Olympic Sport?

The Sea Monkeys were not overly fond of watching the Olympics to start off with. The Rocket Scientist explained how cool the Olympics are and the significance they hold. The girls finally decided they liked them well enough. Ever since then, they have to race every chance they get. This always includes getting into the pre-running stance that always cracks me up. So the girls are racing to the wading pool, where they are planning to run and slide into it. That is until they see My Son's idea for a new Olympic sport. Do you think it could make it as an event?

Hey did you also notice what a bunch of "red necks" we are using the wading pool in our front yard? Yes, I'm sure our neighbors are happy with us. Especially after that show of high class. (We start on the back yard soon. I promise!)

Her memories...pleasure and pain

The Wild Child started Kindergarten today. The little sweetheart decided she wanted me to straighten her hair. I was happy to do it. She goes in the afternoon, so we had plenty of time to do it. She was kneeling on a step in my bathroom as I pulled the hot iron through her hair. Half way through, she decided she didn't want it straight anymore; it was taking too much time. I told her that we had come this far....We were going to finish. Just then she shifted her body and I reacted trying to move the hot iron away from her face. I lost my grip on it and it fell on her little ankle. The iron wide open, burning both the front and back of her little leg and ankle. I think I cried longer than she did. The blisters are unbelievable. We cared for the burn and dressed it, gave her some ibuprofen and you would have no idea that the girl had anything less than the ideal morning. I still can't close my eyes, 'cause every time I do, I see that iron falling on her leg and then I hear her screams in my head. The last thing I am going to say on this topic of burns is, there is a product called "Second Skin" that is amazing! Tonight when I redressed her ankle the swelling was almost gone out of the blisters and my baby said they didn't hurt. She was still very protective of her little leg, but that would be expected.

So on the way to school the Wild Child says to me, "Mom, I don't need you to walk me in. I know where my classroom is. It's right by the red chairs. I know the rules. When you stop the car, I get out of my car seat. Then I give you a hug and kiss before I get of the car. When I get to the school door, I will stop and turn around and wave to you." At this point I have to turn my head to keep her from seeing the tears streaming down my face as we are now in front of the school. That was that. The Wild Child went to kindergarten and loved it. She can't wait to go back tomorrow. She is convinced that she has the best teacher in the school.

So here is what she looked like in her little uniform. I know that I'm partial, but dang she looks cute.

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow

You know, when we moved up North, these kids complained about the cold. The Wild Child would go as far as to say that she wanted to go back to Mexico. We have never been to Mexico, but she heard it was warm and wanted to go.

So it came as a surprise the other day, when I overheard them "pretending" it was snowing outside. I come around the corner and what do I find? That's right. Four kids wearing snow boots in August telling me how they are tired being hot and when is it going to snow?

What a bunch of posers!

Language of Love

When my husband and I were first married, we'd say a lot of things that were either misunderstood, too under our breath to be heard clearly or just so out there that we ended up with a few phrases of our own.

One day I was whining, I know shocking, about something insignificant. Apparently, the Rocket Scientist couldn't understand me or needed a way to deal with the whining, because this is how it went down.

Me: Whining to myself

RS: "What's the matter?"

Me: More whining, still not loud enough to be completely understood.

RS: "What did you say? Your tough's broke and you can't turn your whiner off? Is that what you said?"

Me: Now laughing. "Close enough."

So, that is me today. I woke with a headache that qualifies as my "tough is broke and I can't turn my whiner off."

I'll be back tomorrow when my tough is fixed.

Some of what I love about blogging...

I was raised to not interrupt people. This has served me well most of my life. There is the occasional time it is absolutely necessary to interrupt in a heated debate. Rarely do I do it. I have many people in my life that were raised with a different set of values on this topic. There are people I love dearly that are either too distracted by things they have to take care of or those that are just distracted by the thoughts in their head that seem to not notice when I'm talking. They just start talking like they didn't know there were words coming out of my mouth. I use to be really offended or hurt by this. Not anymore, I realize it is just their set of values and I am OK with them they way they are. Besides all of that, I may be one of those people and not realize it.

