The cheese stands alone

This morning, Wyatt the Dog caught and ate a mouse. Before he dined, he brought the mouse inside my house. (All rhymes are unintentional yet still amusing to me.) What had happened was, I fed the dogs, put them in the fenced in backyard, and got on the elliptical to workout (and to mostly watch a Netflix movie that had been sitting at the house for a month that 'Mater was tired of looking at - but OFFICIALLY - I was working out).

As I'm sweating, I look out the window to see a black and white streak tearing through the yard. Five foot fences are nothing for Wyatt but a quick amusement to jump over before going on his morning romp. I jumped off the elliptical, ran outside, called for the dog who ran inside and deposited the mouse on the carpet. I'm faced with a major dilemma at this point. I have to get back on the elliptical in order to keep my stats going (410 calories burned is a number I don't want lost) however, I don't want the  still alive and squeaking mouse on the living room carpet. Off the elliptical I go, run over to the dog who puts the mouse in his mouth and acts like nothing is going on. Mouse? What mouse? So I haul his butt out to the screened-in porch and continue my workout. An hour later, I'm done working out and Blondie is awake and wandering around the house in a pre-breakfast stupor. I fill her in on Wyatt's going on's and she is pretty grossed out. Me too since I had to clean the mouse carcass off of the rug on the porch. She and Boy child take Wyatt outside again and he promptly begins mouse hunting. This is where The Children get shady.

An hour into mouse hunting, Boy Child comes inside, holding his stomach and is soooo hungry and can he please have a piece of cheese. I, being oblivious to this new type of subterfuge, say sure! Does your sister want one too? I cut two large chunks of delicious New York Style Sharp Cheddar Cheese and give it to Boy Child. 3.5 seconds later he's back inside,  no cheese and everyone's *starving*. They need chips. I give him a handful of chips, which he took outside and proceeded to eat all of them except one. Blondie comes inside asking for more chips since I only "gave Boy Child ONE" ! I was unaware that eight-year-olds could do judgment and indignant so well. Bravo. This is when I realize I've been had.

Boy Child comes back inside and I determine that he did, in fact, eat all the chips (which was easy to figure out because he had crumbs all over his mouth). I do like to give The Children the benefit of the doubt so I ask him where the chips went. My question is met with absolute silence. He's getting better at this game. I ask where the cheese went to and Boy Child tells me, in the most put-out voice he can muster, "Well, Wyatt kept eating it all and we were trying to catch a mouse and need chips to put into a pine cone to catch it!"  Apparently, I now need to factor in Feeding the Wildlife when I do my grocery budget because they went through a half a wedge of good cheese and a half a bag of chips before I caught on to the Mouse Trap Plan.

It always comes back to poo

This weekend, 'Mater and I were sans kids, as they went to stay at their Aunt Beezee's house. 'Mater and I decided to do something 'adult' and went to the rodeo with friends. Adult friends. Who drink and don't need help wiping their bottoms...yet. Right before the show started, Mr. Muffin made a comment that we were so close to the arena that we could possibly end up with debris on us. I wrinkled my nose and laughed it off. That was until the first bucking horse came out the gate, spun it's rider around, flipped up a piece of poop that sailed way into the sky and landed on my shoulder, rolled down my arm, and left a trail of stink on my body.

No kids and I still get poo'ed on.

Luckily, I was already semi-used to being covered in a shit smell because, just the day before, The Children developed a new game called Butt Bomb, whereupon someone farts on a piece of paper then wipes the stinky paper upon your person. And this is why I don't feel the need to buy them lots of toys. Take one Boy Child, who is gassy, give him some paper, some tape and a couple minutes alone and they will entertain themselves. Boy Child spends a good amount of time discussing bodily functions anyway so I'm glad he's managed to incorporate a game out of his gas.

During the past week, Boy Child has shared his musings pertaining to gas with me. I now share with you:

                1. If you are in public and can't fart - just hold it in and it will come  out quietly, like a little  bubble. The fart will just slip out your butt like a spy! (His own words, People.)

Boy Child will share this little gem with anyone who happens to fart in his presence. Apparently, if he isn't the one gassing you out of the room, he doesn't want to hear it coming from you. In the meantime, I have purchased several bottles of Febreeze and have limited taco night to every other week.

Oh HAHA. Very funny, Karma

Every month, for the past several months, something major has broken in my house. In April , it was the hot water heater; discovered by the guy installing new satellite internet for me. He was kind enough to point out that I had a foot and a half of water in my crawl space and it was rising. A Johnny Cash song immediately started playing in my head: How high's the water, Momma? She said three feet high and rising. Of course, I had no man support at the time. 'Mater was in South Carolina and my dad was out teaching so I resorted to Panic Mode, which involved me running in circles and waving my arms in the air. It's great for relieving tension but doesn't get much solved.

