With each new child comes new experiences that I never expected to happen in my life. There are all sorts of phrases I never thought I would say, like: "No, you may not write newborn across the baby's head with a Sharpie" and "Don't pour juice on the cat."
The other night Frankie was sleeping in our bed. And I use the term "sleeping" very lightly here. He woke up in around 2:00 and was wide awake for some reason. Fortunately, he seemed happy to just flop around the bed for an hour or so, talking occasionally, while Seth and I lightly dozed.
At one point, he lay down right on top of my head and proceeded to thrash and spin around. All of a sudden he started fussing and trying to get away from my head, but he couldn't. He had gotten so wrapped up in my hair that he was stuck to the back of my head. And I wasn't at an angle that allowed me to disentangle him so I had to wake Seth up and tell him, "Frankie is stuck in my hair."
I had read before that women with very long hair should keep it up at night if they have children in bed with them, but I didn't actually think mine was long enough. I'm comforted by the fact that the manner in which he entangled himself is not something I could ever sleep through. Still, I'll be keeping my hair up at night more often - especially if Seth isn't around to free us.
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Oregon!
As promised, here are a few memorable moments from our trip to Oregon.
First off, we had to get on the plane to get there, which was a bit of an ordeal. We got to the airport at 5:00 am with 2 hours to get through security and have breakfast before taking off. After spending way too much time trying to get our seats together, the lady at the ticket counter finally printed our tickets.
Unfortunately they had other peoples' names on them.
Fortunately Seth caught it.
Unfortunately she spent another 45 minutes trying to get it fixed while we just wanted her to get us through security so we could get on the plane and ask people to switch seats with us if needed. Fortunately someone else finally came through to help and pointed out that we were going to miss our flight if she didn't print the dang things and get us through security. So she printed our tickets with random seats and sent us to security.
Unfortunately, after going through the line to security, we were informed that for some of us, they had printed off tickets for the 2nd leg of our flight and not the first, which meant we had to go back to the ticket counter and start all over.
Fortunately both the security line and the ticket line were pretty short so we got through quickly but we were starting to cut it really close.
Unfortunately we were asked to step aside while they did a further inspection on Elena's bag. They pulled out her jacket that I had pulled up from the basement and packed for the trip. I saw the man pull something out of her pockets and said to Seth, "I think she must have had some rocks in her pocket," to which the man responded, "Those aren't rocks."
Nope. They weren't. They were bullets. Bullets!!! I kid you not.
Apparently the last time Elena wore that jacket was last spring when we went to a graduation reception at the local Sportsmen's Club. Where people practice shooting. And the ground was littered with used shotgun shells, a few of which Elena picked up and put in her pocket because she's a collector like that.
Seth and I reacted a little strongly when we saw what they were, thinking we were going to miss our flight for packing ammunition in our children's bags, which made Elena start crying. The poor thing had been up since 4:30, after all, with no breakfast, and she felt responsible even though it was in no way her fault.
Fortunately, another TSA agent came over, and when the guy holding the bullets asked, "What do we do?", she replied, "Just keep the shells and let them go." Well, that was easy.
In the end, we made it on our plane (seated together), but didn't have time to eat.
Well, that story was much longer than expected. If you're still reading, let's switch to pictures and shorter stories for a bit.
One of the highlights was definitely the redwood trees in Northern, CA. Frankie insisted on walking on his own, which would have worked well if he would have followed us but he seemed to prefer to wander off into the forest alone so we had to keep a close eye on him.
It's a little hard to see in this one, but Sam and Charlie are walking along a fallen Redwood. We really got a feel for how big these things were when we couldn't even let the kids walk all the way down to the end of the fallen trees because they would end up so far away.
Another highlight was the beach. We went to three beaches, and the cold water didn't deter the kids from playing in the waves one bit. I think they could have stayed on the beach from morning to night without ever noticing they had missed several meals. The force of the waves, however, made us set pretty strict limits on how far in they could go. Basically not at all, but their favorite was running away from the waves when they came way up onto shore.
And then on the flight home, Elena's bag was once again held up. She got a panicked look on her face, turned around and said, "I don't want to watch and I don't want to know what it is." We had let each of the kids get a couple of small souvenirs. Elena's first was a mood ring that she gave me for safe-keeping at a beach and I promptly lost within an hour. Her second was a water-filled squishy toy. Which she made sure to pack in her bag. Which was a carry-on. Which are not allowed to have that much liquid. The very kind security lady took pity on us and didn't take away her only remaining souvenir. While I'm thankful for our security checks and their rules, I'm also thankful there are still people in the world who can use a little good judgement and common sense to make the occasional exception.
