I’ll take the “Free to good home” kittens, please

A little insight to my mind. I dislike begging, scavenging, dumpster diving, taking things with a huge “Free” sign in someones yard, especially when you need to repair the item, aren’t even sure the item even works, or don’t even know what it is and take it anyway.

So Tim acquired the dumpster to put the pool and deck pieces into this past weekend. He has since put bunches of wood in it, but he’s not done putting the deck in it and the pool isn’t halfway removed yet. The fence surrounding the wrecking pit is still up. When Tim was moving the first bit of wood that was small, clean cut, and neatly stacked into the dumpster, a seen a car stop, a man come out and talk to Tim. Tim informed me the man wanted the wood and said he’d come back later to get it. Only he didn’t come back. That was a few days ago.

Now it’s Monday. I’m feeding the dogs when I see a white car u-turn on the street we have the dumpster on. It looked like he was coming from directly in front of the dumpster, although I am still unsure. I ask Tim if the guy ever came back to scavenge the wood and he said no, he believed his girlfriend talked him out of it. Apparently, the whole time this guy was asking Tim if he could take the wood, his girlfriend was in the car trying to talk him out of it. This man was actively embarrassing his girlfriend who clearly dislikes the whole experience.

So I asked Tim if the guy had a white car. He confirmed that the guy did. So I think he came back and got the wood which he wanted to use in bonfire. I still can’t believe he embarrassed his girlfriend like that.

For future information, I’m anti-clutter. Picking things up off the curb, in my opinion, creates clutter. Tim has picked up boxes filled with stuff on the curb before, only to toss most of it in the trash, and leaving me attempting to throw it out for years to come.

Have I mentioned that it was 9 years last month that Tim and I started dating? I can’t believe he’s tolerated me this long!

Alice in Wonderland review

I went out and saw Alice in Wonderland in 3D. I saw the 3D version just to see if I could actually see 3D movies. It was rather straining on the eyes, but I can see it. It’s not so dramatic as to be worth the eye straining though. I was a bit disappointed in the plot of the movie, although the acting was just fine. Twiddledee and Twiddledum was disappointing. The Cheshire Cat was brilliant! The Mad Hatter is still mad, but not as mad as the March Hare. I suppose I would’ve preferred seeing an Alice that was still a child and not an adult. I’m just a huge critic though, so don’t take my opinions to seriously. In summary, it was very predictable and I dislike predictable movies.

I stopped at Target before I went home and picked Evie up some new 4T underwear. Her 2T-3T are a little snug. She enjoyed folding them this morning. I also picked up some cute stuffed bunny rabbits for Evie and Kiki for Easter. I didn’t see anything I’d like for Ory, but I have plenty of time to find something. He had a dinosaur with bunny ears last year.

Something I forgot to mention was that I finished read a real book Friday afternoon. I read Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne on my nook. It was an excellent book. I loved the main character a lot. It helps to have some knowledge of science and old english writing though. You also have to keep in mind that the author wasn’t English and it went through the perils of translation. If you can ignore those facts, it was a good book. I also had the disadvantage of it being a Google eBook, meaning it had lots of misspellings.

Now I’m trying to decide what book I want to start reading next. This year, I want to pick up a habit of reading. I’ve been pretty good thus far, reading seven Roald Dahl (children’s books), including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and, my all time favorite, The BFG. I want to read some classics seeing as I missed a lot of classic literature in school. I’ve never read Moby Dick, A Christmas Carol, Pride and Prejudice, etc, or any of Shakespeare’s works. We’ll see how I do.

In regards to school, I have to write 2 essays by the end of this month. I’m not doing good on it due to lack of time, or quiet.

A “family of crazy” rant

I tend to leave out the dynamics of my paternal family out, and for good reason. But there is a particular thing that’s been bothering me. I found out through the grapevine that my paternal grandpa, who has cancer, isn’t most likely not my grandpa. I love him and then I find out now that he probably isn’t mine? And that no one will tell me who really is? Did my Dad even know this? So now I know that not only is my Aunt not my grandpa’s kid, but neither is my Dad. My grandpa married my grandma because of Dad, and he isn’t his. Does my Dad and my Aunt share the same dad or not? I won’t know because no one is talking. This really gets to me because of my interest in genealogy. My family lines are now disrupted permanently, and I can’t get a clear answer. I now have a strong desire to get paternity tests on my kids just so that way they will never have a doubt. I still wait for the day that my Mom tells me that my Dad isn’t my father. But unfortunately, it appears to be a fact.

