Things that make you go hmmmm.....

This is a picture of a house that is around the corner from me. I drive past it many times a day. I couldn't help but be amused by the sight of the homemade scarecrow wearing some one's bathrobe and a plastic bag for his head. And then in case robeman can't do the job, there is transparentman there for extra measure. From the sight, I can only guess that the owners of this house are trying to grow new grass. But do you notice all those pigeons sitting on the roof? Well many of the times I drive by, those birds are helping them selves to the buffet of seeds on the ground. Apparently they are not afraid of the big bad Robeman Rob or his sidekick Transparency Tim.

Here is a closer shot of the dynamic duo. Are you trembling in your boots? Or would you like to sample the tender juicy seeds, lying just under the soil?
Here is one shot I did manage to get of some of the birds feasting. But seriously some of the times the ground was just covered with pigeons. It was a total convention, like something from the world buffet at the Rio.

I detest pigeons by the way. Burt and I from Sesame Street, do not see eye to eye on this one.

I have a bunch of pigeons who like to hang out on my roof. Apparently there is some appeal to my roof that I fail to see. Anyhoo hanging out includes leaving their deposits of disgusting bird poop all over the place. So I pretty much classify pigeons as the spawn of Satan.

It just gets better and better.

This morning Marion ran to the church to help distribute the Fast Offering envelopes. The Bishop and second counselor are out of town. I guess the other counselor forgot, because no one was there with a key to the clerks office.

When Marion came home, he noticed a water leak out by the front door. He asked if he could turn the water off. I was trying to get the dishes done and was considering taking a shower and going to just sacrament meeting, but I figured he better do what needed to be done to stop the leak. He tried to fix it, but as plumbing is wont to do, it broke worse. (Topic for discussion: Plumbing, Tool of the Devil, Yes or No?) So he came inside and made a few calls to get YM stuff delegated at church. This was hard as many young men leaders were working. He finally found someone. And then left to go to home depot to get the needed part. Think ten oxen in the mire. Major emergency, if we have no water.

A minute later he came back and said the battery in his van was dead. I stared at him dumb founded. Why, I don't know, I should be expecting these things by now. So he took my car instead. Miraculously, it was not out of gas.

He's back the part is fixed so the water can be on in the house, but the sprinklers will need more work. Low, low, low on the priority list.

So basically, I am on the edge of my seat in suspense. What will happen next? Will our house burn to the ground or just be hit by lightening?

I swear you could not write this stuff. Television producers would reject this script as completely unrealistic and implausible.

No one in this house is going to church. Oh well maybe next week.

When it rains it pours.

Maybe I was wrong to mock life, with that "it couldn't get any worse" comment. Ooh, look at me at the bottom. Poor, poor, me. I take it back, Ok, are you listening. I. Take. It. All. Back. Do not bring it, not even a little, just keep it all far, far away from me. But now it is too late. Apparently there are no take backs in the game of life. Dang. Bummmmer!

Diana has been complaining that her ear hurt, ever since the day after she got home. So that was Thursday, when we were busy trying to get out of the hospital. I contemplated taking her across the street to urgent care. But honestly, I wondered if she was just trying to get as much attention at Jared. So I actually talked one of the doctors at the hospital into just looking in her ear. Just tell me if I need to go to the doctor, that is all I am asking. The doctor looked and said it looked fine. Diana was still so whiny and so we left and stopped at the corner drugstore and bought some ear drops. Once again, I listen to a doctor and ignore the inner mother voice that said she was really sick. Will I never learn?

Friday she was still complaining, but I would put the drops in and that would seem to help her. I honestly thought it was just the placebo affect. And I was so tired yesterday, I never did anything more for her. Last night she was so whiny again. I figured it was just that she has been basically motherless for a month. That seems to justify a little whining. So I held her, rocked her, gave her a bath, washed her hair, and put her to bed.

Today she had some friends over for most of the day. I took advantage of how occupied she was, and really got things cleaned up around here. Did some laundry, unpacked from the hospital, and cleared out some furniture so that Jared can walk around the house when he needs to. Then, after another yummy delivered dinner, Diana and I went to Wal Mart and got a few things we have discovered we needed. All through Wal Mart she kept saying how bad her ear hurt.

