The Fish Pond

Blog Exchange: Guns In the Home

Hi! My name is Gunfighter, and I'll be guest posting here today as part of the blog exchange. This month's topic was to debate positions on various issues that were suggested by the participants. My host and I are on opposite sides of this particular issue, so here we are. Enjoy.

As my blogging identity might suggest, I spend a fair amount of time with firearms, as a matter of fact, I make my living with guns. You see, I am a tactical firearms instructor for a federal law enforcement agency. I teach our officers and agents how to fight with a variety of weapons, from handguns, to shotguns, rifles, and sub machine guns.

Guns have been a part of my life since I learned to shoot as a 12 year old Boy Scout. We didn't keep any guns in our home, as we weren't a hunting family... neither did we feel the need for any guns in my working class New Jersey neighborhood.

When I was seventeen, I joined the Marines, and spent the next 8 years in the Infantry, mostly in the Second Marine Division. I left the Marines for greener pastures in 1989, and have been carrying a gun on duty ever since then.

Lest you think I am going to preach at you like some NRA gun-nut fruitcake, I assure you that I am not. I'm not fanatical about guns. I don't believe that they are a talisman to ward off bad people, I don't believe that I need to keep a gun in my home to protect me from "the government", and I have never seen a black helicopter.

Having said all of that, I will tell you that I keep two guns in our home. The one that Uncle Sam issued to me to use if I need to protect myself or others in the line of duty, and the other is to protect myself and my family when I am not on Uncle Sam's time (yes, which gun I use and when, really does matter).

OK, to the point of this post... I am not going to suggest that everyone needs a gun or should have one. Not at all. What I am going to talk about is safety. Firearms safety in the home is something that I am passionate about. I am the father of two daughters (one of whom is 8, and still at home), and the husband of a lovely woman that doesn't really want to touch or know about guns, so the safety of my family concerning my guns is paramount.

I don't believe that have a gun in the home is inherently dangerous. Not when the owner is safe, smart, and committed to safety. Stored correctly, a gun in the home is less dangerous than a kitchen knife. I know that sounds trite, but it's true.

The thing about guns in the home is that people have to think about it rationally, intellectually, and armed with facts.

Facts, not hyperbole.

The reason that we hear of so many awful tragedies regarding accidents with guns in the home, or with troubled teens taking guns from home and shooting classmates, or killing themselves, is that many irresponsible parents refuse to take p[roper safety precautions. The safety precautions that I take with an eight year old in the hose will change by the time she is 16. Why, because at 16, she will have increased cognitive abilities, and capabilities that an 8 year old hasn't yet fully developed.

To conclude: Tragedies can happen with or without guns. Responsible parenting is paramount in the safety of children in a home where guns are kept. Responsible gun owners are a must.

Please note, that while I advocate for safe gun ownership and responsibility for gun owners... especailly those who have children in the home, I am not of the opinion that EVERYone should keep guns in the house... that's on you.

Peace Be With You,

GF

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Gunfighter lives with is wife and daughter in Northern Virginia, and is employed as a tactical firearms instructor for a federal law enforcement agency. He blogs about the things he sees and what he thinks about them at The View From Here. When he grows up, he wants to be a writer... or hand out balloons at Disneyworld.

Eight

Your head comes up to my shoulder, you weigh about 45 pounds. Not enough to give up your booster seat in the car, which bugs you.

You have two loose teeth, and have been trying desperately to lose your two front teeth for months now. It bothers you that kids younger and smaller than you have lost more teeth than you have. But you got your teeth late, so it makes sense that you'd lose them late, too.

You've recently started growing out your bangs, so looking you in the eye takes a bit of wrangling, unless you have one of your funny clips, all sideways and askew, trying in vain to hold back the mass of your chestnut hair, so like my own. I've decided to grow out my bangs, too, so we can be frustrated with them together.

You are oh so picky about your food. You pretty much exist on peanut butter and cereal, with a bit of fruit thrown in for good measure. You won't touch meat at all, except maybe maple or honey ham on the third tuesday of each month, if the planets are aligned properly. You won't eat any vegetable but raw carrots or cooked white corn, and God help me if I ever try to offer you the broccoli that I love so much. You'll eat tomatoes, in the form of pizza sauce, but never, ever on top of pasta. Eating like this isn't helping your quest to give up the booster seat, my dear. And no, I'm not going to let you convert to an all sugar, all the time diet just to fatten you up. You'll eat healthy, if persnickety.