My paternal Grandma makes me terribly angry. Not only did she let her own brother who raped her own daughter around me and my sister, she never warned us. Ever. I overheard my Aunt yelling at her about him one day. Then she proceeded to help out the man that was released from prison for statutory rape of her own granddaughter who was 13 at the time. Where is her morals? Then not to inform her kids of who their fathers are, or her grandkids who their grandfather is? She just keeps pushing it. She is a pathological liar. I doubt she can help herself by now.

There are other people intervening with my disowning of that side of the family. Someone informed her that I had my baby, which was not even their business, but definitely not my grandmas business. I found out who, and blocked them on my Facebook after realizing my babies pictures had been jeopardized. I just want her to go away and leave me alone. I want the cards with her attempts at guilt to stop. I want her to stop trying to buy me off by sending me checks that I don’t want, then getting mad that I don’t cash them. The check that I was sent the very first time in the very beginning of this mess was from my sister through Grandma. I sent the check back to my sister, so she knew that I didn’t cash it. Grandma never told her and pocketed the money. To me, that’s stealing from my unemployed and at-the-time pregnant sister.

Tim didn’t approve of my estrangement in the beginning. But now that Grandma has tried to call him several times, he can see her as a bit harassing now. I’ve been informed that she is still calling my old number I changed a year ago believing that I’m screening her calls and changing my voicemail a lot.

No one has permission to tell that woman ANYTHING about me or my family. It is my business as I’m the only one related to her and the children. She has no rights. No one else has any rights to this matter. She shouldn’t know anything. She shouldn’t know that Kiki was born, but a relative snooped and told her. I had my own way that I was going to inform my Grandpa(he’ll always be my grandpa). Now I can’t do it. She shouldn’t know that I was in contact with my sister, but someone told her that shouldn’t have a while ago. It makes me angry. She needs to let up, as well as people who shouldn’t be concerned anyway.

I’m never involving her again. Why can’t people let me protect my kids the way I see fit? I just want them safe and loved, with a dash of sanity in there.

The house to ourselves!

Tim’s going to Cirque du Soleil tonight. I had a ticket too, but as much as I want to, I’m not going. I will be seeing Alice in Wonderland instead sometime this weekend or next week. Tim’s going with some guy friend instead. In the meantime, I get all the kids to myself until Tim comes home late tonight. I bought some green beans yesterday, so I can have some tonight. Yum!

I went to the OB/GYN yesterday for my 6 week check-up and learned I lost 31 pounds. Then someone explain to me why my pants still don’t fit. My blood pressure is down. It was hovering at 120/70 which is high for me, where it typically stays at 110/60. It was 102/60 this time. My cycle has yet to show up, although I’ve been given permission to continue regular activities. My doctor also commented that it’s ‘up to my husband’ to keep me from becoming pregnant because of my moral views on hormonal birth control. He also believes he’ll see me pregnant again. All I need is one nice pregnancy scare, and that’ll get Tim to make himself an appointment to get him taken care of. In comparison, he’d need 2 days recovery time whereas I’d need a month. Considering I have a physically active job, where he has a desk job, there is no argument which one needs done. I have the three kids I’ve always wanted, so I’m done. Unless my first accidental pregnancy actually comes my way.

I started this post an hour ago. I’ve already made and ate dinner. Evie has given Ory all of her green beans. Ory is almost done eating, and Evie is still trying to figure out how to cut up her food by herself, after being offended that I try to do it for her. Ory bypassed all cutting up and is picking up food with his bare hands and eating it that way. Evie is officially done with dinner and wants to watch the Gummi Bears, which she calls “Bubby Beary Juice.” Her favorite juice is Apple, by the way. Ory can drink from a cup, although you can’t trust him not to spill it on purpose yet.

The animal crew

I don’t mention the pets nearly enough. I thought I’d give a rundown of the furry family.

We have two dogs. One is Amaya, an American Eskimo Dog. She’s 6 years old. The other is WALLE, which you hear a lot about. He is a black and white cocker spaniel, aged 1 year. There is three cats, all boys. Oreo is a 6 year old tuxedo who requires a special urinary diet, Spirit is a 5 year old white fluffball, and Teddy is a 6 year old tabby with hydrocephalus. I have 2 hamsters remaining, who are coming to the end of their lifespans. I had 8. These two are mommy April and son Riddick. There is 2 holland lops. Truffles is brown and white and Clover is all brown. They are sisters and a bonded pair. On top of these, we have a clown fish in Tim’s tank and two sunset platy’s and a snail in my tank. That is our pets.

