Sweet mother of Stan Lee, make it stop!

I did something stupid. It was so dumb it was stoopid.

We had one nice day here on Ferenginar recently. It was warm and balmy and I hustled the brood outside for some play time, even plopping the Incredible Bulk down amongst the outside toys so he could watch and get some fresh air.

So what did Blue do you ask? Well, you see, I love to work in my yard. I haven't worked in my yard in months. So I let my gaze wander and it lit upon the ivy that almost covers the ancient oak in the back yard.

Ahah! A project!

So I grabbed my clippers and went to work. Clip, clip, tug, gather, drag, drag. HmmHmmmmHm. How pleasant! What a beautiful day!

Here's the stoopid part:

I knew the poison oak was there.

I carefully inspected the ivy and decided that the poison oak must be dead in winter. What would a few snips hurt? I even washed carefully afterward.

So ... is it possible to die from itching?

'Cause I now am COVERED with red, blistery, weeping rash from my fingertips to my armpits on both arms. I haven't slept appreciably in 3 nights. I have to wear long sleeves to the post box because I look like I have the freakin' Bubonic Plague! And my left arm, which is much worse, is swollen up like a sausage and painful.

And the itching ... the itching.

Oh, and so far I have, while here at the computer, dipped my applicator q-tip twice in my Diet Coke and picked up the calamine lotion once ... but I didn't drink it.

My Yahoo word of the day is ... "Decry"

It is a sad, sad day for women.

Apparently we are too stupid, too naive, too irrational to make decisions about our own lives, our own bodies, our own children.

South Dakota has passed an abortion ban.

Let me be perfectly clear. I am NOT in favour of wholesale, willy-nilly abortion. For one thing I feel like a woman should have a finite time in which to make the decision (prior to whatever number of weeks).

South Dakota has banned all abortions save those done because the mother's life is in jeopardy.

Think about this:

You discover that your unborn child has a genetic defect such that as soon as he is born he will take a few painful gasps and then die. If you're in South Dakota, you will be forced to continue this pregnancy, go into labour, give birth, and watch your child die in a matter of minutes. But the legislature will be feeling warm and fuzzy about themselves, because they 'saved an innocent life.'

Or how about this:

Your 12 year old daughter is waylaid and savagely raped. If she's in South Dakota and she becomes pregnant from the attack you will be forced to watch your daughter - a child - carry a baby to term at the risk of her physical health, her mental health, and the baby's welfare. Won' t the powers-that-be be feeling smug, though, at the thought of a middle-schoolers life being ruined! Who cares? We 'saved an innocent life'!

Let me say something, as a mother and a woman:

I made that embryo. Without me there would be no embryo. There is no other method to make an embryo other using my body to host it. Without me there's just a gelatinous splat of semen.

YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO UNILATERALLY DECIDE WHAT I CAN AND CANNOT DO WITH IT.

The booger post

Here's your story for tonight:

We went out today, all of us together, as it's Wednesday (comic day) and we go into town (to get comics, nuff said!).

Anyway, Evil Genius Husband had to run in the Wal Mart to the pharmacy and he'd taken our oldest daughter, the Human Crash Test Dummy (aged almost 3) in because she had to wee.

Well, after a bit, they're standing in line at the check-out and my delicate flower of a baby girl extracts from her own nose an enormous booger, like, roughly a quarter the size of her brain. She then holds it up where everyone can see and announces, in a loud sweet voice: "I picked a BOOGER!"

EGH has threatened to not be seen in public with her until she's nine.

A loss and an acquisition

Well, after 2 days of being fed via stomach tube, the MicroBuck gave up the fight. The MicroDoe, however, has gotten so strong as to resist tubing. But she won't take the bottle either. After careful observation I've concluded that Brownie is actually feeding her - at least a little bit.
So we're keeping mother and daughter in the adoption pen for now and have a light on them for warmth. Brownie is already getting used to not having to jostle for food and the MicroDoe was nibbling at hay strands yesterday so I'm cautiously optimistic.

Here's a pic of the adoption pen:

The head stanchion is on the left with a feed box, hay rack and - you can just see it there closest to the gate - a water pail. I found a flaw immediately when I put Brownie in: she's so small that she can get out of the stanchion. I'll have to work on remedying that.

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I am now the proud owner of 22 Red Carneau pigeons:



I braved a trip through Lexington to get them from a gent in Swansea who breeds them for show. He was culling these because of the white feathers they exhibit. It's not breed standard and comes from a cross with the White Carneau. You can just see it in this pic:

He claims that they will breed true to standard and produce some correct reds. I got them simply because I wanted some pigeons but now I'm toying with the idea of actually breeding these. Anybody have any experience with this?