However, there are those times that I really just want to tell a story or have an opinion heard on something. These are the times that this situation is the most difficult for me. I will be mid-thought in a conversation I am having with someone, when they will start talking while I'm talking. This tends to frustrate me.

Blogging has become the place I can finish some of those thoughts. The best part about it......If you are tired of hearing me ramble.......You can navigate your browser to somebody else and I get to finish my thought. See, it's win/win for everybody.

Do you hear what I hear?

We all know from the past, that I should not blog in the middle of the night, but it is, what it is.

I am honestly exhausted, but somehow sleep has left me and is refusing to return. I lie here trying to relax and drift back to sleep. My ears are suddenly informers of every little or not so little thing. First there is the 1st One bounding in to my room at 2:00 AM insisting that I need to come and kiss her good night in her bed. (I wasn't here when she went to bed, so she doesn't know that I already have.) I send her back to bed and kiss her good night there. My Son then starts to stir and starts crying. I can hear that he is very congested. He is complaining of being thirsty, so I bring him a sip of water and go back to bed. As I cuddle up to a very warm Rocket Scientist, I am beginning to fall back asleep when the 1st One comes busting in our room again, proclaiming, "I can't sleep with all this noise!" I sit up and try to collect my thoughts. "What noise? Is My Son crying again?" Yep, that's the problem and the Little Jamaican is now awake, too. She thinks she needs a drink of water. OK, everybody who needed a drink now has a drink, My Son has been medicated for what ails him and I'm finally back in bed trying to get comfortable. My mind starts turning, the sweet man that I married begins to snore like a buzz saw and I start to fret.

You see, by nature, I am a worrier. I start to worry that My Son may have not have swallowed all his medicine, making that a choking hazard. Sooooooooooo, I have to get up and check on him. He's fine. Then I start to think about back to school night for the 1st One and the Wild Child we attended tonight. You see, before I went to bed, I looked at the folder they gave us while at the school and noticed that there were some required items I neglected to do. Never mind that I was distracted by whining, hungry children and an intense need to get out of the crowd. Since this is a brand new charter school, that was no easy feat to get into, I am feeling a little like a failure. So, I rationalize to myself that I will complete missing items from my check list of required items tomorrow when I drop off all the requested school supplies and vision form for the Wild Child. Then I start thinking about all the cost that goes along with back to school time. I start praying that we will recover in time for Christmas.

That thought leads me to one of the more stressful parts of my day. I had to make a trip into the Evil Empire tonight to finish shopping for the remainder of the before mentioned school supplies. I finished up about 9:30 PM, loaded everything into the car, got in, and tried to start my mobile hamster cage. That darn mini-van would not turn over to save my life. I debate what to do. The location of the particular Walmart is a bit questionable, so asking someone to give me a jump is a less than attractive idea. I settle on calling the RS to come rescue me on his white steed, errr I mean in his late model Toyota 4 Runner, with four sleeping or at least sleepy kids loaded in their car seats. Some where in our phone conversation about me needing to be rescued, I get slightly smarter for a minute and ask him to call the neighbor with teenage daughters and see if one of them will come hang out at the house so the Sea Monkeys can sleep while he comes to rescue me. He agrees that this a better plan and hooks it up.

The RS shows up and begins the process of jumper cables and what not. He tells me to try and turn the engine over. Nope, nothing. So he tries revving his engine, when I start to see arcing and smelling melted plastic and wires. No, this isn't good. There is now a small fire where the jumper cables are attached to my van. Fortunately, this part turns into a non-incident. Small fire lasted seconds, snuffed out quickly by my fast thinking guy, trying not to burn himself.

We are at the Evil Empire, so we can run in and buy some new, heavier duty, jumper cables and a wire brush to clean off the terminals on the RS's battery inside his white steed. Longer story shorter, it's not the battery. Probably the starter. We gave up around 10:30 - 10:45. Yeah, so now my Mobile Hamster Cage is sitting in the Walmart parking lot in a questionable part of town.

