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.

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.

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.

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.

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.