I lost one today and didn’t even realize it. While WALLE and Amaya have no problems darting out the gate if we don’t shut it all the way, we always catch up to them and bring them back. They’ve escaped through our broken fence too. We’re getting it fixed soon! We’re re-doing the back yard and have already started on it by removing the deck. Only the fence remains of the deck to keep everyone out of the wreckage. Now we need to remove the cement blocks, the pool and hot tub, then take down the fence surrounding it all, then haul it to the dump!

This is relevant. Tim was working on taking it apart a bit yesterday so we can be one step closer to replacing the fence to keep the dogs in. The kids and Tim got all muddy so they all took an early bath yesterday. Then we ate dinner, I took my shower, and everyone went to bed. Spirit irritated me last night by rubbing on Kiki’s face, waking her up. This should’ve been my first hint that something was amiss.

I get up this morning and do my morning routine. Spirit is still being extra affectionate for unknown reasons. I open all the curtains and get ready to feed Kiki when I see it. Oreo is staring at me. He was outside sitting on the pool fence, staring at me through the window. He isn’t supposed to be outside! I let him in and go on a frantic search for Teddy, who I also haven’t seen since yesterday. I can’t find him. I call Tim. He hasn’t seen him. When I finally come to the conclusion he isn’t in the house as he always comes when called, I start putting on my shoes to go outside to look for him. Then I have a thought, there was one place I hadn’t looked that I really should have. I looked under the baby bassinet and there he was! Sound asleep. I pet his big head and he woke up and wondered what I wanted. Relief.

Oreo needed extra loving, but all is normal again!

Old and new pictures

Kiki’s 1 month

We have large babies. I blame Tim. Kiki had her one month yesterday, and based on her measurements, I should shop for the next size up soon. She’s almost 11 pounds and has a length of 22.5″. 0 – 3 month clothing tends to end at 22″ – 23″, so she’s getting too long for her clothing. I’ve already noticed her PJs are getting tight. The rest of her clothing should be fine for a little bit longer. Evie and Ory didn’t switch into 3 – 6 months until 2 months of age.

Kiki’s in the 90’s for the height and weight percentiles. She’s in the 80’s for her head circumference. She’s also trying to smile and we put her in Size 1 diapers instead of newborn diapers now. The newborns were really too small, but they didn’t have the Size 1 in the store when we went to get them so we had to use newborns longer. Regardless of her big size, the pediatrician still commented that she thinks Ory is bigger.

I saw Evie next to another toddler that could talk really, really well, whereas Evie isn’t a good talker. Before the other kid spoke, I thought she was a little 2 year old because she was so much smaller than Evie. Then she talked, and I think she was 3 – 4 years old now. My kids are huge.

Hot upstairs, Cold downstairs

I’m not completely here anymore. Last night, I thought something was completely wrong with me. I was positively sure that I was either coming down with something or my hormones were making me unusually hot. I noticed the furnace was on a lot, but I thought I just happened to be waking up every time it was on or something.

That’s not the only thing that happened last night. Evie also decided something was wrong. She woke up in between 2 and 3 am. I didn’t hear her wake up, but I did hear something running up and down the stairs. I got up to investigate and saw Evie’s bedroom door slightly open. I try to open it further, but it won’t budge. Her stuffed giraffe that she insists on using as a bed was in front of the door. However, Evie isn’t laying on it and isn’t laying on her bed either. I pick the giraffe up and put it back where it belongs when I hear screeching behind me. Evie came back up the stairs and didn’t approve of me relocating her giraffe. She grabbed her giraffe and hauled it downstairs, where I saw she had piled all of her sleeping gear on the couch. Tim appears less than amused.

I put her giraffe on the loveseat instead, and then follow up with her old english sheepdog stuffed animal that she uses as a pillow. Does anyone want a real toddler bed? Evie’s bed is going unused. Eve immediately climbs on to her stuffed bed and I cover her up. Then she requests the Tee. Better known as the TV. I put on WALLE and tell Tim to get me if he needs me and drag myself back to bed. Tim attempts to put Evie back in her room after WALLE is over, but she protests. I get up and carry her up the stairs, get her to lay down, and wait a minute while she calms down. Back to bed for us! She ended up coming into my room later. After she was groggy enough, I got her back into bed for the night.

