Friday Fun Day

Allright so I haven't been posting BECAUSE Blogger in it's infinite wisdom changed how you sign in and SUDDENLY my PASSWORD doesn't WORK. I was extremely irritated (to be nice about it) but after about nine password recovery requests and about three seconds before I threw my computer monitor out a window I finally have it figured out (no thanks to Google or Blogger) and have things set up correctly FINALLY.

I'm still mad, though. There's been so many days I've WANTED to post and I couldn't because blogger apparently sucks LOL. But it's back now and since I have yet to find a BETTER (free) blog then I'll keep sticking with this one thankyouverymuch.

So anyway, my youngest son Bossman had his very first dentist apointment ever today! I went back with him, not because I was afraid he'd be scared, but to make sure he behaved. Lately he's been on a nasty streak that makes me want to rename him "horrible monster." But I shouldn't have worried. He was SO WELL BEHAVED you have NO idea!

As a matter of fact, I was biting my cheeks trying not to laugh my butt off because he was laying SO STILL and kept his eyes closed and I swear it looks like they sedated him before they cleaned his teeth. It was SOOO funny! He looked like he was unconcious! But as soon as the technition and the dentist had their tools out of his mouth he popped right up and started talking so I knew he wasn't paralyzed or anything!!

Afterward we went to Barnes & Nobles so my son The Star could use the gift card he recieved for his birthday. However I mixed up B&N with Borders in my mind and drove to Borders instead. So I had to turn around and drive to Barnes & Nobles. En route I found this radio station that has a "laughing lunch" where they play stand-up comedians and a couple funny skits. We heard one called "Cheech & Chong and Sister Mary Elephont." I have never heard a Cheech & Chong ANYTHING that I thought was funny (I don't dig drug humor - never have), but OMG I was laughing SO HARD that I was CRYING and in real danger of peeing myself. I needed my inhaler and the kids were afraid I'd wreck the car. I'm going to look on YouTube and see if anyone has a link to it I can post.

I was very good and didn't buy anything for myself at B&N even though there was an awful lot of Stephen King that I don't currently own. I may go back and buy "Duma Key" however, but as it is I spent $50 letting all the kids get one book so I'm done for a while haha.

After the bookstore we went to Walmart because Teddy wanted to buy a new fish. When we got to the fish section (pet supplies) we found a happy little 3 year-old girl who had probably every bracelet from the jewelry department that she could reach. It was rather obvious to me that she was not being supervised. We got her name but we couldn't find her mom. The little girl was not worried, she insisted her mom would eventually find her. Still I didn't feel I could just leave her there so I had one of my older kids go find a Walmart employee and after a few minutes of discussion we all decided the walmart employee could take her and make an announcement over the PA system to find her mom. The employee later found us and said she found her mom and she's safe and sound (I hope her parents weren't too worried-but then again she looked like she was on her own for a while with one arm completely covered in bracelets).

Then we headed home. Now we still have chores to do but all in all it was a fantabulously fun Friday!

And the scrawny 5 year-old saves the day!!

Bossman FTW!!

Okay, so if you are a friend of mine (or possibly a friend-of-a-friend...I'm not sure what my settings are anymore - I should probably check on that!) on FaceBook you know I've had water stuck in my left ear for about 5 days. I had gone almost completely deaf in that ear. No prob - I just tilted my right ear towards ya if you were chatting at me.

Then yesterday my right ear started hurting. I couldn't figure out WHY my RIGHT ear would be hurting when the water was stuck in my LEFT ear. I started doing all these treatments suggested by various people in my life (and on Facebook) but nothing got the water out and my right ear started hurting worse and worse.

Suddenly last night it felt like someone was boxing my right ear as hard as they could and suddenly all sound left my right ear. And this time it was completely. I'd say my left ear was around 85% deaf and my right ear was around 98% deaf. I started panicking and spent the whole night wondering what kind of horrible infection I had. Around 4 am my neck started getting sore and when I finally decided to go the doctor (around 10 this morning) my jaw felt like it was wired shut.

The van I usually drive has no brakes. For that reason I refused to drive it while I had my kids with me (duh) so while my husband (the mechanic!) took the crippled van to get it fixed I drove the van that HE usually drives. I went to the doctor and got my ears fixed right up. I was just as happy as I could be when I could hear again! Of course then we left.

As it turns out I forgot which van I was driving and took the wrong set of keys. My habit is to lock all doors immediately upon exiting the vehicle. I think you can see where this is going. I was still dizzy from the ear treatment and still in a lot of pain (they said if the pain doesn't go away in a few days to go see my regular doctor) so my brain could not function. I called The Mr. and he said:

"You've got to be kidding me!! I'm an hour and fifteen minutes away and I've got at LEAST a half an hour before I finish this job! And I don't even know where you KEEP the spare keys!"