Do you think that has given me some material to think about at 3:53 AM. Oh there is the,"I wonder if I will have any gas in it when I find it tomorrow to have it towed and the how much does it cost to repair a severed gas line?" Then there is all the obvious stuff like, will the tires still be there (they are new) or will someone try to steal it (I could only wish), or how about vandalism. Then I get going onto the cost of towing and to repair the dang thing, not that it's not just a part of life, but remember trying to recover from back to school before Christmas. And yeah, how much money do you sink into a vehicle with 143,000 miles on it?

Then I start thinking about earwigs. I wonder how many of them are still in my home. I noticed when I got tissue to wipe My Sons nose when he was crying that there was one on the bathroom ceiling. One compared to the army we use to have is really not to bad.

Yep, now I'm back to listening to the buzz saw and wondering what the heck is wrong with his foot. We are going on over a month now. I'm not going into all the details on that tonight/this morning, but the dang thing is really starting to worry me. I cannot do all these dishes by myself.

So now that I have been rambling on and on and on and on and on............ The snoring stopped......I just might be ready to sleep. 4:30 to 7:30. That's three hours right?

Look at your what?

I over heard the kids a few weeks ago talking about something that just didn't seem to make sense. I didn't stop to find out the details because, well, somebody has to do the dishes since the RS is a bit out of commission. (A posting for another day.) If you know me at all, you know that I am not the one to do dishes in the house. The RS is the man when it comes to dishes, garbage and mowing the lawn. None of which he is really doing right now. Sorry, I'm getting off track. Back to the conversation I was over hearing. They were saying something about a "blood eye." I could see them, so I knew no one was bleeding or doing anything obscene. A few weeks pass and I hear this phrase again. This time I hear one child say to another, "I don't want to see your blood eye." Well, now I must investigate what this about. I head over to where they are. Before I can ask what's going on, the Little Jamaican says to me as she pulls the skin down just under her eyes, showing the curve and veins of her eye balls, "Mom, look at my blood eye." What do you say to that?

The Little Man is 7

When this little guy entered our lives, our world was already upside down. The 1st One had arrived just two short months ahead of him. We were deep in the sweet, delirious depths of newborn sleep deprivation. We were expecting him just the same. When we first decided we were going to adopt, we did some research and found the agency we knew we could work with. Now, if you have ever adopted you know how violated you feel by the time you've finished filling out paper work and all the inquiries into every part of your life. Without a doubt, the ends justify the means. We had a few failed adoptions before we ended up with the 1st One. Truth is though, I knew we were suppose to have two little ones really close together. In fact, I had a recurring dream of two little curly haired kids playing on the floor in the nursery. When I called the agency and told them that we were expecting two for some crazy reason, they went with the flow and continued to present our names to birth mothers. The 1st One's birth mother and My Son's birth mother were roommates at the time. When I met the one, I met the other as well, not knowing how life was going to play out.

After the 1st One was born we heard that My Son's birth mother had picked us. We really loved her already at this point. She had been there with me and the 1st One's birth mother when the 1st One was born. My Son's birth mother came and spent a weekend with us shortly after that. It was a really neat experience getting to know her like that, before My Son was born. He was due towards the end of September according to his birth mom. Needless to say, we were shocked when we got the call in the middle of August to please come to the hospital, My Son's birth mom was in labor.

He entered this world such a lost little man. Well, lost in some ways, in others not so much. Even with his birth weight at 6 lbs. the doctors determined him to be earlier than 4 to 6 weeks. They were thinking closer to 8 weeks early. The little stinker would not eat for for the NICU nurses, he would barely eat for me, but if the Rocket Scientist showed up to feed him, the little guy chowed. He bonded immediately with the Rocket Scientist.

After he was born, I remember the director of the adoption agency asking us if we wanted to back out of the adoption. (I never would have dreamed of it, but I guess it is common to have adoptive parents back out of adoptions when the child they are waiting for is born with some challenges.) She began talking to us about other birth parents she could present our file to. The Rocket Scientist and I were a little shocked. If we were ever actually able to have biological children, there are no guarantees that our biological children would be born free of disabilities and/or challenges. "We love this kid and he's ours," I remember thinking. Assuring the director that this was our kid and we were in it for the long haul we pressed forward. My Son was born with a condition called Peter's Anomaly. This condition required a cornea transplant as soon as they could find a match if we wanted to try for vision in that eye. We felt we had to, since he could decide later in life not to continue to fight for sight in that eye, but if he didn't have a clear cornea in 2 weeks, the chances of his brain wiring that eye for sight diminished greatly. At 12 days old and just a little over 5 lbs. My Son had a cornea transplant.

