And insert boring content here.

Ya miss me? I have been feeling rather quiet the last few days. We haven’t really been too many places, so I don’t have my usual repertoire of interesting stories.

I could tell you about blowing my lid at Belk after trying to exchange/purchase some items. And how I clearly told the lady the easiest way to do her job…to exchange the items on the receipt for a size smaller and add on the extra items, holding one item on the side to exchange with the item for which I did not have a receipt. She instead rung up all of the items together, which totaled $40 over the exchange, then tried to give me a gift card for the item that was returned without a receipt. Can someone please explain why I would want to pay $40 and then have a $8 gift card leftover?

Or I could write about Caleb giving away my sugar to the WAITRESS this weekend when eating out with my parents! That’s right he hugged our waitress and kissed her on the cheek. Flirt.

Then there was my mom’s visit. My dear mom. The one that still doesn’t comprehend no contact between her dog and our son. Why? Oh no reason other than him coming 1/4 an inch from possibly losing his eyesight in one eye. Because I don’t still get physically queasy when that flashes back in my head since I will never get rid of that image. And I certainly haven’t cried about it twice in the last month. I could go on to explain how she has rationalized an “excuse” in her head as to why it happened. Because he fell on her. No he fell beside her. And it hurt her. No at most it pulled on her collar. And she didn’t mean to react that way. No actually it was a combination of jealousy and she sensed of weakness. And he is now rightfully so afraid of dogs.

So my mom calls wanting me to ask Scott if it is okay if she puts Gilda behind a safety gate in the third bedroom. She has me risk life and limb to dodge the wasps that occupy our storage building entrance to retrieve a gate. And upon her arrival, let’s Gilda roam where ever she pleases and crap in the kitchen floor. She also downright begged that I leave Caleb with her and go to Target. Why should I? She’s obviously shown that, after Gilda attacked my child’s face, she still doesn’t understand nor respect that we do not wish for them to be in the same room together.

So if at this point you’re just feeling depressed and/or speechless, go have a look and a laugh at my finally completed 101 things!! Looka there. It only took me a year and a half to write!

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Got this in the mail. It made my day. I’m such a jerk. That’s right. Small balance writeoff. Since I may or may not have blatantly said, “I’m NOT paying it,” and slammed the phone down. Mwahahahaha (no clue what I’m talking about? read here) If I ever live anywhere without cable again, I’ll just dig a trench and bury the wire from the nearest neighbor with cable myself.

Oh yeah, and Lou-hoo-zah-her!

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Caleb ate a granola bar this afternoon for a snack.  He climbed out of the chair himself as I was busy grouping flowers.  Scott was a few steps away from him walking toward the sink and he just went ballistic and yelled “You forgot to clean ME UP!”  And smacked his fists against his legs or something.  We both whipped around like “Um excuse me?!”  I told him that was absolutely not any way to ask to be cleaned up and he knew better than that.  I questioned whether he could think of a better way to ask.  He kept trying to hug me to get out of it, whimpering and whining.  I stood my ground (while squatted down eye to eye with him).  His little ass downright refused!  Ugh!  Talk about making Mt. Everest out of a molehill!  Let me tell you.  He cried and whined and carried on for FORTY-FIVE minutes!!!  I told him he would have to sit in this chair at the table until he was ready to ask nicely.  It was so infuriating!  But as stubbornly as he pushed his refusal to ask, I pushed right back refusing to free him from that spot until he asked.  I left the room numerous times, and returned and re-explained myself again.  Finally after a long winded discussion of how it was rude and unacceptable ask the way that he did and it was important to use nice manners no matter who we are speaking too, and yada, yada, yada, a few more tears and snot swipes…he finally complied.  Tell me that at some point, a future wife, teacher, someone will thank me for this.  Turkey!