I was devastated. The only other thing I could think of was to ask my sisters. If I was really lucky they'd both be in R_ville and one of them could go down, get my spare keys, and come get me. As it happens one sister was at work (in a different state) and the other was asleep and not answering her phone. I just KNEW I was stuck there forever!

My genius son, the Star, noticed that the windows were slightly lowered. My Baby (name of this particular van - the other one is Vera) is REALLY good at retaining heat! So much so that in the summer I open the back vents and lower the front windows slightly in order to ventilate the van somewhat so it doesn't feel like we're entering a preheated oven. Star suggested I have one of the little kids reach through it and unlock the door. Of course any adults hands were going to be way too big and Star's hands were likewise just too big to fit in that little crack. So I had my little, way-too-skinny Bossman stand up on my leg and reach through.

HE DID IT!!

I exclaimed "MY HERO!!!" and we had air conditioning running in less than a minute. Well you KNOW I went to Target (GREAT SALES THIS WEEKEND!!) and bought him a present!! I got the Star a gift, too. I ALMOST bought Sims 3 "World Adventures" but I decided to get the most out of "Ambitions" before I got another expansion pack...all I've done so far is exorcise a few ghosts LOL.

Packed night

Not sure I'll be able to finish this entry in one post but here'goes: Yesterday we went to the fair! My husband had a vacation day so we went down and had some fun! We spent some time with The Mr.'s cousins when it started raining. A lot. After a while it quit (mostly) but we decided to go to the fair anyway! It was so cheap that I even got a bracelet so I could ride rides and that almost NEVER happens anymore! Unfortunately it started raining again so I couldn't get any good pictures of the kids :(

I went on something called "the hustler." It was by FAR the SCARIEST ride I had EVER ridden! But that was mainly due to the fact that #1 there was only two or three functioning seatbelts, #2 only half the cars were able to hold people, and #3 on the far end the cart went hurtling towards a back wall and LITERALLY came up about an inch (or maybe less!) away from the wall before stopping and hurtling the other direction. It was also the first time EVER that my Angel and Bossman went on such a ride. (I made pretty darn sure THEY were in the functioning seatbelts). I thought bossman would be the one scared of the ride so I stayed next to him and held on to him. I figured my Angel would be fine because she's generally fearless. However I did worry she'd be genetically predesposed to be more like her half sister Poinsettia when it comes to the rides that "go in circles." Poinsettia insists on going on these rides and I've been on a few with her. First she's all smiles, then the smile disappears and a small, weird frown appears. Then her face suddenly goes white as a sheet and it's very disconcerting because her eyes kind of glaze over and it's like you're riding with a dead person. I've noticed that she stops breathing which is probably why she starts feeling sick so while I'm holding on to Bossman I'm telling her she should breath in through her nose and out through her mouth. All the while Angel is also smiling and laughing. Then suddenly Angel's smile disappears and the funniest frown I've ever seen comes up and she says "I'm done!" So I flag the guy down to let us off and we're off. Bossman LOVED it! I spent the rest of the night trying to convince him that he is just too small to ride some rides. My Star rode the hustler, too but he spent the whole ride looking at his feet LOL!

Soon the rain got to the point where the rides started shutting down. My husband signed my kids up for something called a "scramble." For Bossman's age they set small chicken and chicken-like birds (peahens?) and ducklings and bunnies out in a huge pen and then they set out the kids to go catch them. Bossman set out after a duck but he ended up catching a rabbit. He then brought the rabbit to me. He then went out and caught another rabbit. He brought that one to a staff member who brought the rabbit to me. I said "He's already caught one." The staff guy said "well now he's caught two" and gave me the rabbit. So I gave the rabbit to Poinsettia and went off to find the husband. Apparently when the kids catch the pets they get to KEEP the pets! There WAS one guy who "bought" the animals back for like $5 a pop, but the Mr. told Bossman he could keep his bunnies (and he spent the entire night announcing to everyone that they were HIS bunnies thankyouverymuch). He wanted to name one Ben and the other Benjamin. (I'm not sure if that's because HIS name is Ben or if it's after "Benjamin Bunny" from school...) in any case I said NO, because all I need is for someone to be on the phone and hear me yell "THA'TS IT PUT BENJAMIN IN THE CAGE RIGHT NOW!!" and then have the cops called on me LOL.

The OLDER kids (in their seperate age groups of course) were signed up to catch first goats and then pigs. None of my kids got anywhere near a goat. However my Angel caught a piglet! Then Poinsettia caught one! Keep in mind that it's been raining this whole time so my kids all came back COMPLETELY covered in MUD!! The kids who caught a pig each got $20! (Angel IMMEDIATELY wanted to go to Payless) The boys were mad that they didn't catch anything and wanted to go for rides but The Mr. had a suprise for me. There was an all-new event called the women's scramble. Guess who The Mr. signed up to go? ME. He was laughing at me cuz I'm a "city girl" who's never had to chase goats or pigs before. So whatever I've fished and camped and hiked even when I WAS a city girl so I agreed to go.

