Day Eight: Who's the Traitor?

Well I didn't post anything for two days because there was nothing new to report. The friggin crock pot is still in the sink. I've done sink-full after sink-full of dishes, each time leaving the dish in question behind. At this point I'm convinced that someone has tipped Zach off because not only has he not washed it, but he hasn't even said anything. Who is it? I thought for sure he'd have done it by now, at least out of guilt for having been doing so many side jobs lately.

Nor have I take any pictures of it because I've grown apathetic about the whole thing. I doubt anyone else is enjoying reading about it anymore, maybe nobody else thought it was funny to begin with.

The only thing that has changed is that the stagnant water in the crock has grown cloudy. It really smells too. Not like a big emanating smell, but if you stick your face in there a little bit of your nose hair seems to get burnt off. Yesterday for some reason I was like a butterfingers doing the dishes and things kept falling off the drying rack into the schmaltz water. And today Jacob was throwing around one of Sabine's toys like it was a baseball. Into the water it went.

This morning before he left for his current paint job, Zach told me the faucet in the kitchen is really acting up (because it is only six years old and leaks like crazy) and that I should try not to use it today. Is he kidding me? Is he trying to get a rise out of me, daring me to not wash the crock pot?

I may have just done myself in though. I promised to make this a completely natural experiment, with no prompting of Zach to do the dishes or anything like that. No mentioning of it at all. I just wanted to see how many days it would take my husband to wash a dish that is just SITTING THERE, growing things.

Well we were both just standing there in the kitchen, right next to the sink, I was off the the left cleaning something up from dinner and there were just a shit ton of dishes. The absurdity of the situation struck me. There is this nasty dish sitting in the sink and I'm trying to ignore it. Zach knows I am as anal as they come, how can he not notice this dish in the sink and not realize it must be bugging the shit out of me?? We're both standing there not mentioning the elephant in the room. Does he really not see this?

I really, really just wanted to sit down and type this out so I sort of asked Zach if he would do some dishes. "You know, just some of these around here on the counter, just to get some of them out of the way." I tried to cover. If Zach washed the crock because of what I said, then I will have to admit defeat by a technicality. I will not have been the one to wash it, but I cracked nevertheless.

My urging might have been the thing to throw him over the edge. When I walked into the living room to hang out with Jacob I heard the kitchen faucet start to run. Will this be the conclusion? We'll see...

Day Six: Baby Steps

Here we are at day 6. There is much to report on.

Yesterday morning all four of us were up before Zach left for work (a rarity). Things were happening in the kitchen, breakfasts were being prepared, messes were being made, so much was going on that I didn't notice the crock had been moved.
Upon further investigation I saw that the 'schmaltz', as I have been informed is the technical word for what's going on in that dish (thanks Pegeen, and yes, it was cream of mushroom), had been dumped.
Where could it be? A quick search produced the answer. Zach had dumped it into an empty cereal bag. We use these bags for compost, so I guess that's what he had in mind for the schmaltz? I don't think the stuff is appropriate for the compost, not unless we want our children's children growing a fifth limb (considering we use the compost on our vegetable garden); not to mention the fact that you can't compost meat waste anyway. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt though because that bag was probably the best option as we wouldn't want any leakage into the garbage.
The thing is, this mess was just sitting on a kiddie table in the middle of the kitchen. Did he think it was it was going to get up and walk itself to the garbage? Actually, I'm inclined to believe that might be true - take a look at the close-up, I'm pretty sure the schmaltz is about to grow legs.
I'm sorry for that picture. I hope you weren't planning to eat for the rest of the day.

Zach came home at lunchtime yesterday and so we were all in the kitchen again. I was making lunch and he was playing with the kids. At one point he was fiddling around with something near the crock. He pointed out the crock and said, "Look Pookie, I emptied that out for you." My brain was screaming expletives but I had to keep my cool and responded in a neutral tone, "Oh, thanks." For ME? How does he figure that was for me? It was his chicken and his job to clean it up.

That evening I cooked a pretty involved dinner which produced many dishes. I was working hard to knock them off when Zach came downstairs from getting Sabine ready for bed. He informed me she was ready to nurse and could I please take her right away? He would finish the dishes.

I guess what he meant was some dishes because it appears that when the drying rack was full, Zach stopped washing dishes. I didn't realize this until this morning. I'm ashamed that I often go to bed with the kitchen left in shambles. It never used to be that way - I wouldn't be able to sleep unless everything was clean. Now I guess I'm just so exhausted all the time that falling asleep isn't as much of a problem as it used to be.

