Is She Teething?

I think Lydia is teething. But lets have you tell me what you think.

-she's not red or swollen in her mouth
-she's not drooling anymore then usual
-she's not really biting, either
-she IS a cranky ass baby today
-and clingy. Whoo boy. I think we've regressed to when she was a mere infant again.
-she has a red pee pee, not her bottom, just her pee pee (and, no, I am not mature enough to use the correct terminology)
-she is not pulling at her ears
-she is not snot nosed

Based on that there, I have no other thing to think then then maybe she's teething? But I'm not certain. So I've shoved Tylenol down her throat anyhow and I'm SEVERELY against shoving medicine into my children when there is no proven medical reason.

What do you think is wrong with her? I've been out of this baby loop a few years and frankly, I don't know what to do except let her cry it out, but then it makes it hard for Kyra to hear the television over her sister's screaming.

That's right folks, television! It's ALL TV ALL DAY over here! Between the RAIN still falling from the heavens and the constant screaming from our fallen angel who REFUSES to be put down and if I both put her down AND leave the room, oh, holy hell, I just don't know what else to do with poor Kyra then to reward her with ALL TV ALL DAY!

So, what's wrong with the half pint?

A Day of Semi-Suckiness

First of all, it really sucks ass when you're walking in the rain with your two children while wearing your glasses because you felt the need to take your contacts out this morning and your feet are sloshing in water even though you're wearing shoes. All the things wrong with that sentence:

1) it's fucking raining. Again. You'd think we lived in Florida or something with the four days of rain here, two days of partly sunny!/BRING ON THE SUNSCREEN! there, kind of weather we've been having for 2 months now.

2) trying to QUICKLY haul 2 children when it's raining is like an oxymoron, or something. The baby suddenly wants to sit up instead of sit still while being strapped into the stroller and the preschooler thinks the words MOVE QUICKLY means RUN CIRCLES AROUND THE STROLLER LIKE A CRAZED MANIAC!

3) it's really hard to make sure there are no stray cars driven by idiots trying to randomly run you and your children over when you can't see through the your rain spotted glasses.

4) what a really sucky time to find out the soles of your shoes are cracked and thus letting water soak your feet from the bottom up. There is no where to remedy this when you're in Barnes and Noble for story time.

And secondly, this better be a different mouse then earlier this month. I think it is because it appears a smidge smaller. I said before that if another one came into the house I would KILL it, but Kyra was watching. Again. And this time she wanted to feed him! She shared her strawberry with it.
I think we ought to tell the landlord that IF we had a CAT we might not have MICE!

Memorial Weekend Festivities

Since the last time I wrote we have:

Bought Kyra a Slip 'N Slide that she doesn't understand how to use. She starts out on the grass, runs two feet onto the slip 'n slide, plops down and demands to be pushed.

And if you push her too hard and she ends up over the stopping point and face first into the grass, she'll stand up and glare at her mother who is steadily taking pictures instead of yelling at her father who is pushing her so hard.

And when she realizes that no one is going to help her take out her father, she plays in the spray with Mouse and Froggy instead. Lydia, during the whole slip 'n slide episode, happily played in her exersaucer.

And the babies played happily too, until it was time for their bath. Bishop and Cricket were none too amused.

And while the snails were happily climbing the apple tree, once a little girl noticed them, this snail was happily exploring her arm.

Lydia was not all that excited when we told her she could neither have escargot for the first time

or the made from scratch blueberry muffins Kyra and I whipped up together the next morning. Lydia decided if we weren't going to feed her, then she'd just go ahead and eat her hand. Or, really, she's sucking on her fingers in hopes there's a few drops of smeared milk left under her nails.

What Lydia REALLY wasn't too thrilled about was having olive oil smeared over her entire head to combat the beginnings of cradle cap. (we didn't have any baby oil and if fancy spas can use olive oil for a moisturizer, then so can we)

When the olive oil adventure was over with, she buried her head under her toy and cried herself to sleep.

Yesterday was TRULY exciting for Kyra because she had her first riding lesson! Kyra can now steer a horse all by herself.

The saddle she rode with yesterday was too big, but her riding coach says next week she'll dig out her wee little bitty saddle so Kyra can actually use the stirrups.