I got NO WHERE NEAR a goat. Some of them girls are SERIOUS about catching those animals! I saw one girl tackle one poor goat! LOL The PIGS on the other hand....I managed to get a hold of TWO but both times the little piggy got away and I got mud in my face. I'm sure I'll be picking the sandy mud out of my hair for days even though I've had two showers.

We had to go get HOSED OFF! LOL. The Mr. was the only one who didn't get dirty! Anyway, when we parked the van I said something was wrong with the brakes of the van. When I stopped it the brake went all the way to the floor and I always notice anything that's different ever with my vehicles (my husband the mechanic finds this VERY annoying but 90% of the time I'm always right). The Mr decided it must just be wet brakes and we enjoyed our muddy adventures at the fair. However when leaving the parking lot I started flipping out because it was as if I suddenly had NO BRAKES AT ALL! My husband (the mechanic) said there was absolutely nothing to be done and I needed to just drive home (with no brakes).

You know, it's funny how your driving style changes when you take brakes out of the equation! Especially when it's RAINING!! It took us HOURS to get home cuz when I saw a stopsign I'd let off the gas and just roll up to the stop sign and if it was absolutely clear I'd just roll through and if it wasn't I'd hit the brake (which would immediately go all the way to the floor with little discernable effect on the vehicles' speed) until I actually stopped (by the time I got to the stopsign I was maybe going 10-15mph). When we finally got home we put the bunnies in the house, let the pups out and started shoving kids through the shower even though it was around midnight.

Great night! Now I have to figure out how to take care of bunnies...and how to see if they're male or female. It's a packrats worst nightmare: 15 years ago I had a cavy named Yorrick who died around 12 years ago. I still had AAAAAALL his stuff until (I swear!) LAST WEEK! While cleaning up for the boy's birthday party I found it and said "I'll never have another rodent again I might as well get rid of this" and out the house it went! NOW I HAVE BUNNIES!! AAARRRG!

Crisis Diverted

I am weird.

Now that we've established that I can tell you about the big hurtles I have had to endure these last few years and you won't have to worry that I am nuts because you know I'm weird.

A couple years ago the worst thing in my life was dealing with the fact that I have lived in Illinois for so long that the time I've spent in Illinois was more than the time I've spent in California. This was such a hard thing for me to do, you have NO idea! I miss my hometown SO MUCH it PHYSICALLY hurts me. I call it the rusty pipe. It feels like a rusty metal pipe around five inches in diameter has been shoved through my chest, through (or around - it's a pretty big pipe) my heart and out of my back. When it's really bad I feel like someone is pulling the pipe out and shoving it back in again several times.

I've never felt that way about a person (although with the exception of my very best friend Amanda I've never been apart from anyone I love as much as I loved California).

Based on how badly I reacted to just that information I was TERRIFIED of my baby's 5th birthday coming up. I was alive for just two years when I recieved a sister. After that I have NEVER at all in my ENTIRE LIFE been in a house that did not have at least one person under the age of 5.

I moved out of my house when my brother was still young and moved into a house with two kids under the age of 2, then I proved to be very fertile and kept adding kids ;). I knew when my baby girl (Angel) was born I did not want any other kids (she was SUCH an AWFUL baby!! LOL) and maybe if she actually WAS the last one I would have been happy when she turned 5 but as it happens God decided it would be funny to, while we were planning Ed's surgery to ENSURE no more kids, pop another baby in me.

I tell you what I CRIED when I found out I was pregnant AGAIN!! I just KNEW this baby was going to be even worse than my Angel! I was going to have it before Angel even turned two! I was a wreck! But then he came and he was just the most PERFECT BABY EVER! He was just so gorgeous and smart and everything made him happy! He was so perfect he POTTY TRAINED HIMSELF WHEN HE WAS TWO YEARS OLD!!

So I was happy I had another baby. I was sure I didn't want any more babies but I realized with horror one day that he was going to turn five and for the first time in my ENTIRE LIFE I would not have a baby in my house! I immediately started freaking out. What would I do without SOMEONE I had to help take care of?

That's when I came up with the puppy plan. I love puppies and in my eyes puppies never grow up! I've had my puppy TBone for over eight years and he's still just a pup to me. So the puppy plan was perfect. I'd have my baby and I could let my Bossman grow up and the babies would keep me occupied long enough to deal with the fact that for the first time in 30 years I was babyless.

My baby boy turned five years old and every time he comes up with a new suprise for me (Lately he tells me he wants money and I say help do chores and he says he wants a thousand dollars and I say wow, that's a lot of chores) the metal pipe in my chest moves a little...but then my puppies come love on me and the pipe becomes still again. So I guess the puppy plan is working!

Depression Diverted!!