You're growing so quickly that you are just gangly, all knees and elbows and pointy parts. This makes you a bit clumsy, banged and bruised. Slow down. Let your brain get used to your body the way it is, this day, and you won't trip and fall all time.

You are so smart, Trout, so very smart, yet so...I dunno, dreamy, maybe? at the same time. Your schoolwork is a tapestry of creativity and intelligence, if your handwriting is clear enough to be read, that is. You are quickly frustrated when things don't come to you easily, and when you choose to be so, you are a perfectionist to destructive levels. Homework is a horrifying time, really, because you choose to spend hours perfecting one particular part at the expense of doing the rest of it, and it takes forever when it shouldn't take more than 20 minutes or so. I am NOT looking forward to middle school if this keeps up. But you are doing third grade math with ease, and you read everything you can get your hands on, and I wish that you never, ever lose that hunger for knowledge.

You love High School Musical, and Hannah Montana, and the Suite Life of Zach and Cody, but you are just as willing to sit and watch Dora or Kipper or Teletubbies with your little sister and still be entertained. You love ballet and chess and science. Your favorite color is brown, at last check, though this changes regularly. You love American Girl dolls, and your old Heavy Baby Hair just as much as the first day you got her. You love all kinds of music, and it tickles me to no end how much you love rock, especially old heavy metal hair bands from the 80s. You love to do art, especially drawing. You're excited to be getting your first communion this year.

You are a daredevil. You love airplanes and helicopters and roller coasters, the wilder the better. You have taught me so much about letting go and living life to its fullest, without fear.

You hate to brush your hair. You hate green vegetables. You are incredibly picky about how your pants fit you - they can't be "touching" you or you go nuts. You apparently hate silence, because you are never, ever quiet, and you go to sleep best when you have your cd player playing softly. You've entered the tween years, and can be so, so moody. We've entered a very challenging time, you and I.

Though sometimes bossy, you are a great big sister to your siblings. You watch out for them and take care of them and are a huge help to me. You started by volunteering to share your room with your little sister and you continue today by helping with the baby, helping keep him safe, and small things out of his mouth, so that I can go to the bathroom by myself.

I am so proud of the way you are growing up. Proud of the kind, compassionate, loving child you are. Proud of your creativity, your drive, your spirit, your confidence. Proud of your generosity. Proud of your intelligence and wit and vitality. Proud, yes, I'll say it, that you are beautiful, and I will say it because no one should ever ever feel bad about wanting to be pretty and no one will ever say it enough.

You are brilliant, Trout, and I am so very very blessed that eight years ago I became a mother. To you. Your mother. Eight lightning-fast years blip - gone. You are the best surprise your daddy and I ever got.

Happy Eighth Birthday, honey.

Please Please Please Pick Up the Phone Today and Support the Mothers' Act

As any of my regular readers know, I struggle with postpartum depression. Every. Single. Day. But I am blessed in that I am lucky enough to have known about the disease and how to get help, and I have health insurance that covers my visits, at least partially.

But too, too many women don't have what I have. They don't know about the disease. They think that they are alone. They don't have health insurance, or what they have is inadequate to cover what they need to get better. And this is a crime.

Only 15% of women get the help they need for postpartum depression and related disorders. Education is needed for both women and healthcare providers, so that this disease can be effectively and quickly identified and treatment administered. And women and families who can't afford it should never, ever be at risk because they can't pay for treatment.

Now, Congress is finally doing something to help those in need. Senators Durbin and Menendez have introduced the Mothers' Act, S. 3529, in the Senate. This bill will provide much needed funding for education and screening for postpartum depression, and will also fund research into diagnosis and treatment, as too little is known about the disease and the treatments that are available are sometimes not effective, or have side effects that lead to women discontinuing treatment. Improvements need to be made.