Whisky Tango everywhere!

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Johari Window! I thought that was really cool. If you want to do one of your own and I 'know' you well enough to participate, let me know! I was really startled at some attributes folks assigned to me (confident?!). It was an eye opener.

Thanks also to everyone's comments and emails about my Boy's small anger issue and my not coping well with upcoming school. Please keep 'em coming! I need all the help I can get.

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Ya know that horrible feeling you get when you've stepped in something nasty? Something sqidgy, maybe even warm? Well I got it yesterday. I had to go back to Lexington.

OK, I didn't have to go back I suppose. I went to pick up a load of pigeons and when I asked the nice gentleman where he was located he said the words that made me shudder:

"Do you know where Pelion is?"

*squish!* Bleh! Yuck! Eeeeeeewww!

Uh, yeah. I know where Pelion is.

I don't know about the rest of the county but the area in which I unfortunately found myself (for over 10 years), roughly between Lexington and Pelion, was overpopulated by Homo Rubbishii Alba, or your basic white trash.

Few of them worked - most were supported by the government - but everyone had at least a few horses, a few pick up trucks, a muscle car or two, perhaps a tractor. Friday and Saturday nights throbbed with the sounds of various drunken outdoor parties which would last until dawn. Even the most minor of holidays was cause for hours of fireworks and shooting off of guns. There were drunks on the road at all times of the day and night.

Charming.

So after loading my pigeons (whom I got from a distinctly non-whisky tango gentleman in Swansea) I scattered back out - through the dreaded area - and escaped onto the motorway toward home, thanking my lucky stars for Evil Genius Husband, for the Burrow, for the 'good' side of the lake.

I swear I don't think I left Winston-Salem that fast.

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As an amusing aside, and just to prove that Money and Trash can go hand-in-hand, let me share this with you:

I stopped at the Mc D's (when I reached 'my' neck of the woods) to get a diet coke. As I was coming out to my car a huge, ugly, white tank of a European luxury car (I think it was a Mercedes) came whipping in beside EGH's Toyota. He stopped indolently across two spaces - most of the tank in one space, right front quarterpanel and tyre in the other.

I paused because the space he was flopping over into was the one between his car and mine and I had to step into it to get in the Toyota. The corpulent bloke behind the wheel fixed me with a blank stare as the passenger side door swung open.

Out jumps a young man, approximately middle-school age, in his stocking feet. Yep, no shoes on, just socks. On the nasty tarmac right outside the door of a busy Mc Donalds. On a cold, drizzly day.

Well, I frowned but chalked it up to him being, well, a middle-school-aged boy. I mean, I don't have any yet, but this is the age that EGH teaches and so I kinda know how they can be. It'd be just like a kid that age to kick off his shoes in the car and then step out in his socks.

There were two middle aged females in the back seat, presumably one was the mother, and I waited expectantly for the scream of outrage (or at least a: "For goodness' sake, Brandyn, put your shoes $175 Air Jordan XX1s on!"). Instead, the driver hands the boy a hundred dollar bill (no, I'm not kidding. This was Daddy Warbucks here.) and the kid turned and ran into the McDonalds.

In his socks.

I wonder if LL Bean or Lands End makes those chic caps in the fashionable faded canvas with the suede brim adored by all upper-middle-class suburbanites ... with a big, honkin' WT on it?! 'Cause we need some over here, please.

Peering in the Johari Window

This is too cool!

Now's your chance to add your 2p about my convoluted personality ... (thanks to Tertia for the idea!).

C'mon! You know you wanna! Click it! (No, 'pushy' isn't an available trait, lol) And make your own, too.

Wrestling with thoughts and babies

My baby boy will be four years old tomorrow. I'm excited and sad at the same time. I can't believe how big he's gotten and how clever. I've been talking to him about going to school (not this year but the next) and he really lights up.

I, on the other hand, am filled with dread at the thought. I was looking online at the schools in the district where he'll be attending and I did everything but break into a cold sweat.

I understand that every mother goes through this when her babies go off to school but dang! I'm off the deep end. I wonder if he'll be safe. I wonder if I'll get on with his teachers. I'm downright terrified of how he'll cope with being around other children.

I mean, I've seen some of today's kids. Especially ones in this particular district. They can be overindulged, underdisciplined, and out of control. How will my sweet and mild-mannered boy deal with kids who have never been told 'no' ever? With kids who have never been required to share or taught to be polite?

