Replay 101

Remember that poop story about Ruby and her bed I blogged about here? Yeah, hit replay on that one, less the company (thankfully!) and insert a less-than-warm shower at the end instead of the pooping in the tub - I'm not stupid, we're not going there. Oh, and change the part where Blaine's home to help clean up to him being at work working hard and Momma being sick on the couch for most of the day. Yep, that about covers the changes to that scenario.

Thank you, Son.

Sterling is a lover of books. He'll bring me a stack of as many as he can carry - usually approaching double digits in number - and ask me if I can read them all to him. One is not enough. Or as he likes to quote 20 Hungry Piggies, "because 19 little piggies is NOT enough..." Sterling chose to quote another favorite book yesterday. He came bursting into the kitchen and informed me, "Momma, you waddle like a duck does!*" Oh, thank you, dear boy. You have no idea what you just said, but thank you for that nonetheless.

*Compliments of Do Like a Duck Does. :)

Any day now I'll have him quoting Shakespeare of C.S. Lewis or Calvin... Maybe something more pleasant will be directed toward me and my waddle. Then again, it might be quite convicting. You just never know.

Brady: Abused or loved?

Brady is our new puppy. Pretty sure she's been well-mentioned by now. I've been a bit remiss in posting photos though, and I'm trying to be better about these things, so here's a few I took on Saturday. Abused, loved, or both? You decide. But just for proof for my dear mother, who gave us Brady, she's alive, well, slightly abused by small children, loved, and bathed regularly. She's not house trained quite yet, but we're getting there - and I'm really trying. Sometimes it's just easier to clean it up than it is to remember to take her potty. But since I have four potty trained children, I imagine the dog will get there too - eventually. She even goes for car rides. And she's not in the sorry shape I dreamed of last night when I dreamed of Brady. Thankfully. Call it pregnant dreams... Ugh.

Ruby, the bell ringer. Brady, not quite,

A good friend gave me a great idea for Brady. Thank you, Bunny. I hung a bell on the door with the intention of teaching Brady to ring the bell when she needs to go out and use the lawn. She's been whining slightly before we find puddles beside the door, but little whines are not exactly heard or paid attention to around these parts. Now, if I could just teach Ruby to leave the bell alone, or it won't work either. Bells will go on my list of ignored very annoying sounds if she doesn't leave well enough alone. Hobby Lobby, on the other hand, has some very cute bells on sale right now. Little girls think they are particularly fun.

One spy frog...

Blaine provided me with a photo of the frog that returns each night to catch his evening meal on our living room window. Just in case a close up of the underside of a frog isn't just slightly creepy to you - because it's looking a little creepy to me right about now!

Belly shadows?

MckMama, a blog I follow rather loosely at best - in my free time you know - had a "You might be nearing the end of your pregnancy" post a few days ago. My favorite of hers: "…you can’t wait to hurry up and give birth so that you can fit into your maternity clothes again." So true. But I have one of my own to add.

After a day at the lake with friends and a lot of time spent sitting on my behind in a boat, I burned the tops of my thighs. Yes, it's painful. Even more painful was when Blaine informed me I had a belly shadow. Yes, dear friends, my belly shadowed my thighs and created a lovely white half circle that didn't burn. Thank you, baby.

Ah, the things that have occurred - and left me with no time to blog about them. I'm sure I'll forget a few, but I'll try to catch up.

Today Ruby and Eden are modeling for the Bass Pro fall catalog. Blaine was in the 2010 Fall Master a few times, should anyone care to see. He looks so entirely out of this element in hunting gear though... I had to laugh. Ruby's modeling t-shirts and Eden's modeling hooded towels today. Eden's on cloud nine... and keeps telling me she's going to be wearing her swimming suit under the towel "So I can be modest." Can you tell we've been working on that one? It's a hard one for me; I want them to learn to keep their bodies covered without thinking they ought to be ashamed... how to teach that???

