Chicken Update Part Deux

Suffice it to say, the chickens are growing rather rapidly and can now eat their weight in chicken mash. I also need to change their water at least twice a day because they insist on pooping in it. They bring the concept of "water with floaties in it" to a whole new level.

Julia, once the cute, fluffy, yellow chick you think of on Easter and color in springtime coloring books is now the epitome of ugly. Her snowy dander is now being replaced by orange tinted feathers and if you didn't know what stage she was in, you might think someone ws plucking her feathers instead of new ones growing in. I'm 70% certain that she's my Buff Orphington, even though that's the chicken my middle daughter wanted. I'm pretty sure that Giraffe (middle daughter's chicken) is in fact, the Rhode Island Red.

Here is Giraffe. She actually has beautiful color and her feathers are gorgeous. I mean, if you can call a chicken in this tween stage gorgeous. It's all relative.

All the pictures I have of Blackie are out of focus. That's because she's nosy and wants to see what the camera is all about. Her feathers are coming in black and white..slightly reminiscent of houndstooth pattern. Poor Blackie seems to get picked on by the other chickens. She's a tiny bit slow, I think, and you know how chickens pick up on things like that. She also always has poop stuck to her butt, which I'm sure is why the other chickens cluck and cackle at her, wondering why the heck she can't poop with dignity like the rest of them. Needless to say, when I hold Blackie, I always have a towel.

May is the flock bitch. I'm sorry to say it, but she's clearly got Napoleon Syndrome, and she throws her weight around acting like she's the chicken in charge. She forces the other chickens out of the food and the water and then waddles her fat butt up to take their place. Blackie is usually the target of most of her scorn, but she's an equal opportunity bee-otch. I'm pretty sure you won't see her sleeping outside during the winter; she'll have the best roost in the chicken coop and she'll let everyone know it. All I have to say is that her eggs better be gorgeous. (They are supposed to be blue-green.)

Here are the girls going after the food I just put in their cage. Mind you, they have food in this thing 24 hours a day, and yet when they run low they squawk like they haven't been fed in years. A lot like my kids, come to think of it. I can't wait to put the chickens outside because it will be six less things-that-breathe complaining that they are hungry.

Yep. The girls still live in this pack n'play, which is now covered with a baby gate so they don't fly out. Much like taking their first baby steps, the tweens can now fly a bit and a couple of them have made it to the edge of the playpen. The last thing I need is to clean up chicken poop from flying chickens, so gated they have become. And here's a toast to not getting rid of all the baby paraphernalia!

 This, ladies and gentlemen, is the new door for my chicken coop! Isn't it beautiful? The open part will be covered with chicken wire eventually, and it hinges on the left so the door can open almost all the way around the wall. In theory, this should make it easy to clean the coop. That remains to be seen since the chickens aren't outside yet. But dang the coop is looking good!

Hubby installed the shelf a little differently than planned, but I like it even better. The shelf will stay where it is and the nesting boxes will be removable  for easy cleaning. Under the nesting boxes Hubby cut a chicken door that will lead to their outside back porch. We'll be able to open and close this door from the outside.

Here's what the door looks like on the outside. Once cover this area with chicken wire, the girls will have access to outdoor air and sunshine during the fall, spring, and summer. During the winter I think they'll want to avoid the snow.

This is the new sliding door that closes in the coop and the storage. The other door was rotted and warped. Hopefully this new door will also keep out the predators looking for a nice chicken dinner.

Here is the old door. Pretty sorry looking isn't it?

Picking Battles

I decided to break my almost-two-month silence here with a guest post from Ted. After reading this you'll be laughing too hard to be mad at me for my ridiculously long hiatus. When you're finished, leave a comment letting us know if you are or aren't one. I can tell you right now, I'm a card carrying member of this club, right along with Ted's wife. 

Shortly after graduating from college, my friends and I were nursing our hangovers in the front yard of my parents’ house. While we were busily recounting the antics of the previous evening, my father pulled up in his freshly washed and vacuumed Mercury Marquis and immediately asked me in front of my friends:  “What happened to the lawn?”

