There was damage everywhere.  Trampolines were ruined, tons of shingles were missing (thankfully, not from my house).  And the icing on the cake?  No electricity.  If you’ve never experienced a loss of power with small children, you are missing small people asking you the same thing about eight bazillion times.  ”When is the power coming back on?!?!”

We got through the first hour and a half pretty easily.  I actually took a little nap while they watched the battery operated television we have.  Then it died.  So, I told them to just play!  It wasn’t dark.  So they did play blocks for a while, and they were ok (aside from fitting that famous question in whenever they could).  We got a bath and got ready for bed.  Still no power.  I was figuring that it would come back overnight.  No such luck.  They woke me up at 6:50 am.  I very calmly (but sternly) looked at them with my one open eye.

“Can you do me a favor?  Brush your teeth, get an outfit and brush your hair.  Mommy needs some coffee, so we’re going out for pancakes.”

That took the edge off.  We had a great breakfast, went to Downey’s House, I did my work and we came home.  And, YAY! We had power.

Everybody made it through the “big ordeal” just fine.  Except maybe for the dog.  He starts to whimper every time it starts to sprinkle when he’s outside.

One little snippet from the weekend that I have to share.  As we (which includes Tony) were out and about yesterday, there was a “gentleman” who just wouldn’t let me in to merge while I was driving.  He wasn’t very nice.  Tony let him know that while he was looking in his rear view mirror.  I’m sure the man read Tony’s lips while he said “Thanks for letting her in, Dickhead!”

Becca promptly said “Yeah!  You’re a stickhead, man.”

I’m sure glad she said THAT.

Next?  Hair cuts for the girls.  Then we were off to neighborhood happy hour.  Beer and snacks for me, and lots of kids, swings and a trampoline for the kids.  We had a great time, and we didn’t leave until midnight.  I must say, I have a great bunch of neighbors.  The only thing missing on Friday were mani/pedis

Saturday I got to see my brother and his family, and enjoy the AWESOME EASTER BREAD that my Dad makes.  He ships it up to us from Florida.  Yummy.  I thought for sure that the girls would be sooooo tired that they would have fallen asleep by 8:00.  notsomuch.  I think the bath (that I couldn’t skip, because they were absolutely filthy) woke them up.  Easter involved another egg hunt (in which both of my kids won prizes – THANK GOD!) and dinner with family.  Beautiful weather all weekend.

Today they spent the day at my sister-in-law’s while I went to work.  Another beautiful day.

I’ll end the update with a couple of things that Chloe said.  Last night she asked me if, when you go into the hospital to get your baby taken out, do they give you a tattoo?  I explained that no, that’s not how it works.  When she asked for more info, I told her that, WHEN I WAS A GROWN UP, I paid a tattoo artist to give me a tattoo.  She told me that she wants a star tattoo.  Then I told her how much it hurts.

She’s weighing all the facts.

At my sister-in-law’s today, while Chloe was inside and my SIL was outside, she opened the door and asked “Aunt Missy, is skin meat?”

Uh….OK.

And I’ll leave you with that.

As we were walking through the bakery (because I told Chloe she could get cookies), we browsed.  Have you seen the Costco cupcakes?  They are gigantic!  I mean, they have to be three times the size of a normal cupcake.  Chloe then asked me if the food in there is made for REALLY big people.  Yup, I guess so.  I do have to say, though, that I DIDN’T buy the coconut cream pie because it was just too damn big.  And I would have to eat the entire thing.

We paid for our groceries, and stopped to buy our customary churro.  As we were driving home, Chloe talked to me about what she did in school today.  They were talking about weather.  She said “Mom.  Weather is either a tiger or a sheep.”

:::huh?:::

OOOHHHHHHH, you mean either a lion or a lamb?  OK, I get it.

By the way, today got a lamb

So, it was St. Patrick’s Day and I went to get our personal taxes done started.  It was a beautiful day.  Sunny and warm.  Tony caught me on my cell just as I was leaving the accountant.  He needed some supplies for the bar…could I stop somewhere?  No problem.  I headed to Wal-Fart, which meant I had to pass the DQ.  (Now that I live out in the ‘burbs, I don’t drive past a DQ very often).  It was open!  I got right back on that cell and screamed to Tony “DAIRY QUEEN IS OPEN!!!!”  I never seem to stop on that very first day I see that it’s open.  I save it.  I plan for it.

The days passed.  We had fantastic weather.  There was bike riding, chalk drawing, basketball, roller skating, swings, bubbles.  All that good stuff.  Well, yesterday I made the plan.  I told the girls that we could head to DQ after dinner.  Ice Cream?  Sprinkles?  They were in.  As we were getting ready to head out, I looked at them.

Oh my gosh.  To put it nicely, it looked like they had a fun day.  Becca had a gigantic splash of mud on the back of her shirt from throwing various objects into the sandbox-that-is-now-a-science-experiment-because-it’s-filled-with-water.  She had biker shorts on. Both of their hair?  Mess.  Chloe had on some hand me down flowered corduroys that were too short.  I made her change her pants, brushed some hair, and had them cover up with some hoodies.  Becca looked at me and said “Mom!  Why do we have to look nice?  We’re going to get ice cream, not to a wedding!”

Smart ass.  She’s never even been to a wedding.

We had a great night, got to the DQ before there was a long line, and headed to the park for a couple of hours.  Chloe passed out on the couch as soon as we got home.  Slept in her outfit all night.

Sure beats what was happening a month ago…more than two feet of snow and being stuck in the house for a week.  Glad that’s a distant memory!

Enjoy whatever weather YOU have!!!!

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.

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!

They crack me up.

