The Fish Pond

Why My Eldest is in Some Seriously Deep Yogurt

Trout is in second grade, and in our school that means a fair amount of homework. Each week during reading initiative, she gets an assignment on Monday and Wednesday, and those assignments are due Wednesday and Friday. They usually involve reading some book they send home and answering some sort of questions about what she read in her writing journal.

Tuesday afternoon I asked Trout about her homework, because I knew she hadn't done it the day before. She told me that the teacher got busy at the end of class and never handed the books back out. Because she has a track record of not always being entirely truthful, especially when it comes to getting out of doing something she doesn't want to do, I looked in her backpack for the book, which wasn't there, so I figured she was telling the truth and made her finish her spelling packet and then let her go play.

Yesterday afternoon I was writhing around on the floor exercising my muscles, and I happened to glance under my couch and instead of seeing the metric ton of cheerios I usually see, I saw Trout's reading bag with her books and journal in them.

It's a good thing I was already on the floor or the impact when I hit the ground after my stroke would have done some serious damage.

I called her on the carpet, literally, and demanded she explain herself. She couldn't. Of course she couldn't, she'd just been nailed and she knew it.

Now, I know kids lie. All of them. I did it a ton, too, but really I don't think I did it quite so deliberately when I was her age. And while I know it's normal and I did it, too, it's my job to send the message that this is unacceptable, that if she does this later in life it can lead to fines, imprisonment, and just maybe the loss of public office. And I'm miffed because it's just so disrespectful, and I don't handle that well. So what did I do to her?

The girl down the street invited Trout to her birthday party this coming weekend. Yesterday I marched Trout down to her house so that Trout could explain to both her and her mother why she won't be coming to the party that I'd already said she could go to. She was duly embarrassed. And when I was talking to BigDaddyFish on the phone about it I Emphasized. How. Angry. I. Was. You know, to make a point.

I'd like to say I think this will make an impression, but in reality it will just give her incentive to hone her skills and not get caught next time, right? How would you handle it?

Sunny Says #5,349 (or 7, whichever applies)

Trout and I are going out tonight to a play (to hear Uncle Orca who is playing in the pit orchestra for 1776 at Olney Theatre), so all evening things have to happen early. I look over at Sunny, who has used paper plates, packages of fancy paper napkins, all the baby utensils that aren't currently in the dishwasher, a handful of fresh green beans, and some paper cutouts of Max and Ruby to arrange some sort of abstract art installation all over the kitchen floor. The filthy kitchen floor.

"Sunny! You can't put all these spoons and these green beans on the floor!" I growl exasperatedly as I scoop them up and set them aside for washing.

"I know, Mama. I'm naughty. I like to be naughty!"

Let's hope she outgrows that.

Monday Morning Equation

1 rock + 1 preschooler with artistic ambitions + 1 four month old minivan =

1 furious mom and 1 minivan needing a paint job

She drew on the passenger door, the driver's door, and the rear liftgate. She's damn, damn lucky she's freaking cute.

It actually happened a few weeks ago - it's just taken me this long to calm down and blog about it. We can't afford to paint it right now. It doesn't appear to be down to metal, just to the primer, so we don't think we need to do it right away to protect from rust. It just looks awful.

My four month old minivan.

Sigh.

Out With the Old

In with the new: To refresh, in case you skipped the last post, we're having a birthday party for Sunny on Saturday, and we've been living with a filthy carpet in our family room for decades eons a few years. We had a dog that had kidney disease, and between that and potty training 3 kids who sometimes still have accidents and who eat in that room, the carpet was, in one word, disgusting. Filthy. Nasty. Vile. Putr...okay, that was 4.5 words, but it really was awful. Observe:

and:

We had steam cleaned it periodically for about the first six years, then it started to reek for weeks after we cleaned it, so we stopped cleaning it and resolved (ha! no pun intended) to simply replace the flooring when we left. Originally we were going to put in hardwoods but that's a whole 'nother story, and our budget wouldn't allow for that at this point, since we have so many other things to do, too. BigDaddyFish decided he wanted to have it done before the birthday party, so we called Empire Today.