I have no illusions that my boy is perfect. I'm sure he'll do his share of just being awful, and I'm sure I'll hear from his teacher. But he's generally well fed, well rested, obedient, and cooperative - things that should make having him in ones class easier.

What about the impact of him being in school on my other children? There's the general sickness issue. There's the problem of how the Human Crash Test Dummy will react to her brother - who has been with her 24/7 since she was born - being gone. And what about the Last Baby? He or she (oh who are we kidding? I'll not be lucky enough to get another boy, lol. It'll be another bad baby girlgirl!) will not get to see her biggest brother much at all. That makes me sad.

I'm really not that worried about THCTD. She'll take over as Cheif Sib in the House pretty quickly, I'm sure. And then in another year she'll be off and I have NO doubt that Bitty Girl will positively thrive on being oldest during the day.

When did my babies get to be so big? *sniffle*

Speaking of big, the Incredible Bulk is getting quite strong and he's such a happy, active baby. When you pick him up, just the prospect of being transported somewhere new is enough to send him into paroxysms of delight. When I carry him, his head over my left shoulder, he balls up one massive, chubby fist (the Right Hand of Doom!) and pounds me on the back with it as we walk. The whole time he's grinning and kicking and squirming, making the whole brief trip not unlike wrestling a really happy 23lb chinook salmon.

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Oh, now that I've extolled the virtues of my Boy, I have to ask a question of any of you parents out there:

We are suddenly having some anger issues. It might be something big - like not wanting to go to bed - or ridiculously tiny - like one of his sisters playing with a toy he wanted, but he'll get instantly angry. I don't mean like upset or frustrated (his normal reaction) but enraged.

He'll yell, stomp his feet, even throw things (never AT anyone, though, he knows better). He'll even burst into angry tears. What the heck?! Is he having the terrible twos at age four?

Nothing's changed in the house. As a matter of fact, things have settled nicely into a calm groove since we got Grandaddy back on his feet. All this started just a week or so ago.

All of these outbursts are quite brief and not very dramatic (unlike THCTD who will get warped out of true for 10 minutes at a time, wailing, snuffling, and collapsing on the floor like a ragdoll), but seeing this anger is disturbing me.

Any advice?

Do me a solid ...

Alright peeps ...

If there's any of Dad's people out there still reading do this for me: Give Dad a ring.

Today's the first day that he's there at his house alone.

Y'all all give him a holler and make sure he's OK. Call him today, call him tonight, call him tomorrow ... just do it. I don't want him to have too much time to brood out there all alone. I'd rather have him slightly irritated than settled into a dark funk.

Thank you!

Good mood

I don't know what to write about. Hmmm.

I can tell you that I'm in an unusually relaxed mood. Have been, actually. My house has settled down quite a bit. The babies are no longer being as terrible as I've been reporting. We're back in our groove.

(I wonder how long I'll keep referring to my children as 'babies'? When the last one is no longer a baby? Could you come back in 10 years and still find me referring to them that way? My god. In 10 years I'll be over 50 and my 'babies' will be 14, 13, 12, 11, and if I have my way: 10! I might be calling them my 'unmanageable monsters'. Huh. I can honestly say that I can't wait to see what sorts of little people they will be.)

My whole demeanour has changed since Dad returned to his own home. It's not that he was a disruption. Just the opposite, actually. Despite his own convictions he really blended well into the household. Yes, he's a picky, cold-natured cuss, but he wasn't much trouble. I miss him. The babies miss him awfully. I was stripping and re-making the bed that he used and my oldest daughter, the Human Crash Test Dummy appeared at my elbow, boiling with outrage, and cried: "THAT is granddaddy's bed!" She actually stamped her little pigeon-toed foot.

No, it's that my worry quotient has dropped to acceptable levels. I'm finally confident that Dad's back on his life-track. I'm not a distracted crazy person any more (well, no more than usual). My temper is better and things aren't annoying me. the babies are behaving now that I'm not off in the la-la land of my own thoughts or on the 'phone and am actually parenting.

So what now? Life with no drama? No way! Well, my house is clean(ish). I was dragged up to the barnyard yesterday. I'm going into town today. Surely something blog-worthy will happen.

We will see.

More work! Happy V-day! Arrgh.

Well.

I guess I actually haven't posted on this blog since before my Dad's accident. That sucks. For the few of you who have wandered by, I apologize.


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We're at about 6 lambs and 9 kids so far and I'm beginning to think that we'll be doing some culling of does and ewes who failed to produce. If the animal is a nice one, I'll give her another season (everyone deserves a second chance - I myself am failing spectacularly to get pregnant as we speak *grrrr*) but I definitely put a star next to her name in the herdbook.

