Conversations with a 4yo old....

This morning, 7:15am:

H: Mom, I watered your plants.
H: Yesterday.
Me: You did? Thank you sweetie.
H: Yeah, the tree is really tall.
Me: Mmm hmm.
H: Taller than PJ!
Me: PJ's pretty tall, isn't she? Is she taller than you?
H: She's going to be here soon!
Me: Who? PJ? Did you invite PJ over?
H: NOOOOOO! Don't be silly!!

Right. How could I ever misconstrue THAT?? :)

A sad tale of a pair of jeans

I must start this off by saying I gave all my bigger clothes to my mom.I tried on my button-up jeans the other day. I was actually able to get them on and buttoned... provided I was lying flat on the bed. Standing up was interesting. I looked rather like an ice-cream cone with fat bulging out over the waistband."Look honey!!" I went looking for dh. "I can button up my jeans and I'm only 8wks post partum!".Poor dh. He actually looked at me standing there stuffed in my jeans, no shirt on, and tried not to vomit. Very carefully he said, "That's great, hon! You... umm... weren't actually going to wear those out, were you?"I will admit the thought had briefly crossed my mind, but then I realized I would no doubt have to pee at some point, and I didn't really think there would be a bed handy to lie on so I could do my jeans up again. So I told him no and went back to my closet.I found a pair of capris I'd hardly worn. Denim. With just a wee bit of stretch. Just enough stretch to make them wearable. Suddenly I have a new best friend. My old jeans were cast aside and the love affair began.However, as happens all too often with new flames, this one was snuffed by a cold breeze. One from the north, as a matter of fact, that brought frosty temperatures and sweatshirts with it, and made me say goodbye to my newfound love. It was shortlived, so I got over it reasonably quickly.SO, last night I decided to just bite the bullet and go buy an inexpensive pair of jeans to wear until I reshape the flab I currently refer to as my stomach. My capris were from Kohls (Sonoma), so off I went. And guess what?? Sonoma jeans were on sale!! $18.99!! Could I get any luckier???Someone needs to tell manufacturers that jeans should NOT be made in "low rise" in sizes bigger than 8 or so!! I don't CARE if "at the waist" jeans are out, and they certainly can NOT be less flattering than a pair that causes any excess body to hang out obscenely over the top!!!So I put them back. And spied a rack of Levis.Apparently someone has completely changed the sizing guides in the past year, because I took a size larger than the shorts I bought last summer, and there was no way in hell I was getting them done up.... unless, of course, there was a bed nearby. Now I did find a pair of Gloria Vanderbilt jeans that fit fine through the hips/stomach. The problem there however was apparently Gloria only knows SHORT people as they ended approximately half way between my knees and my ankles.I checked the tag. Nope, not capris, and they are labelled as "average" length.Back out to the rack I go. I found pair after pair of average. Then I found short. And petite. And thought to myself "Are there really people as wide as they are tall wearing these jeans?". Asked a salesrep if they had any in "tall" or "long" length. She looked at me like I was insane.... mind you, she had to crane her neck upwards to look at me, I towered over her by a whole 10 feet or so..... Needless to say, I came home with no jeans. I decided a pair of running shoes would be easier to buy and then I can just wear the old ones again in a couple of weeks. I should probably add that I just should have listened to Aly earlier, when she came through, lifted up my shirt, poked my fat roll, and gleefully exclaimed, "EXERCISE!" as she raced off, laughing to herself.Damn kids.

So last night I wake up to the most GOD AWFUL smell just before midnight. S is crying too - presumably cuz of the STENCH in the room. The door is closed. I kid you not, I'm gagging from the reek. I momentarily wonder if perhaps someone had murdered R and I'm smelling the stink of death.

So he hears me retching and comes in to see if I'm okay. "Change the baby please, I think he pooped", I tell him as I'm gulping water in an effort to stem the flow of nausea. He tells me he doesn't know if S is poopy cuz he can't smell anything but skunk.

So that's what the horrid reek is. Suddenly it all falls into place and I look at him."Did one of the dogs get sprayed by a skunk?", I ask.

DH (and that stands for dickhead right now) tells me he thinks there's a skunk under the shed as the dogs have "excavated" quite a series of tunnels and wouldn't come away from there when he called them in.

Once again trying to stem the flow of bile from my innards, I grab S away and tell him "PUT THEM BACK OUTSIDE AND DO NOT LET THEM BACK IN!!".

So idiot-stick lets them out. Does he put them in their pen? No. So where do they go, naturally? Straight back to the shed, where I hear them barking madly.

DH comes back in. I tell him to put them in the pen because I 1) don't want to listen to them barking all night 2) the neighbors don't want to listen to them barking all night 3) they don't need to stink anymore than they already do. I also ask him to please spray some Febreze in our room as I am dying.

He tells me he's already sprayed a ton in there when he let them in. Ummm..... okay..... so you KNEW they stunk, yet you brought them in the house anyways, AND put them in the bedroom with me AND CLOSED THE DAMN DOOR???

I ask him this and ask if he closed the door because of the smell. Guilt crosses his face (I think... I don't have my glasses on, so everything fuzzed), but he says he closed the door so the light wouldn't bother me.

Right. This is night 4 of the late night, and this is the first night he's worried about the light bothering me. Likely bloody story.

So out he goes to retrieve the smelly beasts. I would assume they have been sprayed once again as I get a fresh whiff of skunk when he opens the door. To give you an idea of just how badly the bedroom smelled, the "fresh" skunk smell smelled infinitely better than our bedroom.

Butthead comes back in and says the dogs won't come. I damn near leap out of bed and kill him. I not so calmly suggest he get their collars and physically HAUL them to the pen before I slaughter them all. Presumably he gets them in the pen because the barking stops and he comes back in the house. He comes back to the bedroom and empties half a can of Febreze into the air. It doesn't help... now we just have a slightly lavendar scented stench of decay. Lovely. Simply lovely.

He goes back to the computer. I get my essential lavendar oil and put a few drops on my pillow. Aaaah.... all I can smell is lavendar. No more stinky reeky stench. Blissfully, I drift off to sleep.

And no, I didn't share my nice-smelling stuff with him....

Oh - what REALLY pissed me off?? Yesterday I shampooed the carpets, so the whole house was smelling lovely and clean. Today I have to do it again to get the skunky remnants out from where the dogs lay on the carpet. Butthead.

Quick intro

Oftentimes as I am recounting one of our daily "adventures", I am told "You should write a book!".

So here it is. Not a book, exactly, but at least a starting point. Someplace to start collecting all my tales. A place to get some feedback on this insane vision I call my life.

Really, it's all good.

I'm a mom to 3 - H (girl) will be 5 in January, A (girl) will be 3 in January, and S (boy) was born at the end of August (10 weeks old today). I'm also a home daycare provider to 3-4 more children at any given time. Currently I have a 13mo girl, an 18mo boy, and a 4yo boy. I also have a 2.5yo girl who comes occasionally.

To add to the chaos, we also have three Labradors (one in each color!) and three cats... including an insane 6mo kitten.

Forgive me if I skip around a bit, at least initially. I've got things I need to record for memory that are old old old, and still others that are brand-spanking "just happened last night" new.

And remember, it's okay to laugh. Always!