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Today was library storytime day. I woke up late, started slow, and left late, but I made myself/us go. I’m glad we did, because we got a HUGE stack of books (perhaps even so many that I feel okay skipping next week! Ha!), and we even re-checked out On Top of Spaghetti.  To go along with the nationwide summer reading campaign, “Catch the Reading Bug,” we made butterflies today.  So there actually was no storytime, just a long hour of waiting for the three librarians to come around with the box of foamies to select the butterfly parts and put them together.  It was a cute project, which all of the kids loved, but of course it made for a rather chaotic and time consuming event.  There were probably 75+ people there today, we graduated to two rows of chairs around the edge of the room!  Since we had plenty of time on our hands, I began to look around me.

To my left there was a girl with strawberry blonde hair, her son looked exactly like her.  He was perched in her lap, and as she tried to talk to her neighbor, her son repeatedly headbutted the wind out of her.  Each time she corrected him, he snuggled and nuzzled up under her chin.  As soon as she began to talk again, the process started over.

Over to my right, I noted that the lady with four kids (from last week) had returned.  The newborn was sleeping peacefully in the stroller, despite all the noise.  Her older child was very attentive and still overall.  The two middle children were a handful again.  The older boy was whining and whimpering as they came in.  She finally got him settled and he and Caleb exchanged silences about the monster trucks on his shirt.  But the younger little girl seems to be having a most difficult time adjusting to no longer being the baby in the family.  She constantly demanded all of her mother’s attention with a wide assortment of antics, cuddles, whines, and cries.  She climbed on the table and jumped up and down repeatedly, threatened to jump off the table, threw herself all over the ground, cried over everything, and climbed right back on the table to jump some more.  The picture frame above the table was about to fall off the wall by the time they left.

I looked around the room at all of the faces, and we all seemed to have at least a one thing in common.  Everyone had this glazed look in their eyes, as if to say, “If only I had the energy, and I weren’t so tired, I might just be pulling my hair out right now.”  The few faces that didn’t say that were full of creases and wrinkles that said, “These aren’t mine, I just get to spoil them and then, thank goodness, I get to send them back home to their parents tonight!”  I kind of laughed to myself.  It is nice to know that no one is super mom every day.

We gathered up bag full of books and headed up the stairs to check them out.  I always remind Caleb on the way up the stairs that we use our whisper voice up there.  When we reached the top, he eyed a boy playing a computer game with a monster truck on it.  I noted the game to him and told him to come along as I went to get in line.  The line was no more than 15 feet away, and Caleb is often pokey and slow about these things.  I knew exactly where he was, and that he would be along momentarily.  By the time I reached the line area, and turned back around to check on him, there was a guy dragging him along backwards by the upper arm!!!  Caleb was starting to whimper because a person he did not know was pulling him by the arm.  I don’t think he had time to figure out what was going on, and I was so damn stunned, I didn’t either.  The guy said something like “I got him for ya,” and as he walked away, he said to himself “library child saver.”  I think I muttered ‘thanks’ or something like that, but I just felt like saying “excuse me?!”  The more I think about it, the madder I get!  When I told Scott, the first thing out of his mouth was “what time does the library close?”  I *think* the guy worked there, I’m not sure.  He started fiddling with the books on the shelf to go back out and be filed away, straightening them and such.  I know he probably had the best of intentions, but you do not drag someone else’s child.  And certainly not even giving the child a chance to turn around and walk forward, he had to walk backwards about 15 feet.  He was not being disruptive, and I knew exactly where he was and what he was doing.  I couldn’t have gotten five steps in front of him before the guy grabbed him by the arm!  Not cool.  If there is ever a next time, I will get my wits about me faster and let him and his boss know that it was not appropriate nor necessary.  Am I overreacting?  What would you have done?

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I can’t decide which is worse, this Walmart experience, or a few months ago, when they bagged a glass bottle that I broke and sent the chard home with me. We went looking for the below mentioned bike today. Hubby had to work all day and we’re a bit lonely, so I figured, why not? We went to the closest Walmart and they didn’t have it. We tried out a few bikes there, wandered around the store and came out with the grand total purchase of a Dinoco helicopter from Cars.

