Make it stop.  This kid refuses to nap.  He will do anything but nap.  I had him in the bed for over three hours today and he never did just give it up and catch a snooze.  And he needs one so badly.  Right before bed, everything falls apart.  He turns into nightmare child, hitting and kicking and screaming.  Completely out of character.  Most nights I’m able to just take a deep breath and just let him scream (all while feeling like I want to rip my hair out).  Last night he had a meltdown because he couldn’t see the lines on the toilet paper to tear it evenly.  Tonight it was the process of getting undressed that sent him into a screaming wall pounding rage.  I just hate dealing with it because I know it could be avoided I guess.  He hasn’t napped in several days.  I’m now experiencing what it is like to have a kid who falls asleep in 15 minutes though (that’s new to me).  The night before last was a new moon, so he kept me up pretty much all night.  Then would not take a nap the next day.

We’ve been house hunting hard.  Things are all up in the air right now.  It is all exhausting me.  Meanwhile, our current house is falling apart.  The ceiling is leaking, and not far from falling in.  Every time it rains, we have to blockade off the area with Caleb’s  Cranium Fort stuff.  Nice huh?  Then there’s the kitchen sink.  It also leaks.  I took a shower yesterday morning, then got Caleb a bath about an hour later.  Several hours after that, I started a load of laundry.  No harm right?  Yeah, not until I was crawling behind Caleb’s train chasing it with a police car and he called out “River Mommy!  A river!”  I look in front of us and sure enough, there is a river flowing out of the cabinet below the sink halfway across the kitchen already.  I saw the laundry soap residue in the sink.  So I headed to the laundry closet.  It has overflowed the drain and there is another gallon or two of water under the washer.  Super.  Oops, gotta pee.  Haha, not done yet.  Yep, both toilets overflowed and the tub is full of brown water and toilet paper.  AWESOME!!  Did I mention that this already has already happened in the eight short months that we’ve lived here?  Tree roots are growing into the pipe and they stop it completely up every six months.  I was told by the last plumber that he had been here several times for the same problem.  They have yet to just run a new drain line further from the huge tree.  Understand why we’re moving again?  Good.

And I almost forgot.  Conveniently, our dog slipped his collar over his head and took off at some point last night.  The shelter finally picked him up mid afternoon about five miles away.  $100 we didn’t have.  Here ya go.  Can I wash dog bowls or something?  Seriously the last thing we needed right now.  So he’s back home from his grand adventure, complete with a microchip installed (required, so that next time they can just call you to come pay your fines and get your dog back).

Anyway, I’m off to clean up the mayhem that has taken place during the last two days of plumbing nightmare.  Like I said, sleep is for the weak, no matter how exhausted you are, there’s always more to do.  Ahhhhh!  *runs away screaming waving arms in the air*

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In honor of my blogoversary, I am actually making a cake.  Okay so it isn’t really for this occasion.  It is my first trial cake for Caleb’s birthday.  I’m attempting to make a 3-d Herbie cake.  I figure if I start now and bake two cakes per week, I should be able to have a halfway decent looking one by the end of March.  I’ve looked up lots of cake decorating tips and how-tos, and I think I have settled on a chocolate cake with buttercream icing covered in marshmallow fondant.  I have the layers built up right now, next step is carving the shape.  Depending on how embarrassing the results are, you may or may not be seeing a picture.

In the meantime, you can look at this absolutely incredible cake that is printed out for reference in the kitchen.  If Debbie Does Cakes was not located clear across the country in the Bay area, she would be making us a Herbie cake.  But this cake is so incredible, it would about kill me to slice it.

Yep, there’s a cake under there.  Amazing isn’t it?  Continue to be amazed by checking out her Flickr stream.

Photo credit: Debbie Does Cakes

In rather tragic and ironic news…when going to obtain the makings for my first trial Herbie cake, the main Herbie Caleb got for Christmas (there were 3 in the set, but only one looked exactly like above Herbie) was lost at Walmart.  I raced back up there immediately, searched under peoples’ cars, in shopping carts, in the lane we checked out (where I honestly think it was dropped because I heard something fall), I asked customer service, I asked our checkout girl, a sweet couple in line helped me look, I waited on cars to move where we had been parked.  Blah.  He’s gone.  The same one I fished out of the toilet.  Honestly, (and surprisingly) I took it harder tonight than Caleb did.  It just about killed me to come back here empty handed.  And while I’m telling all…I actually cried on the way home from searching for him.  Stupid, I know.  I’ll blame it on all the stress here lately.  I’m just absolutely sick about it though.

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Yep, you guessed it.  We’ve been peanut butter shopping.  In the next state.  No really.

The top 10 signs.  All ten jars of it.

See how the oil is separated on the top?  The girl glanced at one jar and was like “Um, do you want to get a different jar?”  Obviously her mom was a Jif Mom.