Then Tim came in with a fidgety baby. I didn’t sleep well. I don’t think Tim slept well either. I came down this morning with Kiki to feed her. While it was burning hot upstairs, it was ice cold downstairs. We had this problem when we first moved in this house but we’ve since fixed it. So after feeding Kiki, I started my morning routine of opening up the curtains and blinds. I found the cause of the extreme coldness in a window I opened yesterday. Tim slept downstairs with Kiki most of last night, and Evie was down here as well, with the winter chill coming in through a window. I didn’t even know we could set the alarm with a window or door open, but apparently we can. The alarm didn’t warn us at all that it was open.

I opened the window yesterday because it was nice out, and Tim was taking apart the deck in the back yard before it got dark. Evie kept telling him, “Be careful, Daddy!” and he couldn’t hear her, so I cracked the window so he could hear her. Silly me.

It’s V-Day again?

For a more happy post, Tim and I celebrated 9 years together as a couple a few days ago. We use it as an excuse to do each other Valentine’s earlier for the most part. Tim got me flowers and chocolate, and I got him a new personal item for when my body is back to normal. We have two anniversaries. The one when we started dating (and almost married on) and the one we actually married on in June. While we’ve been together 9 years, we’ve only been married for 4 years. We would’ve been married 6 years if our original wedding date went as planned, but I kind of like having two anniversaries now. It makes it more interesting.

Grandma and Grandpa got the kids stuff for Valentine’s Day as well. Evie and Ory got a book, PEZ, and a stuffed animal. Evie is PEZ crazy so that worked out well. Has anyone noticed it takes 5 minutes to put PEZ in the dispenser, yet 30 seconds to eat them all? Evie absolutely has to have them in the dispenser too.

I’m currently operating on 4 hours sleep. It’s days like this when I consider picking up a coffee drinking habit. I almost worry that it would give me too much energy though. Today’s goals are to nap, do some school work, and get some me-time in. Perhaps get Tim to take some stuff to Goodwill. He’ll probably want to finish putting the baseboards back in. They’ve been out ever since he finished installing the speakers.

Insanity continues

Things have been busy. To make some summaries, Ory goes to get his H1N1 booster this week, followed by Kiki’s one month next week, followed by my postpartum checkup the week after that. Those are the currently scheduled appointments. We need to make dentist and optometrist appointments too. Birth always destroys my eyes and I have cavities that need filled thanks to my genetically bad teeth (thanks Mom).

Kiki is a very good baby and a very good sleeper. She has her awake moments where she just doesn’t know what she wants and is borderline content and borderline wanting the unknown. Evie likes giving her a bottle, but only giving it to her. She won’t keep hold of it after she has given it to her. Ory needs watched because he’s a pretty careless toddler at 19 months.

Both toddlers are nightmares in their own right. Evie has colored on her walls again. Tim found and disposed of the crayon that she had hidden to use. We thought that was the end of that for the 2nd time. Then I find one of Tim’s old books not only colored in, but also the cover torn. There was a good half of the crayon still in existence in her room! We removed that crayon a total of 3 times so far. I also found a different colored crayon hidden in a book that was not colored in. Storing crayons in books isn’t a good idea because the book won’t close and Mommy will open it to see what it is. I hope we got all the crayons out. I need to use the trusty Magic Eraser to get the crayon off the walls again. She draws little tiny circles on each slat (which are about 1″ wide).

Ory is in his terrible two stage. It’s nothing we haven’t dealt with before with Evie, but now with 3 little minions, it’s more difficult to keep after him. Tim has glue and tools on his train table that I’m tired of stopping him from getting or removing from his hands. Thanks to him having a big sister, he’s also learned evil things to do at a much earlier rate. I’m tired of taking chairs away from him to put back at the table, or to turn the toy box over (with toys still in it!) and push it back to its spot so he doesn’t climb on it and take down my pictures.

What I’m really tired of is Evie pushing Ory down and Ory throwing hard objects at people. I could do without WALLE’s constant floor sniffing and licking during breakfast, lunch and dinner, hoping to get a crumb. Remind me to never get a hound dog. We’re reaching our peak of intolerance. The good news is, having been here before, I know that everything will go back to sane levels by the time Kiki is 2 months old. Which means I have 5 weeks left. The just knowing that it has an end, and when that end most likely will be, makes the insanity much more easier to deal with. The fact that Kiki rarely cries helps too.