I tried to call Scott and find out when he might be home. I didn’t get an answer, so I figured we’d head down to the Walmart about 15 minutes away. We headed straight back to the bike section and spotted the bike we were looking for on the very top rack, about ten feet in the air. I couldn’t even come close to it reaching my arm above my head. As I was pointing to it and showing Caleb, a young guy walked by and turned back and asked if we needed a bike down, in a very friendly, helpful manner. I told him yes, but of course he couldn’t do it, he had to page someone in that department.

So I stood and waited. And waited, and waited. About 15 minutes later, the same guy passed by again one aisle over, and I saw him cringe when he saw me still standing there. A few more minutes passed and I walked to the closest desk and told the girl I had been waiting for 20 minutes already, could she please page someone for bikes again. And I resumed my waiting post. Caleb was extremely patient. He just toyed around with everything in the area, and besides keeping an eye on him, I didn’t have to do a thing, he completely entertained himself, thank goodness.

After another 10 minutes, MY THREE YEAR OLD spotted a ladder. He kept asking me to go get the ladder to get the bike down. It was hanging on a pole just four aisles down. I called Scott, and waited a few more minutes. I went back to the same desk again and told her I was still waiting in bikes (straight in front of her desk, I kept seeing her looking at me) and now I needed someone to get a bike down and a manager. So I went back and I waited ANOTHER TWENTY MINUTES!!!! By point, I was livid, and I was not about to leave without letting someone know it. I had been standing there a damn hour!! Just as I was about to head to the desk for the third time and tell the girl to call her manager and give me the phone, a girl comes up that had passed by me no less than seven times walks up and says “somebody here need help with a bike?”

I said, “Yes that’s me, I’ve been waiting for an hour.”

Lo and behold, here comes the same guy that first asked me if I needed help. Yep, he’s the assistant manager. “Oh, nobody ever came over here to help you?” he asks! Well you see the damn bike still up there on the top shelf don’t you?!

“Nope, I’ve been waiting an hour,” I reply in a flat voice.

Turns out the girl who works in bikes, yet completely ignores the store intercom service, is afraid of heights. So she asks her manager if she can stand on the huge flat part of the ladder that is clearly made to stand on (it was sort of like a paint tray, only made to hold a person instead. Trust me, it was really obvious). She struggles with the bike until her manager offers to do it, and she immediately takes him up on the offer. So as we finally try out the long awaited bike, I ask about a discount for the last hour of my time. Do you know what he says?

“I could do 10%. $6.50.”

I told him it wasn’t worth it. And that his store’s service was absolutely ridiculous. I grabbed Caleb by the arm and we walked away, him crying because we weren’t getting the ‘con-stwuc-shun bike’ we waited an hour to look at. We marched straight up to the customer service desk. I composed a new text message contained the store manager’s name (who I assume was not present today) and the district manager’s name and phone number. After the returns line was cleared, I asked if the D.M. was the proper person to file a complaint with, or whether there was a 1-800 number.

“Yeah you can call 1-800-WALMART or call the district manager, but I don’t think that name is right anymore,” the girl replies. So I wait some more to find out the D.M.’s name. The customer service manager comes over and gets on the phone and calls…..who do you think? The assistant manager.

“What’s our district managers name?”

There is a pause, some more conversation and then I hear her voice lower (although not enough) and she says “I don’t know, blond hair, a white shirt…”

The other girl interrupts loudly and points and says “No not her, that girl over there.”

I announce loudly to the whole returns area that I’m the person that waited in bikes for an hour and got offered $6.50 for my time. One girl in the return line actually started laughing and shaking her head.

“Yeah, gray Carolina shirt, little boy with her. Yeah.” She hangs up. “Is there anything we can do to resolve the situation.”

“Obviously not at this point,” I said. We determined that the D.M.’s name was right after all, so I left.  I felt so bad for Caleb. He asked several times on the way home, and I told him we would talk to Daddy about the bike. Sad thing is, I didn’t even go there to buy it today, we only wanted to look at it!