 “I mowed it.” I replied. “Doesn’t it look good?” Even if I didn’t have wet-brain, I should have known that there was 0% chance my father would have answered in the affirmative.  

No, he did not think the lawn looked good. Perhaps that was because one of the wheels on the mower was apparently at a different setting than the other three while I mowed the entire lawn. As a result, each strip of the lawn was cut at an ever-so-slight angle that only the most obsessive of obsessive lawn owners would ever notice. Unfortunately for me, my father just happens to be one of these individuals. Not believing him initially, my father then requested that I join him on all fours so that we could both gain a better view of my horticultural faux pas. Please keep in mind that my friends were present for this entire exchange. Luckily, my recently-earned undergraduate degree was in neither landscape architecture or pride.

I do not bring up this story just so I can poke fun at my father’s anal-retentive lawn care tendencies. (But if that were indeed my intention, I would inevitably use that as the lead-in to the story of my father standing on the roof of our two-story house using the electric leaf blower to rid the roof of all debris. I am pretty sure he must have had to plug two extension cords together to be able to gingerly operate the equipment that far removed from anything resembling an electrical outlet.) Rather, I bring up this anecdote to illustrate how some people have an amazing ability to see things that most other (read: normal) people are completely oblivious to. With that, I resort to the analogy section of the SAT’s to drive home my main point:  

Lawn imperfections are to my father as pimples are to my wife.  

Just as I would most likely not have noticed if my father’s lawn mower’s blade was temporarily replaced with two plastic knives lifted from Dairy Queen, I am not someone who really pays attention to pimples, either mine or those of others. Yes, I will pop my own pimples; I consider it to be good hygiene, just like making sure I don’t have any stray nose hairs or kale stuck in my teeth. However, I don’t get enjoyment out of any of these acts. They are just things I do if I want to have people willingly interact with me.  

This is all very different for my wife. (Let’s call her Pam, which seems pretty appropriate considering that is indeed her name) For Pam, the act of picking satisfies a burning need that one usually only sees when watching a tweeker light up on an episode of “Intervention.” And without the aide of rehab or twelve step programs, Pam has learned how to effectively manage most of her impulses to pick. Impressive, eh?

Pam is not alone in this obsession; by my unofficial count, approximately half of all Americans are “pickers.” My non-scientific studies have further concluded that there is absolutely no grey area between the two camps; either you’re a picker or you aren’t. That’s it. Just as you either love the show “Glee” or you despise it. (I am in the latter camp. So for those of you keeping track, that makes me a “Glee”-hating-non-picker.) And my doctoral thesis in the psychology of picking concluded that although it is satisfying for a picker to pick something on their own body, it is that much more satisfying to pick something on someone else’s body. And whose body is better to pick (and more socially appropriate) than your spouse’s.  

If Pam were actually a junkie and in need of a fix, I would do what all good enabling spouses do, which is pawn the baby’s crib and score her some dope. Done and done. If only my life were that easy. Unfortunately for me, my wife is not hooked on crack or meth; her vice is white-heads. And on those occasions where she gives in to her temptations, I can’t just go out and score Pam something to pick; rather, I have to organically grow something that will satisfy her burning need. And considering that I am six foot six, there is a pretty good potential at any given moment that there is something somewhere on my body that is in need of picking. (I now question if she married me because I am truly her soul-mate or because I provide more surface area than all of her other prospective suitors.)

But here’s the kicker: I am not a fan of her picking my pimples. I enjoy her picking at my skin about as much as I enjoy her picking on my character flaws. After twelve years of marriage, Pam is now usually able to overlook most of my numerous shortcomings as a husband. However, she has a more difficult time attempting to overlook the tiniest of pimples growing on my forehead. And I know the moment when she spots something new on my skin. She tries to be really discreet about it. But I know her all too well. And I know what I am in for when I see her gaze shift ever-so-slightly from my piercing hazel eyes to my forehead. That is when my own version of homeland-security-against-unwanted-picking escalates to the dreaded “code red” level. 

“Stop it.”

“What???”

“You know what you’re doing. Stop it.”

“But I’m not doing anything.”