My belly is huge. Blaine tells me he's not certain if I was this big at this point with the others. With 10 weeks to go, I'm starting to wonder if I'll be graduating yet another size in the wonderful world of maternity clothes before this is all said and done. So not cool. I'm still mowing the lawn these days though - it takes me about 5 hours over the course of two mornings to get it all done, and a nap is most definitely required on those days, but pressing forward... makes me hopeful the massive amount of weight I've gained thus far will "just fall right off" like everyone says. Weight falling off of me has not been something I've experienced in the past, but hey, I'm allowed to dream a little.

It's 90 degrees today. The heat index is 105. The A/C has not made it to the top of Blaine's to-fix list yet. I'm 29 weeks + 6 days pregnant. Feeling my pain? The gas line is still in progress. No hot water yet. Cold showers right about now aren't really a problem though. Blaine's promised me several hours of A/C during the photo shoot this afternoon though... and given me permission to go shopping should I feel the need to cool down in the meantime. Yep, that conversation was a funny one.

On the bright side, sun tea takes a whopping 12 minutes to brew properly. The other 12 hours I leave it sitting on the patio are just for good measure.

We've had a big black dog in our yard most of last week. I think it's a rottweiler/great dane something or another. Big. It stands about waist (ha! if I had one...) high to me, and comes up to wherever the kids and I are at the moment and growls and barks. Blaine comes around and it runs away - all the way to our shed. I finally called the sheriff, unsure what I could do about it once I'd introduced myself to the neighbors. (That was a nice lead-in. "Hello, I just moved in down the road. Here's my giant belly, there's my MSC*... do you own a giant black dog?")

*MSC = Many Small Children

So of course, once the sheriff told me I could do what I wanted to do to rid my yard of the big black dog, the stinking thing moved on. I was really looking forward to, you know, exercising my rights as a property owner outside of the city limits... but nope. But now I know! And as for the neighbors... they thought the thing was ours and were wondering about us, so I'm ever so glad we cleared that one up! Brady, teeny whimpy black dog that she is, isn't going to post a threat to the neighbors, rest assured. No one who hears "Yorkie Poo" quakes in their boots, exactly... unless they're a toad. She loves the toads... but they don't love her so much.

We have a spy frog. Every night, once it's dark and the lights inside are on, it climbs onto our living room window and eats the moths that our lights attract. It's far more interesting than anything on the three channels we get on the tv. But a frog, on your window, night after night? One begins to wonder if it's a spy. You know, because me, collapsed on the couch in front of a fan and under a ceiling fan after a long day... now that's a sight to behold.

I'm missing many stories, but I'm drawing a blank and this post has grown plenty large. I had an entire blog written in my head after being unable to sleep the other night, itching with chigger bites - aha, there's one of those stories - but beats me if I can remember what that post was about. As for the chiggers, blame them on the growling big black dog. It's all her fault.

We're moved, if you call living around boxes moved. Everything's here, anyhow. We're still heating water for baths/dishes, but being here is so much better than the traveling back and forth each day. It's home.

About the baths... It takes many minutes and many pans of hot water to be able to take a bath. No quick and easy feat. No complaints, just life for the moment. But tonight...

We had "company" over - thankfully, friends we've known for years and nothing awkward, but Ruby pushed that one just a bit. She wouldn't stop fussing over not getting a second brownie, got put into her bed and that was that. Ha. She started hollering for me, I went to check on her, and the stench met me first. She'd pooped in her panties, taken them off, and smeared it everywhere. She even sat on the windowsill next to her bed. Ah, new low. Right? Not exactly. That is the first time I've washed poop off of a windowsill, that's for sure. Blaine began the heating water process to bathe her, and 20 minutes later when the bath was warm, the kids in it, Sterling hollered "Mom, Ruby pooped in the tub!" Seriously? She's never done that before that I can recall - ever. So the heated water went down the drain, we called them clean enough until tomorrow, and Ruby called it all "Funny". Momma? Not so much. And now, dear friends, I believe I've reached a new low. Ah, the embarrassment. The anger. The stench. The kids are in bed. Vindictive child, I'm thinking. What to do with that one? They just don't warn you enough about these things.