I finally gave in and took her to urgent care. I felt like a prisoner marching to the guillotine as we drove to this place that is right across that street from the hospital. Surprisingly we were in and out of there in an hour. I had prepared myself for a two hour wait. And yes, she does have an ear infection. Because of course, why wouldn't she when I mocked the Gods of Health and Wellness. Especially in writing and on the public Internet. And so for me, Yes, another nomination for worst mother award to make her suffer for three days before I finally took her to the doctor.

We had a very nice doctor. I told him a little bit about Jared and would that be contagious or have anything to do with her earache. He said no, especially at this point. Then I asked if there was any way he could give me the once a day Zithromax. Because lets face it, I need another prescription to keep track of, like I need another hole in my head. He agreed, (about the easier drug, not that I needed a hole in my head) but of course our insurance would only pay for the amoxicillin. So why not, I will just add it to my spreadsheet of things to do at certain times during the day. I'll be fine making sure she takes medicine three times a day for ten days, that she hates more than walking across hot coals, NO PROBLEM. Then I asked the doctor if there was any way I could steal a hospital gown, because it would be so nice to have two of them. He said here hide this in your purse and don't tell anyone. So now we have an official hospital gown, and the newly purchased one. Always nice to have more than one set of clothes to wear.

And so with our pilfered pajamas, we drove straight to the pharmacy. When we got there they told me that their computer showed that Diana was allergic to penicillin. Oh yea, that does sound familiar. When she was about 3 months old she did get a rash one time. And so we have always said "yes" to her being allergic. But I could swear that at some time in the past year, she took some amoxicillin and did not have any reaction. The really scary thing is that I know that is the case for me. I had a rash once when I was about 8, but for some reason I know I took some amoxicillin in the past few years and nothing, I was fine. So I had Walgreen's take the allergy caution off of my file.

The pharmacist tried to call the doctor back, but only got a recording saying they were closed for the weekend. I have a kid in total pain. I would almost swear that it will be fine. The pharmacist says he will give it to me. I can just watch her and at the first sign of any rash, stop the medicine and give her Benedryl. Or worst case scenario if she has trouble breathing, take her to the Emergency Room. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? At this point, I have trouble breathing myself and hold onto the counter for support. It is nine thirty at night, I am beyond reasonable thinking. I stand there trying to decided if I take the chance or not. I figure I might as well wrap this worst mother award up with a bow (start engraving my name on it now), so I take the amoxicillin. I also bought a huge bottle of Benedryl. I am nothing, if not prepared.

I just gave her the Amoxicillin. Now do I stand next to her bed monitoring her breathing all night long? How did this happen? Please someone take over driving this vehicle called my life, because I have obviously lost the ability to function competently.

How soon does anaphylactic shock start? If I watch her for four hours can I go to sleep? Will I ever sleep again? When I do sleep will I ever stop having nightmares about the hospital? How do you know when you are officially insane? Does the pharmacy have the ability to super size my Valium order, if I can persuade/threaten some doctor to write a prescription for me? What are the penalties for falsifying a prescription? What illness with Trent come down with tomorrow? When I have my anxiety attack, will I foam at the mouth, and if so will some one take a picture of it for my blog? Will I look fat in my straight jacket? Will someone also take a picture of that? Will it hurt when I pound my head against the padded wall of my room at the mental institution?

Tune in tomorrow to see if I still have three children in the morning.

And I was wrong, there is something worse than one sick kid........... Two sick kids.

Life is Strange

It seems that I have not had much time for posting.

I guess sometimes life just likes to pull the carpet out from under us and run away shrieking hysterically, while our head hits the pavement. That is what happened to me on Tuesday. Talk about 180 turn around from expectations. To show up at the hospital ready to take Jared home, and then have everything change and be sitting in the surgery waiting room at twelve thirty that night. Well to say it was unexpected would be an understatement. After the initial shock, I seem to be coping reasonably well.