And best of all, my husband has come to the dark side.  He is a bit of a picky eater, and the first few times I offered to fix him a sandwich with this peanut butter (the choices are wide here, we have a variety), he said he’d stick with Jif.  Finally he tried it, and the Jif has been sitting in the cupboard untouched ever since.  He fixed a sandwich with Jif the other day and was completely grossed out!  I could hardly believe it.  He said he’ll never eat it again.  When you’re used to peanut butter that contains peanuts and salt, the addition of several other ingredients, such as molasses, ruin the taste.

You might be a mom if you drive to a different state to buy peanut butter.

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Pre-reading quiz: What makes this post different from anything I’ve ever posted, and has a specific functionality in this post?

I was standing here by the computer tonight looking at something Scott was doing.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Caleb shoot down the hall to the bathroom.  I actually thought to myself how nice it is once kids gain that big step of independence.  You don’t even have to take them to the bathroom, they can pretty much get it done themselves other than a few buttons and zippers here and there.

All of a sudden a wail pierced the silence.  I headed down the hall and in the ten or so steps it took me to reach the bathroom, Caleb was screaming and tears were streaming.  I thought surely he had slammed his finger or some other…ahem…extremity in the toilet seat.  But I hadn’t heard a thing.  I kept asking what was wrong and he could even speak.  He just pointed at the toilet and continued wailing like a banshee with his pants around his ankles.  Scott was on my heels to see what all the commotion was about.  He kept asking what was wrong as well.  We could get no words from the bright red tear stained face.

About that time, I stepped back a bit for a better look in the toilet…the right angle if you will.  You know, to see back in the bowels.  That’s when I saw it.  A silver bumper frowning at me.  License plate number Oscar-Foxtrot-Papa-8-5-7.  The 53 emblazoned upside down on the white paint with red and blue racing stripes fading into the deep, dark porcelain abyss.  I let out a huff as I pulled up my sleeve.  Yes that’s right folks, I plunged my arm over wrist deep down into the yellow water for retrieval.  You want me to make you some sandwiches?

Scott hadn’t been able to see what was wrong until my hand emerged with the little love bug.  Who obviously I must love dearly.  Almost as much as my own little love bug who accidentally dropped Herbie down there.  Scott scooted by me in our painfully small bathroom to comfort the still-wailing child.  I began running hot water over Herbie and my hand.  At that point, I started to lose it.  It is just cruel to laugh at a three year old who is obviously upset beyond words, so I turned my head and hid my face as I stifled my laughter.  Within thirty seconds or so, his face had returned to a pale shade and I lost it.  Mine turned bright red and tears welled up in my eyes as I laughed hysterically.  By that time, Caleb found the humor in the situation also after a little reassurance that Herbie was okay, had not been flushed and would not have to be thrown away (like the paci that landed in the toilet this summer).

PS I honestly would have taken a picture had he not been so upset.  You probably can’t decide whether to say “Aaaw man!” or “Thank God!”

Answer to the quiz: I never use capital letters in the title with the exception of “I.”  They were used in this post in combination with the phonetic alphabet to write Herbie in the john.

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Merry Christmas

Love,
The Cats

Warning, this picture will un-blur on mouse-over. I’m giving you an option not to see the carnage!  It isn’t horrible per say.  Mainly becaue I didn’t include the head in the picture.  It was….up on the porch…on the doormat of course.


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I’ve been busy behind the scenes the last two days.  Upgrading my wordpress install and adding/subtracting a few things here and there.  The fun stuff first.  I’ve added a chatbox over there in the sidebar.  No email address required.  It refreshes every five seconds, so you can chat amongst yourselves or leave a message, let me know if you find something cool you wanna share, anything.  Let me know just how you combat crumbs in your couch.  For me personally, on the 8th day, God invented the dustbuster.

Also, I created a visual site archive.  By created, I mean I downloaded a cool wordpress plugin that allowed me to create a neat site archive.  Snazy if you will.  Be forewarned, it is a bit computer intensive, so enter with care if your computer locks up easily.  You can click on each month (or date) on the chart and a snipet of the post will pop up, many including pictures since I post so many.  A lot of the photo thumbnails have gotten me clicking around in the archives trying to guess just what the photo was.  Some of the pictures, you really can’t tell.  So it is a good boredem buster for those who might be sitting at work bored to tears with nothing to do.  I’m not mentioning any Amber names.

Now for the not as fun addition.  You may notice a disclaimer made its way onto the navigation bar.  This was brought about by a recent rather uncalled-for comment left on an old post.  It is something I’ve been meaning to do for a while.  I tried to keep it as short and to the point as possible, even somewhat humorous.  I suppose it is one of those necessary evils when the situation arises.  So that wraps up the fun for tonight!