If gas wasn’t so expensive, I would absolutely quit shopping at Walmart (with the exception of grocery stores, there is nowhere else to shop here). I find, in some instances, Target is actually cheaper. And they have better customer service and nicer stuff. Raise your hand, how many people have asked a Walmart employee where something was and been told they didn’t carry that item and walk away with the distinct feeling that the person was too lazy to find it?

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How stupid is there?

So as you know, we moved here at the end of April.  2008.  Rewind a few weeks before that and you could hear me steaming over the phone with DirecTV about them automatically debiting our final bill from our bank account.  The bank account we used to pay our bill online.  On time.  Every single month.  The bank account that allowed them to save on paper and postage every single month of our service.  Yes that one.  Apparently there’s some little footnote w.100.97 in the original contract that says they can charge the final bill to your credit card if one has been provided (you know, like when you do them the favor of paying online), even though our “contract” ran out in March of 2007 and we continued to keep the service for another year (it was the only choice where we lived, one mile outside city limits, but don’t think I didn’t beg Time Warner to extend there service 20 houses further).

Anyway, I told them in no way, shape or form did I wish to “way you move” my service on over to my new address.  I was in line for Time Warner like teenage girls at a Hannah Montana concert.  And I told them that.  “May we ask who you plan on using for TV service?”  Well not that it is any of your damn business, but Time Warner Cable.  They are cheaper, they are better, and they don’t go out every time a bird craps between my satellite and the southern skies.  So after much persistance, they finally took no for an answer, I pitched a tantrum about the final bill thing, got transfered to 17 different people, and solved absolutely nothing.  So they automatically drafted their final payment and we went our separate ways.  They even sent a “bill” about a month ago stating that I owed $0.00, because there is postage and paper well spent.

So imagine my surprise when hubby brings in a DirecTV envelope.  Another bill!  Just as I’m ready to call these people up and tell them they are killing the rain forest with their $0.00 billing statements, I notice that apparently I watched two pay-per-views!  The Fog and Saw 2.  What are we on now, Saw 8?  No don’t remember watching Saw 2 after canceling my service two months ago.  So I give them a call, and the lady proceeds to tell me that I watched these movies in April and May of 2006.  Yes 2006.  I think I actually laughed out loud on the phone.  And I may have said, “You’re kidding me right?”  And a few other things such as, “Can you snail mail the dispute a charge information because I don’t even feel like writing it down right now,” and “Well never mind then, I just won’t pay it at all.  Byebye!”  I just hung up on her.  She was trying to tell me all this BS about how I ordered it with the remote, thus it is stored on my receiver until the end of time, or I cancel my service, which ever comes first.  And also that I ordered it from the bedroom TV, which I absolutely know to be untrue, as we never used that TV (Caleb was sleeping in there, no I didn’t watch Saw 2 with my one year old) and sent the receiver back after the first few months.  She claims that pay-per-views ordered with your remote don’t get downloaded onto their system until they get the receiver back, so I guess I could have ordered them on a regular basis and never paid for them, then gotten a bill for a few hundred dollars upon moving?  Yeah, okay.  But if I still had my paper statements (that DirecTV feels the must send, again with the rain forest people!) from 2006, I could look back and see that I wasn’t charged for the movies then.  DirecTV, if you are reading this, this is the reason why your customers leave.  Think about it.  And you can go ahead and write that $8.54 off, because I won’t be sending it!

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Catch the Reading Bug is the national summer reading program for 2008. You can check with your local library to see if they are participating. Basically, the idea is to set a number of books to read over the summer, then write down the titles on a paper they give you as you complete your books. You bring your paper in when you’ve met your goal and get a few little fun things in return (probably depending on the library). At our story time today, the librarian let us get a jump start (the official kick off is next week). When we went to sign up, I asked how many, ballpark speaking, were parents signing up to read. She said 25-30. That’s it? Now if that is reading age kids, reading on their own, I say great, but my understanding is that this program is directed more at parents reading to their preschool aged children. Does that number seem a little low to you?