Both Pam and I know to what I am referring, and we both know that she is trying not to be obvious in her quest to pinpoint the black head she just spotted on my skin. She is like a four year old with her mouth covered in chocolate desperately trying to convince me that she didn’t sneak a piece of left-over Halloween candy. But she will eventually confess to seeing something. And then I can see her having an internal debate as to whether or not she should proceed by asking if she can pick away.  

She inevitably has a far more difficult time gaining my permission to pick when the pimple is on my back. Mainly because it’s on my back, and I know that nobody is ever going to see it. Hell, Pam doesn’t even see my back. And if she knows that there is something on my back to pick, that means that she discovered it when we were enjoying a little “adult time” together. What usually happens is she will be gingerly stroking my back, and then she will pause ever so slightly. And I know that that means that she felt something. “Pam, stop it!” And once again, she knows exactly what I’m talking about. 

At times, Pam will ask me to pop something for her, and that is only because she is not able to reach said offender. I then attempt to muster up a modicum of enthusiasm for the task. This amount is equivalent to how much I would have if someone asked me to be a groomsman in their Star-Trek themed wedding party. I fumble around for a minute, pretending like I’m doing something substantial. But I’m not. And she knows it. She eventually walks away with her original not-popped pimple, and although she won’t admit, I know that she is judging me. Harshly. Judging me the way she did (rightfully so) when I flailed my arms and screeched like a little girl when the vacuum that I was using caught on fire.  

There was actually one time when I went at one of her pimples with genuine vigor and vim. I knew this would be my chance to prove to her that I was a man of honor, and not just a man who was incapable of thinking on my own to unplug a smoking vacuum. I discovered the pimple in the middle of the night. I rolled over, put my hand on Pam’s back, and felt something. Something big. Something big enough that it woke me from my sleep. So I poked and prodded over and over, trying to fully wrap my mind around this crazy growth on her back. And then Pam, herself half asleep, barked:  “Ow!  What are you doing to my nipple???”

Wanted: Cat With an Effective Mother

This is what I'm going for. 

Not this.

Last night I was just finishing dinner—chicken pot pie, salad, and apple slices—when I heard scratching and gnawing inside one of my cupboards. The cupboard I keep my Starbucks coffee and Wildflower iced tea in.

Now they’re trying to screw with my caffeine intake. Bastards.

Listening to the little scratchy-scratchy sounds gave me a stomach ache  and I didn't want to open the cupboard to inspect it, lest a mice might dive bomb me right at face level, and you all know what that would do to me.

Put me right in the asylum. Just hand me my straight jacket now.

I tried to call my husband who was supposedly on his way home, but he didn’t answer. Twice. I finally called my neighbor to come check it out since I couldn’t take the anxiety anymore. He did some inspecting and the long and the short of it is, found no mice. But they are still alive and well in my kitchen walls somewhere, probably with a paw full of poo to throw at me given the opportunity.

I can’t tell you how many people have suggested we get a cat. Just today my mother even brought it up.

“Well, what you need is a cat,” she said.

“I’ve considered that, but how do I know I’m going to get a mouser and not just a cat who likes to tinker around with them like stuffed toys?” I replied.

“You know, cats learn those things from their mother. If the mother cat teaches the kittens how to do it, then they’ll chase the mice,” she added helpfully. It always comes back to the mother doesn't it?

Fabulous. So she’s saying I need to scour the alleys looking for a street cat with street smarts, whose mother showed them the finer points of catching and killing rodents? Do you think the people at the MSPCA have the vitaes for the strays in their shelter, filed by personality habits and specialized skills? I’m pretty sure that most cats these days are from the genetic line of the washing-mittens-and-eating-pie type. Meow meow meow.

Perhaps I should just purchase a mouse at the pet store and secretly release it in various cat cages and see what the felines do. A little like an interview or performance evaluation. Chases mouse? Check. Catches mouse? Check. Kills mouse? Nope. Just bats it with paw and licks it. Move on to cat option #2. It’s times like these when it would be helpful if animals could talk, or if those space-age dog collars from the movie UP! were a reality. Then assessing whether a cat was up to the job would simply be a matter of questions.

“So, Tom, tell me about your past work experience.”