Please join me, BlogHers Act, Postpartum Support International, and Postpartum Progress in supporting this bill. Look at these links to find out how to contact your senator and tell him or her that supporting this bill is important to you. Together, our voices are strong and can't be ignored.

Those who have no voice, or think they have no strength, need our help.

When We Did the Boo'ing, Plus a Poem For All You We've Been Boo'd Visitors

So last week we finally got our baskets together and set out to "Boo" our neighbors. Trout had spent an inordinate amount of time drawing pictures for the victims to put up in their windows, but they were lovely and creative masterpieces and I didn't have the heart to stop her. It also took forever for me to type up the poem to go in the scroll, but I eventually did it and you can find it here. Plus going to the dollar store to get goodies to go in the baskets is never easy with at least  2 kids, but we did it.

We set out about 8:30 pm, nice and dark and really pretty near bedtime for most people, including my kids. The first victim was the girl who was my mother's helper this past summer, who we don't really get to see too much anymore because she started middle school. We discussed the strategy before we set out: Trout put the sign on the door, I carried and put the basket down on the steps, Little Man rang the doorbell, and Sunny just crept about noisily, whispering at the top of her lungs stealthily. We scattered back to our house, about 3 doors away. So far, so good. We went back in the house to discuss our strategy for the next house, friends of Little Man's and Trout's who live down the street, about half a block away. This time, Little Man taped the sign and Trout rang the doorbell. Sunny and I kept our previous roles.

Unfortunately, we got about two houses away when our first victims came out on their porch to look around to see who left the basket. I'm sure it wasn't too much of a giveaway as we crept down the street with the subtlety of a herd of elephants with an identical basket filled with goodies. Yay, us!

We did the same thing at the other neighbor's house, and then came home. We never went back out to see if they got it or not, as we were afraid of discovery. It didn't matter. The girl recognized Trout's handwriting on her lovely sign.

So! Lessons for you when you go Booing:

1. When possible, use a computer to make the "We've Been Boo'd" signs. Or, have an adult do the actual writing so that the handwriting isn't a giveaway.
2. Wait a fair amount of time, at least 20 minutes, between hits, or don't Boo a house too close to your own.
3. Leave the herd of elephants at home. Or tape their mouths shut. Duct tape works nicely for this, or so I've heard.

Of course, this all assumes you don't want to be discovered. We still haven't discovered the identity of our Neighborhood Phantom, and frankly, I like that just fine.

Did you know....

that squirrels can growl?

I didn't know that. But, apparently, they can, because I am sitting here in my kitchen processing information to file my mental health claim for my therapy visits to the insurance company we no longer have so I can be reimbursed enough to pay for another month or two because the new insurance company won't cover out of network visits and I love my therapist and don't want to change. Anyway, I've mentioned before that we live in the woods on the edge of a lake (I'm going to miss this place with all its quirks) and a squirrel just walked up on my deck, paused about four feet away from my door, and growled at me.

Sounded just like a cat.

You learn something new every day.

Letting the Cat Out

As I'm sure has been obvious, we have been experiencing a particularly large amount of stress lately here in the Fish Pond, and I am finally able to let you in on the secret as to the reason for some of it.

A little while ago, I blogged briefly about BigDaddyFish's existential crisis, and a decision that he was having some difficulty about. Last Friday was BigDaddyFish's last day at his old job. He now has a couple of weeks off, after which he will start a new job the first Monday in November.

Arriving at the decision to make the move was exceptionally difficult for BDF, and as a result he was more cranky than his usual grumpy curmudgeon. He had been dissatisfied at his old job for some time, largely due to being channeled into management when what he wanted to do was program. This new job will give him the opportunity to get a high-level security clearance, complete with the fun of a polygraph, and it will ultimately provide the chance for him to work with a friend of his with whom he worked for years before, and it was the best working relationship he's ever had. Thanks to the high-level clearance, it will provide job security for him for as long as he wants to work in that environment. The work itself looks interesting and meaningful, and he will get the chance to be a coder again, as opposed to doing management work, which he's been doing for the past couple of years.