Empire's commercials are annoying, but effective, and they really DO what they say they will. We called them Monday morning, and the guy was in our living room taking measurements Monday evening. The guys came Tuesday and installed the carpet in that room (which is much larger than it appears) and up one flight of steps in about 3 hours. The price was a little on the high side compared to what I would have done with a local carpet store, but they wouldn't have been here the next day, either, and it was competitive enough that we didn't bat an eyelash.

So, Tuesday we had this:

and this:

and this:

and by Tuesday night, we had this:

I'm kind of liking the room with most of the crap out of it, and I'm thinking of not putting any of it all of it back. The only thing is that without our electronics hooked back up, Sunny sings all. day. long. and. makes. my. ears. bleed. So nobody is allowed in that room with food or drink or shoes on, under penalty of flogging and denial of college funds. I am rotten.

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Speaking of Sunny, she's had difficulty adjusting to the changes going on around here to get the house ready to sell. Tuesday night I was working on cleaning the kitchen, and she was playing in the living room running around with Nemo and Trout. Or so I thought. Apparently, though, she went upstairs at some point, and for some reason we're still not sure about, emptied 5 water bottles all over Little Man's bed and floor, badly enough that he couldn't sleep in his drenched bed and he had to cram himself in about 3 square feet at the foot of his bed between the bed and his closet because the floor was drenched, too. She had cried about the old carpet leaving, so we had the carpet guys cut out a relatively "clean" piece that was under our table for her to use as a "picnic" mat and she's been carrying it around the house to use it as "her space." Apparently that wasn't enough.

Not the Sidewalk

The school nurse sent Trout home from school with a fever today* so she's sitting on the couch in the living room watching tv. Sunny went outside on our front porch to play with sidewalk chalk and I was in the kitchen making my lunch. Trout was asked to keep an eye on her sister while I finished making my lunch, so that if someone decided to take her we'd at least know which direction to run to chase them.

Nemo abruptly starts fussing a bit, but since he's in the toddler prison playyard, I don't think anything of it, I just figure he wants out, and he'll have to wait because "I AM ONLY ONE MOM! ONE PERSON!" (if I had a dollar for every time I say that I could pay cash for a new house and not have to sell this one) (in Montgomery County, no less).

Sunny suddenly dashes into the kitchen, ditches the chalk in the corner by the table, yelling "Go look at Nemo, Mommy!"

"What. Did. You. Do. Child?"

"Nothing, just go look at Nemo, Mommy!" she throws out as she runs and hides in the corner, impish grin across her face.

The whole time this is going on Nemo's cries have been getting louder and more urgent. I look around the corner at him, and he's got big chalk circles on both cheeks, a wide stripe across his forehead, marks on both the front and back of his clothes, and a decidedly unhappy expression.

"Sunny, you lose the chalk. Your brother is not the sidewalk!" I say as I use a baby wipe to clean his face off.

"I already put the chalk by the table, Mom. The ears! Ears! Don't forget his EARS, Mommy!" she said gleefully as I comforted my son, gently wiping the bluish gray blobs out of his ears.

Nothing a chocolate chip cookie, a timeout, and a game of peekaboo couldn't fix.

Willfull little imp. Poor Trout didn't even notice she had come in the house. And that is a perfect example of the personality differences between my girls.

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*BigDaddyFish and I had a conference today at school with Trout's teachers to discuss some issues she's having. At 12:20 (the conference was 12:30) my babysitter calls to say the school called because Trout has a fever of 101. So now I feel like crap because Every. Single. Day. Trout tells me she has a stomach ache, and Every. Single. Day. I remind her that she won't eat pretty much any fruits or vegetables and doesn't drink enough water, so her stomach hurts because the poop is too hard and hurts going through, and then I make her get dressed and send her to school anyway. So when she said her stomach hurt this morning, I sent her to school as usual. I am a Mean Mean Mommy that way.