Ok, last story. On our flight out of Minneapolis, Elena came back from the bathroom and said, "Darwin is on this flight!" Darwin is a man we know from our home town. I told her it must just be someone who looks like him. "No, it's him. He's even wearing the hat he always wears!" So I checked it out, and she was right. He was several rows behind us so we didn't get much of a chance to talk.
While we were heading to the gate for our return flight, the kids were hoping Darwin would be on our flight home and that he would sit by us. Since we were flying a different airline for the return flight, I told them it wasn't likely. And even if he were on the same flight, with 200 seats, the odds of him being seated next to us were even less likely. Well, the odds were in our favor: we found him in the airport playing the flute with some local musicians, of all things. The kids enjoyed listening for awhile and then we boarded the plane. (You get to board right away when you fly with more kids than any intelligent person would attempt to fly with.) We took up 5 seats, and the rows were 6 across so there was an empty seat next to Elena. And guess who had the lucky ticket. Darwin, of course! And Frankie even let Darwin hold him for awhile - a bonus for us both.
First off, we had to get on the plane to get there, which was a bit of an ordeal. We got to the airport at 5:00 am with 2 hours to get through security and have breakfast before taking off. After spending way too much time trying to get our seats together, the lady at the ticket counter finally printed our tickets.
Unfortunately they had other peoples' names on them.
Fortunately Seth caught it.
Unfortunately she spent another 45 minutes trying to get it fixed while we just wanted her to get us through security so we could get on the plane and ask people to switch seats with us if needed. Fortunately someone else finally came through to help and pointed out that we were going to miss our flight if she didn't print the dang things and get us through security. So she printed our tickets with random seats and sent us to security.
Unfortunately, after going through the line to security, we were informed that for some of us, they had printed off tickets for the 2nd leg of our flight and not the first, which meant we had to go back to the ticket counter and start all over.
Fortunately both the security line and the ticket line were pretty short so we got through quickly but we were starting to cut it really close.
Unfortunately we were asked to step aside while they did a further inspection on Elena's bag. They pulled out her jacket that I had pulled up from the basement and packed for the trip. I saw the man pull something out of her pockets and said to Seth, "I think she must have had some rocks in her pocket," to which the man responded, "Those aren't rocks."
Nope. They weren't. They were bullets. Bullets!!! I kid you not.
Apparently the last time Elena wore that jacket was last spring when we went to a graduation reception at the local Sportsmen's Club. Where people practice shooting. And the ground was littered with used shotgun shells, a few of which Elena picked up and put in her pocket because she's a collector like that.
Seth and I reacted a little strongly when we saw what they were, thinking we were going to miss our flight for packing ammunition in our children's bags, which made Elena start crying. The poor thing had been up since 4:30, after all, with no breakfast, and she felt responsible even though it was in no way her fault.
Fortunately, another TSA agent came over, and when the guy holding the bullets asked, "What do we do?", she replied, "Just keep the shells and let them go." Well, that was easy.
In the end, we made it on our plane (seated together), but didn't have time to eat.
Well, that story was much longer than expected. If you're still reading, let's switch to pictures and shorter stories for a bit.
We lucked out weather-wise on the trip. We came at the end of a long spell of rain for a week of sun. The warmth made for perfect snow-man making weather in the mountains. Everyone pitched in to help with the snowman. Charlie liked looking for rocks and sticks to use for the eyes and arms. Right as we were posing for this picture, he spotted a little stick, picked it up and said, "Wait! He needs a wee-wee!" and proceeded to (as Adam put it) make sure we really had a snowman. And then he turned toward the camera, ready to take the picture as though everyone made their snowmen anatomically correct.
Here we are at "It's a Burl." Neat place. Hard to explain briefly. You can google it if you want to see more.
Exhausted after another day of sight-seeing
We didn't have room in our luggage to bring 6 pairs of boots so we had to improvise a few times as you can see in these 2 pictures. There wasn't much we could do once Elena stepped in a creek wearing her only pair of shoes, however, so one lucky girl got some brand-new boots. And then proceeded to wear her dirty and slightly soggy shoes the rest of the trip.