Tom: “Well, I used to work down on the west side of town,” he drawls with thick Italian accent, “right behind Jim’s Big Barbeque. To date I’ve captured, killed and disposed of (glances at slash marks on his furry forearm) 253 rodents of all sizes.”

I’d hire him on the spot, that Tom. Even if he was a chain smoker and had a penchant for licking himself.

But you can’t know until you’ve taken the cat home, got the darned thing acclimated to your home, and seen him in action. It’s a huge risk. That, and my husband and I are in a pretty good place. We get along well. We're jovial (mostly). We even have conversations. That this coincides with the death of my other cat two years ago is pure coincidence I'm sure. But I'm a little worried that bringing a new cat into the home would turn our topics of conversation towards, "Did you notice it smells like cat piss downstairs?" or "When's the last time you changed that litter box?" or "There's cat hair all over my workshirts." Am I ready to potentially sacrifice my spousal relationship to appease my germ-a-phobic, controlling, type-A nature?

If I find a new piece of mouse poo I am.

If anyone out there knows of a cat whose mother did her due diligence to the breed and taught the thing how to be a mouser, feel free to contact me. If I like the cat and it works out, I promise to reward you with a special treat: probably something I baked in my kitchen.

Mouse Tales Part Deux

 [If you’re just tuning in, I highly recommend reading the blog below first. (The Clock Struck One.) You don’t have to, but the story is funnier from the beginning. Just sayin’.]

I wake up on day two of my Germ Nightmare, (after having spent the night dreaming that I moved into a dorm room at ASU only to find that I had to slay a Troll, kill the snake that was wrapped around my legs and in my shoes—while I was wearing them—and fight off other hideous monstrosities in order to live there…honestly I have no idea what made me dream about that…) and I gently check in the cupboard to see if there are any rodent carcasses lying about.

Nope. But the bait is gone on one of them. Dammit.

Which gives me no amount of pleasure or comfort knowing that the mice are still running through my cupboards and pilfering the bait off the traps while giving me the finger.

I continue to clean the kitchen, pulling out the oven, disinfecting the sides of the stove where all the food spills, vacuuming behind the appliances checking for more mouse poop, and generally dismantling the kitchen area while trying to purge it of mouse feces. It was a beautiful day.

My husband got home later that evening, checked the traps that were in the cupboard, and we crossed our fingers and said a little prayer that the traps would work this time. (Maybe I was the only one praying come to think of it.)

Around 11:00 p.m. my SIL, BIL, and I were in the kitchen/living room talking when my BIL, who is leaning against the counter and facing the fireplace, starts pointing and shrieking at the wall behind me.

“AHHHHH!! Ahhhhhh!!!”  he yells. He’s yelling and pointing and gagging a little I think, and I’m starting to freak out because I’m not sure what he’s looking at behind me—a couple of glances didn’t reveal anything—and I’m wondering if he’s seeing an otherworldly specter, the grim reaper or maybe Jesus himself, and while he’s still yelling and pointing, I turn around long enough to see it…..

…a mouse that has popped out of a tiny hole between our mantel and the slate bricks of our fireplace and is now running along the fireplace, down onto the floor and into the floorboard heaters in the living room. I’d have rather seen Jesus.

 I’m not sure at what point I found myself sitting on the edge of my hutch with my feet ontop of the couch, but I do recall that I also started yelling for my husband, repeatedly calling his name with terror and immediacy in my voice, and I keep calling and calling and calling him, and I think “Where the hell is that husband of mine…is he outside?” because aren’t husbands supposed to come running when they hear their wife is in distress and screaming their name? Where’s my knight in cotton shorts when I need him?

But no, he isn’t outside, and he comes sauntering, sauntering I tell you, up the stairs and into the living room, like I always yell his name in fits of shock and panic and it’s no big deal that screaming wife who is sitting on the hutch with her feet on the back of the couch because she frequently has fits similar to these and why hurry.

“Did you see a mouse?” he says all casual-like; tones reminiscent of “did you get the mail,” or “pass the salt,” or “have you seen my wallet?” Like we see mice in our house every day. No. Big. Deal.