Rex had his first appointment at the groomer yesterday.  Thank God it’s just over the hill, because he was able to get through the car ride without any puke.  The ladies there all loved him, and he smells nice and pretty, his nails are trimmed and he’s soft.  Here’s the wild thing right here:

If I’ve had time to myself, why haven’t I written more?  Well, I’ve made my decision.  I’m going back to school.  I won’t start until September of 2010. (I may take one stray class at CCAC, but that’s only if I need to).  I’ll be “going” to the University of Phoenix.  But I’m going to do all of my classes online.  It’s not going to be cheap, but I’m planning on just getting a big honkin’ student loan and dealing with the debt later   I’m going to get a Bachelors of Science in Information Technology with a concentration in Web Development.  How ’bout them apples?

There are a couple of other things that I’ve been meaning to share.  One was about Becca.  She comes up to me while I’m brushing my teeth and said, “Mom, I like all the colors of the rainbow.  So I put that my favorite color was red. Because I like all the colors the same.  **insert long pause**  How do you spell purple?”  When I went to her open house, she had a memory book and I figured out why she said all this.  Favorite color?  Red.  Really, she doesn’t like red all that much. On a side note (and just so I remember this later in life), I really like how Chloe says ‘Lellow’ instead of ‘Yellow.’

We took Rex to the vet last week.  He did fantastic at the vet.  He was friendly to everybody, and got lots of compliments.  He was excited to be someplace new.  HOWEVER, the trip there didn’t go quite so smoothly.  I had put him in his crate in the back of the car. The vet is only about a 10-15 minute ride from our house.  Less than half way there, Rex poops.  We stopped to clean that up. A little in the crate and a little out.  Before we arrived in the parking lot?  Doggie puke.  Thank God I came prepared with a roll of paper towels and a bottle of spic & span.  We headed to pick something up from my brother’s house.  It’s two blocks away from the vet, so Rex was fine.  Then we had to head to the bank, about a quarter mile down the road.  More puke.  I cleaned that up and we headed home.  About two minutes from home, Chloe told me that he puked again.  And he was laying in it.  Fantastic.

We get home, I get the dog out of the crate, and I’m full of dog puke because HE’S full of dog puke.  Lucky for me, Tony happened to be home and awake, so he helped me give him a quickie bath.  What a day.  Thank God he’s cute

Speaking of cute, could I ask you a teensie-weensie favor?  Could you go and vote for Rex in the Cutest Dog Competition?  You can vote once a day (hint, hint).  Here’s the info:

The other day, our friends’ kids were at the house playing.  They live just a few houses away.  I’m not sure if the paretns are comfortable with me slapping their names all over the internet, so let’s just call them by their initials.  “C” is a girl, five and a half, and is about to start kindergarten.  “B” is a little boy who turned three in June.  The four of them were out playing in the yard and swimming (well, the girls were swimming.  B was hitting golf balls).  After a while, B decided that he wanted to come into the house with me.  I was cleaning up toys, so I told him that if he helped me clean up, he was more than welcome to come in.  He was a great helper, and just super cute.  (He was trying on Halloween masks.  Something about a body that small with a latex zombie mask on is just uber adorable!)

Well, all of the kids ended up coming inside.  The girls all had their MP3 players.  B doesn’t have one.  Becca is pretty good at taking care of her stuff, and she put hers into her little purse.  Now B is three, and a boy.  Needless to say, he can be a little rough at times.  And, he’s curious.  He wants to check everything out.  He headed over to Becca’s purse, obviously wanting to check out the MP3 player.

You could see the fear in Becca’s eyes.  She loves her MP3 player, and you could see the scene playing out in her head.  In that split second, her quick thinking little brain said to B, “B, you don’t want to go in there.  There’s poop in there.”  Her big, beautiful eyes looked up at me.  You could tell she was proud of herself for coming up with something so ‘original,’ and proud of the fact that it worked.  But I could also tell that she was looking for approval.

B said “Poop?”  So, I went along.  I told him “Yes, B, poop.  Becca likes to walk around with poop in her purse.”  The giggles poured out, even from B.  With that one sentence, I helped keep B away from Becca’s precious MP3 player AND gave her my approval.

After the fact, I wondered if that was the right thing to do.  I’ve always told Becca that she shouldn’t lie.  But her I was, pitching right in.  We haven’t sat and discussed the whole situation, but I’m still gonna stick with the fact that this lie was OK.  That’s what my gut is telling me to do.  So, I guess we’ll be discussing the fine subtleties of fibbing. But not tonight, because tonight is…

SLEEPOVER NIGHT.  Or at least that’s what they both think.  They’re headed up to the neighbors to sleep out in a tent.  The adults all expect that the kids will be coming home, and not sleeping out all night.  But if they DO decide to sleep out all night, that’s fine.  (My poor friend has offered to sleep in the tent with them, if they DO sleep out there).  Chloe has already asked me if she can come home if when she misses me.  Becca, however, has told me that she’s going to stay all night.  We’ll see how that goes

Really?

Now, if I were sitting with my girlfriend I would say something like “You know all the pretty ones are gay.  But he sure is nice to look at.”

But I was with my six year old.

So, I asked her what exactly it was that made him ‘hot.’   She said it was the muscles.  The whole ‘hot’ thing came from iCarly, I’m sure.

So, I finished up some work and we headed to the mall.  They had been bugging me to spend some time at Giggles and Smiles, so they got their wish and I got an hour to shop all by myself.  I actually tried on clothing. Crazy.

I treated them to some McDonalds and pajamas for their Build-a-Bears.  I spent more on those pajamas than I would have spent on pajamas for the kids.  Really.

We came home, they played, and I actually got to lay on the couch with Tony for an hour.

They’ve gotten along pretty well all day, and I’ve been productive.  Laundry is going, only one room looks like a tornado hit it (the playroom, of course!) and I’m in a fantastic mood.  I hope my good day rubs off on ya