I often feel like I don’t read enough. If I had to choose one thing that I felt the most guilty about during his first year of life, it would be that I didn’t read to him. I found it very hard to read to a baby. I know they are getting something out of it, but come on, they hit the books, drool on them and call it a day. It is hard to read when you’re not getting a lot of feedback. At least for me. Now I love reading to him. He is still talking about the On Top of Spaghetti book that we checked out a couple weeks ago. He loves listening to the story, talking about the pictures, and even memorizes his favorite books so that he can “read” them back to me.

We do read a short book every day at naptime, but we go in and out of phases where we only read at naptime, to where we read several times a day. Right now we’re reading several times a day. We have 11 books checked out this week! We checked out 8 the first week, returned them all, got 8 more, and kept 2, and borrowed 9 more today! I just couldn’t imagine only reading 25 books to him over the course of the whole summer. That just seems…weird. I had just said to Scott a few nights ago, I wish someone would give me about $1000 to go in Barnes and Noble with! I love, love, love the beautiful hard cover picture books (like the Bear books by Karma Wilson), but they are expensive! $15-18 a piece adds up QUICK. I’ve even been looking for a website where you can search for children’s books by subject and/or the message you would like the book to have. For example, we are currently trying to encourage a little more independence in Caleb. He is walking a line right now between “do it myself” and “do it for me.” So if anyone knows of such a website where you can search by the “lesson” of the book, let me know!

Speaking of lessons, there were a few kids at the library that could have used a lesson! During the story time, one lady came in a few minutes late with her daughter. Two other little girls were sitting near the front. The third little girl plopped down beside them and wrapped her arms around one of the girls. The librarian knew all three of them by name, so I take it they are regulars that make things difficult. She told each one individually to keep their hands in their own laps and then made light of the situation to the rest of the group, chuckling somewhat sarcastically and saying that they were a little threesome. You could hear her searching for the right word between little and threesome so as not to offend the parents/grandparents, yet convey to the rest of the room that they were irritating and disruptive.

Another little boy came in late also, and he brought a few Hot Wheels type cars with him, so Caleb spent the entire story time focused on those cars rather than the story. He would inch a bit closer, then look at me, inch and look, inch and look. I kept shaking my head, and then he would scoot back to my feet and start over again.

The children’s section at our library is located downstairs. They have a movie type room with chairs in a semicircle and the middle of the floor open for kids to sit for story time, and a separate room where all of the children’s books are located. I always remind Caleb as we are walking into the library that we use a whisper voice inside. I do let him talk quietly once we get into the children’s section since it is downstairs away from the adult section. I always remind him on the way up the stairs again to use his whisper voice. On one hand, I think it is a great idea to have the kid’s area downstairs, so as not to disturb others. But on the other hand, some parents see it as an open invitation to allow their children to be rowdy and loud.

We picked up a few books before story time this morning, then we all headed down the hall. When we returned, Caleb and I were the first few people in the room. He went over to the puzzle table and started putting some pieces on a puzzle that had been left out. One of these little girls came back in the room and immediately said “Hey that’s MINE!” Caleb just kind of looked at her funny and moved on to a different puzzle. Then all three of the girls crawled around on their hands and knees all over the room screeching. I watched the librarian following them around to ensure that they didn’t cause any damage or get hurt. Their mothers were, of course, looking for books and completely oblivious for the most part. None of them had other children to tend to either. Caleb watched them for a few minutes then came running up and asked me to hold Charley. He dropped to his hands and knees and I caught his arm. “No, I don’t think so,” I said, “we’re about ready to go check out our books, do you want to carry your book and DVD?” One of the mothers ended up in front of us somehow. The entire time she was going up the stairs, standing in line, and checking out their books, she was trying to corral her daughter. She kept saying “Stormy, get over here NOW,” through clenched teeth. Yes, Stormy. Hopefully next week will a little less stormy!