My husband is not an alarmist by the same measures that I am a germ-a-phobe, which is probably a good checks-and-balances system in our union, but I was kind of hoping that he’d locate the sucker, look for it, capture it, dispose of it, in front of me and before I decided to go to bed that night, just so I could rest peacefully and with the budding illusion that perhaps the only mouse responsible for all that crap in the cupboards was dead. But he didn’t.

He nonchalantly got another mouse trap, baited it with peanut butter, and placed it on the floor in the living room near the baseboard  heater where the thing disappeared.

“Aren’t you going to look for it any more than that?” I asked incredulously.

“Nope,” was his reply.

To say I was crestfallen is an understatement…but whatever I was feeling (a mixture of horror, anger, helplessness to name a few) one thing was certain: you can be damned sure I wasn’t going to be sleeping on the couch—where I had slept the night before because of snoring and company. I took the master bed. If my husband wasn’t going to find the mouse then he could sleep in the same room with it, a few feet away from it, and listen to the trap snap in the middle of the night all by his lonesome. Not me folks.

The next morning I awoke to whispers of good news. My SIL asked me, “Did you hear that we had caught the mouse?”

“Which one?” I asked.

“The one in the cupboard,” she said. “We heard the trap go off while we were talking. I cleaned out your cupboards with bleach and everything.”

“What about the one in the living room?” I inquired.

“I think the mouse we caught in the cupboards was the same one. I think he ran down the heaters and around to the kitchen. I’m sure that’s the only one.”

Now, I think I’d like to marry my SIL. Here is a woman who knows exactly how to lie to me, what illusions to feed me, so I can carry on with living in my house and cooking in my kitchen without fear and panic. She knows that I know there is more than one mouse, and that clearly it wasn’t the one in the living room; she knows I’m no idiot, and yet, she doesn’t make me feel stupid for my phobias, she just lies to me in order to help keep the pathways in my brain moving and not frozen. That, and she cleaned the cupboards with bleach. Because using a flame thrower to get rid of dead mouse germs is just too dangerous and pure acid is simply too strong; but she understands me enough (and she is such a good housekeeper herself) to know that bleach will do the trick and make me feel better. She is a smart, smart woman. My husband could really stand to take a pointer or two from her on how to handle me. Bless her bless her bless her.

I approach the living room couch, where my husband is curled up in blankets, and glance over at the trap that was set on the floor—and there lies dead mouse #2. Feet straight up in the air and still. That’s just how I like my mice….four legs in the air and on their backs. PETA people best stand back, because I’ll argue this with you till my death.

A check of the traps in the garage reveal another dead rodent—to bring the death total to three. And a few days ago, another trap in the garage caught mouse #4. Four dead within four days. There is still a baited trap in the cupboard which hasn’t seen any more action since its first body, but we’re leaving it there (along with a few more in the garage) to make sure we’ve caught all the pooping culprits before boarding up the cupboards and sealing holes. Nothing’s worse than mouse carcass in the walls I’ve been told. I’m happy to take their word for it.

And now? Well, the kitchen is really, really clean. During this event I purged many cupboard items I didn’t need, didn’t use, and simply served to collect rodent crap. I’ve cleaned behind my stove as well as the sides of the stove. I’ve vacuumed above my oven, and next to my fridge. Oh, and I get to buy a new toaster. Whoop Whoop. I may never store my cookie sheets and baking pans under the stove again (you can’t properly seal up a stove drawer) and there is a good chance that the plastic bin that currently houses those objects will become our newest piece of kitchen furniture. I’m okay with that. All I know is that the next mouse I see better be dead, or on TV being chased by an idiot cat.

The Clock Struck One...

Isn't he cute?