While waiting for Jared to come out of surgery, I read the USA today that was sitting on the table. Apparently the rest of the world is continuing to function. This reminds me of the time when Marion's dad passed away. It was the December of that awful Tsunami in Thailand. I honestly missed the whole thing. We did not turn on the TV for over a week. It was a couple weeks later at the orthodontist that I read about the horrible devastation. I was shocked that something like that could happen and I would not have even heard of it.

So while waiting to find out the fate of my son, I read things like this:

Fish pedicures pamper flaky feet

"A pedicure in which dozens of tiny, toothless carp nibble away the flaky dead skin on your feet is the latest in unusual spa treatments. John Ho and his wife, Yvonne Le, say they began offering the treatment four months ago at the Yvonne Hair and Nails salon in Alexandria, VA. Traditionally, a rough instrument is used to scrape off dead skin. The garra rufa fish, also known as doctor fish is used in the procedure that originated in Turkey and has become popular in some Asian countries. It costs $35 for 15 minutes, $50 for $30."

I had to read this article twice. Are you kidding me? People pay to have fish nibble at their feet. EEEWWW! I don't get it. What. The. Heck. Doctor Suess's next book: One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, These fish wear coats of fur, These fish give a pedicure.

Another thing I don't get around here, is how many health care professionals smoke. What is up with that? You would think that seeing first hand the results of smoking, (ie emphysema, stokes, heart attacks, cancer) well, I would think that might help deter someone. I guess I just don't understand the addiction. It seems very sad to me. And when you have nurses who smoke, well they just have to take more breaks, than nurses who don't smoke. I am not very impressed with that.

I miss all my friends in the PICU. It is hard to have to start over and make new friends. Yesterday, I was pretty much determined not to do it. But now that it looks like we will be here so long, I guess it will happen anyway. Because lets face it, I am not really capable of not making friends. I am just a freak that way. A friend freak is good, right. (kind of like 'death by pirates is good' What movie is that from?) So I guess I should just embrace it.

We have the same day nurse today that we had yesterday, and she will be here tomorrow. She seems even more confident today. She is so cute and is from Louisiana. She has the sweetest accent. She discovered that one of the ports on Jared's pic line is clogged. This improves my opinion of her. And we are getting to know her better, which makes me feel better. I wonder if she was ever in a pageant, she is that pretty with dark hair and creamy white skin. Think Snow White is hot pink scrubs. Gosh, it sounds like I have a crush on her, which is not the case, I am just bored and looking for things to write about.

Our nurse last night was very competent. She will be here again tonight. I actually found some of Trent's ear plugs in the car and finally managed to crash last night about 11:30. Jared was calling to me at 12:30 that he needed his ice pack refilled with ice. Finally when I didn't respond after he threw the ice pack at me, he had to call me on the phone. I had my phone on vibrate and so that woke me up. I walked down the hall, blurry eyed and got the ice. Then I went back to sleep and slept through all the 4 am vitals and IV antibiotics. Then he called me again at 6:30 am to get him some pain pills. I am not sure why he doesn't just buzz for the nurse. Now that I am awake I will discuss that with him. In a half awake state I just did what I had to do to make him stop bugging me and let me go back to sleep. Then I slept til 8:30. I am not sure if I am going to stay again tonight, but if I do maybe I will turn my phone off. :)

We had a roommate when we first got here on Wed night. He got to go home about noon on Thursday. Then we got a new roommate last night about 9:30. The first kid had a collapsed lung and was in the room next to us in the PICU for 2 days. The mom said that the reason his lung collapsed was just that it happens some times to kids that are tall and skinny. Who knew that was something to lie awake worrying about when you have a tall and skinny kid. Note to self: add that to list of things to lie awake and worry about.


Our second room mate was pushed down by his brother and he landed on a pencil. Yep, it was an puncture wound to his behind. Impaled on a pencil, not good. That sounds horribly painful. But apparently you can recover from it OK, because he just left after lunch. I guess they just wanted to watch him over night. So it will be interesting/frightening to see who our next room mate will be. Some times it is slow on the weekends and maybe we won't get anyone. That would be nice. Jared did have a fun time playing game cube with this kid this morning. I saw him smile more in a few hours than he had the past few weeks. Good to see.

