Growing WarriorsJust your typical family…

- wood rot repair has now jumped another $500…it is now MORE than the Cutlass cost. Oh, and we have termites too.

-Allison’s tooth was succesfully extracted! Oh, crap, thanks for reminding me. I have to shove some money under her pillow. I told her that the tooth fairy had to run to the bank so wasn’t coming last night… See? Another plus to not believing. I do fear she will never again trust an adult when they tell her that they just want to wiggle a tooth. Can you believe that the dentist used the exact same method to yank that tooth that Eric used on the other tooth?? Luckily Allison was so out of it with the numbing and the nitrous, that she didn’t even notice or care. But it is GONE GONE GONE GONE! WHOO HOO.

- Got through to tech support on the computer. They think the harddrive is dying and they are sending someone out here to look at it one of these days. I cannot sing the praises of online backup loud enough or long enough. Everyone MUST subscribe to an online backup service. NOW. I use ibackup.com – dunno if I get anything, but should they ask, tell ‘em I sent you.

- Guess what? Allison’s room is done being painted! Thanks Amanda! (she did the high parts ) and Jessica + friends! I still need to paint her bed (I paid Jess to sand and prime it, so the hard work has already been done) and then all that is left is to move in the furniture and do a few last details. I’m going to make her some valances out of a grass skirt! Isn’t that clever of me? And I may try to make a bed skirt out of a grass skirt as well…and I am thinking about putting a fishing net on the four posters of her bed. She is gonna be decked out and ready to hit the beach!!

- Allison is becoming VERY good at softball.. Too bad there is only one game left in the season. Tonight she was at bat 3 times and hit the ball 3 times, getting on base 2 times, and only didn’t make it to base the 3rd time because the runner at 2nd was thrown out at 3rd and the inning ended.

- Almost forgot to mention, Eric pulled a dead wet bat out of the pool skimmer today. Brought it in to show the kids..There’s science for you. So lets see, we have pulled from the skimmer, mice, a bat, a bird, a squirrel, and what could have been a baby mole or a mouse (but looked more like a mole – Jess pulled it out for me while Eric was out of town). In addition to that, many worms have committed suicide in the pool following a heavy rain, and we have rescued three toads from the pool as well.

- Wish me luck – tomorrow I have to go to the DMV and wait and pick up a copy of my title and then I have to go to the highway patrol office and wait and have the car inspected, then I have to go back to the DMV and wait to get plates for my car. Considering it is the end of the month, and this is JUST the way my week is going, I am prepared for this to take all day long. I have nothing else booked tomorrow. Here’s hoping the kids are down with tomorrow’s field trips. Hey, sounds fun to me! NOT!

- here’s a funny Meredithism – we went to the hardware store earlier today. There were some Home Depot employees greeting people by the paint dept, as we we were leaving, one asked Lydia to “give him five” – of course she refused, so he asked the other girls. Allison was happy to humor him, but Meredith was absorbed in a card with room decorating ideas (princess room), and didn’t really hear him, so he repeated it to her, “Can you give me five?” while holding out his hand. Meredith responded with, “What? Oh, I’m sorry, I left my wallet at home”

And with that…..

- here’s a good news/bad news for you – my laptop died, appx 3 weeks BEFORE the warranty is out – how often does that happen? We’ll see if it is covered, but ugh!

- My current projects were safe and secure because of my online backup! Down time was minimal as I shifted things to the kids’ computer. Although I did do about 30 pages that disappeared as soon as I closed my indexing software. Apparently I was working with the temp file, so I did loose a couple of hours or so.

- Wood rot is being repaired – so far an additional $500 worth of damage has been discovered, sigh. Can’t wait to see what the final bill is! NOT. Right now the total is about as much as we paid for Eric’s beloved (but gone) 1972 Cutlass. Eric says the Cutlass was more fun than having the wood rot removed. I’d have to agree.