And Kyra's riding coach was so nice, she even gave us a kitten! Which when we finally got a hold of our landlord, no matter how much we begged, said he hates cats and we can't keep her.
Jeremy took her back to the barn she came from last night where, today, with the rest of her brothers and sisters, she is heading to the pet store to be sold. Jeremy has suggested buying the house we're renting (it was for sale before we moved in but since has been taken off the market) and getting the kitten for free! I think that would be a totally wise trade off, don't you think?

For Those of You Keeping Up With Kyra's Prayers

Today she rambled on a mostly inaudible prayer. But at the end, she spoke clearly, "and God, please be gentle and don't fire anybody."

And by fire she doesn't mean YOUR FIRED!, she is referring to flames. She doesn't want anybody to catch on fire.

Everyone Has A Right to Change Their Opinion

Once upon a time, about 9 months ago, I was shopping off a baby registry for a very dear friend (we'll call her Meg, because that's her name). She was having her first child and had EVERY thing ever imaginable on the registry. If it was made and produced with a baby in mind, it was probably on her registry.

As I said, I was shopping and pondering with another friend (we'll call her Candace, once again, because that's her real name) of mine who was also buying for Meg. Together we laughed and giggled at the site of her registry list. So many things that weren't really necessary, but, you know, if ever planning to run a day care these things would come in handy. Meg had mentioned she still didn't have a Bumbo seat and really wanted one and sure enough, Bumbo seat and tray accessory were still on the list.

Candace and I laughed and giggled over the thought of who in the world, having their first child would need a Bumbo seat. The things are pointless and stupid and why place your child in a pint sized chair when you could actually hold and cuddle your sweet new babe.

To this day, I still hold strongly to that thought. If someone is having a first child/only child/ second, third, whatever child MANY years later (we're talking 15+ here), there is absolutely no reason in my opinion why you need one of those stupid contraptions. Just stop what you are doing and HOLD your baby when they need to be held. Even if they only want you to hold them for the purpose of them sitting up all over your lap while playing with their toys. Lets face it, this is probably going to be the ONLY time you'll ever get to hold them that much in their lives and when they learn that mom and dad are truly lame and hate spending time with their lame-o parents, you're gonna miss those days when you could have held your baby but didn't because the seat was so convenient.

Neither Candace nor myself bought her the Bumbo seat.

Lets face it though, we all have the right to change our minds and, well, I've changed my mind, slightly. I've had it in the back of my mind lately that one of those things just might come in handy on days where Kyra wants me to read 30,000 books to her AND Lydia.

Lydia, lets just say, is a wiggly ass worm. Any time you try to set her in your lap she immediately arches her back, exaggerates a grunt and wiggles until she slides out. And then gets PISSED because she is no longer included in the activities at hand.

Yesterday we found a Prince Lionheart thingy (very similar to the Bumbo) at a consignment shop. And Lydia likes it. And I like it. Because now I can read to Kyra with Lydia right next to me and both children can enjoy the same story together.

It's also kinda cute when you set her inside. She instantly thanks you with her arms spread wide, a great big grin and a shiny stream of drool to boot. It's her way of saying she appreciates the things you do for her.
Then she looks down and notices that there is this clean, slobber free object in front of her.

That, as far as she can remember, is NEW and has never been TASTED and SLOBBERED on before.

So she finds it to be her civic duty to not only taste the new object, but to shove it as far into her mouth as humanly possible just so she doesn't miss a corner or make one side of the toy feel more loved then the other.

'Nuff with the cute kid, back to my point...

While I may not see why a parent of an only child needs a Bumbo seat, or their counterparts, I can now see why a parent of multiple children, children who still desire their mother's attention as well as the accompaniment of their sibling AT THE SAME TIME might enjoy the convenience of having one of these seats.

Lydia may not be listening to the story we're reading as she happy chews on her new found toy, and even though Kyra may not realize Lydia could care less about the book at this point, she is happy to have both her mother and sister at her side. In these certain cases, I accept the damn Bumbo seat.

And who knows, maybe Meg was simply preparing for her future children, or daycare, and Candace and I were utterly unaware of this thought process. Farther fetched things are possible, right?

