A Blueberry Trick Gone Awry

Henry and the girls love blueberries. The other day I gave them all a handful with their snack. Then a second handful. And then a third.

I'm all for the kids getting plenty of food - and blueberries are as good as anything. But there's a point where I fear that their bodies just can't tolerate the quantity. So I started doling out blueberries one by one.

Instead just handing them out, I decided to do the old "coin trick" where I palm a blueberry and then find it behind the kids' ear. The girls tolerated my tomfoolery for the purpose of getting more blueberries. Henry, on the other hand, was thrilled to learn that his head was full of blueberries and that they can be plucked endlessly from his ear.


Thrilled, that is, until they stopped coming.


He tried to get them.


And tried.


And tried.



It's sad. More funny than sad, of course. But I still feel sorry for him. Tonight I saw him pulling at his ear after we put him to bed. In a way, I feel like I violated his trust. But he is two. It's probably time he learns that his head isn't full of blueberries.

Cleanup on Aisle Five!

When I got the kids out of bed this morning and was changing diapers, I was alarmed to find that Henry's boy parts were red and puffy. Heather called the doctor and got Henry the first available appointment.

Henry and I went to the doctor and it turns out it was just a yeast infection. I was afraid it was a flesh eating bacteria, which in this case would be a penis eating bacteria. Which would be a bit of a downer.

We got a prescription for some yeast cream and headed for the Walgreen's. I wanted to get Henry's cream as soon as possible, so we waited for the pharmacist to put the label on the box of cream. These things take time.

First we walked all of the aisles. Then we watched a redneck yell at his wife. And then we started getting bored.

Henry spotted a box of clearance mop handles, sans sponge heads, and took to mopping the store.


He mopped.




And mopped.




And mopped.


Watched the angry redneck some more.


. . . continued mopping.







And then they called us back to get the ointment, with the label meticulously affixed to the box.


If anyone in that store thought I would not let my son fake-mop all the floors in the Walgreen's while I followed him around taking pictures with my Blackberry, they were mistaken.

Rodents, Pea Pods, New Room, Etc.

It's been a while since my last post, so I have a lot to cover.

1. No new wild animals have been spotted in the yard in addition to the raccoon and the possum. We've had a total of two dead critters (hunted and killed by cats I presume) on our doorsteps: one bird on the front door mat and one mouse on the back door mat. Other than nearly stepping on the rotting corpse of a mouse, I couldn't be happier about the death of the rodent. Francesca and Thurston are pulling their weight. Cat(s) 1, Mice 1. They did let that one mouse in the house, of course.

2. During the remodel, we were down a few days on the upstairs AC. The kids got to spend some quality time in their pea pod tents - napping in our bedroom during the day and sleeping in the living room at night. Shockingly, the AC man was unable to replace an entire AC system and install new duct work to the new room, and make it functional, in one day. I sort of saw that one coming.

Henry "banged" his little head against the wall of the tent one night and scooted himself clear out of the living room. This is how we found him in the morning:


3. The room is done. If my camera had the ability to reproduce colors with any degree of accuracy, you would see that the room is pale green and the bathroom is slightly less pale green.





The picture of the closet is a semi-accurate representation of the room color:


The bathroom:






From the entrance to the room:



Well, it's mostly done. We have one detail left to fix. There was a little confusion about what I meant when I said that I didn't want shiny chrome bathroom fixtures. My statement was interpreted to mean that I yearned to have someone search the four corners of the earth to find the largest and shiniest bathroom fixtures available and have those installed in the room.

The plumber replaced the bumper-chrome sink faucets that were initially installed with these snazzy little brushed stainless numbers.


We are waiting for the brushed stainless versions of the the shower fixtures to come in.


(there's a bigger difference in person - I swear)

I'm moving the kids into the new room this weekend. My plan is to begin disassembling cribs first thing on Saturday morning and having them put back together in the new room by nap time after lunch. The rest of the new room should take shape by the end of the weekend.

4. Heather is still gestating little Penelope and is 28 weeks today. Her pregnancy hasn't been the walk in the park I had hoped for. She's had to take a few visits to the hospital and stayed overnight on Monday, but she is not having pre-term labor - which is good. During her pregnancy with the kids, we had cake with candles in her hospital room where she had already been for five weeks when she made it to 28 weeks. So, even though this pregnancy isn't completely uneventful, I can only be thankful to be where we are.

Room Stuff and a Possum

The kids' new room is mostly painted and we have tile in the bathroom.




We are waiting on the bathroom vanity and vanity top. Heather and I picked it out a couple weeks ago and the bathroom vanity elves have been working feverishly ever since. I picked out the vanity top at the vanity top place, which, strangely enough, is not the same place as the vanity base place. I picked out a medium beige vanity top and picked dark beige distressed vanity base out of the vanity base book to go with it. Bill the builder suggested that we stay in the neutral color range for the permanent installations, so we could switch paint color at the whim of the girls. That left us with beige, beige, beige and beige of varying shades and finishes.