I’m curious why in our folkloric past we fondly sing of rodents. Three blind mice, Three blind mice…Hickory Dickory Dock, The mouse ran up the clock… And who can forget the adorable Jerry, constantly trying to escape that idiot cat Tom? Why he’s so cute it makes every child yearn for pet mouse, one that can slam doors and throw frying pans. More recently, Disney Pixar comes out with a fabulous animated flick of a rat trying to make a living in the fancy kitchens of France. (I think.) Rats are just mice on steroids, and you’ll forgive me for lumping them together. A rodent is a rodent is a rodent, especially one in the kitchen. I honestly can’t say I’ve seen Ratatouille start to finish because I can’t get past the idea that there is a warm blooded, hairy beast in a kitchen, who sits inside some nerd’s sweaty chef hat yanking on his hair. All I’m thinking is that it must really smell in that hat, that gross greasy head smell, and that now there’s rat poop all on top that guy's head, because honestly that rat is up there cooking up “specialties” for hours. We all know that rodents poop as often and profusely as their whiskers twitch, and well, while Pixar is nice enough to leave out these realistic tidbits, my mind won’t let them go. I’m a realist and a germaphobe. You can’t fool me. I will not be deceived.

But there’s nothing cute about rodents in the kitchen, nothing funny about it whatsoever and I can tell you how I know.

Last Thursday night, my family, my in-laws, my sister-in law, my brother in-law, (yes that’s all of them) and my son’s friend, arrived home at 9:30 p.m. after five days at a cabin in Maine. We were all exhausted, the house was filled with suitcases, bins of kitchen items, dirty beach towels, wet water toys,…you name it, it was littering all rooms of the house and down the hallway. A few of the adults were in the kitchen, emptying the clean dishwasher, when my BIL pulls down a canning jar that I keep in my lower cabinets next to the toaster.

It had a tiny piece of mouse poop on it.

He shows it to me and my husband, and we go, “Hmmm. That’s interesting. I wonder how that got there.”

And then my BIL pulls out more canning jars. And we find more poop. And now I’m not going, “Hmmm,” but “WTH?....”

And then he pulls out the toaster.

(You may want to put down any food you may be eating right now.)

And we look inside the toaster. And the bottom of the toaster is covered in mouse poop.

Covered. Like twenty five mice sat inside my toaster and had a pooping contest, seeing how much excrement they could push out and high fiving each other while doing the deed. And now I’m thinking:

“When’s the last time I made toast?”

Seriously,  how many of you look inside the toaster each time you plunk bread in it? You just take it for granted that the toaster is clean. I know I did. But I'm staring at what seems like four tablespoons of crap and I'm wondering: Is all this poop the result of days or months of rodent activity, or did the mice know we were on vacation in Maine and suddenly run through my cupboards with wild abandon? Is it possible for mice to poop that much in five days? I sure as hell hope it is. Because if it isn’t, my whole family has been eating Ego waffles and bagels smoked with fecal matter.

(Hang on a minute…my mouth is salivating and I think I may lose it…)

Well, needless to say the next hour or so was spent emptying out cupboards and searching for small, black, rodent droppings. Yep, found in three cupboards. Above the stove. In the stove drawer. No doubt behind the stove and in the lazy susan I refuse to use, and now for good reason.

I’m tired. At this point in my day I’m barely keeping it together, lest I cry and sob right in front of all my inlaws. Not that they’d be shocked or anything, it’s just not a very adult thing to do. I put on my victim hat and wondered why these things always happen to me. Because these events do nothing to assuage my psychological germ-baggage and instead fuel them like lighter fluid on a barbeque. You thought I was crazy before? Honey, I’ll never toast another piece of bread anywhere without inspecting the insides of the device I’m using. You were embarrassed of me ordering at a restaurant previously? Wait till I ask them if there is mice defecation inside their toaster. These episodes continue to make living with me a brand new experience every day.

So what did we do? We laid traps of course. Little cheap, wooden mice traps in my kitchen cupboards and in the stove. Did we catch anything?

Well. Yes and no. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow for the rest of the story. It gets better. Trust me.

Potty Paper Pile

This is what I found in the bathroom last night after I came home from a meeting. It’s an innovative new take on leaving the toilet paper off the roll. Normally, I’d find the brand new roll sitting behind the pot, next to the pot, or on the floor in front of the pot. But in all of those cases the toilet paper was still attached to the cardboard tube.

Unrolling the toilet paper from the tube and leaving in it a big pile within stretching distance of the toilet is creative. I hadn’t thought of this. While unsightly and inviting of germs, hair, and bits of debris that live on our floor, reaching out to grab some from the pile on the floor is a lot easier. I’m guessing that it’s my three-year old who decided to make modern art out of butt-tissue, because if it’s anyone else, I need to have a serious talk with him or her.

