Russian Roulette Earwig Style

I have come to the conclusion that the earwigs invading our house are macho, gambling, earwigs.

Russian Roulette playing earwigs.

The earwigs, (renamed “PINCHERS!” by Clara) climb the stairs and see if their luck will hold.

Scenario One:

Clara sees a “PINCHER!” on the stairs. starts crying and refuses to move up or down the stairs until someone comes to help her. I come to help and attempt to make squishing the bug fun by stomping it with a toy horse, Clara refuses to be entertained or comforted by my actions. Earwig dies, Clara gets over it, life goes on.

Scenario Two:

Clara sees a “PINCHER!” on the stairs, starts crying and refuses to move up or down the stairs until someone comes to help her. I come to help and attempt to make squishing the bug fun by stomping it with a toy horse, Clara is amused. Ivy shows up with shouts of “MOM YOUR HURTING IT!” Well, yes Ivy, you are right. I’m sorry I wasn’t intending to hurt it, I was intending to smash the life from it… let me try again. Earwig dies, Ivy cries, Clara and I leave confused.

Scenario Three:

Clara sees a “PINCHER!” on the stairs, starts crying and refuses to move up or down the stairs until someone comes to help her. Ivy comes to help and smashes the earwig with a toy horse. Earwig dies, Clara and Ivy are satisfied, I wonder what brought about Ivy’s change of heart.

Scenario Four:

Clara sees a “PINCHER!” on the stairs and calls for her bug catcher and help catching it. Once caught she examines it closely and carries it around until it dies. Clara is happy, I am slightly confused, and the earwig dies.

As a side note this was the best two dollar Christmas gift I’ve ever bought: Little Bug Locket

Scenario Five:

Clara sees a “PINCHER!” on the stairs starts crying and refuses to move, the rest of her evil family refuses to go to her aid. Clara cries harder, earwig escapes with life. Clara stops crying and finishes walking down the stairs. Earwig wins.

Scenario Six:

I see earwig crawling on the stairs, without screaming anything I silently smush it. Ivy notices and yells at me for smashing the bug. I wonder what brought about Ivy’s change of heart… again.

Our house – the home of the Earwig Sudden Death Casino.

Winners of Earwig Russian Roulette then meet up in the bathtub to drink drops of water and talk smart about their bravery. That is until they hear Clara’s cry of “PINCHER!” and discover they accidentally entered Earwig Russian Roulette- Bathtub style.

Chicago Driving

Jun27

This past weekend we took a long overdue trip to Indiana to visit some friends. We had a great time, us adults had lots of time for visiting and catching up, the girls all played well together and their daughter even gave us a tour of the Notre Dame campus.

Thinking of the great time we had I was trying to mentally calculate when we’d next be able to get together when I remembered an itsy bitsy detail of the trip that was a bit of a problem – the drive. Not that it was too far – no, it’s just that there is this place in between us, you may have heard of it, it’s called Chicago…

Ever since driving through the Windy City with Ivy screaming in the back (because that’s what she always did in the car as baby) and Henry the cat meowing incessantly (because that’s what he always did in the car) while I attempted to stay calm as I crept along in traffic next to a semi whose trailer was burned out and swaying frighteningly in the breezes I’ve been a little twitchy about the whole driving Chicago with children thing.

I’m sad to report that the way over did nothing to calm my fears.

Construction appeared, traffic slowed down, kids started yelling.

It was like magic.

Dark, bad, black magic.

Fortunately, I was not the only adult in the car, the bad magic was short lived and we made it to our friends house…eventually.

Unfortunately, before I knew it our weekend together was over and it was time for the drive home.

The trip home started out great, we timed our leaving perfectly for Jane’s morning nap, part way through the drive we stopped for a break/lunch/shopping trip/shooting/African safari/run/fish watching/turtle finding/tent testing at Cabela’s (Best store to take a driving break in with little kids!) and got back in the car for the last half (HA!) of the trip.

Apparently we forgot that this was the half with Chicago in it.

John and I had just congratulating ourselves on our timing, the fact that our two youngest were sleeping, decided on our route through the dreaded city and just about when we had finished patting ourselves on the back (Foolish, very foolish, never tempt fate, traffic or small children.) we looked up to this:

Which is precisely when Jane woke up and filled the truck with an unmistakable sound and aroma, and then proceeded to tell us just exactly how she felt about that. Did you know that when you combine crying babies, poopy diapers, traffic jams, questioning 5 year olds and sketchy neighborhoods time slows down? I was paying close attention to the passage of time and I feel I can accurately report that John found a very nice apartment complex with a few empty parking spots, (which we used to do the fastest diaper change ever) a mere 7 million hours and 57 minutes after Jane’s initial blast. If that’s not some sort of evil magic at work I don’t know what is!