I'm off to Tractor Supply today to get some whole corn to supplement the nursing ladies and milk replacer.

Yep, I said milk replacer.

Yesterday Evil Genius Husband came back from doing the chores early. I could tell something was up.

"We might have a problem," he said.

We might have a problem is my taciturn hubby's version of screaming and tearing his hair. This is as anxious as he gets - outwardly - and I was immediately gripped by dread.

"What?! What is it?"

"There's a kid," he said, "who doesn't seem to belong to anybody."

Oh crap.

So I secured my own offspring, grabbed my gumboots, and slogged up to the barn. There, wobbling in the last of the evening light was the smallest live kid I'd ever seen. He was the size of a squirrel.

"That's one of the baby goat's kids," I said. None of my older does had had that kid. It was a quarter the size of the others. So we looked at the 3 or 4 youngsters and sure enough, found our escape artist, Brownie, was the missing mom.

This doeling resisted all our efforts to keep her in the kid pen and had escaped several times in the fall and gotten back in with the herd (and the buck). She's smallish to begin with and supporting a pregnancy has kept her growth back. She might weigh as much as a bag of grain. Maybe. And she acted as if there was no kid.

So we decided to try out the new adoption pen. I ran down to the house to check on the Brood and get a bottle and EGH scooped up MicroBuck and Brownie.

We tried unsuccessfully to get some donor milk from one of the other does but everyone was milked out by their own robust kids. I gave up and went round to see if I could get the MicroBuck latched.

As I came 'round the barn I heard MicroBuck calling shrilly. He'd been keeping up a constant yell, so I wasn't surprised ... but I was startled when I realized it was coming from the woods. Had that wee thing escaped the adoption pen (he was surely tiny enough to just walk through the gate)? Had he been silly enough to walk his bite-sized self out into the dark woods? How was I going to keep him in with his mum all night?

I turned to tell EGH to run and get the MicroBuck before a 'possum did when I realized that I was looking right at him ... in the pen with Brownie.

A few moments hunting in the dark and the woods-screamer was revealed to be another kid - assumedly Brownie's and a little doe. I tried unsuccessfully to get them to latch and ended up feeding them the tiny bit of colostrum I could milk out. Two bottle kids. Great.

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Update: both MicroKids were alive this morning, still won't latch, but had a meal of cows milk and colostrum. Tonight they'll get Very Expensive milk replacer. *sigh*

Embarcation

Remember how I said I was getting yet another illness? Well I was wrong. It got me.

After a visit from the Bs on Saturday, it slammed me. I spent the next two days in bed (after dragging myself down both mornings to get the babies up and make breakfast) and the next few in a hazy still-feel-an-awful-lot-like-crap fog. I'm still hacking and snotting and Dad, the Human Crash test Dummy, and the Incredible Bulk all have new head colds, presumably the mild version of what I have.

I mean, jeez! Do you think I could get an immune system on eBay?

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Well today was Dad's day to go home.

I disentangled his stuff from my stuff, packed it up and into the Explorer, and KK arrived with a rental car that's an automatic so he can drive it and she will drive his.

I'm sorry he has to leave but I understand that it's time. He can drive himself, shower standing up, shave at the mirror, and gets about well enough on his eurocrutches that he can shop for a few groceries without using a wheelchair. He's ready.

Time for that last hurdle: Home. I'm so glad that he has such a good friend as KK to get him started and I know all of his other friends will flock 'round to help. I also know that he knows he can come back down here if he ever needs to.

Finally I can stop worrying (so much) and relax (just a tad) and I'm ready.

I'm ready to settle back into my groove, concentrate on being a mom, work on getting pregnant one last time, think about going back to school, ponder going back to work, jot ideas down for a business I want to open one day, and ultimately run for a position on the school board in the district where my children will attend because I'm very concerned with the lack of discipline and parental accountability in our schools ...

But first I'm just gonna take a nap.

You have 6 seconds to relax ... GO!

Aaahhhh, my 'busy' week is over with. Now I just have to clean like a madwoman from now until Saturday morning when company arrives ...

I did get through my traffic court proceedings. It was like a little dollop of hell to drive up that road again (this is the route to NC). But I made it in a little over an hour (punishment enough, right there), was composed in front of the judge (refrained from weeping and tearing my hair), told the truth(seriously), and came out pretty well.

Today I went to my (hopefully) last ortho appointment. Dr P agreed that there was nothing more to be done and cut me loose. He will do an impairment evaluation to submit to the workers comp folks and then the fun will begin. He wouldn't share with me what he thought my impairment level would be.