I don't understand plumbing. I don't know how to turn the water off to the hot water heater and I really, REALLY don't like standing in the crawl space with muddy water swirling around my ankles. You just don't know what the hell is in there. Snakes, spiders, The Thing - it's all possible.

June saw my dishwasher go kaput. I used my yard sale money to buy a new one. Lowe's was delivering it and would take away my old dishwasher except the broken one didn't get disconnected. Being the fabulous independent woman I am, I figured I could look up instructions online on how to disconnect a dishwasher and do it myself. Wrong. Very wrong. I learned that I do suck at plumbing and that the Lowe's delivery guys don't care if you are near tears in your kitchen and have water leaking everywhere. They will not help you disconnect your old dishwasher so that you can have it removed and stop the water from leaking all over your floor. I mean, really!! The dogs can only drink up so much water before they become bloated and there are only so many towels that I can put down before I admit defeat.

My fervent wish for July was that nothing would break in the house and I could save the $money I had been shelling out every month for new appliances. What a stupid wish. Don't ever wish it yourself. What I ended up with was a $300 vet bill for Wyatt the dog who managed to get a puncture wound in his leg running through the bamboo forest in the neighbor's yard. Damn Vietcong. The best part of that evening, upon returning from the emergency vet's office, was watching a huge storm roll through our area and seeing lightning strike the house...which fried the satellite TV .

This is what I have learned:  Plumbing makes me cry but I now know how to turn my water off thanks to my fabulous plumber who instructed me to flip the switch on my breaker box. Electricity, I can do. Along with following verbal directions such as, "Flip the switch in the breaker box that says 'water' ". Pfft. I OWN you water! The lesson here is that the Appliance Gods are mighty and don't wish against them or you end up spending your money fixing your dog who was injured by Vietnam Era technology and watching old Clint Eastwood movies because you don't get satellite TV anymore.

There was puke, but it wasn't mine.

I like my house to be clean. If my house is untidy, it stresses me out and I feel as if I can't relax. Clutter makes me uneasy and I really dislike watching the animals chase dust bunnies across my living room. 'Mater isn't as anal about cleanliness as I am. The Children care even less. They don't care if the dog walks across their clean sheets, that were left on the floor, and they don't care if the dining room table has been wiped down from breakfast before they are served their dinner on it - right over the milk spilled from breakfast. Let one of the cats puke in the hallway, though, and they are aghast! I got led on a tour of ALLLL the places the cat threw up.

I had news for them. When I woke up, I walked the minefield of throw up down the hallway, managed to stop just before I set foot into the pile of cat puke in the kitchen, and then had the pleasure of watching the dogs eat the puke. I was kind of fine with that though because my un-caffeinated brain was having difficulty figuring out what I supposed to do with this enormous pile of cat puke. The quick thought that did pop into my head made me start dry heaving so I was ab-so-LUTELY fine with letting someone, or some beast, handle the issue.  

So, the dogs ate most of the puke, went outside to check the morning news, came back inside and my most well-behaved dog peed on the remaining pieces of cat puke. Peed On It. Don't yell at dogs while they are peeing. They will just move whist peeing. It's better to clean up a concentrated area of pee rather than an area that resembles a Jason Pollock painting. This was a good learning lesson for me. Amidst the vomit and pee, I discovered that The Children do have a line that can be crossed when it comes to being clean, and it's written on the floor in yellow chunks.  

Child Labor - why not? They like to help

The East Coast has experienced unusual weather as of late.  106 degrees to torrential rain to 120% humidity. Massive Suck Factor. You walk outside and you have walked into a sauna - steam, heat, and with none of the amenities of a nice spa. Suck it Arizona, Virginia has you beat this year. Try some HUMIDITY! And with this fun weather, has come some spectacular dew. This is what The Children did with it.

On My Car.

My Car That We Don't Eat In.

Or Drink In.

Or Talk Loudly In.

Blondie, upon noticing the look of horror on my face said to me, "Well, I only did this one" and pointed to the larger one on the top, "But Boy Child did these three-", whereupon Boy Child ran up to the car, planted his tiny mitts on the rear quarter panel again and left another hand print. Blondie continued to say, "Well, he did these four".

That is exactly why, two days later, that I didn't mind 'Mater setting them up with a little task I like to call shred-two-years-worth-of-business-paperwork-I-promise-it's-fun-yay-kids!

This is how they felt about it.

And this is why I, ultimately, am the one who lost out on this endeavor.

Even the dog knows I'm dumb and just haven't figured it out yet.