At some point this morning after the kids were fed and I had time to address the situation forming in and around the kitchen sink, I suddenly noticed the crock was gone. I actually looked in the box for it before realizing it was just in the sink. Soaking, apparently.
Oh good. Some of my cooking utensils are in there soaking as well. Soaking up some nice chicken ooze. Those were fun to clean. Halfway through doing the dishes I needed my little plastic scraper to get some gunk off of last night's casserole dish. I couldn't find it where it's usually kept and I got the feeling in my gut that it was at the bottom of this:
Yup, I had to reach in there and pull it out.

Anyway, here's where it stands: I've done dishes a couple times today, leaving only the crock pot behind. I know Zach's been in the kitchen several times today. In fact, he even washed his paint brushes out in the sink. Everyone else is in bed for the night, so I know it's not getting done today. Zach has to leave early to paint again. We'll see what the status is when I get up.

More Fun with The Husband Experiment

Remember The Great Husband Experiment of 2008? That was some good, clean fun. Well The Husband Experiment is baaAAaack, compliments of our latest kitchen appliance: The Slow Cooker.

Here's the synopsis: I purchased a slow cooker earlier this year and have been really enjoying the fact that I can cook more meals for Zach that include meat (in our otherwise vegetarian household) without me actually having to handle it. The deal is that I do most of the cooking of it, but if there's any sort of action that included prolonged handling of the rotting animal flesh, Zach has to take care of that. I'd cooked these chicken parts that had bones in them, not sure what kind, I tried not to look. Zach ate them for dinner and the rest stayed in there while he went to watch Game 4 of the World Series.

I am not a Yankees fan, as are the boys of the house, so I decided I was too tired to make it through the whole game awake. I cleaned up the kitchen and told Zach that I was going to bed so could he please remember to strip the chicken off the bones per our agreement? I'd told him earlier that I'd like him to strip the bones so that I could freeze the chicken bits and later make chicken pot pie from scratch for him. I left a container out for him to put the chicken in and went to bed.

The next morning I was pleased to find that Zach had remembered to take care of the chicken and did not let it sit out all night to rot. However, the 'juices' were still sitting in the slow cooker. This is not out of the ordinary. Often times Zach will leave the juices of something cooked to solidify in order to more easily clean it up later on. He also has more energy for tasks like this in the morning. I assumed that after the coffee was brewed and he was fully awake, he'd probably get rid of the now-hardened chicken slime.

Funny, after Zach left for work and I was back downstairs getting everyone breakfast, I noticed the slow cooker was still as I had previously seen it. Hm. This is the first indication of trouble. We'll call this day 2.

Later that night Zach remarked that we should have dumped the chicken juices over the dogs' food when we fed them the night prior. "Oh yeah, they would have loved that last night. Too bad it's infested with bacteria by now," I remarked. I didn't give the stuff anymore thought that night. Again, the Yankees were playing and everyone was distracted, our routine still being messed up because of the World Series.

When I got up to run pre-dawn the next morning, I couldn't believe my eyes that the stuff was still there. I was all bleary-eyed though, so I rubbed them a little and tried to refocus. Nope. Well, the Yankees had lost the night before so maybe that was Zach's excuse for not cleaning up. But if that's so, they'd won the night before so common sense would dictate that he would have cleaned it up the night he was in a good mood, right? So begins Day 3.

Later on that day while I was making lunch I had to clear some space so I took the inner crock out of the clow cooker and put the larger electrical parts back in the box and onto the shelf where they are stored. I was going to clean up the chicken mess, but upon further investigation I just decided my stomach couldn't take it. The kids and I left the house after lunch for Jacob's gym class.

I expected Zach to be working late so Jacob, Sabine and I went to my mom's house to hang out for a while. Zach actually beat us home so on the phone we talked about him cleaning out the rabbit cages and getting other stuff done around the house while waiting for me and the kids to pick him up to go vote.

Back at home after a quick trip to the polling place, I started dinner. Funny, the crock pot was still there. Oh well, it will get taken care of after dinner because there's no Yankees game on, I thought to myself.

After a late dinner when Zach had started talking 'going to bed early', I was about to ask him to clean up the chicken stuff before he retired for the night. But instead of doing so, I saw an opportunity and grabbed my camera:

This is the scene of the investigation.
The sink is just to the right, you know,
the place where someone might clean out
something like this. The coffee maker (i.e, the
thing Zach and I both use a couple times a day,
is just to the left.

Exhibit A: You can see from that upper film,
which is separated from the hardened juice by
black (we'll call this the line of delineation), where
the stuff once came to. Over the course of 48
hours much of it has evaporated.

Exhibit B: This picture is shown to demonstrate
the detail and texture of the stuff.

Now here we are beginning Day 4. I think it is time to give the 'stuff' an official name. I'll think on that today and get back to you. Feel free to leave your suggestions. As for my prediction: Tonight is game 6...if the Yankees win, there's actually a good chance Zach may clean this thing up. Part of me will be disappointed, but then again, I'll be able to use the slow cooker at long last so there's an up side either way. If the Yankees lose, there's no chance of it being cleaned up.

