The answer to the poll

Sadly the answer is that I don't really want to know how many mice are in my house. I called my friend the other day because her husband is manager of a pest control company Orkin and I thought they might have some good spare traps. He came to our house last night (I thought to drop them off) but he stayed and "inspected" our house. He put oodles and oodles of traps out. He found where they had pulled out our insulation. Its just too gross. Thanks to him goes out though. I really just wanted to know what traps to use and he went above and beyond. I'm a little nervous because he put traps eveywhere and I can't remember where he put them all. "how will I know they're dead if I miss a trap to check?" "you'll smell them", he said. Ugh...are you serious. That's disgusting. I hate mice.

My muscles

Cster has indoctrinated our children to say that my muscles are weak sauce. But today I proved them all wrong. I carried all our books (3 bookshelves full) from the basement to our bedroom (on the second floor). I rock. And for those that think we live in a paperback world, this included all of Cster's lawbooks. My muscles are totally not weak sauce.

Oh Lster snap out of it

For the past week Lster has woken up from his nap crying, yelling and in a general crappy mood. Its horrible. Today, I tried to comfort him but I refuse to carry him around the house, which is what he wants me to do. I will however sit down and cuddle with him on my lap just not carry him. He's heavy and I don't want to promote the baby attitude. But its not working. Today Lster got so mad at me he punched me in the face while I was trying to sit with him. I put him in his room to have a time out and calm down and he proceeded to scream and yell for 20 minutes (I had opened his door after 3 minutes to tell him his timeout was over and he could come out when he stopped crying).

So far I've found the only thing that works is:

1) picking him up
2) giving him chocolate
3) letting him watch tv

I need to figure something else out because we can't promote that behavior.

He's going to bed early tonight. That's all I have to say.

What are you doing these days?

I've been working on a new thing for ValentineKnits. Check it out. I'm hoping to get it up on Etsy.com soon and to try and get it into some children's boutiques in the area.

Mster's First Field Trip Day

I didn't even realize Lster was showing off a leaf.

Halloween Pics

I love being a parent

Tonight was our halloween party held at our church. Mster was a pumpkin and Lster was superman.

Lster's a pretty shy guy but he ran up to every car, held out his pumpkin and quitely said "teat" every time. My heart almost burst it was so cute. Mster was equally adorable in her outfit and she was actually old enough to understand exactly what was going on. She got her face painted. She threw bean bags. She fished. She had the time of her life.

Christmas is going to be very good this year. Oh and so is the real halloween. I can't believe we get to do it again.

(One of Cster's friends told Mster "don't let your dad eat any of your candy". Mster took it very seriously. Mster ran right to her room to hide her candy when she got home. It took some explaining as to why I wouldn't allow a huge pile of candy to be in her room. I can only imagine the pile of wrappers I would have found tomorrow)

pics to come.

My own litte princess

If you think this was a post about Mster, you were wrong. That princess changed her mind yesterday and is going to be a pumpkin for halloween. She's very excited. We are very shocked.

Lster has been quite onery lately. With Cster gone for days on end, its getting old really fast. I was supposed to go run errands sans children this afternoon but Cster had to work later. So Lster woke up from his nap and we HAD to go. (halloween party's require candy) and he would not stop whining and crying. I finally said they could watch a show to try and calm him down quickly so we could go. He originally picked Thomas. Not 5 minutes in he got mad at Thomas and demanded we switch it to a princess movie.

Hurry up Cster.

A new Christening

I'm thinking of calling myself Baba Cakes.

Lster's Birthday

She likes her some bones

Mster: I wonder who will die first in our family?
Me: Nobody knows. Why do you want to know?
Mster: Well, I want to see their skeleton.
Me: You know you don't actually see skeletons when people die.
Mster: Why?
Me: Because
Mster: Because why?
Me: Because when you die your body goes into the ground and you don't see it again until your ressurected.
Mster: Well you see it in museums.
Me: You see some skeletons in museums but not our family's skeletons.
Mster: (silence)

My very own police brigade

Today on the way home from dropping Mster off at preschool I was folllowed by 20 or so police cars and motorcycles. I also appreciated that they filled every intersection with police officers to stop traffic so only my lane could go through. I loved it. I think I'd like to be escorted home everyday.

And it was for me right? Just cause Sarah Palin's here today and just happens to be in the same spot as me, I know its cause they wanted to make sure I got home safe and 2 minutes earlier than normal.

Have you noticed a surge of posts?

I don't know why but I've been really into blogging again. It all coincided with getting Cster's old laptop and some new and exciting stuff I'm doing with ValentineKnits that I alluded to earlier. And I can't stop posting.