Like the New Look?

Run over and tell Lindsey how brilliant she is because now I need your help in explaining to her that even though I promised her my second born, I forgot to get Jeremy's approval and, well, he's just not down with giving Lydia away. Something about against the law and we need to fill out the proper legal paperwork and with his random work schedule he doesn't know how quick we could actually get something like that accomplished.

I wonder if she'll accept my sincere gratitude instead?

We Have NO Idea Where She Gets This Stuff

God,
Please God on high and the priest, get into Heaven so you can make the world good and shiny and pretty so we all can like it.
Amen.

My Excuse Is Rainy Days And A Sleeping Husband Don't Mesh Well

A girl friend of mine wrote how her husband and their male room mate were scolding her about her imperfect cleaning abilities. For that, I have to show her (and maybe her husband and roommate if she forces them to look at these pictures) how the rest of us live.

Beware, June Clever does not live at my house.

At my house we do things like put the baby in the floor to play with the dogs while we surf the internet all day.

And while I could be cleaning off the coffee table, what I'm really doing is soaking in a bubble bath while reading a book and drinking a glass of wine.

And that pile of clothes that needs ironing? It's been sitting there since the beginning of April. Why rush now?

And Kyra's toy room? There's a door that I can close at anytime when I don't want to look at the mess.

And the tumble weeds that somehow resemble clumps of dog hair? Psh. Ignore that.The dirty clothes some how manages to pile up just as quickly as I wash them, so why bother to stay on top of it? I'm going to start implementing the smell test in our house. Pick up what you want to wear and smell it. If it doesn't stink, it's still good! I hear many teenagers use this as a way to decipher the mass of clean clothes they refuse to put away and let sit on the floor with the dirty ones. If it doesn't smell of funk, what's the difference?

But, really? We all know that isn't true. Because I'm a clean freak, for the most part. But this week has been shitty because Jer's working all night and sleeping all day. To top that off, it's been rather wet and rainy outside so we've all been stuck inside and forced to be quiet.

So, when Lydia cries we strap her in this:

And when Kyra cries, I ask her to help me make this:

And when Mommy is trying desperately to make her family happy, she researches new recipes for supper and whips up a little bit of this: And while our house may not always be as clean as we like it and the clothes we wear may not always be ironed, at least we have good food, happy children and relatively stink free britches, if you're not standing down wind from us, that is. (HA! I'm totally kidding on that last part. I might very well have a panic attack if anyone in my family is wearing anything dirty, that's where my OCD might very well be at it's worst) (Kyra's play clothes don't count)

So, my friend, every one sails that dirty ship once in a while. I think it's called the S.S. I Have An Excuse. And believe me, we can all come up with GREAT excuses why we don't always have either the time or ambition to pick up.

My question to you is, what excuse are you using these days?

**Make note, all pictures were taken today. This is REALLY what my house looks like at this very minute.

Tonight She Made Up Her Own Prayer

God,
Can you please get into Heaven so you can make beautiful butterflies in Heaven.
Amen.

And yes, it was a statement. Not a question.

At least I know I'm not the only one she tries to boss around.

And while we're at it, check this out. I was flipping around the television channels last night when I saw this comedy performance by Dane Cook. He's usually vulgar and I don't watch his comedy shows for very long. But it was right at the beginning of this clip when I stopped last night and he was talking about meeting an Atheist. He's Catholic, by the way. Just watch it:

What's Your Fortune?

In light of the HATE MAIL I'm still receiving, and deleting (because when you start insulting the other commenters who don't agree with you by spewing nasty, naive and ignorant words their way, I will not stand for it), I thought I'd post the fortunes my family received with our Chinese supper. They seemed quite appropriate for today.

Mine: Reach for the high apples first, you can get the low ones anytime. And it's right. I could spit nasty words back to the haters but I'm better then that and I'm better then those negative people. I'm a good person and a GREAT parent. I know it, as do my family and friends and that's all that matters.

Jer: Talk is cheap, barbers give it away free with haircuts. We're not sure exactly why fate brought this to Jer. Maybe it meant to back up the first fortune? Maybe the Haters need to go get their hair cut...?