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Dear Unwanted House Guests,

Just because I titled this entry as a Friends episode does not in any way imply that you are my friends. I don’t like you. You are not welcome. Pack your bags and get out. I am grown woman, hear me squeal. From atop my chair where I am standing.

Respectfully,
The New Owner of the Home

See, I told you I’d have something interesting to say by today. As I’ve said before, I am trying to switch to natural cleaners, so when it came to the unwanted house guests, I felt the same. Shortly after we moved in, I noticed several ants coming in through a vent or a window, not sure which. Those little teeny tiny black ants. Not okay, but if I had to choose one home invader, this would be it. They are annoying, pesky, and persistent little buggers. So to my beloved computer I went in search of a natural ant remedy. Well turns out there is a laundry list of this that ants do not care for. Cinnamon being one of them. Terrific I thought! I can sprinkle this around the vent, block the entry and freshen the room all at the same time. I admit, I was beaming with green-ness. Money saved: check. Better for the environment: check. Not gonna hurt the kid if he gets into it: check check. I cornered an ant for a cruel experiment, everywhere he turned, I tapped my cinnamon shaker in his path, and he avoided it like the plague until I had him encircled at which point he scampered over the cinnamon as quickly as possible and high tailed it back where he came from. Or I might have killed him, I forget. ANYway, like I said, I was so busy patting myself on the back for a job well done, that it wasn’t until a few days later until I noticed a whole herd flocking to the drips of sugared frosting in the bottom of the dishwasher like party goers to a spiked punch bowl. It was like a mosh pit around a dime sized spot below the plates. Disgusted, I ran the dishwasher on rinse, reinspected, then washed the dishes on ridiculously high settings like high temp wash, sanitize, etc. I grabbed my cinnamon shaker again, and laid down a solid line around the vent and the side door near the dishwasher. Once again, job well done. Until I noticed the damn marching parade on the counter yesterday! Okay, you win, I am officially annoyed with your presence. Get out, get out, GET OUT! Back to the internet I went. I’m no longer satisfied with a deterrent, it is time to get down and dirty. I searched for natural ant killer. I admit, I was about to send hubby to Walmart for the black market stuff when I saw a recipe to try first. I dumped some sugar and warm water in a cup lid, then plopped in a heaping spoon of Borax (one of my new cleaning agents, the one that actually is found on the laundry aisles in most grocery stores, however I am still on my quest for washing soda). I mixed up my lethal combination an then spilled it right into the middle of the parade. The marching came to a screeching stop. I watched a few line up to take the forbidden fruit, then went and brushed Caleb’s teeth. When I returned a few minutes later, there were more like ten ants there. I put Caleb to bed, and upon my return, found more like 40 or 50. We watched a movie, and by the end of the movie, there were only a few stragglers. So I can only assume that they were drawn to it, drank it, and then went off, to …well you know…die! Wanna know what happens? I know you do. According to Yahoo Answers, I say this so that I can blame them if someone smart comes along and says that’s horse manure, it doesn’t happen like that…so according to Yahoo Answers…you ready for this? It gives em gas. Yep. That’s it. Turns out ants can’t fart. Hey! There’s something you needed to know! Scott came by to inspect the progress at one point last night and said, “I see no exploded little ant parts on the floor.” We are sick, twisted individuals. So once again, I am patting myself on the back for being green. I *think* I saved myself some money too, because the ant bait I was about to send hubby to the store for…the main ingredient is none other than boric acid mixed with a sweetener to attract the ants.

So moving along, because, yes, this is titled bugs. As in the plural. Reinspection this morning only turned up a lonely one or two ants looking around like ‘where’d everybody go?’ We headed off to the library, which is totally irrelevant to the rest of the story, but I thought I’d throw it in there to update you on yesterday’s crucial post. I know you were on the edge of your seat. Turns out the do have a story time. It was, of course, yesterday. But that kind of works out because we acquired ourselves a library card, and checked out several books today. We will have them for a week, and can return them next Tuesday at story time, then get some more afterwards. I was pleasantly surprised by the library, they had a separate children’s room downstairs, which is sort of nice to not feel like you are interrupting others when you tell your toddler to whisper for the 57th time. In five minutes. We returned home just in time for lunch before naptime. As Caleb was finishing up his yogurt, I was unloading the dishwasher. I went to put something away in the laundry closet, which is only a few feet from the kitchen table. When I opened the door, I shrieked, jumped back, clutched my chest and gasped. In that order. Staring back at me was this:

Yes, HE HOPS.

