For the Birds

Spring is in the air and so are the birds again! Yeah! We found a great idea to use our fabric scraps and make a "nest scrap bag" for them. Smoosh of course thought the birds would love everything yellow. Otter wanted to use camouflage for their nests, and Beans hunted out the pink and flower scraps. Squeaks just tried to taste everything, so we put her down for a nap.

SuperHeros Abound

Now introducing.....SuperRia and SuperParker.....

I think Parker is trying to wink in this one ------->






She's so strong----->

lollipop, lollipop

She's the fourth baby, so, thanks to her siblings, she's earned the right to discover things at her own pace without Mommy yanking them out of her hands quicker than you can sneeze. Today, Indie discovered a lollipop, complete in its wrapping and untouched by any other kiddos. She unwrapped it, played with it, and eventually it found its way into her mouth. It then found its way back into her hands, onto the floor, onto the sofa, into the dog bowl, onto the dogs' backs, and into the dogs' mouths. She took her time running around the kitchen with the lollipop, pulling out dishes and banging on them with the lollipop, stirring imaginary things in bowls with it, and hitting the cups with the lollipop. At that point, it was aimed for her mouth again, but Mommy grabbed it then. She was not happy that her magical toy had been taken away, but she did have a fun time up until then with the lollipop.

Last Night at Dinner

When it comes to dinnertime and food, Daddy becomes a very focused man on one thing - eating. He is a little unfocused on the kids and table manners when it comes to dinner, so the job of teaching Parker manners and how to sit and eat properly fell on me. Once Parker moved out of the high chair and into the booster seat, he was sat next to me so I could teach him the way civilized adults behave at a table. Everything was going smashingly well; at least as smashingly as it can go with a 3-year-old named Parker, until he developed a recent inability to keep his tongue, food, or own saliva in his mouth. He is constantly sticking his tongue out onto his chin to lick some invisible substance there. I have this inability to deal with the mouth noises that accompany this tongue wagging and just the tongue thing in general. Its like some large amphibian-reptile grossness. Something inside of me snaps and I become a maniac, truly crazy. I think I see red, but I am not sure because I cannot remember what happens afterwards. I just recall something about "why your tongue?" and "napkins" and "this is not how civilized people behave." Obviously, mommy does not do a good job being a role model for civilized behavior all the time either. BUT she can admit when she is defeated and she knows her weaknesses very well. I gave up. Last night, I decided it was causing too much of a distraction for us to enjoy dinner any more with me flipping out about the insanity of Parker's tongue not wanting to stay in his mouth. His seat was put next to Daddy's seat last night with the promise that Daddy would pay attention to him, help him eat, and most of all, help him sit and behave. Here is what happened:





But don't worry folks, because sitting right to the right of the young, dancing Parker, who please note his salad was not touched, was his daddy, still eating happily away, not even noticing the dancing man next to him. His siblings all noticed though:




I guess if I really want to eat with civilized people in this house I will need to eat alone and I really don't think that would be much fun at all.

House Gnomes

My house has an incapacity for staying clean. Just when one room gets all picked up, vacuumed, and on the rare occasion dusted, I turn around to find it completely covered in toys, fingerprints, and dog hair again. Some days, I wonder why I even bother to go through the motions of cleaning at all. It does give a sense of relief and one moment of peace to see my house look nice. I like to think that the constant cleaning efforts will leave an impression on the little ones that they should pick up after themselves without being told 10 million times in a row to do it; however, it is an uphill battle. Not only that, they now have another house gnome that has joined in the mischievousness and messiness. She has learned to unload the dishwasher and open up pantries that have tired child locks on them. She loves to leave little "Indie messes" all over the place. Even the toy baskets are emptied quicker than they can be picked up. But really, when they are so cute making the messes, I cannot get that upset.

Wow, Has it Been Over a Year???

I just realized it has been well over a year since I have posted anything on here. Surely my life has been this boring that no good stories have occurred? I guess I need to get back to it....yet again!

Last night I was on the phone with my older brother, Andre. He has no children and is married. But I consider him to be still single. Actually, I think there should be a whole other category for people who are married and do not have children. I am not sure what it should be called, but it should definitely be a different category. For instance, when I tell Andre that he has to hold on a second because Ria is doing the chicken dance in front of me really fast and really loud, he says "Wow, that must be really funny." He doesn't understand that no, that's actually really annoying. Or, when we are all together and Parker jumps out of a chair during dinner, runs around the table screaming gibberish and slobbering half of his food out of his mouth, Andre thinks its pretty funny, while Joe and I are trying to remind Parker that the rest of the people are sitting down and keeping their dinner inside of their mouths. I am sure if we were in Andre's position of being married without children, we would also think those kinds of things are funny. But we are not. Maybe it is those of us with children who need a whole new label. Crazy perhaps?

While I was on the phone with Andre last night, Joe came down at one point and handed me Indie, all wrapped up in a towel, done with her bath. Not sure what was going on, I let Andre talk to Otter a little bit and go upstairs to see what has occurred during bath time and why is the baby now downstairs. While she was in the tub with Parker, she decided to add some of her own...well....floats to the tub. Since there were so many bath toys in there, Joe did not know she had done this until Parker started fussing about it. When Joe noticed it, he quick scooped the baby out of the tub, soap still covering her all over. Parker had already leaped out of the now-soiled tub. Joe grabbed the net and started pulling out the poop of the tub and putting it in the potty. While he went back to get more, he hears Parker giggling at the top of his lungs. There is Indie, covered in soap bubbles, playing with the poop that is now in the potty. Joe now grabs the baby and puts her in the shower and shuts the door to the shower. As one can imagine, she is not happy with this and she starts screaming. Joe showers her off, getting himself soaked in the process, wraps her in the towel, and that is when he brought her down to me. This is all while Parker was giggling his head off and Ria was doing the chicken dance for him because I had shooed her away from downstairs. And really, when I tell my brother this whole story and everything that had occurred during our phone conversation, all he did was laugh. Seriously, I do not know what people do with their evenings when they do not have children around.

The Move to Wisconsin

The car jutted to a halt. The windows were slightly opened. My sister and i listened to the slight rustling of the leaves. We looked at our new home dumbfounded. I expected it to be far, far less exciting.
After a few minutes, we heard the faint click of the doors unlocking. Ria and I rustled to the door. After a lot of shoving, we finally managed to escape the horrible, dreadful car. We had sat in the same stinkin' spot for 18 bazillion (well maybe not the bazillion part) hours. We sat that long for the only reason - to get to this spot, my new home. It was in the cold and chilly state of Wisconsin.
It was hard leaving my old best friends but the shiver down my spine seemed to make up for all my worries. As I was daydreaming of what it would look like inside, I heard my sister Ria called out "Hey Otter, last one to the swings is a rotten egg!" A split second after we were both racing to the swings. We ran past the new glistening house. It was a small mixture of white and baby blue with textured marron shingles.
We finally crossed the yard to the swings. We swung and played until I saw a movement through the pines. I thought it was the wind until I looked closer. I then figured out it wasn't the wind at all - it was an 8-year-old my boy! My age! I ran over to him and saw that he was swinging nunchucks. His name was Bayley. He told me that the nunchucks had wood in them but soft coverings. He showed me everything in the new neighborhood. It was only about 5 minutes but I had been touched. I loved my new home in Wisconsin and that was going to be my home for a very very very long time.