Poor thing.

Color Explosion, Indeed

What do you get when you combine a preschooler, a toddler, baby wipes, and Crayola Color Explosion paper?

This:

And of course, the requisite bath afterwards. Fortunately, the wipes created the mess, and the wipes cleaneth'd up.

So how was your weekend?

So Many Topics, So Little Time to Write

I have so many things I want to write about, so many posts floating around in the ether of my brain, but both of my littles have what we affectionately refer to as The Hacking Death and between wiping snot, cleaning up puke after the kids cry or cough so hard they puke, doing the ensuing laundry, driving people around all over, and just trying to get some sleep so I'm better able to handle said activities I haven't had the time to write anything. So, please forgive me, but I'm just going to throw some bullets out there so at least some of it can get out of my head and leave me more room to fit in all the information about mortgage qualifying:

• Tuesday afternoons Little Man has a sports class at our local community center. The class is only 45 minutes long, so the rest of us just sit in the car and Trout does her homework, we listen to music, and if she gets done quickly enough we watch a movie. I sometimes let Sunny and Nemo out of their carseats to stretch their legs, and this week Nemo slept while Sunny was free to move about the cabin. All of a sudden Trout starts shouting about how Sunny is coloring on the car - yes, my not-even-two-month-old van. Somehow Sunny found a random piece of crayon floating in the air somewhere (because I have not allowed any such items in the new van) and colored on the window, carseats, upholstery, speaker covers, whatever struck her fancy. I was livid. It appears that the crayon was a washable one, though, because a babywipe took care of most of the mess. I reminded her once again that she was ONLY TO COLOR ON PAPER!! and thought that was the end of it. Which it was until Little Man got in the car on Wednesday morning to go to school and found where I wasn't able to remove some of the crayon from his booster seat (which he will ride in until he gets his driver's license as he appears to have my genes). "Who colored on my seat???" he shouted, and I told him Sunny had and that I'd get it later and to buckle up. "AAAUUGHH! That..that.." he struggled with the words, and since he's been experimenting with colorful language lately I thought I knew what was coming. "She is SUCH. A. LITTLE... RASCAL!!" he said angrily as he stomped his foot. Yeah, she is.
• I am my own worst enemy, I swear. Tuesday morning I had to scramble around to get all four kids up and ready to go - the bigs to school, Sunny to her preschool, and Nemo comes with me to my therapy appointment. We got up early enough, got the bigs to school and went scrambling down to the preschool to drop Sunny off. I saw one of the moms who I know has younger kids with whom I sometimes share watching duty, where one of us watches the littles in the parking lot while the other runs in to get her big kid and then we switch, and I asked if she wanted me to watch her little one so she could run in. She said no, she'd be a while, and then asked me if I had a conference that day, to which I said no and looked at her quizzically. She told me there was no school that day, it was a conference day. Which I would have known if Sunny had gone to school on the previous Thursday and I had gotten the newsletter, but she didn't and I didn't. Doh. So there I was, with my therapy appointment, to which I have to take an almost-four year old. Yeah, I don't think so. I was able to scramble around and make arrangements for my SIL to watch her and was only 5 minutes late to my appointment.
• Saturday BigDaddyFish and I had a glorious day, just us. First we matched up the socks, then we went to an Indian restaurant and pigged out on the buffet. Then we went to the Air and Space Museum Annex - Udvar-Hazy Center and had a blast taking our own sweet time looking at exhibits and reading things with nobody going "Mooooom, this is booorring! Let's go!" or running around and trying to climb on the SR-71. They have added an F-14 since we were there last, probably my favorite among the fighter aircraft - awesome. They have a couple of flight simulators there, one that you can "fly" and one that you just ride along, and since we were unencumbered by small people I suggested we ride one. We chose for BDF to fly the plane and I would ride with him. We paid our money and got in line to go in, and they had a small tv screen showing us our "pre-flight" briefing. "This ride will be taking you upside down, so please leave all belongings in the locker provided." Say wha? Upside down? Nobody said anything about upside down. Have I mentioned I don't do flying, or heights for that matter, very well? Upside down? After eating a huge meal of Indian food? "You're going to pay for this," I said to BDF as we locked up our stuff. He was the pilot, I was the gunner, and the ride was 4.5 minutes long. Would you believe that we had so much fun? And I shot down 6 planes? And I only spent about 45 seconds with my eyes shut, and probably 45 seconds upside down? Then, as if the day wasn't great enough, we went to see Charlie Wilson's War, which was great, and THEN went out to dinner. We spent the entire day without the kids; we didn't fight or bicker at all. It was awesome. When you have small people depending on you it is so easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day details of living and forget why you got married in the first place - nurturing your marriage is as important as remembering to feed the kidlets. And men, if you take the time to go out and have fun with your wife, just the two of you, without complaining about how much it costs or whatever else you could be doing, it just might increase your chances of getting a little action. Dramatically.
• When we were doing the great clean out on Saturday and Sunday, we found several of what we believe are larvae for clothes moths. We have a lot of wool shirts, blankets, and socks that don't get used very often, and somewhere we have an infestation. I freak the heck out when worms or snakes are nearby - I HATE them. I'm weirded out by things without feet. So I screamed each time we came across one and squealed and got all squicked out and BDF squished them and put them in the trash. I was not aware that cedar is not necessarily a great repellent, and that stored items need to be checked at least once a year. So, now we are working on finding the source of the contamination and eliminating it, four or five vacuumings and multiple washings at a time, like we didn't have enough of that to do already. Ewwww.
• Friday night BDF and I got salads for dinner and he went upstairs to eat his while on the computer. Instead of taking it back down two floors to the kitchen when he was done, he just put it on a stool at the top of the stairs down to our kitchen, on the same floor as our bedrooms. Nemo woke up before us, and BDF put him on the floor to just let him run amok while we woke up fully. Sunny starts yelling about an awful smell, and we think it's Nemo's diaper or something and tell her to just be patient about it. Then she started complaining about a big mess and we decided we better get up to investigate. This is what we found:

