on, not wanting to even touch the outside, I used my foot to try to slam the lid back in place. I was a little too forceful and as the corner of the lid went into the container, my foot slid and almost followed right into the corn! Before I realized that I'd made it away safely, I was envisioning pulling my bare, maggot-covered foot out with the accompanying pain of having your flesh eaten away at. I'm not sure how that little pail got on top of the lid. I may have thrown it as a knee-jerk reaction while I was screaming and running away; the kind of reaction you have when a monster is coming after you and you grab whatever meager implement you're holding in an effort to fend it off.

Not the first time this has happened

It's been in the nineties this week so, yeah, I've just been letting Sabine go around naked. Half the time because it's so hot I just don't care, the other half because it's so hot I don't have the energy to chase after and put clothes on her. Well she pooped on the floor today. I walked into the dining room and there she was - I don't know what she was trying to do, pick it up - with her hands covered in poop.

I scooped her up and with my arms fully extended, carried her to the bathroom, washed her hands three times, cleaned up her toosh and then handed her off to Zach. I went back to the dining room to clean up the mess and it was gone. In it's place were the dogs, looking very excited about the treat they'd just received.

The End (of the corn)

The End is the title of last night's episode of LOST. The Last Episode Ever. But I'm far too numb in that regard to ruminate on it here. I just needed to get that out of my system; this post is really about the corn.

Over a year ago we attended a birthday party for one of our little friends. We got to leave with a 50 lb. 'goody bag' of dried corn. Since then I'd kept it on the deck and used it as a texture bin for Sabine.










I left the bin on the deck for the winter, underneath something else protective, but at some point during the frigid winter the box cracked and water leaked in. I didn't know this until we went to use the corn for some project earlier this spring and saw that the bin was half full of water. I tried to salvage some of it but quickly realized most of the corn was green.

I've been doing my fair share of the yard work this year but the 50 lbs + whatever the water weighed was too much for me. Zach told me to leave the dirty job to him. He kept telling me he was going to do it, but then would forget. A couple months went by and we had a couple very hot streaks. Can you imagine what that crap would look like trapped inside a plastic bin in the hot, hot sun for weeks on end? Well, lucky for you I took a picture, so you don't have to imagine it.

Normally in a case like this I would have just kept on leaving it, but this past weekend I hosted the spring party for my moms' group. We had 14 families coming over, some of whom had never been here before. I couldn't go and let this be their first impression of my home. I would have called it my Third Annual Husband Experiment in any other circumstance, and I'm sort of sad that I didn't get to see where this would go, but at least that stank is out of my yard! Seriously, the smell was getting really bad. I couldn't open a couple windows on the back side of the house because when the wind blew the smell came right in. When I took the top off to take these photos I had to hold my breath, it was that bad. I thought it might be crawling with maggots and half expected it to take form and swallow me whole.

So Zach did fulfill his long-ago promise and he dumped it in the woods behind our neighbor's house where we always take our clean fill, though there's nothing clean about this fill. Anyway, I had had plans for that bin that it was in, but in the end there is only so much to the claim Plastic makes it possible. There was no saving that thing. After the garbage gets collected in a couple days I'm just going to toss it right in there - to hell with recycling. I don't want to be the cause of one of those recycling people to be rushed to the hospital.

Our 'Special' Child

I posted this picture a couple weeks ago and since then Sabine has been really into that helmet. As you can see from the picture below, Jacob was responsible for Sabine ending up in the crock pot box - zooming around the house at top speeds (hence the need for the helmet) - which anyone could have guessed. What I think they were trying to do was invent a new Olympic sport, one they could enter as a brother-sister team. Good luck with that endeavor, I say, as long as they don't use any of my good boxes ;-)

When I was showing pictures one day, someone remarked that Sabine looks like a 'special' child in that helmet. Indeed she does.
Here she is after putting on her own jammies. Poor thing couldn't figure out why she wasn't walking right, but Heaven help the person who might try to fix her right leg into the proper place. The one butt cheek look was kind of darling though so I would have hated to see it be corrected anyway.


But when you consider the man that half my children's genetic material came from....is it any wonder? Neither of them really had a chance for normalcy.
What a special girl she is....

There's a very good explanation for this...

I'm just not sure what it is.

My New Hobby

If you happen to drive by a house and see a woman with her head halfway out the kitchen window and a bug-eyed crazy look on her face, wielding a gun - a glue gun, that is - it's probably me. I'm at war with the sugar ants. But since I'm the kind of person who can't hurt a fly, I've got to take the defensive approach. I can't just go get something that's going to kill them - the ants have as much a right to live as we humans do. What I've come up with a systematic approach, well, really, it's quite random, but let's just pretend for a minute that it's sane.

Anyway, here's how I've been spending my time: I come into the kitchen to say, cook a meal, but before I can do that, I've got to clear out the fifty ants who have taken up residence on my kitchen counter. They're coming in the window, that's clear, or at least that's how they started, now I think they live in the kitchen, under the counter, somewhere within the window frame, in small crevices that humans cannot see.

Two night ago I had a freaky dream in which I was at my church and for some reason I ended up in the hearth room and there were all these ants coming out of the woodwork. A nun, which we don't have in the Episcopal church, came in, turned around an old organ and there was the Ant Colony of the Century. It was crazy alive with ants. I was totally freaked in that dream and my skin has been crawling ever since.

After that point, I declared (humane) war on the Ants. I brought out the glue gun a then and I follow the creepy little suckers back to their home. After the hole they're going through is clear, I fill it in with dripping hot glue. Take that, suckers! I think. Eventually more ants come out, and it's always when I'm not looking. I'm sure they have guard ants standing in places I can't see who tell the explorer ants when my head is turned. Then, when I've just glanced away, they come out in droves. I swear, I can't figure out where they are entering from, but I've figured out that they get scared of me when I come into the kitchen so I bang around, or blow air on them and get them to run back to where they came from (or at least I think they are going back to where they came from, but I wouldn't put it past them to use decoy ants to throw me off their trail). When I see their entrance hole, I seal it up with Hot Glue. The ants who didn't make it back home scramble around, searching for an escape, but I'm not sitting there laughing or applauding myself, I actually want them to find an out, I want to know all their little nooks. I want them to be able to return home to safety and be alive, I just don't want them in My Kitchen.

I've covered several feet of teensy cracks in the kitchen, but they're still making it in. I've emptied the counter of clutter, the better to clear crumbs. I clean the counter many times a day with vinegar or stronger stuff - they still want in. I don't know what to do, I already spend half my life in the kitchen, these days I'm basically there all the time, with one eye on the windowsill, just waiting for the little buggers to enter. I haven't found anything that will stop them for good, but then again, I haven't had time to research natural ant repellents because I can't leave the kitchen.

And she does the laundry too!

To keep Sabine occupied while I'm doing laundry, I encourage her to help me with the laundry. I've been gradually training her in the art of housework since she could walk. Finally, it is beginning to pay off. Just the other day she completed an entire laundry transfer ALL BY HERSELF. She took all the diapers out of the washer, placed them in the dryer, double-checked that she had them all out of the washer, then closed the dryer, set it and hit the start button. I SWEAR TO GOD. And all I had to do was open the washer for her. If I could find my video camera charger I would have taken a video to prove it.