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| Monkey Feet |
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| On our tour of a still functioning lighthouse |
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| Visiting a covered bridge (the little boys were sleeping in the car) |
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| Checking out the koi pond at a vineyard with Adam (who took most of our other pictures) |
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| A couple of lizards the kids caught - the blue-tailed one was especially cool |
One of the highlights was definitely the redwood trees in Northern, CA. Frankie insisted on walking on his own, which would have worked well if he would have followed us but he seemed to prefer to wander off into the forest alone so we had to keep a close eye on him.
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| This is the root system of a fallen Redwood |
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And then there was the moment when this guy stuck an orange M&M up his nose. We were just about to take off when Kjersti (our friends' older daughter) said, "I think Charlie has an M&M in his nose." And it wasn't coming out. I was thankful that it was something that would eventually melt so we just had to keep him calm while we waited a little bit and then keep blowing his nose until all the orange coating and chocolate was out. The trickiest part was to keep from laughing throughout the process.
And then on the flight home, Elena's bag was once again held up. She got a panicked look on her face, turned around and said, "I don't want to watch and I don't want to know what it is." We had let each of the kids get a couple of small souvenirs. Elena's first was a mood ring that she gave me for safe-keeping at a beach and I promptly lost within an hour. Her second was a water-filled squishy toy. Which she made sure to pack in her bag. Which was a carry-on. Which are not allowed to have that much liquid. The very kind security lady took pity on us and didn't take away her only remaining souvenir. While I'm thankful for our security checks and their rules, I'm also thankful there are still people in the world who can use a little good judgement and common sense to make the occasional exception.
Ok, last story. On our flight out of Minneapolis, Elena came back from the bathroom and said, "Darwin is on this flight!" Darwin is a man we know from our home town. I told her it must just be someone who looks like him. "No, it's him. He's even wearing the hat he always wears!" So I checked it out, and she was right. He was several rows behind us so we didn't get much of a chance to talk.
While we were heading to the gate for our return flight, the kids were hoping Darwin would be on our flight home and that he would sit by us. Since we were flying a different airline for the return flight, I told them it wasn't likely. And even if he were on the same flight, with 200 seats, the odds of him being seated next to us were even less likely. Well, the odds were in our favor: we found him in the airport playing the flute with some local musicians, of all things. The kids enjoyed listening for awhile and then we boarded the plane. (You get to board right away when you fly with more kids than any intelligent person would attempt to fly with.) We took up 5 seats, and the rows were 6 across so there was an empty seat next to Elena. And guess who had the lucky ticket. Darwin, of course! And Frankie even let Darwin hold him for awhile - a bonus for us both.
Saturday, November 12, 2016
A New Record
Our kids have all been poor sleepers until they reach about years of age. They get enough sleep, they just don't always have the best timing. So far Charlie has been the worst, although Frankie appears to be following in his footsteps.
The biggest issue is getting them to sleep at a decent time in the evening. Once they hit about 2 years of age, their naps very easily interfere with bedtime at night. So earlier this week when Charlie fell asleep at 3:45 in the afternoon, I was not the happiest camper.
I tried waking him up right away to no avail. For the next 3 hours, we tried waking him every 30 minutes or so: we tried taking him outside, standing him up (he just walked back to the couch and fell back asleep), blaring loud music, tickling him, letting the cat climb all over him, letting Frankie climb all over him,....nothing worked.
At 6:30 I finally gave up and brought him up to bed thinking maybe he would just sleep through the night, although we were prepared to be up with him at 2:00am. I was shocked when we woke up at our regular time. He slept 15 hours! I'm thinking major growth spurt?
The biggest issue is getting them to sleep at a decent time in the evening. Once they hit about 2 years of age, their naps very easily interfere with bedtime at night. So earlier this week when Charlie fell asleep at 3:45 in the afternoon, I was not the happiest camper.
I tried waking him up right away to no avail. For the next 3 hours, we tried waking him every 30 minutes or so: we tried taking him outside, standing him up (he just walked back to the couch and fell back asleep), blaring loud music, tickling him, letting the cat climb all over him, letting Frankie climb all over him,....nothing worked.
At 6:30 I finally gave up and brought him up to bed thinking maybe he would just sleep through the night, although we were prepared to be up with him at 2:00am. I was shocked when we woke up at our regular time. He slept 15 hours! I'm thinking major growth spurt?
Tuesday, November 8, 2016
Oh, Shirt!