Now I'm wondering how many people are actually reading this after so much hiatus. So here is my plea for comments. You don't have to be witty or clever or tell me how great I am. I just want to know how many of you are out there.

When Daddy's away, the kiddies will play.

Its 5pm and the kids are hungry and I don't want to cook and we are on day one of Cster being gone for a week. The really gone, gone. Not the sort of gone, gone that he's been doing this past week.

So we are eating cereal for dinner. All you can eat cereal and ants on a log. And if I don't get into the kitchen right now and make it I think Mster might compeletly take control of the house in an attempt to be as bad as she possibly can while he's gone.

Oh and Lsters used his little potty twice so far. Way to go Big Guy!

1 more hour

I've got one more hour left to blog about Lster's birthday on his birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LSTER!! You're 2!!!

You are my favorite little guy. You laugh and laugh and laugh. You stick your tongue out ALL THE TIME and will take pictures with your dad for 30 minutes with your tongues out and still laugh and beg for more. You love chocolate and fruit snacks. You love them more than you pacifier. And I bribe you everyday after your nap and everyday it works. You love the moon, dogs, Daddee, throwing the football, green blanket, Yell (Mster), singing silly songs, singing any song silly, mac n cheese, your elmo shirt (which I've packed away and haven't told you yet hoping you will just forget about it), Diego (Gaygo), running, running around in circles, walking in parking lots, walking in stores, playing hide n seek in stores, ripping clothes off hangers in stores, books, balloons, coloring, coloring on the wall, coloring on any surface other than paper, princesses (shh, don't tell), playing outside, doing anything outside, warm weather, water, splashing, climbing, climbing into sinks, climbing into sinks and splashing, hugs, real kisses, being a goofball.

We Love You Buddy!

Its 10:50pm, do you know where Cster is?

Cster is at work. Its friday. Cster will be at work all day tomorrow and then he will leave on Sunday after church and not return until thursday. At least I think its thursday. You never know with those trials. They like to sneak up on you and take your husband away, only to give him back at odd hours with a glazed look in his eyes.

Public Service Announcement

this is pretty cool.

I wonder who Lster would vote for - kindred spirit?

Where are my sunglasses? This day is looking brighter.

Rocks Part 1

At 5:10pm after 5 hours of crying and whining Mster told me her stomach hurt ("you think"?). It just happened to be dinnertime for the kiddies (special solo dinner for them since I was going out for the night) and so she came up and looked at her dinner and looked at me and said "my head hurts too. I'm just going to go to bed." So off she went to bed.

The other side of the crappy day story is that Lster wouldn't nap for me (I think he needs to go down later in the day now) and so by 5pm he was too tired to eat and only wanted saltines and apples. On any other day I probably would have said "of course you can have saltines and apples. Just get something in your belly and you'll feel better and we'll put you to bed. But after fighting with Mster for 5 hours and building my "I won't cave no matter what cause I'm the mom and you must do what I say" wall he was going to eat his dinner or eat nothing. He chose nothing and continued to whine until 5:50pm when I thought my head might pop right off of my head. I called Cster to find out where exactly on his commute home he was so I could get my shoes on and be already out the door ready for my night out only to find out he was hoping to leave the office in another 10 minutes. The cherry was on top.

All kids were immediately sent to bed. Luckily Mster was already in there. Well she was in a semi state of undress and asking for songs and other bedtime routine necesseties.

By the time Cster got home both kids were in bed so he got NOTHING of the drama of the day and a nice peaceful night in all by himself. He's set to work a real lawyers work week this week (65+ hours) so I guess he deserved it too.

Mster woke me up bright and early this morning and I just didn't have the heart to immediately send her right the basement. I also didn't have the immediate mental capacity to deal with the whining and crying. So I let her do puzzles and eat breakfast until sunrise. "Once the sun is up you're going down there".

The sun rose must faster this morning in Mster's eyes and not 10 minutes had past when I heard my name a dozen times and whining had commenced (no crying yet). After about 15 minutes had past the crying began.

This could not be happening. I struggled to help her figure out a way for the job to be not so mountainous. I know she just looked at the basement and was overwhelmed and her little 4 year old brain couldn't wrap itself around and actual finished project. Cster and I had already moved all the toys out of the way and put a little brush and dustpan for her but it wasn't working. After numerous talkings to from Cster (which sounded an aweful lot like the conversations that I had with her the day before) I thought and I thought and I thought and finally the inspiration came. Armed with masking tape I sectioned off part of the room in squares. I told her to pick up the rocks in each ssquare and that she could take the tape off once she was done a section. When she was done all the sections I would come down and make more sections for her. This was the answer.