Kyra: The one good thing about repeating your mistakes is that you know when to cringe. Jer and I both got a good laugh about this one. We think it was quite appropriate for a 3 year old who is still learning right from wrong by testing boundaries.

Yep, They're Certainly Abused

My original plan for a post today, before I was so rudely interrupted by the comments I found this morning, was going to be two photos of the girls I took recently that I just couldn't get enough of.

Clearly Lydia is so abused that even the ducks at the park are going to protect her.

Or use her chubby cheeks as food for all those babies. 13 babies at one time! I'm not sure how that Mama duck and her companion handles them all.

This was taken of Krya last week. Jer and I couldn't get enough of the "balls" on her head. She wanted braids but she wouldn't sit still for them, so I gave her two buns. (ABUSE! This woman ABUSES her child! CALL THE POLICE!!!) (Clearly I'm WAY too nonchalant about this whole thing. Anyhow...) She's decided that their rightful name is "balls" and she's not about to waver from that fact.

But her pose, oh her pose! I had to ask her to stop talking on the phone and stand still for me. She excused herself from her conversation with Mouse and Froggy to pose for the camera.

Fierce.

To Each His Own

Its not very often I receive hateful comments. Usually on really old posts when someone is just tuning in to one of the thousands of ways I abuse my children. You know, with all the beatings they get, times I lock them out of the house in the cold snowy nights and those days I just out right decide not to feed them for a day or two. And since none of that has ever happened, I tend to, you know, not get hateful comments. Until yesterday when I had two people for the sake of taking out their own aggression write me about my post on Tuesday.

Here, I'll let you guys read what they said for yourselves, and then I'll continue.

Randi
So, it seems like the only lesson you think you've taught your daughter is to make sure you're not around before she transgresses or breaks one of your rules? Great parenting there.

Anonymous
Wow. I'm reading a lot of blogs lately and I've got to say that yours is really something. Your daughter is three. You're too cheap to turn up your thermostat and you've taken her bed away for a week?

Is the point to punish the spirit out of her or are you just teaching her to win at any cost?

I admit I'm coming at this from a different place. On March 8, my three year old daughter unexpectedly died. Her heart just stopped. I so miss talking with her. It's obvious from the conversation you quoted that your daughter is really bright and you clearly love her but speaking from experience, you might want to rethink how important this argument is. Sometimes I think we get caught up in establishing the family hierarchy. Sometimes we secretly just want to win. At least I see this with my
parenting of my seven year old.

Your daughter sounds like a really great kid. You've made your point. She'll remember this and I'm betting it won't be with the thought that you had her best interest at heart. Let it go and think about whether if you lost her tomorrow you'd be proud of your choices.

The thing is, Randi and Anonymous, why don't you judge me just a little more. I mean, clearly you don't see eye to eye with my parenting skills, but so what. To each his own.

I had one of my best friends tell me over the phone how she'd never take her child's bed away from her and for that, now I'm not going to be the one she leaves her child to if she ever passes. Though, she may also not want to leave me her child because I said if she ever does I'm going to take her to the circus to see all the abused animals and clowns who are certain to be chain smoking alcoholics. She sees it as one of the many things not right in the world, I see it as family entertainment. We both laugh, and move on.

But the thing about it is, my friend didn't judge me. Because that's not what you do to someone else. You don't judge your friends. You don't judge a stranger. No matter how many different angles you look at it, you JUST DON'T JUDGE. And that is something your mother should have taught you two.

Kyra is a good kid. A GREAT kid. It's probably the why I call her the World's Most Perfect Child. The reason she is a good kid is because I set boundaries and when those boundaries are crossed she gets punished. It's a matter of learning actions and consequences. Something that will come in very handy later in life.

Maybe you should look beyond the fact that her punishment was having her bed taken away. At least she didn't get beat to the point of having such terrible bruises on her ass that she couldn't sit down because a drunk care taker sat on her, beating her bare bottom when she was 13 over the issue that she was sick and wanted to lie in bed rather then do the dishes. And at least she won't have to go through when her mother found out she was told she should have listened and just done what she was told. Because that's what happened to me. And in my book that is listed under both child abuse and neglect.