But there are some catches. They work on an early schedule, and have I mentioned we are not morning people? I will now have to do both drop off and pick up for preschool for Sunny, instead of just pickup like I do now. It will take about 6 months to a year to get the clearance, at which time we will need to move closer to the job site, which will most likely be near the site for the agency responsible for the security of the nation (ahem). That means out of the county, so we won't be able to send Nemo to the same preschool that we have come to love, the same one that Trout and Little Man attended and Sunny now attends, the same one that has prepared the big kids immensely for our hard-driving, high-achieving public school system. That means moving away from our awesome pediatricians. It means moving away from the local schools, and moving our kids away from their friends. It means switching health insurance plans, because they don't offer a PPO option, and can I tell you how much I love having a PPO? Oh, yeah, and did I mention the five-figure pay cut?

Yeah. Five. Figures.

Ultimately, we decided that it would be worth it in the long run for BDF to take the job. Actually, he made the decision; I simply told him I would be supportive no matter what decision he made. Because having him not be grumpy and actually enjoying his job, and in turn being nicer to the family, is worth it. Because we are strong, smart, and resourceful people, and we can make it work, no matter what.

But damn, am I scared. Change is hard for me - damn hard. Each time we've added a child it has taken me longer to get in my groove. We've only ever lived here since we've had kids. This is the only home our babies have ever known. I know we need to move, but we were planning on moving locally, just to a bigger house, where our kids could keep their friends and their doctors and their schools.

He has been second guessing the decision, too. Things changed a bit after he gave his notice at work, for the better. In the course of doing the paperwork for the security clearance, he had to track down a colleague from three jobs and ten years ago, who instantly wanted BDF to work for him. His job is local. We don't know anything else about it, though.

There is still a possibility that BDF will end up assigned locally; there is an office run by that division of the Big Contractor that he will be working for in the same town as the preschool, and they do have some cleared work there. It's been difficult watching BDF go though this agonizing time, and it has been harder for me to be strong and supportive for him when I'm not exactly in a good place myself. I am trying to have faith that wherever we were meant to be we will end up.

But is it really too much to ask to get there without so much strife?

Broken

Yesterday morning was a bad, bad morning for me. Despite the good feelings left over from the weekend, I didn't tolerate things well yesterday when I needed to get all four kids up and out the door and all four kids were resistant to that. I had to drop the big kids at the bus, drop Sunny off at preschool the next town over, and go to my therapy appointment clear across town in the opposite direction, by 9:30. We are not morning people, but for whatever reason it was an order of magnitude worse than usual.

I tried being nice and waking the kids up nicely, which they did, but it all went to hell in the proverbial handbasket in about five and a half minutes. The kids refused to get dressed when I asked them to the first time, when I asked them to the second thru fifth times, when I shouted at them to get dressed, when I attempted to redirect them away from the baby to the tasks they were all each responsible for doing themselves. They all wanted to get in bed and snuggle with Daddy, who has extreme sleep issues and couldn't get up himself.

To make a very long, private, complicated story very very short, I yelled a lot. I thought no more so than usual, but apparently BigDaddyFish thought so and, thanks to our wonderful communicating status, it upset him worse than usual. He called me long after I had gotten the kids out of the house, before I dropped Sunny off, to tell me his feelings about what had happened and ask me to discuss it with my therapist.

BigDaddyFish is a Big Picture kind of guy. That's how he sees things, that's what he focuses on. I, on the other hand, am a Details kinda girl. There was a big misunderstanding. He said something in a way that didn't really communicate what he wanted, I misunderstood it too and overreacted, and it left us both frustrated and angry. I felt blindsided by the conversation, since I had thought I wasn't any worse than usual. It threatened to escalate, but I thought we both did a good job of keeping things civil, if tense, and I talked to my therapist about it. That added in more misunderstanding.

All day long after that, I had a vaguely unsettled feeling, like something was lurking around the corner just waiting to come and get me, and I couldn't figure out why. Several times I caught myself on the verge of tears without any clear reason why. I knew things were going Bad, but I really really didn't have a clue why, and I was scared. Real scared. I tried to talk to BigDaddyFish about it when he came home, but he was still pissed off about the morning and things escalated.

Another long long story short, I lost my temper and put my foot through the drywall. Twice. It was either that or punch BigDaddyFish in the nose.