The first year was rough! My Son had bonded quite nicely with the Rocket Scientist; He was still quite uncertain about me though. In fact, I could barely get him to eat for me. I would get maybe 2-3 ounces of formula in him during the day. The minute his dad hit the door the kid was with his dad chowing. He would eat and eat and eat for the RS. This system was tolerable until the RS had to go back to business as usual at work. The Rocket Scientist is in aerospace and his work requires him to travel a lot. The RS would be gone for a week at a time, leaving me with my precious newborns, trying to figure out how I was going to get My Son to bond with me. Though the 1st Child came into this world head strong and opinionated she was a pretty easy going baby and would be patient with me. My Son, he would just scream till he got his dad.

Eventually he bonded with me. If you ask him now if "he's Momma's boy or Daddy's boy", he will tell you he is Momma's boy.

Happy Birthday My Sweet Son! I love you so much!

I believe we have found the guy responsible for fingers in the frosting. He struck on this birthday cake as well. He was "cold busted" with his fingers in the refridgerator and the tell-tale frosting adhering to them like warts on a frog.

This Bud's for you

I have a terrible habit of not getting through all my e-mail. If I notice that it is a personal message, I read it right away. If it's not a personal message? Well, I'm still going to read it. I just may have not read it yet. (Sheepish smile) So the point of this is; I have an aunt, who I adore, that sends me lots of really cool e-mail. I rarely have time to get through all of it. The times that I do get to read everything she sends is problematic for me. Once I have read it, I feel the need to store it, since I am usually wanting to not forget what it is that she sent me. (Does this make me an e-mail pack rat?)

Well today, I was going through some of those e-mail and this is what I found.

So the rumor goes: Budweiser only aired this commercial only once so as to not benefit financially from such a sad day in our nations history. Just the same though, they wanted to show their respect. Somebody please tell me why beer companies make the best commercials?

I remember September 11, 2001 so well. I sat in the middle of my bed with a new born in each arm, watching news coverage over and over till I could tell you what the anchor person would say before they new what they would say. I cried a lot in fear of what my sweet, new, little babies would have to face in the future. I remember being so proud to be an American when I watched how one of our nations biggest tragedies brought out the best in her people. People truly caring about each other, being united in getting through this tough spot in history.

All right here is the big part of this confession. My aunt sent this to me on September 11, 2007. Are you reading this Aunt Jean? I promise to be better about reading your e-mail before it is almost a year old.

Moments of Magic

I'm sure it happened when I was younger, more than I remember. Now that I have children of my own, I notice those moments that are amazing, beautiful in their own way, a lot more.

Last night held moments like that. A few of them. Earlier this week, my mom who is a elementary school teacher, calls and tells me that this group came and preformed at her school. She talked about how amazing it was to hear these kids from Kenya. Then she mentions that they will be performing here on Friday night between 7-9 PM.

So I suggest to the Rocket Scientist that this might be something fun to do with our children. I have this need for them to connect with their roots. He agrees and asks if we can have Rubio's for dinner since we will be in Salt Lake City. So we made the plan.

We go to dinner where planned. We ate out on the patio since it is a beautiful evening. I happen to then look at the Little Jamaican and realize, not only do her clothes not match, but her pants and underwear are on backwards. If this is not enough, I then look at her feet. She is wearing two right feet of "Dora" Airwalks. One hers and one of the Wild Child's. Of course I am horrified knowing that there are going to be people at the Gateway from Africa who are going to wonder a bit about us anyway, but really wonder about my abilities as a mother. Somehow I get over this and we proceed as planned.

Upon arriving at the Gateway we find that the concert is being held out doors over looking the Olympic Splash Pad. This a very informal type of concert being held outside at a mall. This is the perfect pace for four children ranging in age from 4 to 7. The African music is playing in the background and my children are now playing in the splash pad. For a few minutes, the whole world holds still for me. I realize all the little miracles that had to line up for these few precious moments to happen. I can for a split second, see how my children would be living in a country different than they do now. I can see how childhood holds so many keys to happiness. I can see getting surprised by water shooting out of the ground is one of life's true moments of glee. All of it together is like magic in my head. So much so, that I find myself a little overwhelmed with emotion.