- Today a man crawled through my window and the watchdog (Diesel the bunny killer), ran up to him. To protect us you ask? No to lick him in the face and ask to be rubbed. The man was on the wood rot repair team, so I guess they are allowed to crawl through the window to tell you they are leaving??? But WTG watchdog Diesel! We’re so proud. And just some background, Diesel had been locked upstairs all day, so had no idea that there were men working on the window.

- Took the kids to Deanna Rose Farmstead today, where Lydia was bit by a duck. I don’t blame the duck…have you seen Lydia’s fingers? They do look like duck food. She also got to pet lots of goats, and was licked by a couple, and got to pet a baby cow. She was not traumatized by the duck bite.

Not from today, but snippets nonetheless…

- Had a LOVELY visit with Eric’s brother and his family. The girls LOVED having their cousins here to play with on Friday and Saturday. We can’t wait until they come back.

- We adopted an iguana from one of Jess’s friends. Eric is in love. I’m not sure how the iguana feels.

- Tomorrow we go back to the dentist to have that tooth extracted from Allison’s mouth. Wish us luck.

- I have been swamped with work. Trying to earn enough to pay for the wood rot repair. I turn in the last of this rush of projects on Wed and was looking forward to a wee bit of down time, but as of now, that downtime has been eliminated, as once again, I have four projects on my plate. How quickly one can go from busy to not so busy to swamped again…All in the blink of the eye…although I really don’t get to experience the “not so busy” much…I just anticipate periods of being “not so busy” but something always happens just as “not so busy” comes closer.

Since I posted about the fireflies on Friday, going out and dancing with them after we are all ready for bed has become part of our nightly routine.

Until…..

Tonight Eric was watching them dance with the fireflies from the living room window and I was ….hmm, what was I doing? Probably folding laundry. I do that a lot. Anyway, next thing I know, I hear Eric saying rather loudly, “BATS” and he rushes to the back door telling the girls to come inside rather quickly. What the heck? Well apparently someone tipped the bats off about the fireflies dancing in our yard, and they were swooping all around the yard! Skimming the pool, darting about the yard, grabbing the bugs! Eric says that bats will bump into you and think you are food and bite you, so he didn’t want the girls dancing with the bats…..

maybe our nightly routine of dancing with the fireflies has come to an end?

tucked everyone into their beds, read them their stories. Hugs – kisses – I love you. I venture downstairs look into the backyard only to see fireflies dancing out back. The girls are summoned (not Lydia), where they were amazed at the show. They have never seen fireflies before. I tell them that they can go out into the yard and try to catch one. For the next 15 mins or so, my little girls ran around the yard in their nighties (Allison was wearing a t-shirt) and socks, chasing fireflies.

Is there anything more beautiful?

Ballgame tonight (at 8:45!!! For the 7 and under league!), and guess what? Allison was at bat twice, and twice, she got a hit and made it to the base..AND, the only run her team got? Allison. Yup. You have never seen a prouder face. I so wish I had my camera.

We won’t mention what she did when she played right field…lets just say that it involved spinning and dirt throwing.

Oh, and Lydia got a foam type bat and ball for her birthday yesterday, and she insisted on bringing it to the game tonight. Shortly after the game started, she grabbed her bat and ball, pointed at the field, and said, “I want to play softball game” – she thought since she had her stuff, she could play on the team! That continued for much of the game until she discovered the fun one can have with gravel.

Today my baby turned two. She is such a sweet funny little girl, who knows what she wants out of life! She picked out a pink cake, pink icing, and pink ice cream. Today before we baked the cake, I would show her the box (yes, its from a mix…what of it?), and she would rub her tummy and lick her lips in an exaggerated fashion and exclaim, “mmm yummy pink cake!” It was the funniest thing EVER. Where did she pick that up??? She also spent all day long singing “Happy Birthday” to everyone but herself. Each present she got led to her wanting to scrap the rest of the presents and play with THAT one. We went to Chuck E Cheese for dinner (what of it?) and she had a grand time, except for when the rat tried to visit with her. That caused some trauma, but she recovered. She played games, and rode rides, and had a lovely time. We came back home to have cake and ice cream, and she blew out each candle…one at a time!

Two years old. Can you believe it? Two!