It's Facebook's Fault

I miss my little blog and I'm constantly telling myself that today will be the day I catch up. There's just so many things I want to post about, I don't know where to start, and it feels hopeless anyway because there's never enough time. I don't entirely know how it happened that I've been so inattentive to blogging, but I do know that Facebook is mostly responsible.

I've been on Facebook for a couple years, with waxing and waning interest, but I guess our relationship (mine and Facebook's) turned serious when Jacob and I started playing Farmville. I thought it would be a cute game for us to play together, because farming is his thing and maybe it would teach him problem solving skills and some other life concepts, numbers and spelling and whatnot, motivate him to learn to read, etc. It did do all that, and it might sound cheesey, but since I was sitting down with him to play and we were talking about it together I think he was learning things. I don't think it's so much what kind of tools you use to teach your kids, as much as it is you sit down with them and spend that time together talking it over.

I also used Farmville as a bribe to get Jacob to get dressed in the morning, get ready for bed, help me with certain tasks, but then he just memorized how to log on himself and started playing without me at times. He'd always get caught and warned not to do that again, etc, etc, but he'd always do it again. The weeks went by and it became an obsession. So I've phased out our crops and weaned us off this week. We're going to be taking a break from it for a while. It's feels liberating. I'm going to have to start hiding the computer from him though.

Anyway, being on Farmville meant I was logged onto Facebook at least a couple times a day, and so naturally I started posting more and more on facebook. It's like an abbreviated form of blog posts and is an outlet for me when time is sparse and I don't have time to blog. A lot of the things I would have ended up blogging just ended up as a status post on Facebook, and helped alleviate whatever stress was building up from not being able to get my thoughts out - but not all of it. And there's far more people I'm in contact with on Facebook than will ever read my blog. It's just a better way to keep up.

In no particular order, here is some stuff that happened over the last couple months in status posts copied from Facebook:

is teaching Jacob how to play Uno. Oh my God for the 80th time, no, you can't put a that RED 5 on that BLUE 8. I seriously underestimated the difficulty a five year would have with this concept!!! Holy crap, nooooo that Draw 2 can't go on that GREEN 6!!!!!!!

Ran the half marathon this morning. 1:56:30's. I'm happy with that and I don't think I ever want to do it again....

Just got home from the movies...Saw The Time Traveler's Wife. You definitely have to have read the book to follow the movie.

BIG DAY today. Zach met the president, shook his hand, told him his name and got his picture taken with him! AND I was on national television breastfeeding!

To mark the official start of homeschooling, Jacob and I just made frosting (science and math), but with nothing to eat it on, we're just having it spread on bread!

Sabine took two 10 minute naps today. That's it.

I am celebrating the last birthday of my 20's in my home, alone, cleaning like a madwoman. Believe it or not, this is an often sought-after fantasy of mine!

is trying to get Zach to sit still and look at people of walmart. I can't get enough of this!!!

ran the 5k today and Jacob ran his first kids' run. He also won the Wii they had up for raffle! It seems luck follows wherever he goes.

This one is a post from Zach: Happy 5th Anniversary...We are still alive...and so are the kids! Looking forward to today and the weekend...

Just finished reading Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. Very interesting book.

Jacob and I couldn't stop watching the puke scene today from The Office wedding episode....hilarious!

Well there you have it, Facebook. Now that our relationship is out in the open, I have to break it off. Well, not completely, but I think we need to see other people and I need to visit other internet playgrounds for a while. Get some perspective. Some 'me' time. Don't worry, I'll still be visiting. Just a lot less. Well, at least a little less. I still care about you, but it's just that my blog is more of a long-term relationship, and we're a little more serious than you and I can ever be.

We're so immature

Dog obedience the other night was actually really good. The lady was a good public speaker and very entertaining. But I do have to admit I was snickering at her in the beginning when she was setting up the microphone and was all, "Testing, testing, one-two." There were 15 other people in the room so I didn't think it was necessary.

Zach was so against going to dog school. He grumbled about it and I had to cause many fights getting him to sign-up for the class (it's through the college, so can you say tuition waiver). And then we went and he thought it was great, and most importantly he thought it was great and got all, "Gee, good thing I made you come with me to this thing." Like it was his idea. So I am making a mental note to add this to my arsenal of I-Told-You-So arguments for future reference.

I think we'll get some good information out of this class. I actually think some of this stuff can be applied to the human children. Bonus! But Zach and I both agree that knowing what to do is one thing, finding the time with which to do it is another matter altogether. Already we've completely forgotten to be practicing the letter we chose for her. This letter, as in one letter of the alphabet, will be her cue that we use in training. We're supposed to be saying it to her all the time, giving her treats when she looks at us when we're saying the letter, or whatever, basically letting her get to know that letter, and to like it.