If I had to choose, I would say The Blues Brothers is probably my favorite movie. I can't decide if that makes me a dork, shallow or really cool.
So the other night when Charlie was up past 11:00 and wasn't falling asleep, I saw that it was on TV and decided to let him watch it. I planned to rope him in with the police car chases and music (2 of his favorite things) and then figured it would bore him to sleep when they switched to less exciting dialogue. I figured right about him loving the movie and wrong about it eventually boring him to sleep.
I also figured that the swear words would be removed since it was on TV. I guess the rules have changed since I was a kid. We've seen the movie enough that Seth and I managed to talk loudly over the TV whenever a swear word was coming. And we only missed one - the one when the driver of the Good Ol' Boys' RV says "Oh, S***!" right before driving into a lake.
We kind of held our breaths, hoping that if we didn't react, he wouldn't even notice it. About a minute later, just when we thought we were in the clear, Charlie said in a completely innocent voice, "I like the way that guy said, 'Oh S***!'"
Seth was on it quicker than I was and said, "He said 'Oh Shirt!'" Charlie was a little skeptical at first, "He said, 'Oh Shirt'?......Why did he say 'Shirt'?"
Then it was my turn to cover by telling him there was a shirt lying in the road, and that's what made him drive off into the lake. That seemed to satisfy his young and trusting mind, which could never imagine his parents would tell him anything untrue.
Seth was hesitant to even have this posted on the blog: exposing our kid to profanities and blatantly lying to him all in one night. Pretty sure we're not in the running for Parents of the Year Award. I thought the story was too good to let it get lost to our undependable memories, though.
He has reenacted many things from the movie, but it has been a few months now and he has not once used the phrase "Oh Shirt!" or anything similar. Here he is chasing bad guys around the kitchen island. I love how he even whips the back end of his "car" whenever he turns a corner like they do in the movies. Unfortunately for Charlie, this activity was ruining our floors so we had to put an end to his car chases. Hardwood floors and kids just don't mix that well...
So the other night when Charlie was up past 11:00 and wasn't falling asleep, I saw that it was on TV and decided to let him watch it. I planned to rope him in with the police car chases and music (2 of his favorite things) and then figured it would bore him to sleep when they switched to less exciting dialogue. I figured right about him loving the movie and wrong about it eventually boring him to sleep.
I also figured that the swear words would be removed since it was on TV. I guess the rules have changed since I was a kid. We've seen the movie enough that Seth and I managed to talk loudly over the TV whenever a swear word was coming. And we only missed one - the one when the driver of the Good Ol' Boys' RV says "Oh, S***!" right before driving into a lake.
We kind of held our breaths, hoping that if we didn't react, he wouldn't even notice it. About a minute later, just when we thought we were in the clear, Charlie said in a completely innocent voice, "I like the way that guy said, 'Oh S***!'"
Seth was on it quicker than I was and said, "He said 'Oh Shirt!'" Charlie was a little skeptical at first, "He said, 'Oh Shirt'?......Why did he say 'Shirt'?"
Then it was my turn to cover by telling him there was a shirt lying in the road, and that's what made him drive off into the lake. That seemed to satisfy his young and trusting mind, which could never imagine his parents would tell him anything untrue.
Seth was hesitant to even have this posted on the blog: exposing our kid to profanities and blatantly lying to him all in one night. Pretty sure we're not in the running for Parents of the Year Award. I thought the story was too good to let it get lost to our undependable memories, though.
He has reenacted many things from the movie, but it has been a few months now and he has not once used the phrase "Oh Shirt!" or anything similar. Here he is chasing bad guys around the kitchen island. I love how he even whips the back end of his "car" whenever he turns a corner like they do in the movies. Unfortunately for Charlie, this activity was ruining our floors so we had to put an end to his car chases. Hardwood floors and kids just don't mix that well...
And here he is listening to his new favorite CD while dancing on his tiny "stage." I'm pretty sure some of those moves are straight from the movie. For the first 2 weeks after getting this CD, if anyone dared to play anything other than the Blues Brothers Soundtrack, Charlie would stop whatever he was doing, yell "Noooooo!!!" and run to the CD player to switch it back. I'm glad to report he has gotten over that and we are once again allowed to play a variety of music.
Sunday, November 6, 2016
Monday, October 31, 2016
A glimpse for now
We went to visit friends in Southern Oregon last week, but between unpacking, getting ready for Halloween, and a nasty head cold, it might take me a bit to get all of our pictures and stories up on the blog. So here's just one to tie you over.
