Our fuzzy little intruder

There's a squirrel in my basement

I'm not sure how or why

I saw his fuzzy tail from the corner of my eye

Did you come in from the cold to make this place your home?

You tried to build a nest of ceiling insulation and foam.

We fed you poisoned dog food

We tried to shoot you with a gun (bb)

We left the back door open, but still you did not run

My doggies did not scare you

and you pranced around our trap

You gloat from the rafters where I'm sure you take a nap

After a week this little visit must to come an end

The smell is awful, the mess so rude and I do not like this trend

Into the trap we placed some nuts and peanut butter

I came downstairs and heard the cage making such a clutter

We finally trapped you. Victory!! Now our basement's in the clear

Clint drove you to the Club, released you, now there's now more fear

Please don't come back, we're through with you

and do not tell your friends

I'd rather ride the house of ladybugs

than have a squireel again

Let it snow....

We didn't even have to wait for Christmas, last night we got our first light dusting of snow! Gwen, you better pack more than shorts and flip flops when you come for Thanksgivings, this isn't the beach!!

A Family of Sicko's

I guess it's just the time of year when getting sick is an inevitability, especially if you have a child. If you ever watch babies playing together you will see that sharing germs just can't be helped. They are discovering their own hands and their environment and anything they are interested in goes right into the mouth which is the cave of all germs. They suck and drool and sneeze and stick their fingers in other babies' noses and mouth. Yep, it's gross.

Addy was sent home from school on Monday supposedly with Pink Eye. The doctor said it wasn't but she did have an ear infection. On Thursday school still insisted that she had Pink Eye (another boy in the class was diagnosed) so we took her back to the doctor who still said it was NOT Pink Eye. Grrrrrr. To appease the school we were given drops for the eyes and a new prescription for the ear infection that wasn't getting any better.

Clint has been sick with a soar throat since last week (so maybe we can blame him instead of the kids at school) and mommy has had a cold since Monday.

I wanted to empathize with Addy so I went ahead and got myself a double ear infection. This means that 60% of the household is on antibiotics (Chili too, he has a cyst or a mast or something and is getting surgery next week) and the other 40% just feel bad.

Oh well, hopefully we'll be done with this before Thanksgiving!!

Milestone Alert - As of last week, Addy can sit up by herself!

Swarms

Clint came home late on Halloween and went upstairs to change. He called me upstairs saying he had a surprise and then placed two ladybugs in my hands.

"They're good luck," he said. "Go throw them outside."

I ran down the stairs and threw them out the front door and felt good for saving the cute little, lucky bugs. Mom should appreciate that this is a drastic improvement over my fascination with their wings when I was a small child but we really don't need to go into that. As soon as I got back inside Clint found two more which he bravely caught and released back to the wild. At this he pronounced that he "got all of them".
It turns out we must be really "lucky" because the ladybugs are everywhere! They are in our living room, the bedroom, my shower..... We have swarms of ladybugs crawling all over our house! (Gwen I know what you are thinking...they DO exist outside of California).
Just as I had resigned myself to living in the Lucky House until this crazy phase has past, I found that we had another intruder!! Wasps!!!!
I came home from voting (it took four hours) and put Addy down for a nap and sat down in the living room. I noticed one wasp on the floor and immediately swatted it to death with a piece of junk mail. I would not be cradling these suckers in my hands with love and releasing them out the front door. Then I looked up and saw one crawling up the window. I smashed it against the glass and thought I'd clean it up with the vacuum cleaner. As I suck up the body I saw two more flying around the same window so I gulped them up into the belly of the cleaner and then checked the other windows for more unwanted guests. By the time I was done I had killed a dozen wasps!!!
Clint thinks they flew in threw the flue so we lit a fire last night and hopefully the rest of the colony has been smoked out. I've decided the lady bugs are not lucky since they brought along some very scary guests!


Update: The body count is now 13.

Three is much greater than one

Addy and I took a trip to Charleston to visit her cousins last weekend. Part of the perk was that N and G could go to work on Friday and Saturday and I would get to babysit.

The afternoon was pretty easy, I put Addy in a sling and Mer and Noah in the wagon and we walked to the park. It wasn't until dinner time that I realized having three children under the age of 5, two of them under 14months, had increased the difficultly scale from a swam dive to a backward two and a half somersault.

I had put the two little ones down for a nap (they didn't take it, instead they cried in concert) and Mer and I were playing Go-Fish. After twenty minutes of crying I gave up on nap time and got both babies up. I strapped Addy to me, and put Noah in the highchair for dinner. Try to image how this looked. I had one child in the highchair that I am feeding, the other child strapped to me nursing and in my other hand I have cards and I'm playing Go-Fish. How exhausting!!!

But, I loved the visit and I hope I can go back again soon. :-)

The new girls

I know G hates me for this, but I was able to fit back into regular pants within two weeks of having Addy. This was super exciting to me because I was sooo tired of maternity pants (although elastic is VERY comfortable). I guess I thought that once the pants fit so would everything else, but I neglected to realize that your tummy is not the only thing that gets bigger when you are pregnant.
I went to work one day in slacks, heels and a button down blouse. About an hour into my day the new girl that I'm training gave me "the look" and pointed down to my shirt. The middle button right across the chest had come open and I'm sure I had been showing my bra for quite some time before that was pointed out. I figured that I was too hasty in buttoning back up after my first pumping session of the day, so I promptly buttoned up and continued on.
Well, I figured wrong. The shirt just plain didn't fit anymore and the poor little buttons were strained until they popped open. This reminds me of my freshman year of college when my jeans "broke". Yes, broke. The zipper just wouldn't stay up and I was constantly catching it down and having to fix it. That sounds broken to you, yes? Well, no. That is what jeans do when the wearer has put on fifteen or twenty pounds and they no long FIT and the zipper has given up becuase there is no way it can do it's job with all the extra weight smooshing it down!
Just like the jeans, so went the shirt. The worst part of the day was when my boss (a man) had to point out the second offense. At least I hope that was the second...

I'm back!

Sorry for the long lapse in posts! My goal was to write something at least once a week, but since our move on August 8th life has been very hectic.
Here is a quick update on the last 5 weeks. We moved from Charlotte to Winston Salem (if anybody still needs the address email me). We are still unpacking boxes and preparing for the major project of remodeling the kitchen With any luck we'll have that done in time for Thanksgiving.
I am still working in Charlotte and commuting daily. I think I am close to having a job here and it can't come too soon. Right now I spend about 4 hours each day in the car! If anybody would like to recommend a book on CD or a podcast I'm all ears.
Addy started her new school this week and she has adjusted well. She now gets to spend more time with her daddy and less time in the car so that's a win for everybody. I am tired, but doing well. More pictures and blogs to come soon.

Love to all,
E