So what letter did we choose? We went back and forth, how can we just pick one letter when there are 26 to choose from? Should we pick J for Jacob, G for Ginger? What to do, what to do. Finally it came to me in a flash. "F!" I shout-whispered to Zach in the middle of class. And he totally got it right away. It's a word that I shout out loud a lot because I try not to swear in front of kids, so I'm constantly shouting things like "Ef!", "Sugar!", "mother!", "Sonofa....!", and so on. Add to Ginger's F-letter, well, we'll be attempting to train Mango on our own at home, so, naturally, she'll be U.

We're going to have so much fun with this...

Obedience School

We are taking Ginger to obedience school tonight. I've been waiting for this class since before Sabine was born. We tried to get into it last year but it was full. So now we are going, as if we needed something else filling up our already packed calendar. Zach and I are having a preliminary discussion here. We've got the 4 PAGE LETTER because dog school is that big of a deal. This first night the humans go without the dogs. The letter says to bring their leashes and the collar they are currently wearing. I assumed that means bring it attached to the dog next week. Zach thinks we need to go remove her collar and tags right now and submit them this evening. We'll see about that.

The thing is we're being so careful because we're afraid to do something wrong. This lady who teaches it is the premiere dog trainer in the area. I;d say her services are quite coveted. But she is not a nice lady. I've spoken to her on the phone and when I hung up I almost had to cry just because she made me feel like such a moron. Other people I know have had experience with her, and they all say she's a B-I-T-C-H. Hoo boy. Here we go.

But I'm kind of excited to do something like this with Zach. You know, something other than fighting about the house and being stressed out about the kids. It'll almost be like a date because my mom and Jamie are going to watch the kids for us tonight. Who's wants to make a bet about how long it will take me to publicly embarrass Zach?

I had to fill out a sheet to bring tonight, on our agenda for dog training: Overly submissive & a general inability to understand or be understood by other members of the household. Sound good enough for the World Leader of Dog Training?

Husbands...

They just don't get it. Beckie left a message on the answering machine, but Zach was the one to get it so he paraphrased in a note to me.


And like the teacher in the Peanuts cartoons, that's exactly what I imagine he hears every time I talk to him.

When you say something stupid...

chances are it's going to end up on my blog.

Zach's home early today. He wants to do some yard work. I'm just happy there's another human being in the house who can hold the baby because her constant crying about not being in my arms all day long is really getting to me. I'm taking the opportunity to get some stuff done. Zach is mumbling about not being able to go out and do yard work.

"Oh, why? Is it because of the rain?"

"No. It's because I'm holding Sabine."

"So put her in the pack and go rake the yard."

"I'm not doing that. I'm not raking the yard with her in the pack."

"Why not?"

"Because what am I gonna do, rake a few leaves around in a circle?"

"Yeah. Exactly. But at least you'll be getting something done."

"No, I'm not gonna do that."

"I really resent that. I feel insulted that I'm expected to make-do, to figure out how to get all the things done that I have to do in a day while I'm holding the baby. And that you're not. As if my work isn't important enough to expect for it to be prioritized, but yours is."

"Oh you've just got that motherhood chip on your shoulder just like all the other mothers."


And then I murdered him.

The Bug

One week and a day ago Beckie was over with the boys. We were making English Muffin pizzas for their lunch and I was chopping up some garlic. I told her I was trying to get used to eating raw garlic, that I'd read about people eating whole cloves of it to prevent sickness and thought I was going to make it my new sickness prevention. She questioned whether or not eating garlic raw could really keep you from getting sick. I told her that I figured it couldn't hurt and that for a person like me who rarely gets sick, it could make the difference between getting a cold and not getting a cold. Then I went and did it, I bragged - "Besides Jacob's strep throat, none of us has been really sick this year."

That exact moment is probably when the stomach bug germs started attacking my system. It took them only about three hours...and then I puked. I puked so bad there was no holding it back like I normally would. I hate puking, I hate it with a vengeance. I spent the next six hours dry-heaving air, and I'm pretty sure at least one lung. I am such a chicken about throwing up, and since I've never really had the stomach bug like that before, I really thought it might never end. I actually called my mom at 12:30am in an absolute delirium and begged her to take me to the emergency room.

Because it was so bad and there was no one around to help me (I'll get to that) I had nothing to do but stare at the clock and pray that no more puking happened. Because of this I remember the exact time of the last puking. It was 1:20am. I laid on the bathroom floor for a few minutes gathering the strength to (literally) craw back to bed, and then got back into bed just in time to hear Jacob hurl downstairs. That was 1:28am. I didn't throw up after that.

