Author Archive
Meatballs
Posted by: | CommentsWell, the newest addition to our family is growing up and leaving hair everywhere. Remember Rex?
Well, he’s becoming a man 
Even more so. I’m not sure if you remember the post about his girlfriend or not. The girls asked about that, but didn’t have any probing questions. And I’m going to start this story off as delicately as I can. Let me just say that Rex isn’t neutered.
He prefers to lay on his back, legs all spread apart. Well, a few months ago, when the…um…”boys” popped out, Chloe had some concern. I’m going to tell you exactly what she said, but let me first say that Rex’s belly (and those other various parts) is white with black spots. Just so happens, that the black spots landed exactly on the boys.
Chloe came running into the kitchen, screaming in a panic.
“Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom!”
“What!!!” I screamed. I was hoping nobody lost a finger.
“Rex has meatballs coming out of his but!”
“Um, what?” I didn’t really make the connection right away. It took a second. But it did hit me before I actually SAW the dog.
As I chuckled under my breath, I gently told Chloe that they were not, in fact, meatballs. All these different words (both medical and slang) flew through my brain. I decided to keep it as simple as possible.
“Chloe, those are his boy parts. Girl parts are inside. Boy parts are on the outside.”
She looked at me, and I saw the wheels turning in her head. Obviously, the next question HAD to come.
“Do Dad’s boy parts look like that?”
I simply answered “Well, Dad’s not a dog. If you want to know anything else, you’re going to have to ask Dad.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
Don’t Worry. It Will Grow Back.
Posted by: | CommentsI’m hoping that there’s no more snow this year. Spring starts in just two weeks. I can handle a flurry or two. But please, nothing we can measure in inches. I’ve had enough. Do you wanna hear my story about the first snow of the year? Sure you do.
It was New Years Day. There was some fresh snow on the ground. I actually cooked. I made a pork roast, kraut and mashed potatoes. We were having a pretty lazy day and the kids were being good. Great way to start off the year. We ate dinner a little early (smelling it all day can do that to ya!), and the kids asked if they could go out sled riding.
Let me interject a little something here. Back before Tony and I got married, I had one condition. Not about the marriage, but about kids. I told him that if and when we had kids, he would have to be in charge of any of the snow related activities. I hate the snow. Don’t like being in it, feeling it, smelling it or looking at it. That was the deal. And I’ve held him to it. I’m not quite sure why we live HERE, where it SNOWS. But, whatever.
So, back to January first. Sled riding. Fine. The day before I had just bought new snow pants for the girls. We get them all bundled up like Randy from A Christmas Story, and out they go.
So, off they go to the backyard. We have a gigantic sled riding hill just past the yard. It’s not actually OURS, but belongs to the homeowners association. Anywho, there were some older boys sled riding earlier in the day, and the temptation just sucked the girls in. And I had the house to myself for a while. Bonus. I even took a picture of them out in the snow:
Not a lot of snow, but enough for a few rides. Well, here’s the next picture I took:
Yup, that’s Chloe in the emergency room. Earlier in the day the boys had built a little ramp in the snow. Tony was steering the kids clear of the ramp. But as the kids got braver and braver, they went higher and higher up the hill. As Chloe went down, she hit a little divet and headed straight for the jump. And landed. On her shoulder. And broke her collar bone.
I didn’t realize at first that she had broken her collar bone. Nothing was sticking out. But her cries. They went straight through my heart. That’s how I could tell that something was REALLY wrong. So, we packed it up and headed to the Emergency room. When we told her that we were going to the hospital, the cries stopped. I think she was happy to be going so that she could get some relief from the pain.
She was a total trooper. Calm and collected the entire way. Polite with the doctor. Not complaining a bit. Here’s the next picture I took:
We had a few rough nights with her sleeping, but all in all she was a great patient. And because I waited so long to tell you this little story, I can tell you the ending. Which rocks. She had to wear the sling for about four weeks. We went to the orthopedic doctor on that last day, they took another x-ray and decided that she could officially remove the sling. In the doctor’s office, after the doctor left, I handed her the sling and asked if she waned to put it in the trash. She gladly grabbed the sling and slam dunked that thing.
We headed outside of the doctor’s office, sunlight on our faces. Chloe looked at me, raised both arms over her head (which she hadn’t done in exactly four weeks) and exclaimed “This is the best day of my life!!!!”
She just cracks me up.
OK…I’ll catch you up on some more stuff soon!
Let’s Pretend It’s December
Posted by: | CommentsOK, we’re just gonna pretend that it’s December. Looks like December outside. Except for the Christmas decorations. Anyway….
***note: If this were a movie, the screen would get all wiggly, ‘cuz we’re going back in time…***
The Christmas buzz was in the air. The kids were ready to be done with school and score some loot. But here’s the thing. Becca REALLY wanted one of those darn zhu-zhu pets. Along with every other kid on the face of this Earth. A few weeks before the Christmas break began, my niece-in-law (who we’ll just say is my niece, because it’s easier) asked me if I had bought Chloe a zhu-zhu pet for Christmas. Nope. Hadn’t done it. Chloe wasn’t really asking for one all that much. She went through a few days around Thanksgiving saying that she wanted one. But then it changed to something else…and something else…and something else…
You get the idea.