Thirty minutes later, I realize I have four kids soaking wet and the sun is setting and didn't think to bring any towels. We live about an hour a way, so riding home wet, could be very uncomfortable. Thank goodness for Old Navy sales. Everybody got new sweat pants and t-shirts tonight. The whole family in a "family bathroom" is a sight to behold. Not to mention to hear. The guy waiting to use the bathroom when we were finished couldn't quit laughing. He thanked us for the parade as all six of us marched out after changing children's wet clothes.

My only regret for the night is that I forgot to take my camera. The Kodak moments were abounding.

The lucky ones.

Often times when people first meet my family, they tell us what good people we are to adopt "these" kids. They then proceed to tell us how lucky our kids are to have us. I know that people mean well, but really, they need to know, I am the lucky one. Truly blessed, actually. I was in such a dark place before they came into my life. I needed to be a mom more than I needed air. They rescued me. Each of them is truly an amazing person. Funny, quirky, intelligent, loving and life saving.

How it all started......Part 4

I'm sorry if you are still reading this, I just feel compelled to have it out there. So here it goes...

The call came in the morning. The RS and his brother would be coming for lunch on their way out of town. I was thrilled. I called my roommate and she said she would be home for lunch as well.

Cooking has always come some what natural to me. At age 7, while my mom was giving piano lessons, I baked cupcakes from scratch and sold them to the neighbors, un-frosted. My poor mom was so embarrassed. I was too young to be embarrassed over something like that. When I was older I worked for a catering company for a few years and then a vocational training school for people with disabilities, teaching food service skills. I could cook decent. So I decided to make lasagna, green salad and garlic bread. (I knew there was no way I was going to have a chance at a kiss with his brother around, so I brought the garlic.) Everything is sailing along quite smoothly. This is not a difficult meal to make anyway. Just as the RS and his brother arrive, smoke starts to billow out of the oven. Then the smoke alarms start blaring. Garlic bread was invented to torture me, I'm convinced. The RS and his brother take it in stride, snickering a little here and there. I open the front door to let the smoke billow on out so that I don't have to hear that obnoxious noise coming from every direction in my house.

My roommate walks in and hears the smoke alarms going off in every direction. She laughs and says, "Karen, making garlic bread?" Yeah, took a while to live that one down. Lunch was nice. I don't remember much about it, other than I really wanted some more time with the RS, alone. Oh well, wasn't happening that trip. I wasn't ready for him to leave. He seemed like he was anxious to hit the road, but he promised to call me when he got home. He mentioned he would continue to write me. I wondered if I had imagined things while laying on the floor in my great aunt and uncle's house. There was certainly the chance I would never hear from him again. I hugged him good bye and realized he was taking a piece of me with him. How could that be after such a short period of time, face to face.

Sure enough, the next day when he arrived home, he calls. He is tired from the trip, but still makes the effort to talk to me. I am thinking in my head, certainly this counts for something. We talk for a while and he tells me he will be dropping another letter in the mail to me the next day. Smiling, I say that I will be watching for it, not knowing if this guy is interested or just passing the time. I'm not certain myself if I'm in love, just certain I don't like not being near him. And then there is still that moment so real in my head, reminding me that I know I will marry him.

A few days later I get the letter. It's a thank you note. He thanks me for the lunch and mentions how much he enjoyed getting together. Then he mentions how much he wants to see me again. My heart starts throbbing. I was getting a little worried I had no affect on him. He invites me to come visit him in San Diego. He assures me that his parents have a spare bedroom that myself and a friend/sister could stay in and to let him know if and when we would be making the trip.

To be continued..............