BDF and I are both stubborn, passionate, strong-willed people. Both oldest children. Neither of us backs down, or backs off, easily. Putting my foot through the drywall terrified me. The degree of rage scared the crap out of me. I fought hard to maintain some small semblence of control for the rest of the night so that BDF and I could talk about this. We finally were able to very early this morning, and again later. We were finally able to uncover some of the misunderstandings, to find some place in our psyches to process things, to talk and identify issues and causes and possible solutions. We both want very very much to get back to where we were just a couple of days ago.

Why the heck am I telling you this? One, if you or your partner is struggling with postpartum depression, I want you to know you are not alone. If you feel at all "unsettled" or vaguely off, please please do whatever you need to do to take care of yourself or to get the help you need to stave it off before it explodes like I did. I didn't eat right, sleep well, get virtually any exercise, or do self-nurturing things yesterday. I'm sure it was a factor. If I had mentioned the out of sortsness to my therapist, maybe we could have come up with a plan for the day to help me make sure I would be best able to maximize my own chances at not exploding. If your partner is at all out of sorts, please try and be aware that they may not be aware of what they are doing, and GENTLY bring it to their attention, without blame. I know what a pain in the ass it can be, and sometimes it can feel like you are dealing with a child or someone trying to manipulate you and make your life miserable. Some people are like that, but most, like me, desperately want to get better and not be that way, not be overly sensitive to criticism, not be prone to frustration, not be on the verge of tears - they don't mean to cause problems, and they regret everything to a degree I hope you never ever have cause to understand. Try anyway. Their life may just depend on it. Two, I hope someone can benefit from the shared experience - I know it helps me when things are at my worst to know that I'm not as abnormal and screwed up as I feel. Three, I hope that by being public with my struggles with this disease, it will help erase the stigma of mental illness, of postpartum depression, which will hopefully one day make it easier for women to ask for and receive treatment.

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Unfortunately I woke up Trout when I put my foot through the wall. I talked to her frankly and honestly about what is going on with me, to the best of my ability, on a level that she could understand. No details, just Big Picture. I explained that sometimes the chemicals in the brain start working wrong, and when that happens sometimes people are sad a lot and don't really know how to handle stress. I explained that when someone's brain is like that, they sometimes can't figure out how to handle problems, and what is really something quite small seems very very big to them. I told her how very very much I love her, her and her brothers and sister, how they are the most important things in my life and how I am trying my hardest to get well. I explained that the doctor I've been seeing every week is helping me talk about things and work through them. I told her I was not angry at her, reassured her that is wasn't her fault at all and really had nothing to do with her and everything to do with me. I told her she could ask me or Daddy anything at all about it if she had questions. I asked her if she did, and she asked me how I was going to fix the drywall. Maybe she needs details, like me.

This morning, I woke BigDaddyFish up first, instead of the kids. We talked a lot. When Trout's alarm went off, she got up immediately of her own accord, instead of staying in bed for 45 minutes until we can't possibly make the bus without much shouting and scurrying, like she usually does. She got dressed and came downstairs to get her breakfast. BDF and I continued to talk. We heard a scurrying rustling in our room, and I got up to see who else had gotten up. It was Trout. She had made me a smiley face breakfast, with 2 oreos for eyes, a Little Debbie Fudge Round for a nose, and a handful of cheerios for a mouth.

Then she went back downstairs and made "breakfast" along the same lines for everyone else in the family.

I do not deserve such a creature. 

R&R Weekend

This past weekend I did something I've never done before.

I went away. By myself. Well, without the kids and BigDaddyFish.

One of my best friends, who I have known since 9th grade when her family moved to the DC area from a tiny town in western Pennsylvania, owns a cabin in a lake area in western Pennsylvania popular with vacationers. Hunters, anglers, outdoorsy people of all kinds go there.

Typically, her husband and his buddies go up there to "check" on the cabin. Which we all know is code for "drink ourselves silly and get thrown out of bars." It takes all of five minutes to "check" on the cabin, yet it always took him a whole weekend to do it. So one day, S asked her husband "When do I get to go check on the cabin?"