This was our first attempt at a family picture on the trip. We had to wake Charlie up to take it so our friend, Adam, who was taking the picture was trying to get Charlie to wake up and smile. At one point Sam made a farting noise, which got a giggle out of Charlie. Then I made the mistake of saying "All you really need to do to get him to laugh is talk about farts and butts."
It's been a few years since we've hung out with Adam, so I had forgotten that of all people, he would have no shortage of material in this area. He immediately started singing a little diddy called Alphabutt, which of course became the kids' new favorite song. As you can see in the picture, Sam was especially entertained - particularly when he hit the line "C is for Cat Butt."
For those of you who are intrigued enough to hear the song, you can listen to it here. WARNING: If you don't want your kids running around saying things like "D is for Doo Doo" and "L is for Loud and Long farts" do not play this while they are within earshot.
Saturday, October 15, 2016
Safety gates are safer when they are shut
Frankie got this gash when he fell and hit his head on the edge of an open baby gate. It's not huge, but it was deep enough that I couldn't tell how deep it went. I didn't actually see the fall. I just heard it and came around the corner to see a gaping hole in Frankie's forehead. I resisted the urge to call 911 and he was running around laughing within 3 minutes. Once he (and I) calmed down, I searched the area for what could have cut him, realized it was the baby gate, and was assured that it wasn't a nail or something that could have gone in extremely deep.
After Charlie's $1000 ER visit to glue shut a cut that probably would have healed OK with a band-aid, I couldn't decide whether to bring Frankie in for this one. Fortunately, my brother is a doctor so I sent a picture to see what he thought. He said bring him in for a stitch or two, so it was off to the Urgent Care with all 3 boys. We lucked out with a very short wait, and no need for stitches. The older boys were a big help and Frankie smiled through the whole appointment.
The glue was definitely a good idea though. It wasn't closing up as quickly as Charlie's had, and being on his forehead, he might prefer not to have a scar. Although, you never know with boys - maybe he would have loved it.
Having two rushes to the hospital for cuts in the last 6 weeks, I'm hoping the old "bad things come in threes" theory doesn't come true here. Twice is enough.
Friday, October 14, 2016
Quote of the day
Charlie had his friend, Debbie, over to play yesterday. She often says things that make me laugh, but yesterday's quote took the cake.
I told them the neighbor was bringing her dog out, and that they could go play with him if they wanted. At the mention of a dog, Debbie excitedly told me (in her adorable high-pitched voice):
"Ooooh! My grandparents have a human and his name is Uncle Eddy, and Uncle Eddy has a dog!"
There was a brief pause before she said "human," so I think she was going to say her grandparents have a dog, realized it was actually Uncle Eddy's dog and corrected herself accordingly. It might not be as funny written out, but it was the funniest thing I've heard a kid say in a long time. And I hear kids say funny stuff all day long.
I told them the neighbor was bringing her dog out, and that they could go play with him if they wanted. At the mention of a dog, Debbie excitedly told me (in her adorable high-pitched voice):
"Ooooh! My grandparents have a human and his name is Uncle Eddy, and Uncle Eddy has a dog!"
There was a brief pause before she said "human," so I think she was going to say her grandparents have a dog, realized it was actually Uncle Eddy's dog and corrected herself accordingly. It might not be as funny written out, but it was the funniest thing I've heard a kid say in a long time. And I hear kids say funny stuff all day long.
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
What the heck?!
Due to either divine intervention or a crazy coincidence in addition to Seth and I having a simultaneous lapse in good judgement and some miscommunication, we somehow ended up with a cat yesterday.
A cat. As in the animal neither Seth nor I ever really wanted to have in our home.
Don't get me wrong. I really like cats and I loved growing up with one. Seth likes friendly or entertaining cats, but not scary cats who trap him in a basement for 45 minutes (that's a story for another day and better told in person). But the hair and the scratching and the litter box and and the eventual traumatic death that will probably happen while we still have kids in the house who will be devastated were all reasons that we didn't want one.
So how on earth did I end up typing this post with an adorable cat curled up and purring right next to me? I'm asking that question of myself, not you. I'm still in a bit of shock over this.
As far as I can tell, we were tricked into the whole thing by some cosmic force. Maybe the kids have been secretly praying for one when I wasn't listening. Or maybe the cat has been praying for a family. Or maybe naming our youngest kid Francis spurred St. Francis of Assisi, that lover of animals, into finding us a pet for Frankie's first birthday.