D-D-D-D-D-D-Dora

While it is still on my mind, here are some funny things about the Little Jamaican's birthday. Ever since her 3rd birthday wrapped up, she had been asking me for a "Dora Cake." Usually she is very fickle and changes what she wants often. And I mean often. We can go out to eat and she will change her mind three times between ordering and getting our food at McDonald's for crying out loud. She had been dead set on a Dora Cake for almost a year never wavering. So here it is:I think the bakery did a nice job. If you look a little closer at the "y" and "B", you might notice where someone got a little impatient to taste the birthday cake. I'm not saying I know who for sure, but I put money on My Son or the Little Jamaican. Then there is the inescapable sibling rivalry that happens when one of them gets a new toy. The Wild Child is pouting in this puddle. Kind of makes you wonder about a few things, doesn't it?I really wanted a picture of the Little Jamaican on her new Big Wheel, but she and My Son are way to fast for my "not so expensive" camera. This is the best shot I got. Hard to believe there is three years between them.

And then there were 4 over 4

How did this happen? My Little Jamaican turned 4 today. It just doesn't seem possible that she is that old to me. It is silly that my heart should hurt that she is that old, but some how it does. She came as a spot of sunshine in a very challenging time for me. She is still a spot of sunshine to me. I love you Little Jamaican! Happy Birthday!

Sick man...

The Rocket Scientist has managed to come down with some sort of ick. Something along the lines of Strep in the opinion of his doctor. Now a lot of men are big babies when they get sick. There are others who think they are super-heroes that wouldn't tell you or complain if they actually coughed up one of their lungs. My sweet RS doesn't really fall into either camp. He would rather give me all the gory details. Uhg......sick.......I just don't need to know these things. It's enough for me to know that you are sick and will need a little babying. I don't need descriptive explanations of why your sinuses hurt or why you throat feels like it's going bleed. I just really don't need those images in my head.

So, I would love to know, how are the men in your lives when they get sick? Please share. Maybe that way I won't mind the blow by blow of the RS's Strep.

How it all started....Part Three

I was looking forward to seeing the Rocket Scientist when he came up to Salt Lake City, but I wasn't dying to see him. I was definitely looking forward to it just the same. We had established a good friendship and I really did enjoy his sense of humor.

My sister and I had a trip planned to go visit our great-aunt and uncle in Chico, CA. I have three sisters who are all very different and I love them all for very different reasons. One of the reasons I love Kim is she has a very funny sense of humor. This makes her a lot of fun to road trip with, though I digress. Kim and I take off and drive to Chico, CA. We were having a lovely visit. My great-aunt and uncle were always so much fun to visit. They were very political and educated mixed with warmth and a delightful sense of humor. They were honestly like another set of grandparents to us.

The day before we were to return home, I started to feel sick. I not talking about drooling on the RS's first date kind of sick, I'm talking about puking my guts out, sleeping on the bathroom floor kind of sick. Some of the details are foggy now, but I think Kim got it too, before we left. Sometime in the middle of the night lying on the floor moaning, I suddenly knew, without any doubt in my mind, that I would marry the RS. I'd like to say that I was in love with him at this point, but I'm not sure that I was. I just knew it was him and it had to be him.

When I was starting feel well enough to think about driving home, I wrote the Rocket Scientist a letter. I never flat out told him I knew we were meant for each other, but I did tell him that it had been a very enlightening trip and that one day I would have to tell him about it. (He has since then 'fessed up and said that when he read that, he then knew what I was enlightened about.)

Some time passed and it was finally time that the RS was in town. He called and asked if my roommate and I would meet him and his brother in North Ogden at a friend's house. Of course we would. We hung out. Mostly we watched a bunch of guys play pool in his friend's basement. It was a rather awkward evening. (Not that you would expect anything else at this point.) I wasn't sure really what to do with myself. I knew things. Everything in me had changed since our first date. The chemistry was suddenly right, instead of all wrong. I couldn't keep my eyes off of him. I so badly wanted to wrap my arms around him that I was contemplating how soon we could leave so I had an excuse to hug him good bye. As it got dark, my roommate and I decided it was time to go; she had to work in the morning. The view of the stars that night was amazing. People were pointing out the "Big Dipper" and "Orion's Belt." Then the Rocket Scientist was having a hard time finding the "Little Dipper." I kept pointing and trying to explain where it was. It just wasn't working. I finally thought, maybe if I see it from his vantage point I could show him where it was and have a great excuse to flirt with him at the same time. I maneuvered behind him, slid my face slightly to the right of his and pointed to where the "Little Dipper" was. He still didn't see it, but if you have ever had the misfortune of hearing him tell his version of this story, I'm not sure he could see anything at that point. I tried for a minute more, letting my cheek "accidentally" brush his or let my breathe brush his neck as I gave up and stepped away. My heart was pounding like I had run a mile. I was a goner. There was no doubt at this point that I was "in love." I hugged him briefly then and invited the RS and his brother for lunch the next day. He said, he'd let me know in the morning since they were headed home some time the next day.