But that's not Kyra's story. Kyra's story is she broke the rules and she took her consequence gracefully. And if, like Anonymous' daughter, God should decide to take her to heaven tomorrow, I will live peacefully knowing that I did my job as a parent. Because when she got her bed back last night, long before these comments came rolling in, with a gleeful smile she proclaimed she LOVES her bed she's not ever ever ever going to jump on it anymore.

So, Randi and Anonymous, why don't you judge me just a little bit more.

A Day of Firsts

Yesterday was a day of firsts. The first day Lydia laughed was April 20th. The first day Lydia laughed for the camera was May 12th. No, really. See for yourself:

Kyra's Bed... Or Lack There Of

A few days ago Jer mentioned how he didn't think taking Kyra's bed away from her even phased her. I had a good chuckle because sense taking her bed away, Jer has been leaving for work right before she took a nap and not coming home until long after she was asleep for the night.

Upon putting her to nap or bed most of this week she's looked me right in the eyes and said, "Mama, I want my heater on." referring to her bed heater that we put on because we're cheap and turn the thermostat WAY down in the middle of the night so as not to use up too much gas.

Each time she requests her heater, I inform her that she can't have it because it wraps around her mattress, and well, she's sleeping on the floor and not on her mattress. She covers her eyes, pretends to cry, and then I tell her that if she would learn to follow directions, she wouldn't have lost her bed. We kiss, we hug, she goes to sleep. On the floor.

Two nights ago, hours after Jer told me he didn't think this whole no bed thing was doing any good, Kyra and I had this conversation:

Kyra: Mama, I want to sleep in MY bed.
Me: I'm sorry baby, you lost that privilege.
Kyra: Why?
Me: Why don't you tell me why.
Kyra: Because I was jumping on my bed.
Me: That's right. You knew better then to jump on your bed and you did it anyway, didn't you?
Kyra: Yeah.
Me: So now you don't have a bed because you need to think about what you did wrong and not do it again. If you learn to follow directions, and not do things you know you're not allowed to do, you would have your bed. But you had trouble not listening, so now you must think about that.
Kyra: Mama?
Me: Ya?
Kyra: I'm think about it and now I want my bed back.
Me: **stifling laughter but not hiding my grin** I'm glad you're thinking about it. And if you continue to be good, and LISTEN, then you will get your bed back. Until then, you're on the floor, baby.

Hugs, Kisses, Goodnights

So, I think taking her bed away was a good thing. A learning thing. And, although she might jump on her bed again in the future, at least this might make her think twice before jumping on it while Mommy is in the very next room.

Happy Mother's Day!

Yesterday morning, as we were driving Kyra up to her first soccer practice, Jer said he had wanted to take me to breakfast but didn't think about Kyra's soccer. We could go early today, though, before church.

Instead...

For mother's day I got to get up at 4 o'clock this morning to feed Lydia and then again at 7 when both the girls were bright eyed and bushy tailed. I fed them both breakfast and then worked on the dishes from last night.

Jer dragged himself out of bed shortly before 9, presented me with a sparkly pair of new ear rings.

I then started to vacuum the entire house while Jer would either walk random circles around the house like he forgot something or perched next to the window enjoying the beauty of the day.

Then I started picking up the living room and sometime in my huffing back and forth Jer was clued in that something was not right. When he told me that it was Mother's Day and I'm not supposed to do chores I harshly told him that it would be nice if he'd do something once in a while without having to be asked like he was one of the children.

So he cleaned the bathrooms.

Clean bathrooms and diamond earrings. It could have been better, like 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep or a breakfast I didn't have to make, but it could have been worse too, my bathrooms would still be dirty.

Happy Mother's Day!

If I Were A Man...

I thought my cheeks were going to fall off from my face after watching this video. Enjoy!

Oh Holy Hell

The World's Most Perfect Child is actually flawed, and, frankly, I'd like a refund.

This morning started out like every other, at 6:30, one of the kids already awake and, within minutes, they're both bouncing and smiling with happy joy.

Sit Kyra down with a piece of banana bread we made yesterday and a glass of milk. Make Lydia a bottle, sit down to feed it to her. When Lydia is finished, I pop her into her excersaucer to let her play and get a chunk of bread for myself.