I took me a few days to recover enough from the puking to even get out of bed. So in the aftermath I learned Zach's side of the story. He was basically no where to be found when I was puking, chicken that he was going to get sick from me if he got too close. Basically what he did for me was keep the kids out of the way. The first three times I threw up was when I started to nurse Sabine. Isn't that funny, other people have said that too, that nursing would trigger the puking...must be something hormonal.

Anyway, I digress. So I'm upstairs puking and Zach was on the couch with the Sabine, who'd finally fallen asleep and Jacob, who stayed awake well past Zach, and helped himself to all kinds of things in the fridge, which he later puked up. When I was upstairs throwing up, Zach was down there hearing me but not really caring. Later, when it got really bad, I actually tried calling him a few times because I needed things I couldn't get, on account of the fact that I couldn't walk and couldn't move my head around lest if launched itself right off of my neck. The problem with calling him was that if I tried to yell downstairs it made my throat muscles move too much and that led to more puking. So he couldn't hear me calling him. The one time he did hear me, both kids were asleep on top of him and his response was, "I can't get up, both kids are asleep on me." Big f-ing deal, welcome to my friggin life. So that's how I got to calling my mom past midnight, because no one in this house even cared to check on me.

So it turns out that before Jacob had fallen asleep he (Jacob, not Zach) came upstairs to check on me and found me laying on the bathroom floor. He came downstairs and told Zach where I was and that he couldn't wake me. Zach said, "Yeah Jacob, Mommy probably wants to stay close to the toilet right now." And that's it. Now I don't remember Jacob coming upstairs like that so chances are I probably was passed out, which I think was highly likely in the minutes following a good puking. I made it through and I'm fine now, but here's the thing: You five year old tells you that his mother is laying on the floor, unresponsive, and you say 'that's ok', you don't GO CHECK ON HER?

Husbands.

Anyway, I'm just a little bitter. I've been spending the rest of the week in this pit of resentment because I'm the mother and EVERYTHING is my job. And if I get help from the father of my children it's because he's doing me a FAVOR. I've just been wanting a little time to myself so I could sit down and type out some of my thoughts and apparently that's too much to ask. Just now, in fact, I had to get up and go take care of Jacob because Zach is holding the baby. It's not like I ever do anything else while I'm holding the baby. Even though it's now past midnight, I'm still not off duty. We actually already went to bed, and I got up so that I could have some alone time, but that doesn't even work. There's no alone time in this house anymore. The baby does not sleep. She's always awake and if she's awake that means I have to be in her direct line of vision. That's if she's in a good mood. If she's in a bad mood then I have to be holding her. And it has to be me, there are no substitutes. I'm tired and cranky and I need a break.

Valentine's Date?

We needed new tires on the Civic and Jamie 'knows a guy' so on Saturday morning we all headed down to the place in two vehicles. Jamie went inside to get everything squared away while Zach and I loaded our stuff and the kids into Jamie's van.

We needed to go to the store to pick up some supplies for later on because we were going to dinner at Jen and Dan's. So my mom and Jamie drove us to the grocery store while we waited for the Civic. Upon arriving they decided they didn't really need anything so they were just going to wait in the parking lot and read the newspaper. It was a nice sunny day so someone suggested the kids stay in the care too. I agreed.

That means Zach and I went into the grocery store alone.

I gave that line it's own paragraph because of it's importance. We were walking around picking stuff out with such ease that it took me at least five minutes to realize what was missing: The noise, the whining, the pleading (my own - to get Jacob to shut up), the high stress levels, the ringing in my ears. If you have kids, you know the feeling.

When I realized how nice the experience was and how at peace I felt, I said it aloud to Zach. "Yeah, it's the first time we've been alone...." Neither one of us could remember how long. It doesn't count if the kids are asleep at home, and also, that never really happens anyway. I know that it hasn't happened since Sabine was born. I'm sure it happened at some point while I was pregnant, but again, that doesn't count because I was a cow and miserable.

And then we realized it was Valentine's day! So then we got laughing about how we were actually having a Valentine's date. Not that we even did that kind of thing before kids. And even though it was the grocery store, believe me, it counts.

Dilemma:

You know all those hypothetical scenarios where someone asks you if you'd eat poop for a million dollars? OK, admittedly a gross example, but those are the kinds of things Zach and I talk about sometimes when we find ourselves with a few moments to chat but sans the energy to talk about something intellectual. In those cases it truly is hypothetical because really, that money's all coming from the same bank, and it's all gonna end up in the same place.

However, when I went into the bathroom to get washed up for bed I noticed a dime resting in the bottom of the toilet bowl. Wondering if it was ok for our septic system, I walked into the bedroom and gently woke Zach. "There's a dime in the toilet," I whispered.

"I know," he said, "I tried to flush it, but it didn't go down."

I headed back in to examine the situation. I thought for a minute and went over the options in my head.

I don't know what you would have done, but I just got ten cents richer!

Up to her old tricks again...