And then I fell in love and got stabbed

For those that know me, I have a lot of animals. They are all rescue and I adore them... mostly.  Mostly, I adore them when they aren't chewing on my shoes and peeing on the carpet. The Children, though, have a much greater love for the animals and have taken over the twice daily feedings of both the dogs and cats along with all necessary brushings, tummy rubs, and lovings. Just today, Boy Child came to me, with amazement in his eyes and wonder in his voice, and told me that Oliver (my 20lb German cat), pronounced by him as Aw-LEE-ver, licked him right on his wrist and he pointed to it - Right THERE! The Boy Child then said "I love Aw-LEE-ver! I'm going to make him a bed!" And he proceeded to get his most treasured Cars (^tm)blanket, some cat food, and an empty box and made a  fort under my makeup table for Oliver the Cat, who accepted it as his due right. I swear to god, that cat looked at me with superiority and a bit of disdain as if to say, "And why hasn't this been done before?!". During all of this, I'm melting because of the cuteness of Boy Child and the love just shining in his face for this cat.

Leaving Boy Child to his adorations,  I went into the living room, sat down on the recliner, and got stabbed in the back by a toothpick.  It was one of the punji sticks I thought I had confiscated from Blondie earlier in the week. Clearly, as evidenced by the red welt on my lower back (hello, kidneys), I missed several of them.

Conclusion: It's never safe to assume, even after witnessing sappy animal love, that you can just flop into your recliner without getting stabbed. Always check for toothpicks, People. You, and your kidneys, can thank me later. 

Distract and confuse

The Children have instituted a good cop/bad cop routine recently. While Boy Child is hoarding weapons  and instilling fear into Actual Mom in Florida about his personal safety, like a CNN news report, Blondie is complimenting me on my choice of morning apparel (an old robe)and refilling my water glass on her own accord. Good Child/Bad Child. It is my personal belief that Blondie is using a distract and confuse method to keep me off balance. Though, when she filled my water, I was cooking bacon. Perhaps the way to appeasing The Children is through food. Case in point: 18 granola bars disappeared yesterday.  No sign of crumbs or wrappers. They are either stocking up food to feed an army or this is a not so subtle statement about my cooking.

Conclusion: The confusion tactic seems to be working. I am now doubting the awesomeness of my bacon wrapped chicken dinner that I served the night before. Are they starving children or is this simply the prep phase of Boy Child's Urban Warfare? Either way, I need more wine.

Stewing in our own juices

We went to the pool the other day - The Children, me and 'Mater.  Our pool has very strict rules -  floaties (no), snorkels (no), and masks (no). The Children are different Pool Children than I or my brother were growing up and it's been difficult to equate their aquatic style to mine. Accessories that I have learned are a must for The Children are nose plugs, goggles, and water wings. Water wings I understand because five-year old boys don't float. They have heavy butts and they just sink. It's Science, People; therefore, fact.  But, nose plugs and eye goggles are beyond my comprehension for a necessity for swimming.  My brother, at 18 months, was flinging himself into the deep end of a pool all by himself with no accoutrements.  Now, that may have happened because his motor skills were still developing and he was wobbly, or, maybe, the full diaper threw him off balance. Regardless, it helped developed my mother's reflexes because I had never before seen her throw herself into a pool that quickly. These Children though, 'Mater's Children,  are wall huggers,  goggle wearers,  and doggie paddlers and I don't know what to do with a child in the water that I can't pick up and toss into the deep end of the pool like an Olympic Athlete with a shot put.

I spent most of the time in the water with Boy Child draped on my arm like a tiny baboon, which really was okay because I figured I was getting an extra workout in following Blondie around  the pool with Boy Child in tow - especially since Boy Child refused to kick to help propel us. Maybe baboon is a bad analogy. I'm more like a tug boat.

So, to amuse myself, I stood in the water bench pressing Boy Child (Blondie and I put him at about 40-50 lbs) over my head and back into the water until he told me to cut it out. When I turned him around, he had boogers hanging off his face. Even a full 24 hours after this incident, I'm still gagging. I can't handle boogers on kids. I had to explain to him how to wipe his face to get it off,  then I had to swim away to the deep end and dry heave. Yes, I'm a sissy. I can't clean up animal vomit or dog poop without throwing up myself. Cleaning phlegm off Boy Child just isn't going to happen in my life time. But then I had the horrible epiphany that if Boy Child had water boogers and the pool was filled with other children, we were  all swimming in water boogers. Egad, my man! I think the pool may have just been ruined for me this summer.  I'll  stick to the ocean and just deal with the fish poop floating around.

Drudgery

Today, The Children and I have been testing each other's boundaries.  They have discovered that I will only spend one hour on the internet searching for animal coloring pages to print out for them, and I have learned that after 40 different searches for coloring pages my neck can no longer support my head and will fall repeatedly onto my keyboard.  After failing to procure a suitable coloring page for Boy Child, I ousted him from my computer room and went and hid in the bathroom to get some good reading in. Apparently, I'm a bad hider. I think Boy Child has a radar attached to me somewhere because as soon as that bathroom door shuts, he's knocking on it.