I cropped the picture as such to give you a perspective of his ridiculously long antennae. As you can see, it goes all the way to the edge up the picture, at least twice as long as the bug itself. I assure you this was taken from several feet away with a zoom lens, the full sized picture makes him look like a speck on the concrete.  But he was big.  Seriously.  I doubt his body and legs would have fit on a half dollar.  And once you get above dime sized in my bug book…you’re too big and icky for me to kill with out a lot of drama and freaking.

Seconds after spotting him, the phone rings.  It’s my mom.  Of course.  I’m flipping out, and honestly wondering to myself if I can convince my husband to drive 40 minutes home from work to get it for me.  Probably not.  Plan B.  “Well can’t you just scoop him up in a paper towel and take him outside?”  Uhm.  Nooooo!  My mom is full of wonderful suggestions.  “Well what does he look like?  How many legs does he have?  Pinchers?  What color is he?  What shape is his body?  Hold on, let me get my bug pocket dictionary.”  Uhhh, I’m havin a little crisis here!  I don’t care what he is, I just want him back outside where he belongs!  You know, this is the type of bug that is too big to squish, I mean you don’t want to have have to break out the touch up paint for the wall!  Ew, ew, ew.  So I’m flailing around the kitchen, Caleb is being loud as usual, singing to his food, about his food, about the bug, giving a running commentary of the events and shrieking every time I shriek.  Finally I decide on a recently washed JIF peanut butter jar waiting to be recycled.  Of course the damn this is perched on uneven woodwork.  So I pull up a chair to climb in.  Why, I don’t know.  Perhaps, despite the fact that I’m 200 times his size, I need to feel superior to the bug in height, since he was clinging to the woodwork about eye level.  I also need to have a prepared launching pad, should he feel the urge to jump at me.  If he jumps and lands on the floor, I’m prepared too, since I’m perched in the chair.  Really, the chair was just the safest bet for all concerned parties.  “Rachel, calm down, don’t make Caleb afraid.  He’s not going to hurt you.  I like bugs!  Can you take a picture?”  Moooooooom!  So finally I get the JIF jar over the bug and he goes into spring mode and starts bouncing off the jar.  After several tense seconds, I got the lid screwed on.  Tightly.  I showed him to Caleb, who had coated most of his face, bib, and the table with yogurt painting by this time.  “Ew.  He is buggy.  And jumpy.” he proclaimed.  So the above pictures were actually taken mostly for the benefit of my mother.  I’m sure she’ll break out the picture dictionary to identify him in the unlikely event that she does not recognize him off the top of her head.

Yep, it has been a busy day.  Believe it or not, none of these events were exaggerated in the least for story-telling purposes.  So all of you bug loving people, just go ahead and get a good laugh at my expense.  It’s okay.  I know I’m ridiculous.

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Caleb’s grandmother got him a kitchen today. I got it out of the car once I got Caleb settled down for a nap. “Oh I’ll just throw this thing together while he’s sleeping,” I thought. Yeah. Right. FIVE HOURS LATER. You think I’m kidding. I worked on this thing non stop from 2:30 until 7:30. Should it have taken that long? Probably not. I’m not especially handy with these types of things. It wasn’t that I did it wrong, I’m just slow. It is very sturdy though.  Once he woke up from his nap (and I had about seven of the forty some parts together), he helped me.  And by helped, I mean he stepped all over me, cooked me seven zillion meals, crammed bananas in my face, and poured (luckily pretend) water over my head.