This is a cloth diaper insert. And this is how we found it when we got home the other day. And then in the next room was a huge pile of vomit that not only contained numerous inedible materials, but also appeared to have actual dog intestine in it.

Mango.

We stayed away from it until Zach was about due home. When he walked in the door I made like we'd just gotten home as well, then as I was sitting down to (conveniently) nurse the baby I said, "Oh shoot, I didn't get a chance to clean that up yet..." And if you think that's wrong of me, just try to convince me Zach's never faked sleep when Jacob needed something in the middle of the night.

Caffeine Junkie

It was a year ago at this time that we were on our cross-country trip and I was introducing Zach to the Heavenly joy of the Starbucks Frappuccino and gradually sneaking in extra espresso as part of my grand scheme to turn him into a coffee drinker like me. It wasn't until a couple months later that I fully succeeded, but that I did and I am no longer the lone coffee drinker in our household. It's nice having company in the morning over which to share a pot of coffee.

Well now we're going through it like there's no tomorrow. I was buying my awesome Green Mountain Magic Espresso Blend until Zach started tapping into it more than once a day. The cost just got too high and we recently had to switch to a cheaper brand. It's like that gave him permission to drink twice as much in a day, and I was drinking less than normal because I was pregnant. My taste for coffee has come back full blast now since giving birth but still Zach seems to be more of a fiend than me.

Yesterday I told he him couldn't stop drinking coffee if he wanted to. He said no way and then followed it with the addicts' dead give-away statement. "I can stop whenever I want to." So I said prove it, stop now, etc, etc. I told him I dared him to go three whole days without coffee. He could drink it again when the new week started. "But can I just have one more cup?" He pleaded. I told him it had to be cold turkey or it didn't count. I said that's how I gave up meat when I was 15, with no warning that I was about to declare myself a vegetarian. If I could go for a lifetime without dead animal flash, then he could certainly go three days without coffee.

Well this afternoon I was hankering for a second round 'o coffee but was trying to be polite and wait until Zach went outside to work in the backyard so he wouldn't smell the sweet aroma of brewing coffee and be teased. While I was waiting, I was nursing the baby on the couch and don't you know he comes around the corner with my glass of water in one hand and a cup of coffee pressed to his lips in the other hand. "Hey! You're drinking coffee! I knew you couldn't do it." I yelled. And then I told him that I had wanted a cup too and he should have offered to make a full pot so I could have some. He told me that he thought I'd yell at him for giving in to the temptation and didn't want me to know. I guess he should have tried to sneak that coffee while I was out this morning. Men are so stupid sometimes.

Sleep Talking

Last night I was having a conversation with Zach when we had both just gotten into bed. I talked, he responded, I added something to the conversation, he gave me his opinion, I spoke up about my idea of the situation and then he yelled "LOOOKOUT!!"

If that doesn't make sense to you, then I guess you just have to live in our house to understand. In the two seconds it took me to say my part of the conversation, Zach fell asleep. And then he started the sleep talking. Sometimes I actually look forward to this time of day because I know he is always good for a laugh.

"What?" I asked in all seriousness to keep him going. This is the key, you have to play along, act like you're in his dream with him and he'll just keep going, letting you into his subconscious. Maybe this is why I am so good at reading his mind. I am a lucky wife!

"Someone just rolled a bowling ball down the shoot!" Says Zach.

At that point I was laughing too hard to continue the game, but oh boy, I wonder what that one was about.

Many, many times I have had this same kind of situation happen and I've lain in bed cracking up to myself, drafting a blog post for the morning. And then somehow when the moment is over I can't get back how to write about it in a funny way. Maybe it is not funny to other people. Maybe you just have to be there and that is it. But I hope it's not because this is just really good material. It will remain one of my biggest regrets that I did not start to write down these 'sleep conversations' sooner. But I am vowing, here and now, to do a better job because this is the stuff we'll look back on in 50 years and still have a good laugh over.

Like a couple nights ago when we were cross-country reminiscing (about our trip last year) and were reading over some of the old posts and looking at pictures. I came across this post and as Zach and I read it we were in tears over the hilarity of it. I honestly don't know if it's funny to other people, or if you really do have to be there to enjoy the humor in it, but I don't care. I'm going to write about them and keep them filed away in my memory (like Zach suggested a few weeks ago during another sleep conversation - "File it under 'I' in the top drawer.") so life is interesting when we're 80.

A typically atypical day

Zach went in for a physical a couple weeks ago and based on some symptoms he's been having the doctor ordered an echocardiogram and a stress test for Zach. He had to go in for each of these on separate days this week. Everything turned out fine, but it's good to have the baseline results for the future.