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Yes, instead of working on my DVD projects that are looming over me, I instead chose to decorate my blog this morning.  I must say, I am quite pleased with how it turned out, and I wish I had done it sooner, so you might just see these until mid January.  It will help ease me into the new year.  If you haven’t heard me mention it, I hate the beginning of the year.  It always feels so cold and distant.  The warmth of Christmas is gone and it is back the the hum drum.  So no griping when my decorations are still up after New Year’s Day!  :)

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My mom wanted to go shopping today.

In this.

Granted, this is a current view of the storm which is now north of us, but it gives you an idea of what we were dealing with.  Virginia, Maryland, DC, New Jersey and Pennsylvania are under there somewhere.

So we went shopping.  I stood in the toy store for an hour and a half waiting on her to come meet us.  We went to the bookstore for another hour and a half and hung out reading and looking at children’s books.  Despite not going to that many places, I spent most of the day standing and getting Caleb in and out of the car in the pouring down rain, and I am just exhausted.  Let me tell you how exhausted I am.  Not only did I eat peanut butter graham crackers dipped in milk for dinner, but when I ran out of milk, I poured some from Caleb’s sippy cup in my little dish so I didn’t have to get up.  That exhausted.  My mom stresses me out.  I had to drive through a really congested part where 6 major interstates merge together, and it was exactly 5pm, pouring rain.  I’m glad to be home and I can’t wait to fall in bed!

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I know this is a busy time of the year.  And I know I ordered a lot of crap online.  But if anyone should be complaining, it is the UPS woman (they have those?  They do here).  Not you.  I think you have brought about three packages.  The UPS lady has you beat.  By a lot.  She smiled and was quite polite when she was still scrambling to make her deliveries at EIGHT THIRTY at night!  But dear mister postman, why, why, WHY do you refuse to knock on the door?  I mean I may have appreciated that you didn’t knock yesterday, as I was standing in the hallway in a towel playing ball with the kid.  But you could still knock without peering through the glass.   But really, I need to know why you felt the need to leave my Borders.com order sitting in the rain rather than just knock on the blasted door.  You’ve been rude since the first day we moved here.  You barely acknowlege people when you are spoke to, but damn, the box would have fit inside the storm door, or you could have just….gasp…KNOCKED.  You don’t even have to stay and wait on me if I’m that scary.  Just let me know so I can get my package out of the pouring down rain.  Thanks.

Sincerely,
Your irritated customer on your route who doesn’t want to file a formal complaint because then they’ll make you call me on the phone and address the issue.  God knows I don’t want you to have to speak to me.  Plus it’s the holidays.  I don’t want to get you in trouble.  Scrooge.  Bah Humbug!  (I know about the complaint thing because I called when we were living in our previous house.  The super nice lady bent an envelope from Shutterfly to wedge it in the mailbox.  She was nice about it and apologized, and she always brought all my packages to the door with a smile.)

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Oh, hi.  Sorry didn’t see you there.  I really do know how to count, I’m not practicing.   I’m just trying to keep myself from blowing a gasket.  Again.  I’ve been doing a LOT of counting to myself lately.  Is it something in the water?  See I’m all about the positive “no.”  Saying no in a positive way, or putting a positive spin on it.  When he asks something like “Can we get this car at the store?”  I say something like “Well let’s ask Santa for it for Christmas,” instead of just flat out “No.”  Well it seems I’ve been positively saying no so long that he has forgotten what the hell it means!!  I find myself just blurting out the word loudly more times than not now.

By bedtime the other night, my last nerve had been long since gone.  Probably lost it around lunch that day.  We were sitting on his bed and I was lecturing, for lack of a better word.  “Let’s try to have a better listening day tomorrow.  I need your ears open, when I ask you to do something, let’s get it done quickly on the first try so we can go do something fun……………”  He interrupted my rambling with this smart ass tone and said “Just let me go to sleep now.”  *Eyes bug out of head*  Does he tottle off in the middle of the night while I’m dozing to some little class that teaches him this stuff?!  I wanted to scream!  Sometimes things like that catch you so off gaurd that you cannot even react properly.

Thank GOD he’s cute.  He can sense when I’m at my boiling point and need a break unbelievably bad.  Like right now.  He decided not to nap today.  His little heiny is laying in there with the door shut anyhow.  On strict orders for it to be silent and not to budge from that bed.  He had better not breathe off the side of that bed!  Now I’m left debating whether to take him outside.  On one hand, I want to take him out and get some of that energy out, but I told him he needed to go right to sleep so we could go out when he woke up, and as far as I know, he’s awake.  We shall see when my last glorious twenty minutes have passed.

Lightbulb moment: There is a full moon coming up in three days.  Perhaps it is contributing to his ability to pluck all my nerves by 11am and my inability to hang on to my nerves.

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