The doctors just came in and said that his blood work from last night came back looking good. They were looking for inflammation markers and they were down from the blood sample earlier in the week.

Here is a picture of the wall next to his bed, with the cards that my family made in Seattle and my mom brought to him. They definitely put a smile on his face.


The hardest part right now, is making Jared do the things he is suppose to do. For instance sit in a chair three times a day. Kind of like time out but for recovering sick people. It helps your lungs and muscles when you sit upright. The other thing is walking around in the halls. Today he had a hard time walking as far as he did yesterday. And last of all the most torturous thing for him is laying on his stomach to make the wound drain. He has an open hole on his hip a little larger than a quarter. It is pretty gross looking, but Jared said I could take a picture of it the next time they change the dressing. Sure no pictures of him looking better and having fun playing video games with his room mate, but oozing, open holes in his body, no problem. At one point he and his room mate raised their beds up as high as they would go. Here they were about four feet in the air playing video games. The nurse came in and had a fit. "Lower those beds, what if you fall out". Stupid, fun, sucking, liability lawyers. A kid is stuck in bed for three weeks, what else is he going to do for fun?


In retrospect I have come to realize that even though this is his fifth surgery, the previous four happened while he was still sedated. So this is his first surgery that he is feeling the pain of recovery. It hasn't been particularly pleasant because go figure it is hard to be a kind, calm, cooperative fourteen year old boy when you are in excruciating pain. And lets face it fourteen year old boys aren't that kind, calm, or cooperative to begin with, so adding pain is not a good plan.


After lunch we convinced him to sit on the edge of the bed for fifteen minutes and then he laid back down and fell asleep. At this point my mom said "Leave and don't come back for a while". I felt as though I had just been paroled. FREEDOM is a beautiful thing that I have taken for granted far too much.


So I drove right to my hair cutting place and got a much needed hair cut. It felt so good to have someone pampering me, I almost fell asleep. It was over far too quickly. This is when life decided I needed a kick in the teeth, or maybe a wedgie just for good measure. My debit card was not in my purse. It is a Visa card and this is the only credit card they would accept. First I went through everything in my purse at the counter. Then I sat on a chair and emptied my whole purse looking frantically and feeling anxiety filling my whole body. Nope. Nothing. Nada. It was at this point that I remembered the last time I used it was on Wednesday night on my way to the airport to pick up my mom. I stopped by the bank and made a deposit at the ATM. The only thing I can figure out is that I left the card in the machine and just drove off after it took my deposit. I am so distracted that it is totally conceivable as an explanation.

After the airport, we went right to the hospital Wednesday night and I haven't left that place since then, so it had to be at the bank. I called the bank, they told me that cards in the machine are shredded. So this is most likely the case. I next called my bank (which is in Utah, so not the same bank that I made the deposit at) to see if there were any unauthorized purchases on my account. Guess what? Their computers were down and so they could not look at my account. Well, isn't that just special. Not only that they could not cancel my card and send me a new one until the computers come back up. Well that's one way to limit my spending, but it doesn't reassure me that someone has not emptied my account. Geez, life, I know that I am bending over in an irresistible way, but did you have to kick me in the pants like that?

So my nice relaxing haircut turned into another chance for an anxiety attack/nervous break down. Good news, when they take me to the mental hospital, my hair will look cute.

The rest of the story, well the picture anyway!

So I finally got new batteries for my camera. Whoo Hoo! Yesterday, a kind friend called and offered to come over and take a picture of the blue ooze in my freezer. I declined since I could take my own now that my camera is operating again. So here it is. I think this may be a case of fiction being better than the truth. It doesn't look so bad does it? And it is green instead of blue. Sorry. Because I was waiting to take a picture of it, a carton of ice cream was placed on the green slime. Yesterday afternoon I found a big green smear on my kitchen table. It took me a minute to figure out where it came from. Well we used up the rest of that ice cream carton last night when we made banana smoothies. I think I have got all the green out of the freezer but I am not quite sure.

