Spit

It took me a while, but I finally caught a photo of Spit in the sink.

You have NO idea, how badly I wanted to write that.

HA HA!

Let me explain….

My husband created a monster.

Ok, well, maybe I helped.

It all started when Spit (short of Spitfire) was little.

She REFUSED to drink from her bowl – she’dwash her paws in it, get the water dirty and not want to drink any.

One morning she sat on the counter staring at the the water running from the sink as he washed his hands. He filled the sink bowl.

From that point on, she would ONLY drink from the sink.

We thought when we moved we might be able to change it.

But no, she just sleeps or sits in the sink now – waiting for us…

And when we come she drinks straight from the tap.

Silly finicky cat.

It’s a BATTLE every time I’m in the bathroom.

I understand fighting for bathroom space with teenage daughters and such, but the CAT?

Forget locking the door to keep the kids out – I do it to keep the Cat out!

If I don’t, we’re fight to see who gets the water from the faucet when I go to wash my hands, or brush my teeth.

We’ve tried not encouraging her, but the kids take pity.

Or her meowing sounds pathetic.

And we’re quite convinced she’d rather die of thirst than drink out of a lowly bowl on the floor.

Maybe we should have named her

Sheba – as in Queen of.

*At least she hasn’t tried to drink from the toilet like our pet squirrel did, God rest his soul.

My Best Pal, Wormy

In the animal kingdom

Some kids pretend to be lions, tigers, or bears (oh my!).

Some kids pretend to be dogs or cats.

Some kids pretend to be fish, crocodiles, or frogs.

But I have never, until tonight, witnessed a child pretending to be a

WORM.

Yup.

Jacob has this thing for worms.

A sort of affection.

When he was little he would dig them up and try to keep them as pets, only to be absolutely devastated to find petrified dried worm the next morning. Each of his little pets was name “Wormy”. Even recently he capture three worms, much to his delight,

  “Wormy lives in Ohio too, Mom!”

He proclaimed them to be his “best friends”.

Maybe I’m failing my child socially? I can see the scenario now when he’s forty-eight, experiencing a midlife crisis and talking to his therapist about it.

“It all started when my mom petrified my best friends.”

The therapist would look suddenly concerned, wondering if he was dealing with a serial killer mom and resulting disturbed child. “Would you like to tell me about it?”

Jacob sobbing. “They were worms. She left them out to dry.”

Anyway, pyschobabble aside and returning to original story…

it really should not  have come as a surprise when I found my child wrapped in a blanket rolling and scooting all around the floor while stating (very loudly, so no one would be mistaken)

“I AM A WORM!”

“I AM A WORM!”

They have ant farms, maybe I should get him a worm terrarium for Christmas.

But that could be very bad if Liz gets her wish of a Lizard for Christmas.

That’s a family feud waiting to happen, that is. And a whole other discussion he can have with his future mid-life crisis therapist.

“My mom and sister fed my best friends to her Lizard…”

Queen of the Sink

I knew this day was coming. The day when I’d have to vie for my space in the bathroom. The day of crowded sink tops and competing for mirror time. The day when my make-up would be unceremoniously knocked onto the floor or into the garbage or treated like toys, just to be batted about. The day when my hairbrush and curling iron would be tackled to the ground. The day when I’d have to push someone out of the way just to wash my hands in the sink or kick them off the throne.  It took me ages to find my glasses the other day because they were knocked down behind the garbage (I know, I know, I should have put them away better).   My favorite lipstick was carried to unknown territory and I couldn’t find it for weeks.

My bathroom is becoming a war zone!!

I have three girls – three who will be all teenagers in just a few short years – so I knew this day would be coming.

I just didn’t expect it

NOW

And I didn’t expect it to be my

CAT!

About James

The classic James face – thumb(s) of approval and either a “yeah mom” nod or a very cheesy smile. 🙂

***
Two buddies, waiting for the bus

***
Dad was lying across the bed, his chin resting on my body pillow, while he watched James play with cars on my nightstand. A milky white plastic ice cream bucket laid on its side on the edge of the bed, evidence of James’ recent bout with the tummy bug. I sat beside it, one leg tucked under me, the other dangling down to the floor while I fed Robert.

“Vrooom.” James scooted a car across my nightstand, onto the bed and into the bucket.

Paul reached out, snagged the lip of the bucket and flipped the opening toward him, secretly depositing the car behind the body pillow before returning the bucket to its original position.

James giggled and grabbed another car. Once again it vroomed across the nightstand, onto the bed and into the bucket. Paul gave the speedy flip, this time tipping his head back to dodge the flying car. He laughed and put the bucket back as James grinned and grabbed another car.

They went through about five or six cars, James giggling all the while. Pretty soon James was out of cars.

“What now?” Paul asked.

James didn’t say a word. He simply rolled himself onto the bed by the bucket, trying to fit his shoulder or any part of him inside it, a silly grin plastered on his face.

I almost dropped the baby I was laughing so hard.