Guess Nemo decided he didn't like the salad. Gem that he is, Uncle Orca (agincourtdb) cleaned it up for us when he arrived to babysit so BDF and I could go our for our date. Frankly, I was quite relieved that it had nothing to do with Nemo's diaper.

• Capital One are a bunch of scum-sucking bastards. Last month I either didn't receive a statement at all or I lost it in the jumble of papers on my table (most likely didn't receive because I still haven't found it). I realized it after the due date but before they sent me anything to hassle me about it, so I paid them something based on what I paid the previous month. We got that card because it had a 2.9% interest rate for the life of all balance transfers, so we transferred quite a large balance to it years ago and have been slowly paying it off; we cut the cards up and never used them. We've put that balance low on our list of things to pay off and put higher rate stuff as a higher priority in our quest to get out of debt. Well, they decided since we were late on our payment to jack the interest rate - to 27%. 27%. Pure insanity. I've been late on other cards years ago and if they raised the rates at all, which I don't remember them doing, it was only a point or two. I would have understood if they had raised it to something like 6-10% since that's what we had for purchases if we'd ever used the card, but this is highway robbery. We are lucky that we had the money for me to call up and pay them off this morning, and I'm closing the account immediately. They have lost us as a customer and we will be sure to warn everyone we know about them. If there is ever a chance you might be late with a payment (which would mean you are a normal person), don't be fooled by Capital One. Within two months we will have paid off all of our credit card debt, and all we'll have are our mortgage and one car payment. It feels fantastic.
• I am going through a major effort to simplify my life, cutting down on spending, paying off debt, not buying new stuff, decluttering, not watching much tv (American what?), cleaning, etc. It feels good and has helped my depression so very much, and has helped me not to feel so unsettled. I'm enjoying taking better care of my family, and in doing so, taking better care of myself.
• I'm thinking of going back to work some, ideally to pick up some freelance writing assignments, but haven't the first idea how to go about doing that. Anyone have any ideas they are willing to share, or willing to take on, I don't know, a jr. apprentice or helper or something? I'm willing to work cheap until I've proven myself. I used to be a technical writer/editor before I had kids, and I have an English degree, so I have a basis for this line of work; it's just the marketing/business side of things I'm clueless about.