I've got the school copier blues!

Today I innocently walked into the school and signed in to be a parent helper. If it was a TV show, ominous music would have played, foreshadowing trouble looming on the horizon. Perhaps the copiers have become alerted to my Thursday afternoon routine. Probably, they have met at night in secret meetings to conspire against me. If they had arms and hands they would rub their hands together with glee, knowing that I was coming back for them to torment me yet another time. The other problem is that the teachers have lulled me into a false sense of security by giving me a smaller copy load the past two weeks. So I show up unaware that my copier karma is at an all time low. (Any of you now familiar with copier karma, see my first post on this blog)
First of all the teacher gives me a mountainous pile to copy. Then the darn copier proceeds to come up with every error message I have ever seen before and even a new one I have never seen. I wasn't even finished by the time the bell rang. After finding Diana, I tried to finish up but the confounded machine kept jamming. Finally with 2 double sided copies to go, I decided to call it quits. Sometimes that is the best thing to do, just walk away. Sadly I had these 6 piles of copies that I usually put in the teachers room. The teacher had left and locked her door. We don't have school tomorrow and everyone cleared out of there fast after school. So I had to squish these big piles into each of the six third grade teacher's boxes. If I calculated it correctly I used about 2300 pieces of paper. Most of those were double sided copies, so I ran most of those papers through twice. Also at least half of it had to be hole punched. Whew! What a big job. Is it just me, or does my picture portray a copious amount of copies? Next week I have a doctor appointment and I told them that I can not come. But at least I persevered today as long as I did. I feel victorious, if only in my own mind.

Why couldn't I have been born before cars were invented?

I pretty much detest cars. Whether it be shopping for them, insuring them, fixing them when they break down, or even driving them around, I am not the biggest fan of all the trouble they can and have been in my life. Friday I took the van for its smog test. It didn't pass. Crikey, and it is due to be registered, tomorrow. So I took it in to my faithful mechanic. We are spending way too much time together, much to my dismay. Here is a picture of me shortly after my mechanic called to tell me how much it would cost to fix the van so that it would pass the smog. Honestly I could hardly breathe for about 20 minutes. But now the van has passed the smog test, and I can register it online. That will be so much preferable to waiting in line at the DMV for hours. Although imagine the entertaining faces, I will not get to make. So once again all is well that ends well.

No kidnapping, but there may be a murder.

Jared did not come home from school today at the usual time which is 2:45. Yesterday, he stayed after school to help set up chairs for the orchestra performance at open house last night. We found out from our next door neighbor that the bus was 55 minutes late getting to the school to take them home. Our neighbor Tanner, actually got so tired of waiting for the bus, that he just walked home.
Today, I was over at a friends house where Marion was doing an electrical job. Their son, who is Jared's age walked in the door just as I was going home. Jared and Jake are on the some bus so I expected to see Jared when I got home. When Jared wasn't here, I called Jake to see if Jared and Tanner were on the bus. He told me that they weren't on the bus. Jared's cell phone is sitting on the table, so of course I can't just call him and see where the heck he is. I next called my neighbor to see if Tanner was home. She said that no Tanner wasn't home. Now I got in my car and drove up the street to see if I could see the boys, no luck. While I was driving and looking, I called Jared's school to see if they could shed any light on the situation. The person I talked to put me on hold, but came back and said that as far as they knew, all the buses were on time. By now it was time to go and get Diana. So while I drove to her school, I called Jake back and questioned him further. He then told me that originally Jared and Tanner had been on the bus, but that someone came on and took about 15 kids off of that bus and put them onto another bus. So now as I wait for Diana to come out of her school, I call Jared's school back and I tell them this story. I am now beginning to be a bit concerned. Did some strange person kidnap 15 kids off of the bus? Finally the dean gets on the phone with me. He tells me that he was upset by how late the bus was yesterday. He was told that the reason for the bus being late was that the substitute driver got lost. How is that for reassuring information? So he personally watched today as all the buses were loaded. He said they all left the parking lot at 2:25. I say to him that it is now 3:25 and so why has it taken a whole hour for the bus to bring my son 2 miles home. Now I am really beginning to worry. And I have a few words with this administrator about what kind of place is he running where a whole busload of kids gets lost for an hour. He tells me that he will call transportation and gives me the number so I can make a complaint as well.
Next I get a call from a number I do not know. And wouldn't you know if it isn't Jared calling to say that he and Tanner decided to walk home. Apparently they have had a fabulous time making several stops along the way. Also they tell me that Jake had to have known that they were walking, because A) they told him they were going to walk when they got off the bus and B) Jake made the L for loser sign to them when the bus drove past. When we asked Jake why he didn't tell me, he said "Oh, I forgot." So I guess the whole thing was a big misunderstanding. Next I made the slightly embarrassing call to the school to apologize. "Sorry to have alarmed you, my son isn't kidnapped, but his punishment for worrying all of us may be the death penalty." Now, that I know he is alive, I may just kill him.