Yesterday was the stress test which involved Zach 'running' on a treadmill. They had him go for ten minutes on a treadmill at nothing faster than a meager jog. That was nothing for a former marathoner but the real stress was the part where they shaved his chest (dry), sandpapered it (I don't know why) and then applied some chemical that stung to high hell and then attached the thingamajigs that did the reading. Zach said the shave was bad enough but then when the lady used the sandpaper he started getting really uncomfortable. He goes, "This really sucks," and she just looked at him, said "Sandpaper," then she started laughing.

I never actually checked to see if it was ok to post this picture, but he let me take it so I think by now it is understood that whatever pictures I take may someday end up on this blog. I made it as small as I could incase harry chests gross you out...haha.

Anyway, when he came home he was all weepy and needed babying. He was really hungry and had a headache because he couldn't have caffeine at all before the test, so he wanted a treat in the form of pizza. That was fine with me since standing at the counter cooking for an hour is not the most comfortable position these days.

We went to our favorite place and decided to just have the pizza there so we could go to the grocery store across the street afterwards. We'd just gotten a six cut but after Zach had three slices and Jacob had two (huge appetite lately by the way). Zach looked like he wanted more so I encouraged him to get a single slice and he said that if he did that he wouldn't be able to resist getting a soda too because there was a guy next to us drinking one and it looked good. Now I don't allow soda in the house and as far as Jacob is concerned it's something only for adults, like alcohol. But that doesn't mean that I don't like it. That and my recent discovery that soda helps the heartburn (Kevin's doctor's advice be damned) made it kind of hard for me to argue that he shouldn't get a soda.

Zach went up to the counter and ordered the pizza, then he pulled two options out of the case. "Stace, this or Pepsi," he called across the pizza place. I gave him a wide eyed look meant to shush him and then I looked away like it wasn't me he was talking to. This is how I am, I am such a health freak that even when I do want something junky I'm afraid to admit it to people and I get embarrassed to be seen buying it.

When the girl brought Zach's slice over to the table she offered to take the pizza box away. "No thanks," I quickly answered. When she walked away Zach just looked at me and insisted, "We are not carrying an empty pizza box out of here!"

He knew just what I was thinking but I tried to play it off. "What? I just want to use if for a craft with Jacob."

"Yeah right," he replied.

"OK, fine. I'll make a deal with you. You go up there and ask the girl if they recycle their boxes and no matter what the answer I will let you hand it over to her."

Zach said, "I'm sure they recycle them."

"I highly, highly doubt they recycle their pizza boxes."

"I don't care, I don't want people to see us carrying an empty pizza box."

"Hey doofus, once we close the box they won't know it's empty."

So then Jacob finished eating and started wandering up to the counter. I thought he was just being coy and flirty with the girl at the counter so I let him go and hang out. After a couple minutes I went up to see what he was doing. he shyly told me he wanted to ask he a question. I told him to go ahead so then he said, "Do you recycle your boxes?" Ha! I didn't even see that coming. She said they didn't and I just gave Zach a look. Somehow when I wasn't looking though the box got thrown out anyway and I scolded Zach for it. He tried to play it off like he fulfilled his part of the deal and that it was ok that it got thrown out, but I reminded him that is was he who was supposed to ask and Jacob had done it for him so that was cheating.

We left the pizza place, gazed across the street to the store and all decided we were too tired to go grocery shopping afterall. We decided to go up to the the site of the house my mom and Jamie are going to build to check out the pond. The bulldozer had just been there to level off the land surrounding the pond that was dug a few months ago and it looked really good. Then on the way home we swung by my mom's house to say hi and pick up a bottle of aloe vera that I knew was in the bathroom closet. I completely forgot the aloe for Zach's 'wounds' but we ended up staying for thirty minutes because a random smattering of my extended family was also there. I can't describe the craziness that entailed, there's no words for it.

We finally got Jacob to agree to leave (with a bribe of course - fudgsicles - which ironically we had to stop by the grocery store to pick up). It has been raining on and off all day long for two days, so on our way out of the grocery store parking lot we noticed a giant rainbow that stretched from one side of the sky to the other. I dropped the boys at home, grabbed my camera and drove down the road to take a picture. A year ago Zach would have hassled me about this, but I think he's finally learning to appreciate my inability to let a moment of life go without capturing it in a picture. The rainbow was too huge that I could only get a fraction of it at once, but here's one of the shots.


Back at home we all sat around the couch in exhaustion and that's the way we fell asleep. Sometimes we exhibit such spectacular parenting skills that it's astounding. *note the sarcasm*

Day 8 - The Conclusion

Well, I woke up to a shock this morning. I puttered about in the kitchen for a while and then started to clean up by placing some dishes in the sink. And then I saw it. The bowl - the bowl - was sitting in the sink and it was full of hot, soapy water. I froze and thought Ho-ly crap. I just stood there for a minute in shock. I was actually beginning to think that the glob would never get dumped. And you know what? Upon further reflection, I'm coming to realize that my initial shock was more about sadness. I had gotten used to the stinky bowl of rapidly multiplying microorganisms sitting there on the stove.