Here's more or less how it happened:
When the cold weather hit last week, we got mice in the house. No surprise there, it happens every fall. The thing is, this year, we couldn't seem to catch them. We've always set out traps right away and been done with the whole mouse thing in a week. So Sunday night, as we were lying in bed after hearing what sounded like a mouse the size of a raccoon running around in the walls, I turned to Seth and said, "Should we just get a cat?" And to my surprise, he said, "Maybe we should." And then we went to sleep.
So the next morning I talked with a friend who lives on a farm who said we could borrow one of their young tomcats for a couple of weeks. If we liked him we could keep him, and if not we could return him. That seemed like a safe way to consider getting a cat so we decided to go ahead with it when we got back from vacation in 2 weeks. My only regret was that it was a tomcat. I preferred a female so that, should we decide to keep the cat, we would have the option of exposing our children to the incomprehensible cuteness of newborn kittens.
Lo and behold, within an hour of us deciding that we were ready to try out this furry animal in the house thing, a beautiful, friendly, cuddly, great-with-kids, youngish? female cat quite literally showed up in our front yard. Our neighbor found her out front, handed her to Elena and said, "You want a cat?" Elena ran in and asked Seth who said, "Definitely not." (I found this out later).
While I was trying to figure out if she belonged to someone, Seth went out for a run, stopping to talk with our other neighbor, Kelli, on his way out. It turns out the cat was a stray that they had been taking care of for a short time but didn't really want to keep.
Through a series of conversations between the kids, us and our neighbors (none of which were actually between Seth and me), I was lead to believe that Seth was fine with getting the cat as long as I was ok with it. And he was led to believe that I said I was fine with it as long as he was ok with it.
So we both ended up not wanting to be the terrible parent who said no to the cat after the other parent had said yes. In the end, we both "agreed" with each other's "decision" when in reality, neither of us actually officially made the decision to keep her.
By the time we figured this out, she already had a litter box, food, a name (Coco), a theme song ("Coco the Calico! Coco the Calico!" sung to a tune similar to Waltzing Matilda), and had been baptized. Ok, the baptism thing is an exaggeration but the theme song is 100% real.
So far, she's not even a good mouser, which was the whole reason we got a cat in the first place. Ironically, the day we got her, we suddenly started catching mice in the traps. We've got 6 in the last 2 days. Like I said, tricked. By cosmic forces.
Anyway, I suppose you'll want to see her so here's a picture. We'll take her in this week to find out how old she is and to make sure she actually is a girl and not rabid and stuff.
A cat. As in the animal neither Seth nor I ever really wanted to have in our home.
Don't get me wrong. I really like cats and I loved growing up with one. Seth likes friendly or entertaining cats, but not scary cats who trap him in a basement for 45 minutes (that's a story for another day and better told in person). But the hair and the scratching and the litter box and and the eventual traumatic death that will probably happen while we still have kids in the house who will be devastated were all reasons that we didn't want one.
So how on earth did I end up typing this post with an adorable cat curled up and purring right next to me? I'm asking that question of myself, not you. I'm still in a bit of shock over this.
As far as I can tell, we were tricked into the whole thing by some cosmic force. Maybe the kids have been secretly praying for one when I wasn't listening. Or maybe the cat has been praying for a family. Or maybe naming our youngest kid Francis spurred St. Francis of Assisi, that lover of animals, into finding us a pet for Frankie's first birthday.
Here's more or less how it happened:
When the cold weather hit last week, we got mice in the house. No surprise there, it happens every fall. The thing is, this year, we couldn't seem to catch them. We've always set out traps right away and been done with the whole mouse thing in a week. So Sunday night, as we were lying in bed after hearing what sounded like a mouse the size of a raccoon running around in the walls, I turned to Seth and said, "Should we just get a cat?" And to my surprise, he said, "Maybe we should." And then we went to sleep.
So the next morning I talked with a friend who lives on a farm who said we could borrow one of their young tomcats for a couple of weeks. If we liked him we could keep him, and if not we could return him. That seemed like a safe way to consider getting a cat so we decided to go ahead with it when we got back from vacation in 2 weeks. My only regret was that it was a tomcat. I preferred a female so that, should we decide to keep the cat, we would have the option of exposing our children to the incomprehensible cuteness of newborn kittens.