I'm so sick of all this I could scream. I hope they get it worked out quickly and I can be done with this. When I get ready to work outside the home again, I want to be able to go into an interview armed with the stats.

I worry about getting hired with a disability. Do you have to tell a potential employer? I mean, I have no intention of lying to anyone but I don't want to volunteer info that might hurt my chances of being hired. It's kind of hard to know whether I'll be able to do a job or not without actually trying.

For example, ya know how you see adverts that say "must be able to lift 50lbs"? Well I can lift 50lbs just fine - I heft feed bags up in the barnyard often - I just can't walk them any appreciable distance. I can climb a ladder, but I can't turn when I'm up there (even the tiniest twisting motion on my knee is excruciating and it will fail - it's given out on me while doing this and I've fallen badly). I can get down on the floor - after a fashion - but I can't kneel or crawl on that knee.

I know that all of this seems to preclude my ever being in a techy type job again, but it just depends. I'm resourceful and I might be able to work around some things. I guess we'll just have to see when the time comes.

Of course, Dr. P might declare me completely unimpaired. Then I don't know what I'll do.

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On a less depressing note: the Incredible Bulk ate his first entirely-non-pureed-food meal yesterday (pasta in marinara sauce, green beans, and bananas) and deftly gummed everything up just fine. He even managed to get a few finger length (his not mine) green beans into his own face, although each time he did he seemed startled, like: "where the heck did that come from?"

The pasta and sauce was a huge hit, too. I should've gotten pics.

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I am also ill.

Yeah, I know, you're thinking: "Duh. So what else is new?"

Well, that's just it. This is new. I've got something else. Some coughing-plus-sore-throat nasty craptacular crud stuff ... thing.

Ugh.

A whole month into the new year?

W-what the heck happened to the end of 2005? How can we be into February? How can my baby be less than 3 weeks away from being FOUR? Agh! Aggghhh!

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On a more coherent note: in an effort to make Dad more comfortable I broke out the kerosene (paraffin) heater. I, who have enough padding for three - maybe four - people, have been one long hot flash since.

Dad, who now has no body fat (as in zero, zilcho body fat. None. He is composed now of bones, veins, and skin), clung to it like velcro. He hangs over it like one of those stereotypical old farts you see in bad Old West films; gathered 'round the wood stove in the general store telling tall tales and working thermo problems in their heads.

He will actually go sit next to it, in the mud room with the dogs, supposedly doing exercises, but hunched over his cell phone (probably morosely telling his friends about how I'm trying to freeze him to death.)

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In my ongoing attempt to inherit Dad's vast array of Craftsman tools, I did the domestic equivalent of rolling him into traffic (remember that?): I left him at home. Alone. With his grandchildren.

NineWunWun! NineWunWun!

No, seriously, this is a busy week for me. I had an appointment yesterday at 2:00 (Note: children nap from 11 to 3) so I availed myself of Dad's presence and took the Incredible Bulk and left Dad with the three Big Bad Babies.

I had to take Bulk because there was no way Dad could care for an almost-eight-month-old who's just learned to sit unassisted and can't-quite-almost-but-not hold his bottle by himself.

Dad, of course, did great. He claims that the babies were fab but I greet this with a smidgen of suspicion. My Mum also claims that the babies are good when she keeps them but my house looks like a hurricane roared through when I get home (unless, of course, she's cleaned something; in which case I feel like I'm in the wrong house.)

But everything was intact, Dad seemed unstressed, the babies were fine.

Bulk and I had a good outing. It was the very first time he'd been out without his sibs and you'd've thought he was an alien baby here on assignment to study humans. Evil Genius Husband and I have long thought that this might be the case.

Bulk has that laser stare:

And he employed it freely on everyone, piercing them with the intense gaze of a creature who has never seen humans before and wonders if their brains might be good to eat.

He also rode in the shopping trolley for the first time (sitting in the seat rather than reclining in his carseat). He promptly displayed his prowess at both sitting and grabbing by hefting my Supersized drink (which I'd sat beside him - stupidly) and hurling it over the side, retaining the straw to gnaw on.

He spent the rest of the trip goggling about, talking very loudly ("GLUR! Ababababa! BAH!"), and finally fell asleep in the checkout line on something that had to be scanned.

Not too bad a day, really. Hopefully today: the dreaded Traffic Court and Hella Expensive Ticket day will go as well. Or at least a little bit. *sigh*

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EDITED to correct some glaring grammaticular errorage that I spotted immediately but freakin' Blogger wouldn't let me in to fix!