Kyra still hasn't touched her breakfast. Well, not true. She has drank most of her milk and has started tearing her bread into tiny pieces. I asked her to eat. She threw her bread on the table in anger. I sent her BACK TO BED because clearly she needed to wake up on the RIGHT side of the bed this time around.

Lydia fusses, I take Lydia and change her bottom, hear Kyra making a fuss as she tosses all her animals off her bed... and then... wait for it.... starts JUMPING on her bed. Which is a huge no-no in this house. She's been caught jumping on the bed many times this past week and we've gone from verbal warnings, to threats, to spankings and now.... We took both Kyra's animals AND bed away.

Okay, not the entire bed. We stopped at the point of taking apart the bed frame.

So she is currently taking a nap on the floor with nothing more then a pillow and light blanket. And that's how she'll sleep for at least the next week.

I know. I'm a mean, mean mommy. But at least she's still alive. Because by the way she's been throwing tantrums and knowingly misbehaving... like I said, she's lucky to be alive.

One Minor Detour Can Lead to Insanity

On our drive home from the Land of the Country Bumpkin I made Jer take a detour for a one day sight seeing excursion. With out any thought put into our day, I set the GPS to take us to Niagara Falls. I didn't even bother to tell Jer where we were going, I just said he was to follow the GPS because we were all in need of a day off. He wasn't the least bit amused by my antics.

He figured out pretty quick when the touristy signs deeming Great Big 'Ol Falls This Way started popping up. And while he STILL wasn't too amused, he started to warm up after we found a hotel to stash the Babies in for a day, demanded Jer to take his cranky ass to the shower and freshen up his attitude a bit, ordered and then fed everyone pizza and then off we were, to see the falls.
We strapped Lydia to my back

Took Kyra by the hand And away we went. First stop, the Cave of winds tour. We were ordered to put on cheap rain coats more so to keep the birds from pooping on our clothes then to keep us dry. This task presented a bit of a problem for Lydia. We didn't want to smother her while she slept (because that would just be mean, I'd rather wait until she's awake so she knows what hit her- I kid! I kid!- most of the time... **ahem, cough cough**) We flipped her around to my front, tore a hole in the neck of the poncho, and created a poorly constructed, makeshift contraption to keep us both free from bird poop.

When we were finished with that, we took a leisurely walk around the falls, enjoying the beauty of the sites. And then Jer spotted this:

To which he started to question why a ground hog would want to make his home on the side of the cliff beside the deadly waterfall. I'm not sure why he feels it necessary to ask me such questions. It's not like the ground rodent and I are communicating telepathically and I can relay questions and answers back and forth. So I just shrugged my shoulders and informed Jer that the cute, disease ridden, over sized chipmunk made his home on the side of the falls to give the tourists and unexpected site other then the usual rushing of water.

I thought it was a brilliant answer.

Next it was the Maid of the Mist, which we found out while eating pizza and watching the News at Noon, it was their first day open of the season. What luck for us... we had no idea it would even be closed!

Once again, we all donned ponchos. Jer tied both Kyra's and my hat to our face with a hole so small we could hardly see what was going on around us.

Lydia decided that was the exact moment she wanted to eat. So, again we flipped the carrier to my chest, tore a hole in the poncho popped a bottle in her mouth. Some how this led to the Korean Marathon Team who was on board with us sporting Boston Marathon 2009 jackets, to start posing for pictures. And not just any old pictures, oh, no. They stood next to me, cheek to cheek, peace fingers waving towards the camera. I made sure to smile pretty in case any of those pics turned up in print or on the internet, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what in the hell they were so excited over.

And just like Jer, he only took a picture of me feeding Lydia. It didn't occur to him to take pictures of the Koreans posing with me.

After the boat took off for our stint, Kyra found it quite difficult to find stable footing with the rocking of the boat. And then, once we hit our destination, under the falls, the mist was just too much for both Kyra and Lydia. Kyra climbed best she could into her tiny blue poncho while I tried in vain to close the hole we had tore to give Lydia a place to breathe. In all the excitement of keeping Lydia dry, I didn't notice when one of the Korean marathon men came over to help Jeremy shelter his three girls. I looked up to see who was blocking out the sun and spray only to find a gentlemen standing shoulder to shoulder with Jer, smiling wildly at me and then back to his buddies who were half way across the deck.