The “indoor” side

The “outdoor” side

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Please excuse my prolonged absence, but we have been working hard to get things in running order here.  Organize the chaos if you will.  I am happy to say that we got an enormous amount done today.  It is beginning to look like we live in a house with separate rooms instead of a giant storage building.  Our bedrooms look like we are Amish folk.  Our bedroom has a bed and a dresser.  That’s it.  We have so much more closet space (to give you an idea, the closet in the “master” bedroom at our old house…plastic hangers had to be turned at an angle so that the door would close, and it was slightly wider than my shoulders).  Many things that did not fit in the closet before now do.  Plus we have an extra bedroom with a large closet.  Scott put on three deadbolts today.  I have never lived in a house that didn’t have any deadbolts!  Only knobs with a twist lock on the inside.  A lot of good that does for the two doors that have glass windows in them.  I was a nervous wreck about Caleb too.  Terrified he was going to wake up during the night and we wouldn’t hear him.  Why he would go outside I don’t know, I’ve talked to him a million times about how important it is to NEVER go outside without us…trust me…we had that huge pond behind us at our old house and a highway in front of us…not only have we talked about it since we moved there just before he turned one, we also put up safety gates across the back doors.  The front door posed problems for most adults to open.  But you can only “talk” to a three year old so much, especially one who would live outside if we’d let him.  So I am happy to have those locks up.  Make sure no one goes in or out unnoticed.

We turned in our keys at our old house last night…wasn’t that a treat.  Some of you might remember the stove incident (here and here), well the same daughter (our landlord is very elderly, so her two daughters were handling everything) came over to look at everything.  We explained which problems were pre-existing when we moved in.  Told her about the heat pump Scott put in AT COST to replace the propane and window unit.  HUGE improvement there.  New thermostat, fixed a problem with the ice maker.  Painted.  Patched about a million nail holes.  Pressure washed the deck.  Etc, etc.  We had assumed we would need to repair the ground where our dog dug a few holes and such.  We filled in the holes what I thought was reasonably well and put down enough grass seed to cover 2000 square feet (which was WAY overkill) and a bail of hay to cover it.  Silly me, I didn’t think you were supposed to put down enough hay so that it looked like a barn stall floor and you couldn’t see the ground underneath, but that was how much the nit-picking daughter expected.  She brought her mother’s nurse along to “help look for issues.”  She started walking around the yard complaining about every little dip and cranny, asking why they were there!  Most of these were nowhere near our dog, and were there when we moved in!  Picking up rocks from the ground and asking about them!  Uuuuhhh, this lovely little planet we live on called Earth has some naturally occurring ROCK in it!  I know, who’d a thunk it, it is the latest news in from NASA.  She asked the nurse for her opinion; “All I know is when you mow an uneven yard it tears up your mowing deck.”  Really?  Well maybe you can buy me a new lawn mower, as I’ve been mowing your uneven yard for two years.  What do you want us to do, re-bury the septic system???!  So anyway, you get the point, she nit-picked every little thing.  We had to go back and fix more things before she would agree to return the deposit (money we needed for our rent here).  She is trying to rent it out to someone else unsuspecting, and when her mother passes away, she will kick the person out so she can sell everything.  We set an old dog crate out at the road and told her if it wasn’t gone in two days, we would come back and dispose of it.  So she says, “Now how does that work, will someone know it is free if you put it out there?  You think someone will just take it?  I just don’t know about that.”  The damn thing was gone in less than two hours.  Before we even had a chance to finish our second round of repairs.  I am just glad that it is over with.  I can just focus on making a new home here.  It is always such a good feeling once you no longer have “the old place” and cleanup hanging over your head.  I know this because I have moved from home for 17 years, to dorm 1, to my parents, to dorm 2, to apartment 1, to apartment 2, to apartment 3, to awful place, to previous house, to here.  I speak from experience.

I think Caleb and I will go on a walk around the neighborhood tomorrow!  I promised him today, and we forgot.  He did play outside for a bit while Scott and I moved things to the storage building.  A few more days like today, and we will be all unpacked!

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