No matter the cause we aren’t about to let it stop us from visiting friends and family on the other side. We’ll be ready to drive back around Chicago just as soon as our blood pressure comes down, our knuckles regain their normal coloring, and our kids have all reached the age of 18!

Just kidding.

I think…

Woodchuck in a Tree

Jun22

I read that woodchuck can climb trees.

I said I had to see it to believe it.

I said I was going to go try and chase one up a tree… I didn’t.

But my dogs did!

There it is – woodchuck in a tree.

I’m a believer.

To read more about woodchuck and my plans to chase them up trees read: How Much Wood…

Weekly Photo Challenge: Close

Jun21

Weekly Photo Challenge: Close

The clematis plant close to the camera is growing up my front porch.

In the background you can see the road and get any idea how close it is to our house.

In fact the house is close enough to the highway that a split second after the photo was taken the wind from that big blue semi blew the flowers around.

But, we have planted many trees and a willow fence across part of the yard and the road is close to tolerable.

Unfortunately they are very close to redoing the entire road that we live on.

We are waiting, and waiting, and waiting to see how this will affect our property and if the road will come any closer than it is.

And all this waiting is pushing me much closer to crazy than I’d like!

Did I Just Say What I Thought I Said VI?

Jun20

It’s been just over a month since the last edition of “Did I Just Say What I Thought I Said?” I think we are making progress. Not only has it been weeks since I’ve caught myself telling the children ridiculous things but I didn’t even yell it this time. When Clara marched in the house followed by a helplessly giggling Ivy, pulled down her pants and undies to show me the results of their mulberry picking. I didn’t yell. I just told Clara that she really need to:

“Take the mulberries out of your underwear!”

While the question of why she put mulberries in her underwear may never be satisfactorily answered. I find it equally disturbing that the thought crossed my mind that at least she was wearing the underwear. That’s right, mulberry filled underwear is actually an improvement from Clara’s usual completely naked state.

She sheds her clothes when they get wet, when she gets hot, when she takes a nap, when she goes to bed, when they get food on them, when they get “too stinky,” when they get paint on them, and when they get cut “accidentally” with scissors… and that was just today.

Basically Clara spends 85% of her time running around naked. Unfortunately she also spends 25% of her time falling down and hurting herself. This means that her body is currently 75% covered in bruises, bumps and scrapes that would have been at least partially eliminated if the kid would just keep some underwear on. Today we had yet another conversation about how if she had been wearing clothes when she fell down the stairs she wouldn’t have gotten scratches on her butt . Yet at least one outfit later into the day she was naked again as she tripped back up the stairs and added a few more scrapes to her collection.

Admittedly I’ve mostly given up the fight at home and just strive to keep Clara’s clothes on in public( Which is a full time job in itself. Have you ever shoved a dress back on a screaming girl at the library (it was wet), while holding a baby and checking out books?) and I have faith that one day she’ll put some clothes on in the morning and leave them there for the rest of the day.

One day she’ll believe me when I mention yet again that clothes would have saved her a bit of pain.

One day I won’t have to run back in the house for underwear because she’s trying to go to the grocery store in nothing but a short dress.

One day I won’t have to constantly enforce the, “No eating without underwear!” rule.

One day she’ll figure out that it’s better to keep your clothes on.

One day…

On the other hand Ivy with her advanced years is a quick study. She only hid in the stinging nettles once this morning before coming inside and informing me that that is NOT a good idea. I’m certain Ivy is very glad she learned to keep her clothes on before she learned about hiding in the nettles!

Twitchy

Jun18

One of my favorite qualities in Trip is that while he loves to be near me, he doesn’t have to be on me. All of my lovely daughters would like to be on me – all the time. By the time the three of them are in bed having Trip come and flop down near me is fantastic. We keep each other company. I talk at him, he doesn’t talk back. I keep full mobility of all my limbs, he gets to stretch out and stay cool. I love my dog.