I sent Heather to the vanity base place with the option to pick a shade lighter beige vanity base, but not the really light beige, because that looked all wrong with the medium beige top. Heather went wild and picked the light beige vanity base anyway, causing us to scramble and switch shades of beige for the vanity top to match the light beige base with dark beige accents.


She was playing with fire, but I think we avoided disaster. That would be a fawn beige vanity top and a biscotti with cocoa glaze vanity base, for your records. I know my beige. In hindsight, I could have just let her do it in the first place and skipped the lesson in shades of beige.

I cleaned out the attic and we are set to have the upstairs air conditioning unit replaced with a bigger one. This will involve at least one nap downstairs for the kids, and my guess is that something completely unforeseeable will happen with the HVAC contractor causing us to have the kids downstairs for a couple days. We are ready with the pea pod tents in the bedroom and on standby for the AC man to come dismantle our upstairs air conditioner.


He seems like he knows what he's doing, but when he says he can switch out an inside air handler, outside unit and replace most of the duct work in one day, I have my doubts. It just seems like a lot to do in one day. Good thing we have the pea pods.

We also have a possum. In addition to the raccoon, we have a possum now. I took the cat food off the back porch and put it next to the garage. I've been putting the food inside the garage before I go to bed to cut down on the critter herd. When I walked to the front door to put the food inside the other night, I found a possum eating the cat food.


Nice tail. Yuk.

I know it's spelled opossum, but I'm not down with the silent "o." I say possum; I'll spell it possum. Possum. Possum. Looks right.

Possum.

Kangaroo Climber Update

The Step 2 Kangaroo Climber is not The Most Dangerous Toy Ever. I was wrong. The toy is just a little deceptive in that it looks like it's made for small kids - - because it's really small. Our crew just didn't have the coordination to handle it the first time.

I set it back up a couple months ago. I didn't break out the video camera, or a camera at all for that matter. The first time you capture video of all three of your kids taking headers off a Kangaroo Climber, it's called funny. The second time you do it, it's called Exhibits A, B and C in your administrative hearing before Child Protective Services.

I've declared it safe for use - and accordingly safe to photograph.




Step 2 says it's good for an 18 month old. For our kids, ages 19 or 20 months was about right for the climber. They have it mastered at 22 months.


We misjudged that one, but I still laugh at the videos.

Cat Watch - Day 121

The last few nights I've woken up to Francesca and Thurston's feeder being tumped over. I pick it up, refill it, then it happens again. The last time I did it, I left the cat food bag outside so I wouldn't have to carry it from the garage to the back porch every morning.


I figured one of the cats turned crazy and decided to tump it over. Cats are unstable. No surprise.


Last night, while Heather and I were watching Lost, I heard a ruckus on the back porch. I got up to discover that we were being victimized by an intruder.





One of those is the police sketch of the intruder, not the actual raccoon.

Under the theory of you feed it - you name it, I get to name him or her now. So far, I've just yelled "git!" at it. I don't think I really want to have a pet raccoon anyway. Having another cat to feed was fine, but this guy has an incredible metabolism. He eats a ton. One raccoon equals at least five cats. I would imagine the cats aren't thrilled with the company of a wild animal either. I could call in a professional, but if the Critter Getters charge $285 to remove a mouse, I doubt I can afford to hire a raccoon wrangler.

Four months ago, Francesca was living the good life of an inside cat; now she competes for food with this scrappy beast.


It's a long way down for our little house kitty.

Meet the Judgers

Hi. We're the Judgers.


Mr. and Mrs. Judger to be precise.

We met while backpacking through Europe. We've been married for almost two years. No kids yet. Maybe we will; maybe we won't. We don't want to tie ourselves down yet, you know. We enjoy sipping coffee during the day and sipping white wine at night. And walks. We like walks. Just the two of us, hand in hand. Listening to the birds chirping and the breeze blowing through the leaves.

Our favourite place to walk is Aldridge Gardens. We spell favourite like that because we've been to England. We spell colour like this, in case you were wondering. Where were we? Oh yes, the gardens. Aldridge Gardens is so peaceful and serene. We spend hours there almost every weekend. It reminds us of some of the parks around London. We've been to London. Have you? You should go.

The only problem we have with Aldridge Gardens is this obnoxious couple and their three kids. They pollute the gardens with their presence more often than not. When we walk towards them on the trail, they only move their four foot wide stroller off to one side about half way, leaving us cramped into using only three feet of trail. The dad tries to smile at us, but we don't make eye contact with him. It only encourages those types of people.

The worst part about these people is their screaming child. The one that makes all the noise is a girl, we think. Actually, we don't know or care. But it yells. We've seen it yell twice. Once it was mad and yelling and the other time it was happy and yelling. It yells either way and they do nothing to stop it. I know they can; but they won't. And the woman is pregnant with another one. Isn't three noisemaking things enough for two people? Walking around with three kids and pregnant with another like they own the place.

We glare in their direction to make them be quiet and take up less space, but they refuse. The next time we see that child yell, we intend to lodge formal complaint with the park service.

The Judgers.