***

Speaking of James… He had a birthday recently… well, okay, it’s been an entire month, but with a birthday so soon after Christmas I am still caught up in the fun, tumult and chaos of winter vacations and Christmas recovery. He’s 3! And such a cute sweet three at that. 🙂 His birthday snuck up on me as it usually does and I found myself on that wonderful Monday trying to decide what exactly we were going to do for a party. James has had a thing for super heroes lately. He sings the the Superman and Spiderman (the Amazing Spiderman cartoons) songs. If any of his clothes with the super man logo or spiderman are on them he HAS to wear them. We frequently find he and his brother dressed up in spiderman or batman costumes racing around the house and being absolutely cute and adorable. So, what else could I do than a superhero party?

First thing we needed was a telephone booth – I built one from cardboard boxes – and some super heroes…

Then we needed a super villain – Dad filled the part nicely. In fact, he was so villainous that he bombed our basement! Luckily I had 5 superheroes on hand (and an adorable baby observing) to disarm all the bombs before the basement blew up.

Our heroes only thwarted the villain momentarily though, because before long he was back… and this time with kryptonite! Luckily I had a pair of tongues handy and a lead lined boxed for kryptonite disposal.

Our main mini-hero almost bought it, though in the end he was victorious!

Finally the heroes discovered the villain’s only weakness – toilet paper! They got out their webslinger and froze him just long enough to push him in a chair and wrap him up with toilet paper. He was totally defenseless (and the silly string smelled really bad).

Take that super-villain! Bring it on!

And any party wouldn’t be complete with out the cake and funny birthday faces…

We sure love our silly, hammy, smiley boy! 😀

Stories to Tell with Photos to go with Them

Wow, I feel like I’ve been a whirlwind – never mind that I am just over 2 weeks away from my due date! When did that happen? I’ve been so busy it has snuck up on me, but I am SO ready to be done. SO, baby, listen up – you are welcome into the family any minute – tonight would be great! 😀

So stories to tell – we had lots of fun ones that I will have to add later, but lets focus on the two main happenings of this last week.

Story #1: The Sump Pump Snake

Spitfire was intrigued by our sump pump closet. After all, the last time she investigated it she found a mouse (more on that another time). Paul and I were trying to watch a movie in for our Friday night date – in an effort to save money we had stayed home to have our date in the basement while Liz shepherded the little people to bed. We were only a few minutes into our movie when the cat came bolting out of the closet (Paul had opened the door to let her investigate). Trying to see what was happening, Paul got to his feet and peeked inside, to his surprise was a snake! A big snake, which quickly dissapeared down the sump pump. It was too dark to get a good look, but as Paul whacked on the sump pump lid we heard an ominous rattle – there are two rattlers common to Ohio.

We were a little nervous and after a while decided to let it be and see if it came out again. We closed the closet door and waited. Finally, half-way through our movie Paul decided to check again, this time decked out in long pants, shoes, and gloves with a trash picker-upper tool and a shovel, just in case things got nasty. He slowly opened the closet door and sure enough, there was this long black snake climbing up the wall. He snatched it with the trash doo-hickey (professional term there) and brought it out in the light. We saw immediately that it had no rattle on its tail, so what had made the noise?

After a little investigation on the internet we discovered it was a black rat snake, and when they feel threatened the vibrate their tails rappidly – which sounds a lot like a rattle when hitting a sump pump lid, or glass or gravel as we discovered after observing it in a terranium for a while. They are totally harmless, though they are agressive and will bite, and extremely interesting. We decided to keep it in the terranium over night so the kids would have a chance to check it out. We would have loved to keep it, but decided this time around it would be best to let it go.

After a fun round of pictures and petting of the snake Paul took it to a nearby park and it happily slithered off into the woods.

Story #2: It’s A Boy! His name is Murdoch – but he’s not the new family member we’ve been expecting…

We talked about getting a dog and recently decided that it would have to wait until sometime after January – after all, I wasn’t going to attempt training a puppy or anything with a new baby, and we needed to recover from the expenses of moving and buying our first house, and so on.

So, when a co-worker of Paul’s mentioned that her sister was giving away her dog, we were all set to refuse, until I got the email… with a photo attached. Ok, I’m a sucker for dogs. I love Spitfire, and she’s a
great cat, but I am a dog lover at heart. The email stated that he was free to a good home, preferably a family with kids, he was great with kids, neutered, had all his shots, licenced and trained. It was that word, TRAINED, that did me in – and of course his picture – I mean, who wouldn’t fall in love with that face? Oh, yes, and the other word of course was FREE. Oh man, I was a gonner, and after talking to Paul we decided to go for it – besides it felt right.

Upon meeting the dog, the right feeling was confirmed. We all love him and he is already enthralled with the kids. He is an Airedale mix and his name is Murdoch. So here is for exciting new changes this summer – WOW! is all I have to say.

Now, introducing a very handsome dog, here’s Murdoch!

more stories and photos to come – hopefully sooner than these last ones 😀

New Addition to the Family

In August we added a new member to our family. And before any of you start questioning here are the pictures:

Our neighbor’s cat had kittens and they were giving them away. Believe it or not I think my husband was more convincing than all of the kids. I go to pick though, and she was my favorite. I loved how she was white with matching black spots on each side. 😀 We brought her home to see how she would react to Susie (our dog) and how Susie would react to her. She could definitely handle herself. Anytime the dog came near she would arch her back and start spitting. Thus her name was born.

She is quite a bit bigger now, and eventually I will take some more pictures and post them. But for now these will do. Meet Spitfire.