So, how are you doing? Did I mention we're house hunting? In theory?

What to DO with this Child??

Trout came home from school this afternoon, with a lovely note that says "I Love you mommy!  you are geart I Love you Do you Love me?  Srkal you'r ancr Yes or no"  Of course I srkaled Yes, while the silly thing hid behind me as though she was worried and wanted my answer to be a surprise.  I then gave her a big hug and kiss. 

Not three minutes later, I hear the snip of the scissors.  I look up, and she has made a half-inch cut on the edge of her umbrella.  Made of vinyl or some sort of plastic.  You know, the kind where little cuts like that travel.  So her fairly brand new umbrella isn't going to last very long.  When I gave her an exasperated look and asked her why the heck she did that she said:

I didn't know what it would do - if it would cut.

I'm all for experimentation, but really - I wish she'd just asked me.  We could have had a lovely science discussion.

So what do I do to with her?

Getting Rid of Our Vises

Tuesday night, we had a broken chair in our kitchen.  BigDaddyFish and Little Man hauled out their tools and spread them all over the room, and then discovered they needed a different size screw, or something, and so they trooped down to the basement to get what they needed.  I was simultaneously helping Trout with her homework and feeding Sunny some grapes, so we just hung out up here.

First there was tussling, then bumping, then screaming and crying.  The "I'm really hurt" kind of crying, vs. the "I am angry/embarassed/have hurt feelings/am tired/want to get my way" kind of crying.  First, BDF calls us downstairs, but no sooner had I finally wrestled Sunny out of her booster seat straps than BDF comes up the stairs with Little Man in his arms.  Little Man was clutching his foot.  Which. was. covered. in. blood.

BDF put him on the kitchen counter and I kept asking what happened.  Little Man kept crying and screaming that it hurt, and he wanted a band-aid (note to self: post bandaid story from own childhood sooner rather than later).  We explained that we had to both wash off his foot and give it a proper examination.  He wanted nothing of it.  Nothing.  We then resorted to those stupid weak parent bribery attempts to get the kid to do what we wanted, "We will give you cool bandaids/chocolate/cookies/a pony/a new car/your own apartment" (why do we do this?  it NEVER works) and then, since none of those were takers, the stupid parent threats "If you don't let us look at it we'll have to go to the hospital and they'll stick a needle in it/it will fall off/it will turn green/it will grow another toe" (and why do we do this? not only doesn't it ever work but it is mean, too).  Nothin', for at least a half hour.  Wanna know what it took to get him to wash it off?

Letting him use the hose nozzle from the sink to wash it himself.  He stopped screaming and crying.

We finally got it cleaned off, and boy was it nasty.  Bloody, nasty, purple, right at the nail bed of his big toe.  Of course, he had to do this on a day when he hadn't been wearing any shoes for most of the day, so his feet are FILTHY - he looks like a farm kid from the 1800's in the summer.  His feet are practically black.  So despite the hosing off, he is still pretty dirty.  I keep asking what the hell happened.  Somehow, he unscrewed the vise from BDF's work desk (I have no idea how - I didn't have the hand strength to do it, so now I'm weaker than your average almost 5 year old).  BDF thinks he was trying to pick it up and just didn't have any idea how much it weighed.