When all the craziness was said and done, Kyra, Lydia and myself all pulled our heads out of the ponchos to greet our new friends. And pose for more pictures. At least this time I told Jer to take a damned picture so I can have a single piece of photographic evidence of our crazy ride.

So if you see pictures of Lydia and myself posing with random foreign men and women sporting jackets with Korean Marathon Team, Boston Marathon 2009, give me a heads up. I'd like to know what in the world was so exciting they they all wanted a snapshot.

A Glimpse Into Her Future

Yesterday Jer had to shell out big bucks to get me a new cell phone because a few weeks ago I completely ZAPPED mine. I'm not sure how. Used a universal plug in that I have personally witnessed Jeremy use on my phone and while it worked normally for him (as in, it charged my phone) when I tried to use it my phone started vibrating and when I picked it up it was SMOKING HOT and has since refused to turn on anymore.

Anyway, so Jer had to shell out big bucks to get me a new cell phone and while we were waiting for the nice lady to get every thing set up and a ready to use, Kyra was begging to play with my old one. The nice lady decided that instead of playing with MY old phone she'd give Kyra this Palm Treo one as it was a discontinued store model.

All day yesterday, Kyra gave us a glimpse into what's to come of her teenage years-

She's talking:
And still talking:

And then... What? What are you doing?

Seriously, Mom? Hold on a second Mouse and Froggy while I KILL. My. Mother!!!

Now would you PLEASE leave me ALONE?

Sorry 'bout that Mouse and Froggy,

My mom is SO. LAME!

Ahh... Won't she make for a FINE teenager?

Just How Important Are Thumbs Anyway?

I can't stand a child who sucks their thumb. Don't get me wrong, a baby sucking their thumb is just utterly adorable to the point I'd like to pop with ewwy gooey love, but past the age of crawling, it becomes a gross and disgusting habit in my eyes. And for that reason, I try to encourage the pacifier with Lydia versus sucking her sweet little adorable thumb and looking all kinds of super cute while doing so.

I'm not sure whether I should go ahead and embrace the sweetness knowing that this is going to turn out badly for me. I know that one day as I reach down to grab her hand to when she is learning to walk I will be slimmed with her spit covered thumb **grimacing** or have to watch as she dribbles slobber down her hand to her wrist, arm, elbow and finally that long, shiny string that follows as the spit hits the floor **shuddering with disgust**.

Maybe I should just get it over with and cut off her thumb now instead of having to do it later when she's older, and verbal, and able to tell child welfare services that it was I, her mother, who chopped off 2 of her digits to stop a such bad habit.
But, I think she's to the point of out right mocking me.

Two BIG Events This Week

First of all, I caught a mouse this week. That's right. I. Caught. A mouse. And I put him in a cast iron pot outside under the tree in the front yard.
I was afraid if he escaped he'd end up back inside of our house. And I'd rather give him a chance to live then to just have to murder him in cold blood if he stepped one more paw inside my humble abode.

So Jeremy and Kyra hauled him off a mile and a half down the road where there are fewer houses and more woods. They let him go in the national forest. Now hopefully the snakes and owls will leave him at peace to do whatever mice do. He was rather cute though. Jer asked if we could keep him. If I weren't so worried about disease I might have said yes.

Secondly, Lydia had her ears pierced today. She did better then expected, but still not was well as Kyra, who cried for a nano second and then we stuck a bottle in her mouth and all was right with the world again.

Jer and I expected Lydia to throw a down right screaming fit. Instead she cried for three seconds, refused the bottle we prepared, then stuck her thumb in her mouth and started sucking away. And then we yanked her thumb out of her mouth and stuck the pacifier in, which she didn't seem to mind. Be it the thumb or pacifier, she still gave us dirty looks for the next few minutes until someone walked by us and cooed at her, then she forgot all about her tortured existence and smiled back at the stranger. And us.

But her wiggly self certainly didn't give the piercing lady an easy job. The wiggle worm almost had her cheeked pierced. Now THAT would have hurt.