As my roommate and I climbed in the car that night, she starts laughing hysterically. She spits out in between the laughing and gasping for air, "Smooth, Karen, real smooth." I was pretty sure she was being sarcastic but I had to ask anyway, "Do you think he noticed?" She wondered if it was possible for him not to notice.

To be continued.........

Back to reality....

I have not posted anything in a couple of days, because I have been a little preoccupied. Now that I finished it, maybe I can return to reality. At the moment, reality seems a little over rated. I have dishes to do, laundry that is overflowing the laundry room and some serious cleaning. Did I mention I need to do some weeding? I honestly have weeds in my back yard that I could lose a grown man in.

So if you all don't hear from me for more than few days, please send out a search and rescue team to my back yard or my laundry room.

Fun in the Sun

The Sea Monkeys had a blast!!! They tubed, they swam, the chased seagulls and they asked Uncle Andrew to go faster.

Oh my, am I tired! We played and played and played. My sister and her husband took us boating on Pineview Reservoir yesterday. I had forgotten how beautiful Pineview is

Is it wrong that I think this is funny?

They were singing just about every song they know. So I decided I wanted to record it for black mail at a later date and got something far better instead. (The drill running in the back ground is the Rocket Scientist hanging a valance in their bedroom.)

How you know your living with children......

Just what we all need, an Audience.

Put that thing down, I know where it's been.

I wish I had the wit that my Shades of Blonde friend has, because if I did this would be more funny and less gross. So, I'm sorry you have to hear it from me.

My sweet little Wild Child is the most disgusting child I have met to date. When she was little and barely walking we had gone to Salt Lake City to visit my family. I already had four little kids by then. The 1st Child was the only one potty trained and needed to use the facilities when we were in Shopko. I wheeled my tandem stroller into the restroom with three kids crammed into it and the 1st Child walking on her own. Helping my oldest to use the toilet I left the others in the stroller just outside the stall. Now, I am a very paranoid mother and have this constant fear that someone will snatch my children if I am not constantly looking at them, so the stall door is open. As the 1st Child is finishing up, I notice that the Wild Child has climbed out of the stroller and is toddling into the next stall. I am helping her big sister off the toilet as fast as I can, then tripping over the stroller trying to get to her before she does something that I will regret. The two seconds that took were not fast enough. I reached her as she is lapping up toilet water like it is a stream in the mountains. Did I mention that Salt Lake City had a Meningitis break out at this time? I am wondering how do you even begin to clean a toddler under these circumstances? Gross!

Flash forward three and half years or so, to tonight. It's Friday night and we still try to go out as a family on this night. Usually dinner and sometimes a home improvement store. Tonight it was just dinner at Bajio's. As typical with 4 kids ranging in age from 4 to 7 years, at some point they all need to use the restroom during dinner and that is ok. The part that is not ok is, on the way home the Wild Child and my Son have taken their shoes off and put them on their hands and are using them to clap, like percussion instruments in a marching band. Next thing I hear from the back seat is the Wild Child proclaiming she is going to lick the bottom of her shoes. Before I can say anything, she has begun doing something that I don't know how to clean. Yuck. We try to explain how gross it is, by telling her that she has probably stepped into "pee" in the restrooms at Bajio's and by doing so has put some really yucky stuff in her mouth. She insists there was no "pee" on the floor. She tells us that she looked and there wasn't any and therefore no need to worry about her licking her shoes. She did stop when we asked, but you can bet when I put her to bed tonight, I did not kiss that girl anywhere near her mouth.