Well my niece found some zhu-zhu’s online for a good price and got one for Chloe. Which was great. As I thought about this situation, a vision of loving sisters danced in my head. And I thought it would be a little experiment. They had been getting along great (I’m sure it had something to do with my Santa-Cams-in-every-lightbulb-ever-made story). So, I had this vision of them sharing this gift. Really.
I did consider getting one for Becca. My sister in law called me the Friday before Christmas (as I had three children in my car on the way to school). She was at Wal-Mart and they had seven more left. They were only letting customers purchase one. She got one for her daughter. Could I get there in time? I still had to drop off these darn kids!!! Needless to say, I didn’t make it.
We open our gifts on the morning of Christmas Eve. (Yup…maybe I’ll tell that story later. Maybe I already have. I dunno). We would see Tony’s family (and aforementioned zhu-zhu pet) at Tony’s sister’s house that night. We get there, see everybody, chow down on some fantastic Christmas dinner, and get to the gifts. The kids tear in. I’m watching Chloe with excitement and anticipation. She opens the zhu-zhu, smiles a gigantic smile, runs up to Becca and says “Becca, WE got a zhu-zhu pet!!!”
My heart about exploded. I was so proud. They were so happy. Christmas is beautiful.
Really? Did you think it was gonna end there? Nope. After about an hour, Chloe wasn’t so excited about the sharing. Becca wasn’t complaining (which is not exactly like her). She just sat on the couch very quietly. I did the correct mom thing. We talked about it. She presented her case in a very lady-like, calm manner. Which also made me proud. I told her that the best I could do was to try on the day after Christmas. I would call the stores.
Well, I called. Nothing. So, we head to Amazon and find a zhu-zhu pet with a couple of accessories. But, even with the super-duper-fast-and-expensive shipping, it wouldn’t come until Tuesday. She was OK with that, and started counting down the days. I wasn’t about to spend fifty bucks on this toy and shipping, so I took the offer that Amazon always has for the $40 credit if you open a credit card. Like I need another credit card. But I digress…
That Monday, as I was headed off to work, the UPS man walked up to my car. There it was. Becca’s zhu-zhu.
I ran it up to her. I was the hero. I was better than Santa because SHE got to pick out her zhu-zhu. Mom saved the day! She rocks! Mom can always make it better.
I think the last day they played with zhu-zhu’s was December 30. Which will lead us into New Years Day. And this one goes down in history…
Back From My Winter Hibernation
Posted by: | CommentsWinter kicks me in the ass every time. And this one was extra bad! The snowiest month EVER in Pittsburgh? Blech. Add to that a week with no school, a January with a kid with a broken bone (story to follow, don’t worry 
), and the constant struggle of what I want to be when I grow up.
But, spring is near (even though there is a fresh 4 or 5 inches on the ground). I almost peed in my pants a little last week, because I was so excited to see a squirrel.
So, I have some stories to catch you up on. Should take about a week or so to play catch up here. I’m sure I won’t cover EVERYTHING that you missed…but here’s the preview of potential blog post titles: 1) Mom Rocks more than Santa 2) New Year, New Bone Growth 3) Boy Parts and 4) That Famous Rat.
So there’s your teaser. Just like they do for the news. You’ll have to stay tuned to get all of the details…
Sorry about the ugly :(
Posted by: | CommentsWell, I have to apologize about the ugly that’s all over the blog. I had a little boo-boo.
Now I’ll admit, I hadn’t written for quite a while. Then, a few weeks ago, I decided I felt like writing again. So I log into my blog. Across the top of my admin screen, it’s screaming at me “UPDATE TO WORDPRESS 2.9.2 NOW.” So, I figured “what the hell.” Writing a post could wait the half an hour it takes to update wordpress.
Um, wrong.
Just like a man who doesn’t read the instructions before he tries to put something together, I just clicked away. It started off well. I skipped the back up, since I hadn’t written in so long. I figured I had a backup on my computer from December (I later came to find out…also wrong.)
Everything went chugging along, until I got the message that said “You must be running MySQL 5.0 to upgrade. Upgrade failed.” (OK, maybe I shouldn’t have put quotes there…but that’s how I remember it). And that was it. No going back. I wasn’t able to do ANYTHING. I started getting tons of spam comments, waiting for me to approve them (174 to be exact).
I neither had the time or the desire to dive into the project it would be to just get wordpress up and running again.
But tonight I did it. I did all sorts of technical crazy stuff. I switched databases…I imported from the old one…my alarm is going to go off in six hours.
So, for now, have some ugly. I’ll make it pretty and tell you all the stories from Christmas up until this crazy, snowy February.
Good night!