So this weekend, S and her twin sister S, their younger sister S, their mom, another friend of theirs, and I went to the cabin to "check" on it. Younger Sister S is pregnant, and because I am still breastfeeding I didn't want to drink, so she and I did the non-alcoholic pina coladas and margaritas, while the rest got a little warmer. We lit a big campfire, made mountain pies, and generally had a silly, crazy time. We talked, and talked, and talked. And we laughed. If it's true that you burn lots of calories laughing, then I may have lost weight this weekend, in spite of the mountain pies, because practically all we did was laugh. So hard we cried.

These are women who know me better than anyone else. Women who are like a mother and sisters to me. They, and their relationship, are my primary example of what I want my family to be like. I can totally and completely be myself with them without fear of judgment. I wish I could spend that kind of time with them more often, but with jobs, spouses, a total of nineteen kids among the six of us, and geographic distance that just isn't possible. We have promised each other we'll make this an annual thing.

It was wonderful. I had debated for about the whole last week whether or not I wanted to go. I was worried about how Nemo was going to do overnight without me, since he won't take a bottle. I worried about how BigDaddyFish would fare with all the kids by himself. I felt bad, because his birthday was Sunday and I wasn't going to be there for his birthday weekend (for the record, he told me he didn't mind if I went, and we typically don't do anything for his birthday, anyway, because he's a bit of a curmudgeon, and I was home before dinner). I am so glad I went. I didn't know the best was yet to come.

BigDaddyFish and the kids cleaned the entire living room while I was gone. Now, he had to call in the in-laws to help that get accomplished, but he isn't bothered by them like I am, so it worked out. His father's mother is staying with his parents right now, so she came and helped out, too. Trout had conspired with the in-laws to get a birthday cake for BigDaddyFish, so they had a little birthday celebration on Saturday night. At first I was a little jealous of this (okay, a lot jealous) because they had done it without me and no one had done anything for me on my birthday, but it didn't last long because clearly they had had a nice time, I didn't have to spend time being annoyed by them, AND they saved me a big piece of cake. With a purple flower.

Best of all, BigDaddyFish wrote me a five page letter, just talking about how he felt about the weekend and stuff. He ended up feeling bad that I was gone on his birthday and that surprised him. I did remind him that if he had said it would bother him I would have stayed home in a nanosecond, but he was glad I had gone. He thanked me for the gift of giving him time alone with the kids (I had to ask if he was being sarcastic about this, but he assured me he wasn't) - that he felt that way just made it more of a win-win situation. He said a bunch of other stuff, too, private things. It was lovely.

It touched me in a way that I hadn't thought possible. The only reason I mention it, mostly, is that it is an example of how important keeping the lines of communication open is to a marriage. That particular task gets harder and harder (to me, anyway) with each child you add to your family, because resources become spread thinner and thinner. Writing letters to one another can provide a different way to keep doing that. It lets you talk about issues that might be too emotionally charged to talk rationally about, particularly if you tend to get so emotional you can't think straight, not that I'd know anything about that (ahem).

Nemo did fine. He missed me, alright, and I missed him, more that I thought I would. The others? Well, I missed them, but I didn't MISS them - it was a welcome break from their particular type of chaos, but I missed the baby so much I ached. I pumped so much milk I didn't have room to bring it all home with me. He took formula from a cup while I was gone. BDF said that he woke up once in the night, did a visual check to make sure BDF was still there, then laid down and went back to sleep. He has slept through the night both nights since I've been home. Before I left, he had been getting up two times a night to nurse, so this is huge.

I'm sure glad to be home.

Have You Been Boo'd?

Last night, while I was talking to my sister on the phone, the doorbell rang. It was weird because it was after dark, we were quick getting ready to put the kids to bed, and we certainly weren't expecting anyone. BigDaddyFish and the two bigs scrambled out the door to find a sign taped to our door with "We've Been Boo'd!" on it, complete with ghosty print and image, and a basket sitting on our doorstep. No source to such items was seen.

They brought the basket in the house, and in it we found a Halloween themed cake mix, frosting, card making kit, a set of two little hand towels with ghosts on them, a package of 15 glow bracelets, and a scrolled up poem, explaining that the neighborhood Phantom had struck, and instructing us to Boo two of our neighbors in the next 24 hours.