It became a game and she did the whole basement in about a 1/2 an hour. I'm calling this a victory. I picked up a total of 0 rocks. I win.

Not my favorite day

I invited a friend of Mster's to come over the other day so that her mom could run and pick up her siblings since the 2 of them were playing so well together. I went down to the basement a 1/2 later only to find that Mster and this girl had dumped our books onto the floor. We own a lot of books. I immediately called the girls mom (who had been long home but I told her to just leave her girl play for awhile) and said I'm sorry but Msters in BIG trouble.

I guilted Mster. I yelled. I did all things disciplinary and then I put Cster's law books back up and made Mster put all the other books up herself. She was a speedster and cleaned up faster than I thought imaginable. She thought it was the GREATEST mom and daughter activity ever. I only put the law books up because I was worried they would get wrecked if Mster attempted. The fall down probably wasn't any good for them. And I didn't want one to crash on her head while she was putting them back.

Cster came home and claimed the rest of the week a "no friend over week" except for the time I already agreed to babysit a friends kids who happen to be Mster's best friends. All seemed to be well.

Then another friend called me yesterday morning. She needed a place for her daughter to take her nap. I thought "well, a nap isn't having a friend over. I want to help. I should say yes). So I agreed.

The girl came over and played with Lster for 20 minutes until naptime. She slept and woke up but her parents weren't home yet so Mster and her went down into the basement to play. They were playing well and I let them be. Her dad finally came to pick her up 40 minutes later and they came upstairs. We had some things to do and left the house soon after only to arrive home in time for dinner and bed. Later that night I went downstairs to work on my computer and almost died of a heartattack. These 2 girls had transported hundreds and thousands of little rocks into the basement. A fully finished basement. I was so mad. Cster wasn't home and I almost went upstairs to wake Mster up to yell at her.

The next morning I talked to her about it without yelling. I told her she had preschool in the morning but that when she came home she would get lunch and need to head directly downstairs to clean up the rocks. That was over 3 hours ago. There has been tears. There has been yelling. There has been apologies. There has been whining. There has been hurt feelings and still NO ROCKS HAVE BEEN PICKED UP. Her friends mom offered to have her come over before dance class to play for a few minutes and take them both to dance. There has been no friends. There has been no dance class. There has been more tears. And still NO ROCKS HAVE BEEN PICKED UP.

The thing I find most frustrating about the whole situation is that Mster has dissapointed me twice. The first was trashing our basement. The second is her defiance in cleaning it up. What a crappy afternoon. I hate listening to her cry. I hate the whining. I hate telling her to get in the basement. I hate having to hear her cry that she "hates to be alone" and that "she wishes somebody would just come down and be with her". But I can't cave in.

If I go down there what will she do to my basement tomorrow?

Lster's List of Words

For my own benefit I will now list all of Lster's words so I can take it with my to the doctors appt.

Mama
Daddee
Grandma
Grandpa
Milk - Gak
Oatmeal - Oh eal
Please - peas
Diego - Gaygo
Light - (I don't even know how to type it)
Walk - Gak
Ball
Remote - Mope
Car
Blue
Black
Purple
Eight
Two
Most of the letter of the alphabet
No
Yes
Good
Poop
Shoes
Rock
Hi
Bye
TV
Book - Gook
Belle - (yes the princess)
Cinderella - (see light)
Elmo
Juice
nose
eye
mouth
knee
ear
arm
head
hair
duck
truck
boat
help
up
in
out

That's all I got for now but I'm pretty impressed that all of this has happened in the last 2 weeks. I taught him to say Daddee and all of a sudden he won't stop talking. Its awesome. We are having so much fun.

Fire, Fire, Fire

In an attempt to find the perfect 2 year old bday present for Lster I let my kids play at their friends house instead of dragging them to a bunch of stores. While there Mster apparently went up to the mother and said:

"There's a fire in the basement. I don't know who lit it. It was either friend A or friend B."

The fire was the blue light in the furnace.

More Dead Cow

Today Mster and I were role playing with puppets. I like to do this to teach invaluable lessons while Mster thinks we are just playing. In an intermittent moment between lessons my lamb puppet asked Mster's cow what she was having for dinner. The responded:

Well...people drink my milk but I think I'm going to have steak. Now steak comes from cows so I'll have to eat a different cow.

The Future

I'm working on something to add to ValentineKnits. Its taking longer than I had hoped but hopefully I can make a nice BIG announcement by the end of the week. The kind of announcement that doesn't involve picking baby names.

When in Rome...

We were invited to go to Focus on the Family today. They have a kids playground area so I thought it would be fun. (It was actually pretty awesome.)

I almost died laughing when Mster picked out what she would wear today. For her own safety I asked her to change her shirt.