Tonight while waiting for my poor, sad, computer to catch it’s breath after I asked it to do too many things at once, I reached down to pet Trip. As soon as I touched the hair on his back Trip just about jumped out of his skin. Truly, I think he almost lost his hide when he went from sleeping sprawled out on his side to upright and facing the opposite direction in one giant leap. Since I wasn’t expecting such a dramatic response my response to his response was a bit, ahhh, shall we say, extreme as well. As soon as we peeled ourselves off the ceilings and refit our skin Trip gave me his best offended dog look, stalked over to the opposite side of the room and flopped down on the dog bed with a big huff.

Not only did I miss out on my nightly dog bonding time but the cat came to sit on me instead.

Must make a note: Let sleeping dogs lie!

Hotel Vendôme by Danielle Steel

Jun17

I need some help, I’ve been thinking about this for a few days and I can’t come up with the right word or phrase.

What is it called when an author uses dialogue to progress the story and make a point and then the omniscient narrator explains that point/progression again?

Repetitive? Annoying? Artificially stretching the length of a book? Ridiculous? Irritating?

Is there a phrase for this? Help me out?

Would I recommend it? Well, according to the back of the book she’s sold 590 million novels… but I’m not buying them. I’m not trying to be all “I only read high class literature” or anything here. I read plenty of fluffy, crap, books and thoroughly enjoy them. It’s just that while I was reading this I was afraid it was making me dumber, then I sat down to write about it and find that it may have actually broken my brain somewhat. Personally I’d trade this in for one of Janet Evanovich’s romances, they are funnier, better, yet still mindless feel good fluff.

Are you a Danielle Steel fan? Did I pick the wrong book? Why do you love them? Help me understand!

As a positive I now know how to make a Ô. Hopefully learning about circumflex accents helps make up for any other brain damage that may have occurred!

This Moment – Sitting up!

Jun15

A Friday ritual . A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week.

A simple, special, extraordinary moment.

A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Friendship

Jun14

Weekly Photo Challenge: Friendship

My friend Sarah (of thinkbigmuch) and I have been friends since second grade.

When you’ve been friends that long you tend to fall into a few patterns, for instance:

Sarah says, “You should have a blog.”…I say, “OK”

Sarah says, “You should move your blog to WordPress.”… I say, “OK”

Sarah says, “We should do the photo challenge on friendship together.” I say, “OK” (I’m always this easy going, just ask John…)

A large flurry of e-mails and phone calls later we have our friendship photo. Two friends on the same afternoon, four hours away from each other:

To go along with our photo Sarah has shared the top ten reasons why I am her friend. I thought it would be sort of boring if I did the same since you’d be reading basically the same list with our names in different places. Instead, sometimes against my better judgment, I decided to share my top ten memorable moments in our friendship.

In no particular order we have….

One night in grade school we were at my house and had been sledding but were now just laying on our backs under a tree. Sarah asked me why I never talked this much in school. While I was extremely shy during my grade school years (and beyond) talking to Sarah was never a problem. Getting Sarah and I to stop talking… that’s a different story.
When thanks to the gift of a case of beer from my older (read legal drinking age) boyfriend we were obligated to acquire a taste for beer together – on our roof. Thank you John!
Between our sophomore and junior years of high school Sarah’s family moved to Canada. The memory of watching Sarah and her Mom walk away from my Mom and I the last night before they moved can still bring tears to my eyes.
Stealing a candy bar from our friend in grade school and eating it in the bathroom. We were such rebels… except that we weren’t, I have no idea why we did this!
The first time we saw each other when we both had babies.
In high school Sarah was back visiting in Pewaukee during the time she lived in Canada. We had spent all the days (and nights) she was there sleeping minimal amounts and drinking far too much Diet Coke so as not to waste any of our short time together doing something so foolish as sleeping. The last day we were at the kitchen table and started laughing, which turned into crying, we were just one big sleep deprived mess, so happy to be together but knowing that our time was almost over. I can still picture Sarah laughing/crying and my Mom looking at the two of us like we were nuts – which we were.
Weddings. My wedding, her wedding… happy times!
Once we stole a bottle of Tequila Rose from a friends party. We literally ran it home to our own apartment, laughing like maniacs the entire time and then ran back. Apparently you should watch your food and drink around us.
Discovering during a late night of beer appreciation with a tape measure that while I am taller than Sarah, her legs are significantly longer than mine. Our husbands were not astounded by our discovery, a flaw I forgive them for.
Talking on the phone. Talking in the car. Talking late at night. Mumbling early in the morning. Talking. Talking. Talking!