The kids are just tickled trying to figure out who boo'd us; I have my suspicions, but no concrete evidence.

Evidently, this is something that neighbors sometimes do to one another, and frankly if I wasn't days behind in reading posts I would have known precisely what this was, thanks to Melissa, instead of being rather puzzled, but in a good way. We've lived here for 8 years and this has never happened to us before. One of the things I have always liked about my neighborhood is its sense of community, which really is sometimes difficult to find in the DC area, since people here are frequently transient. We've seen dozens of neighbors come and go, with relatively few being here as long as we have. It's hard to get to know people very well, and our neighborhood has more than 150 townhouses in it; when you account for all kinds of different stages in life and schedules, it's a wonder that we know the people we do. That said, it's a nice neighborhood and, except for our two rental houses that seem to attract Animal House rejects (seriously, we think we had an internet porn ring being run out of one of them for a while), it is full of good people. Like whoever Boo'd us.

We won't be able to reciprocate in 24 hours (I have to wonder if the people who Boo'd us really know us very well, because they would have known we couldn't pass it on in 24), but by the end of the weekend, two of our neighbors will be Boo'd the FishFamily way. What way that is, exactly, I don't know yet, but we'll figure it out. Trout already hand-drew two "We've Been Boo'd" signs to go on people's houses, and I'll hit the dollar store this weekend, and drag out my rubber stamps so we can create a cool package.

I sure am going to miss this place when we move.

Edited to add: We eventually did our own Booing - find out about the results here, complete with the Neighborhood Phantom poem for your own use. Enjoy!

He's Learning

Yesterday was my crazy day, wherein I ran all over the place all day to various activities, including Trout's ballet class and Sunny's gymnastics class, both in the same location in the next town over but 7 hours apart.

Anyway, yesterday BigDaddyFish was home sick, due to this horrible fatigue virus that I seem to be coming down with now (you don't feel particularly awful, just tired enough to sleep for a week and mildly achy). At one point yesterday he went up to our loft to work for a while, and Sunny tried to go with him, but she was driving him crazy in the way that 3 year olds do, chattering away and flitting hither and yon, destroying as much as possible and leaving a trail of toys and trash in her wake.

Sunny came down the stairs, threw a pillow and an afghan on the floor, and proceeded to wail "This is my worst. day. ever."

"Whatsa matter, Sunny?"

"This is my worstest day ever."

"Well, what's wrong? Why is it your worst day?"

"Daddy won't let me be in the loft with him and He Shut THE DOOR! AAAAHHHHH!" Wail, sniffle, sob.

So I IM'd BigDaddyFish to let him know Sunny was having her Worstest Day Ever all because he shut the door. Soon after that he called Sunny up to be with him, and she immediately turned off the waterworks and skipped up the stairs. I left shortly thereafter to do the Pick Trout Up At Chess Club and Take Her To Ballet shuffle. (It's really not so bad. I get a quiet moment to read a book for a while, at least until the Belly Dancing class next door comes in and starts ajingling away.)

When I returned home, BigDaddyFish told me to close my eyes because he had something to show me. I figured he was feeling better and that I knew what he was going to show me, but decided to humor him. Instead of flashing me his Noodly Appendage he took me into the girls' room and told me to open my eyes.

In the middle of the room was a humongous puddle on the carpet, clearly covering more than two feet, and apparently created with a couple of gallons of liquid. In the middle of it was a saturated box from an American Girl doll, a pile of about 300 soggy Q-tips, the empty Q-tip box, the detritus of about 6 empty water bottles and their caps, and a soaked stuffed rabbit.

"What happened here?"

"I don't know. She left the loft and I didn't pay quick enough attention when she was quiet, I guess. But I swear, she was only gone about ten minutes. It's amazing how quickly she can make a mess."

Indeed.

Later on, I asked Sunny what happened there and she told me that she put water in the box and pee-peed in it. I asked her why and she said "Because there was water there and I had to go." We have since had a long talk about the difference between one's floor and the toilet, and that she's not to touch water bottles any more, unless there's a grown up standing right next to her.

Anyone got a good source for getting that awful pee smell out of the carpet?