When Zach got home later I finally brought up the subject of the glop formerly known as banana soup. I don't yet know the details about what was going on in his head - I have to take my time with that one - but I was just dying to ask where it got dumped. Over in the wooded area of Stella's yard. Ha! She's still in Florida so what's the harm? Actually, now that I'm thinking of Stella, she will really appreciate this story. I'll have to show her the pictures when she comes back later this month.

So now the glop is gone. It's been many hours, there's no longer any trace of it. However, the smell remains. Actually the smell is following my everywhere I go. I smelled it earlier in the car. I smell it in other parts of the house. I think I may be suffering from some sort of post traumatic stress disorder; perhaps I'm having olfactory hallucinations? Either that, or the smell is coming from somewhere else and the latter is possibly the more frightening of two.

After Picture

The empty stove

Day 7

It's still there. Last night I thought it was over when Zach came into the kitchen, announced that something smelled and started peering around for the source of the odor. "I don't know...it can't be the garbage," I said, "because I just emptied the trash."

Zach then picked up the glop, put it to his face and smelled. "Oh man, this has got to go!" He said with a furrowed brow.

"Sure, go ahead." I told him.

He then set it back down on the stove and left the room. I'm sorry, did he decide that the putrid odor is NOT coming from the thing that is about to take on a new life form? Because there is no question about the smell in the kitchen, and really, what else could it be coming from?

From this picture you can see the white crust
is growing further up the side and the liquid
portion is becoming almost solidified.

Here you can observe the slight askew-ness
of the glop from its previous position. This is
due to Zach's picking it up and putting it back
down on the burner.

I certainly hope that burner does not accidentally get turned on because we'd have one hell of a mess. I'm actually beginning to wonder how we will get rid of it when the time finally does come. Should I be concerned that we may be committing an EPA violation?

Day 6

My apologies. What I had previously referred to as 'glop' Jacob has informed me is actually Banana Soup. I had been wondering.

For your viewing pleasure is a visual of the current status:

Day 6: The floating things on the top of the

liquid part are taking on some sort of gel-like
consistency. As a whole, the concoction is
becoming somewhat homogeneous.

Last night when we were getting ready for bed, after I'd spent over an hour tiredly unpacking, Zach actually asked me when I was going to dump 'that stuff'. I acted cool and made no mention of my experiment. I casually told him, "Oh yeah, I said a couple days ago that you could get rid of it." Then we went to bed.

Zach was up earlier than me this morning so one would expect that maybe he'd just been too tired to do it last night and that dumping the glop would be top priority this morning. Not a chance. He is not like me - that is to say manipulative and cunning. This is not a game of who can outlast whom. This is simply an extraordinary example of husband laziness.

There used to be a time when I would be hurt that Zach wouldn't read my blog, but now I'm kind of glad I can carry out The Great Husband Experiment sans his awareness. This is becoming almost fun. Zach tells me he doesn't need to read my blog because he lives its contents. But what he doesn't know is that in a way he's co-authoring it.

Back at home...

Was this:

Day 5

Jacob and I got home last night from our couple days out of town. We went to visit some friends and rode out with some other friends of ours. Details and pictures to come tomorrow. For now I thought you'd like to see the status of what I've now taken to calling The Great Husband Experiment. One can't quite smell it when you walk in the front door, but from the moment you step into the kitchen it's obvious something is 'a brewin in there. It is an even darker shade of brown now and there is fuzzy white stuff growing on the sides. I think a couple more days is all it will take to bump the glop up to toxic level. I just hope the government people don't catch on...

Maybe it really is genetic

Zach is forever forgetting to turn off the stove and/or the oven. The times he actually remembers are far and few between. I tell him he's going to burn down the house someday. He's generally forgetful like that about most things and he tries to blame it on genetics - there's someone in particular who usually ends up getting the blame for the bad gene.

So today my mother-in-law was over here helping Jacob transplant his little plants that they started from seeds. It's their little project together. Then Zach came home from painting and I made him a grilled cheese. Jacob didn't want one until the moment I sat down. He gave me the pouty face and I was all "You just told me you wouldn't eat one!" So Jan (Zach's mom) offered to make the sandwich for Jacob - which she then did.

Maybe 15 minutes later when everyone was done with lunch Zach and I cleared the table we were walking into the kitchen and felt a scalding heat emanating from one side of the kitchen. I looked over and saw that the front burner was still on medium and the pan had been set to the back to cool. I nudged Zach and pointed it out. He reached over to turn it off and we both started cracking up. "I told you, she does that all the time," he said. Good thing Jacob appears to have gotten the bulk of his genes from my side.