No good deed goes unpunished.

Last Thursday I went and volunteered for Diana's class. This year she is in third grade and come to find out all the third grade teachers make their lesson plans together. There are six teachers all together and I guess each of them takes a turn for two weeks. So what this means to me is that I am not just copying for Diana's teacher, I am making copies for six classes. That is 6 sets of 20 of each copy. The first week of school, it took me 2 and a half hours to make about 1800 copies. I did not hole punch any of them that week. The next week it took me 3 hours to make about 2400 copies and I did hole punch the ones that needed that done to them. I kept thinking that there has to be a better way. The girls in the front office told me that I should be making all those copies on the rizzo (sp?) machine instead of the copy machine. So that brings us to last Thursday. I arrived at the school determined to cut my time and be more efficient.


I went and signed in at the office. This apparently is not optional. At my old school I never once signed in during the 7 years that my boys attended. Perhaps they had so few parent volunteers that they were just glad I was there to help and they choose not to harass me as payment for my services. Well when Diana started at this new school 2 years ago, I was introduced to RULES for parent volunteering. We have a principal that we lovingly refer to as Hitler. She has very many rules for everything. Basically you are not allowed to do anything at her school. So anyway they are very insistent that you sign in and obtain a visitor badge. I am sure that this is all great and better for security, but I find it to be a pain when I am there all the time and they know me. So once I had my badge I went to make all my copies. It actually did go faster this time and I was thrilled when I was completely finished in just under two hours. I went to the office to turn in my badge. Imagine my surprise when in the slot where my driver's license should be, I find badge #3 and not my driver's license. I have badge #36. There is still a driver's license in the slot for badge #3. So it is not hard to figure out that the person who had badge #3 had mistakenly taken my license when she left. Shockingly enough, I was not impressed with the idea of some other person running around with my license. I complain to the office staff and each one replies that they did not take any badges from anyone. Finally we figure out that the lady who took my badge has had a stroke and is not quite all together there and that she likes to just help herself by putting her badge back. Once I learn this, I calm down a little bit, but I am still not impressed. I went home and received a call a short time later telling me that they tracked the culprit down and that my license would be in the office the next morning.

Two years ago, I accidentally left my license in the office and took home my visitors badge. Unfortunately, this was the Friday before Christmas break so I had to live without my license for two weeks. This only proved to be inconvenient when I went to Comp USA on Christmas Eve to buy a new computer. If I had my ID I could have applied for an interest free credit card to put my purchase on, but instead I had to just pay with cash. I guess that was good to have less debt. Anyway after that I vowed to never let the office have my license again. Instead I would give them my car keys, figuring that it would be pretty hard to forget to get them. Hopefully I would not just walk home and leave my car there, right? But then last year, the office cracked down and they said it was no longer acceptable to leave keys, it had to be the ID. I then made a photocopy to leave each week when I volunteered. This worked well all year last year, but somehow I lost that copy of my ID during my many travels during the summer months. So this year I haven't managed to copy it again. Funny that in the 3 million copies I have made in the past three weeks, I have not managed to make just one copy of my license. Well be assured I will make a copy for tomorrow, because I will not let these people ever have my license again.
And yes, I did get it back the next morning so I guess it wasn't really all that awful, but cheese louise I wish it didn't happen in the first place.