He dropped it square on his bare foot.  Right on the big toe, just at the base of the nail bed.

Less than an hour after The Incident, though, he was back on the floor with BDF, using the screwdriver to fix the damn chair that started this mess.  Although I was glad he calmed down and the chair was fixed, next time I'll just go buy a new chair at Target - that's safer.

We gave him a bath that night and band aided him up real good, then sent him to bed.  Since then we've been washing it out and re bandaging it (and we need new Boy bandaids, as I can't convince him to go for either Barbie or the Care Bears), and keeping an eye on it, because he is walking on it and we don't think it's broken.  However, it keeps breaking open and bleeding again and again, so this afternoon I took him in to have it looked at, because I'm concerned about infection and though I know he's going to lose the nail, I'm worried about how it's going to grow back in.

Of course, the pediatrician doesn't like how it bumps up at the base of the nail bed, so she wants it x-rayed.

Fortunately, the radiology lab is less than a mile away, so we dash over there 5 minutes before closing (did I mention that I did this in the afternoon because I had to take my grandfather to have cataract surgery yesterday and follow up today?  No?  Sorry, didn't have time) and they take the x-ray.  We are in and out of the office in 15 minutes, including paperwork (note: this doesn't happen in DC.  Ever.)

Little Man says x-rays are fun and they tickle, and he liked that he got to lay on a special pillow that moved up and down like a ride.  I couldn't go in because of the 7 month gestational state of his brother.

Little Man was very brave.  I think he liked all the attention at the lab - and he got TWO stickers.

Since it was so close to closing, we won't get the results til morning.  If it's broken, he'll need to see an orthopedist to decide how to treat it since it's a pretty nasty wound. 

And he starts preschool in the morning.  He will be 5 next week.  He said next time he drops a vise on his foot, he won't be afraid of the x-rays. 

I told him he needs to give up the vises.

Whitening Not Needed Here

Apparently this is explore your body and its parts week here in the Fish Pond.  Actual incident:

I'm in the bathroom, washing my hands and finishing up when Little Man attempts to open the door.  Thinking he is playing with me, as he usually is, I turn off the light and unlock the door so he can open it.  When he opens the door, I hide behind it.  He doesn't see me, so he reshuts the door, and then opens it again, and then I jump out and shout, "Boo" really loud.  The kids usually love this game.  This time, though, this conversation ensues:

"AAAGGGHHH!  Mom!  Stop that!  We can't play!  Trout has toothpaste in her vagina."

Blink.  "Wha?"

"Come Mom, quick, Trout has toothpaste, the new toothpaste she got at the dentist, in her vagina, and she's crying."  I consider the possibilities as to what this means, none of them good, and possibly necessitating a trip to the ER.  ToothPASTE or toothpaste TUBE?  Either way....

"What the....."  I run up the stairs as fast as my pregnant belly will let me.  RT is standing at the top of the stairs, stark naked, with her hand over her vaginal area, just wailing.

"It hurts, Mommy, it hurts.  It BURNS!  AAAAAAAA!"  She shrieks.  Thankfully, just the paste.  Unfortunately, it is whitening with mouthwash in the formula.

Huh.  Yeah.  I grab the baby wipes and wipe her off the best I can, but she is shrieking about how much it hurts.  I throw her into the tub, instruct her in washing herself, and make sure she gets clean.  After she dries off, I apply diaper ointment to a very, very red area.

"Trout, honey, WHY did you put toothpaste in your vagina?"

"I didn't know what it would feel like."  Well.  I don't know, either, but I imagine about like a fire ant, or hydrochloric acid.  I'm all for experimentation, but somehow didn't think I'd have to worry about this yet.

"Honey, I hope you've learned a lesson.  Don't put anything there that doesn't belong there."

"Okay, Mommy, don't worry, I won't.  Mom, what belongs there?"

Guess it's time to have a little talk.