Today went like this: 

The Children: There is nothing to do.

Me: GO outside! Use your imagination.

The Children: Our imagination is broken.  When does 'Mater get hoooooooooooome? 

Fortunately, 'Mater got home in time to deal with the toilet that started to overflow (I really don't have to mention what was in it, do I?!) and, at the same time, play locksmith because one of The Children locked their bedroom door and then shut the door as they both exited the room.

At this point, I figured my wrangling duties were over and I was well within reason to make myself a Screwdriver.  Upon getting ice for my second drink, The Children noticed the orange juice, grabbed their cups, and poured the rest of the juice into them. They thought it highly amusing when I screamed out "Nooooooo!".  Let me just say that Vodka does not taste great with White Grape Juice but I'm betting I'm not the first Step-mom to make that palate sacrifice.

Conclusion: There needs to be more orange juice in this house.  I wonder if orange trees grow in Virginia...?

Pyrotechnics and politics

'Mater (the Children's father), The Children and I convoyed to the park. My mission was to lead a group of individuals in vigorous calisthenics. The Children and 'Mater went off to conquer the playground equipment.  Both missions were fairly successfully. During the convoy back to Home Base, Boy Child established comms via cell phone with Mother and related the day's events. The conversation went as follows:

                Boy Child: I jumped off a cliff and did a booty bump!

                Mother:  *indistinguishable loud noises*

The cliff was a 12 inch step and the booty bump is what happens when you jump onto a pile of slippery pine needles and land on  your tush. Boy Child appears to lean towards exaggeration. I see politics in his future. Blondie was very amused by the booty bump description and lost control of her senses as she collapsed into laughter.

At Home Base, 'Mater conducted an inspection of The Children's living quarters and recovered a box of sparklers from underneath Boy Child's pillow.

Conclusion: Boy Child is using inflammatory rhetoric to rally Actual Mother in Florida to his aid. I believe the sparklers were going to be used as signal flares. Though Boy Child continues to hoard weapons, he appears to want to go solo in this venture as he dimed out Blondie for a stash of toothpicks in her bag. I can only imagine she was trying to make some sort of punji stick from the toothpicks and the still missing gum.

Fake snakes and farts

Day 2 - Captain's Log - SITREP

While preparing to retire for the evening, I picked up my pillow to fluff it back to regulation size and was accosted with this:

the old fake snake under the pillow. After a mostly inaudible gasp, I grabbed the snake behind its head (Just like our friend Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter showed us how to do) and flung it off the bed. Danger removed. 

Using the Reid Technique of Interrogation, whereupon the Questioner observes the subjects reactions to questioning, it was determined that  Blondie (the eight-year sister to Boy Child), who laughed through the grilling and snickered when saying "Not Me!" was the culprit. Boy Child seemed disappointed in his older sibling's reactions and stated "If you hadn't of laughed, she wouldn't of known. See, watch this. CPT Allison, try to make me smile." The questioning went as follows:

                Me:  Did you fart this morning at the breakfast table and blame it on the     dogs?

                Boy Child: No

                Me: Did you fart just now?

                Boy Child: No

                                                - still no smile -

                Me: Did you fart last night and blame it on the dogs?

                Boy Child: Nope, but Blondie did!

Boy Child then ran from me laughing like Dr. Evil. I've never known a child impervious to laughter when discussing farts. Round One goes to Boy Child.

Conclusion: Boy Child seems very resistant to alternate  interrogation methods; however, there seems to be a small divide in loyalties between Boy Child and Blondie as evidenced by revealing that Blondie really did fart at the table (I KNEW IT!!). Blondie shows promising development in Psychological Warfare.

Day 1 of The Children's Visit - SITREP

The events recorded herein are true and accurate to the best of the writer's ability. The people mentioned are, in fact, actual people. The Players of this summer's drama include : Blondie - blue-eyed, blonde hair eight-year old step-daughter, Boy Child - five-year old step-child full of life and laughter, 'Mater - The Children's father and my long-term boyfriend.

Day 1 Captain's Log - SITREP

Boy Child ate 11 pieces of gum today and deposited them throughout the house. Under intense interrogation, he copped the child's version of pleading the 5th ( "I don't know" ) to the whereabouts of the remaining nine missing, but chewed, pieces of gum. During a search of Boy Child's living quarters, a la Hans Blix style, a cache of Double Mint gum was discovered in a drawer. Discussions about ownership and telling the truth ensued shortly thereafter. The location of the gum and weapons of mass destruction are, to this date, still unknown.

Conclusion: More data must be collected. There is a possibility the Boy Child may be a genius at Urban Warfare.

More to follow.