Toddler Follies

An elephant may never forget, but boy thank heavens mothers do. Living with two small children for the past two weeks had brought back a memory or two that I could have done without. If Mothers remembered for long some of the things their children put them trough, I am sure we would all have one child at the most. Let me just say that my two nieces are adorable, like most small children. This does not however mean that they do not engage in normal behavior for toddlers. My niece Allie who is almost two has more energy than me at this stage in my life. In the past week she has done a few things that my sister and I could have done without. But we do want to experience both the good and the bad that children have to offer, don't we? Here are just a few of the things she did this week that gave us pause to worry. On Sunday she ran away from us into the street, once coming too close for comfort to a moving car. She also did not get her normal nap due to church time being changed. This made for a child who had a very hard time going to sleep Sunday night. Monday we went to the mall because it was raining and they have a small play area there. My sister and cousin went to bath and body works to check out their sale. I watched Diana and Allie in the play area. Allie kept losing interest in the play stuff and kept darting out of the enclosed area. I would then have to chase her down. Finally we decided to try to find my sister. On our way there Diana found a store that she wanted to look in. This was not a wise choice because it was full of purses, hello kitty stuff, Dora stuff, and princess stuff. At one time Allie emptied a rack of the Dora purse things and was carrying them around the store. By the time we got out of there a necklace from the clearance rack had been pulled apart. I am not sure if Allie did it, or if it was already broken. The store did not make us pay for it because it was on the clearance rack. That night I took Diana and Allie up to take a bedtime bath. We opened the bathroom door and Allie ran right over and stuck both of her hands in the toilet. It was crazy how fast she manged to do that. I got her hands washed off and started the water for the bath. Diana helped by taking off her diaper, but I did not realize that it was a dirty diaper. Then I had to hold onto her hands while we tried to find some wipes. It seemed fairly crazy. Tuesday night Diana woke me up at 3:30 because her leg was hurting her. I had her lay next to me in bed while I tried to massage the cramps away. After about 20 mins she went back downstairs to the couch. Then she came back in at 4:30 saying that she couldn't sleep and needed help with the tv. I helped her. Then my sister woke me up at 6:30 or so to get Allie's milk from downstairs. I needed to do it so that Allie did not wake her up. Diana has been woken up early before and is quite cranky. So I got the milk. My sister and Allie stayed up stairs for an hour or so and then they went down to get breakfast. One of us had not closed the cabinet under the kitchen sink all the way so that the child latch fastened all the way. Allie beat my sister downstairs and went right over and sprayed Lysol in her mouth. So then my sister got to call poison control. Come to find out Lysol is one of the best poisons that your child can ingest. So be sure to keep that one in the front of the poisonous cleaning supply cupboard. After that was over Allie proceeded to come upstairs and get the door to my sister's room open. The door has a childproof guard on it, but it doesn't work if the door is not pulled closed really tight. Of course she went in and woke the baby up. Now it is 7:30 and I hear all of this commotion going on and so I decide I better get up and help. Next we decided it really couldn't be that bad to take all of us to Wal Mart, and so once every one was buckled in we headed out. This actually went better than I might have thought. The baby slept during all the shopping. The only bad incident was when we handed Allie a bottle of bubble bath to put in the cart. She proceeds to open it and dump half of the bottle on the ground. I waited for someone to say "Clean up on aisle 10, Herb" but there was a worker close by who just took care of it. What kind of crazy place does not have a foil seal on top of the bottle anyway? Today Allie was trying to follow Diana into her room when Diana was going to change. Diana closes the door and Allie's fingers got smashed. I suppose it is a bit of a wonder that this only happened once during the two week episode. All in all I can honestly say that I do not miss the days when all you think about is whether all the doors and cupboards in your house are closed tightly. I have had my turn and well I will leave that fun to people who have more energy than me. They really are darling girls and some day Allie will grow up to be a very sweet young lady.