Lo and behold, within an hour of us deciding that we were ready to try out this furry animal in the house thing, a beautiful, friendly, cuddly, great-with-kids, youngish? female cat quite literally showed up in our front yard. Our neighbor found her out front, handed her to Elena and said, "You want a cat?" Elena ran in and asked Seth who said, "Definitely not." (I found this out later).
While I was trying to figure out if she belonged to someone, Seth went out for a run, stopping to talk with our other neighbor, Kelli, on his way out. It turns out the cat was a stray that they had been taking care of for a short time but didn't really want to keep.
Through a series of conversations between the kids, us and our neighbors (none of which were actually between Seth and me), I was lead to believe that Seth was fine with getting the cat as long as I was ok with it. And he was led to believe that I said I was fine with it as long as he was ok with it.
So we both ended up not wanting to be the terrible parent who said no to the cat after the other parent had said yes. In the end, we both "agreed" with each other's "decision" when in reality, neither of us actually officially made the decision to keep her.
By the time we figured this out, she already had a litter box, food, a name (Coco), a theme song ("Coco the Calico! Coco the Calico!" sung to a tune similar to Waltzing Matilda), and had been baptized. Ok, the baptism thing is an exaggeration but the theme song is 100% real.
So far, she's not even a good mouser, which was the whole reason we got a cat in the first place. Ironically, the day we got her, we suddenly started catching mice in the traps. We've got 6 in the last 2 days. Like I said, tricked. By cosmic forces.
Anyway, I suppose you'll want to see her so here's a picture. We'll take her in this week to find out how old she is and to make sure she actually is a girl and not rabid and stuff.
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Oh the excitement!
THEY PAVED OUR ROAD TODAY!!!!!!
That may not be so exciting for our readers, but trust me, this is very exciting news in our household. Like new-baby exciting. Or winning-the-lottery-exciting. Or Trump-and-Clinton-have-both-decided-to-step-down-as-presidential-candidates exciting.
Ok, maybe not that exciting, but I did catch myself loudly squealing with joy when I saw what was happening before I realized what I was doing. And I'm not an overly emotional person so that says a lot. With a 90% chance of rain forecasted for today, the kids and I prayed last night (a few times) for the rain to hold off until our road was paved. And it did just that! They finished about 20 feet past our property line before they had to quit due to the rain.
It's looking like our new living room will be done this week, too. Seth just needs to finish up the trim, and we can move the furniture in and start using it. I'm looking forward to this even more than I was looking forward to having the road paved.
I hope Charlie will like the new living room with a play area for him. So far he hasn't been a big fan of the remodel. He has asked on several occasions to have our old kitchen back. He also misses our old bathroom and our old sink (barf). Unfortunately for him, the first thing we have done so far that he liked was temporarily move all of our furniture into the current living room so we could finish the floors and trim in the new living room.
This is the state of the living room we have been using for the last 2 weeks. Cozy, in't it? Charlie took one look a this arrangement, and said, "YES! I love it!!!"
I, on the other hand, am very anxious to have more than a few square inches of floor space in our living room. And to not having to rescue poor Frankie from getting wedged in between all the furniture 5 times a day. Most of my time at home since Frankie became mobile has been spent just keeping him safe. If it weren't for the older kids who have been forced to willing to help watch him for a bit every day, I would be so behind in basic day-to-day chores I would have long ago lost hope of catching up before the end of the decade.
Of course, being the mother of 4 kids, I don't actually have any expectations of being genuinely "caught up" until our youngest is a sophomore in college at least. Fortunately, 9 years of motherhood has prepared me to happily accept the persistent feeling of being behind and to let things go enough to continue enjoying our beautiful (although dirty) family. Double fortunately, my parents have frequently swooped in to take the kids right when I'm about to hit the "I can't do it anymore" state. I do hope that once the project is done, the phrase "Hmmm...I wonder what I should do next" will pass through my brain from time to time. It's been a long time since there hasn't been something (or someone) pressing it's way to the foreground of my mind screaming "Me next!!! You need to take care of me next!"
To give you an idea of what I mean, here is a clip of the condition of our house while Frankie mastered the art of walking. As you can see, it doesn't exactly scream, "Go ahead and let your 10 month old roam free and unsupervised while you get a few things done."
And just to be clear, he is completely covered in sheetrock dust, a look similar to but not to be confused with the pasty-white-summer's-over-Minnesotan look.
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