Yesterday we had a very low key, relaxed Fourth of July. Here is a picture of all the little girls. We had our cousin over and she made marvelous dutch oven potatoes and dutch oven pineapple cobbler. We also had ribs. Later that evening we were entertained by the $5 worth of fire works that I had bought. It was just perfect for it to last for about 15 mins.



Here are all the girls. With Victor gone much of the time it was quite an estrogen party.

The Finding Gene

OK everyone, I am going to cheat and post this thing that I wrote a few years ago. I think that some of you may not have read it yet, and for those of you who have you will just have wait for me to have more time to post new and unique things. I would say that since a daughter has joined my family I may not be as convinced of the premise of this theory. And I think it may border on the side of male bashing, so I apologize for that. I realize that it is a generalization and thereby is unfair to those men who can find things. Also as I get older I seem to be loosing my ability to find things. Perhaps my theory needs to be reevaluated with more current data. But here it is for what it is worth.

I don't know about how things work at your house, but at mine the other people who live here are constantly looking for things they can't find. After years of experience and observation, I have developed a theory that the ability to actually find things that are lost is contained only on the X chromosome. Why is it that I seem to be the only one in my family who can find everyones stuff? And the fact that I am the only female in the family, is that merely coincidence? I think not. My husband or my sons will come to me and ask if I know where such and such is. Usually I DO know and I tell them right where the sought after item is located. They will go and look for it, return, and inform me that it is not there. I then get up and go to right where I had previously told them to look and immediately find the lost item. These exact events have happened countless times. Why just the other day, my husband was making macaroni and cheese for dinner. He was looking for the special pan with a strainer in the pan. I was upstairs involved in a different project--hence the need for him to make macaroni. He calls up to me and asks if I know where the pan is. I reply that it must be in the cub board where we keep all of the pans. He looks for several minutes and tells me he can't find it. I tell him that is has to be there, where else would it be. I think to myself "Don't make me come down there!" Finally he uses a regular pan and the strainer. A little while later I come downstairs and find the pan in the back corner of the bottom shelf. It takes me all of 1 minute, although I did have to get down on my knees to look in the back of the cub board. Why if only I had a dollar for every time I have found something the men in my family could not find. Part of the problem lies in the fact that males can not master the art of LOOKING for things. I often have demonstrations of LOOKING. It involves bending, stooping, and most of all lifting other things. LOOKING is not merely walking into a room and waiting for the sought after item to jump into your hands. Nor is it merely turning quickly around and making a brief survey of the top surfaces of the room. But no matter how many times I give the males in my family such a lesson they fail to grasp the finer points of the techniques involved. I have come to believe that it is perhaps impossible for them to learn such things due to a genetic code. For example, if you are genetically predisposed to be left handed it is very difficult to write with your right hand. It may be that men CAN NOT find things no matter how much they want to. Perhaps this started long, long ago. I wouldn't be surprise to learn that when Adam was still alone in the Garden of Eden, the Lord came to see how he was doing. When asked Adam might of said "Things are going pretty well, but I am having trouble finding things." And the Lord would have said "I have just the thing you need for that problem." And so Eve arrived on the scene. Further proof can be found in the whole procreation system. Why do you think it takes millions of sperm to find just ONE egg? All of those sperm so anxious for the goal, but only one in a thousand actually finds what he is looking for. The rest of them just swimming around in circles saying to each other "I know that egg is around here somewhere, if we could just FIND it."This could account for one of the reasons men hate to stop and ask for directions. It would be admitting to their genetic defect. Women of course are anxious to stop and ask, realizing a good way to look for things when they see it. Men instead rely on the wondering blindly about technique, figuring that if they just drive around long enough they will run into the place they are looking for. One other example comes to mind. How often do men go hunting or fishing and return empty handed? The reason usually being "We didn't FIND anything." I don't know why they haven't realized sooner that perhaps they could take a women along to help in the locating of the prey. Perhaps word will get out and traditions will change. One day some enterprising woman may start a business "Finders R Us" or "Locators Enterprises" and capitalize on the ability to find things. Men may be the stronger sex, but I ask you what good is strength if you can't find your car keys?