Sadly, I did not re-roll the toilet paper onto the tube. It’s still sitting in the pile on the floor, although the pile is shrinking a little with each visit. I have tried to have the talk with my youngest about how much toilet paper is appropriate to use for wiping. I don’t think much in sinking in.

I remember my mother having the same talk with me. Many, many years ago.

“Rachie. You are using too much toilet paper. You do NOT need to use THIS much to wipe your little bo-bo. (Bo-bo was my mother’s word for our private area, and generally bo-bo worked unless you were having trouble with your bo-bo and needed to clarify the 'front bo-bo' or 'back bo-bo.) If you go pee-pee you only need two squares.”

“But what if I go poop?” I remember asking.

“Then you can use a little more,” she conceded. “But you girls are wasting toilet paper because you’re scared of getting a little pee or poop on your fingers.”

Well, duh, mom. Pee and poop on your fingers is just gross when you're a kid.

And two squares? Was there some scientific reasoning that helped come up with that number? Was three way too many and one simply too difficult to hold onto? I know we lived paycheck to paycheck, but were we rationing the butt paper too?

As fate would have it, in a beautifully illustrated case of what comes around goes around, I’m now having the same discussion with my little one. While she is extremely adept and using the toilet ALL BY HERSELF, she is also quite skilled at filling the toilet with mounds and mounds of tissue. I've come in after she's finished, to find a toilet bowl with no water, but a white soggy mass overtaking the bowl. Kind of how the kids cereal looks in the morning after they've left it to go to school. No milk, only a bowl of soggy mush. With trepidation I flush while holding the plunger just in case the water level should start to rise threatening my safety on the floor. Like tonight. After I flushed and the bowl overflowed again. I hate to admit this happens quite often at our house. I called for my husband to come and fix the issue. This is one of those times it really pays off to have a husband. The other bit of good news is that the large pile of toilet paper on the floor helped soak up some of the sewage water. Mmmmm. Brownies, anyone?

I did illustrate how many squares Child C was supposed to use to wipe her bo-bo. We counted them together. One. Two. Three. Four. I'm doubling my mother's offer and letting her have four squares to wipe with . 

I don’t want her getting pee on her fingers. 

All Monkeys are Not Created Equal

It’s really true that the last kid gets the short end of the stick when it comes to….well, almost everything. Our first born children get the best of us, the middle children get the rest of us, and the last children get what’s left of us. And usually, it ain’t much.

Child C’s birthday (as in A, B, C is my third) was last week and we are celebrating the big day tomorrow. I did not send out cute Smilebox cards with music-I sent out a generic email invite. I did not give people 4 weeks notice-I gave them about two. I am not having it at a park, indoor gym, or Chucky Cheese-we are having it in the back yard if it doesn’t rain. Depending upon how clean the house gets by tomorrow, we may have it outside even if it does rain.

To add insult to injury, Child C has never had a party with kids before. Last year doesn’t really count because I’m quite sure she doesn’t remember it, and the kids who came were the same ones who are at my house almost everyday and very often the weekends. Same ol’ same ol’. Last week on her actual birthday we didn’t even have a cake. We wished her happy birthday a lot, but that’s about it. Sadly, my goal for tomorrow’s birthday is get ‘em in, feed ‘em cake, and move ‘em out. Break out the slip n’ slide, some water balls, two hours start to finish, done.

It’s terrible I know. I recall very fondly my son’s three-year birthday when I invited the entire family to a huge park in Chandler, Arizona, everything themed Elmo, replete with a huge Elmo shaped cake I baked from scratch, including the red-dyed coconut I used to make Elmo look hairy. I’m old now. I just don’t have that kind of energy (or time) anymore. I suck, suck, suck.

And though I suck, I’m not particularly mad at myself, because I’m reasoning that she’s only three and the chances of her remembering her mediocre birthday party are slim. I could be wrong about this, but fortunately for me I won’t find out if this damages her for at least 10 or so years. And by that time you can be damn sure I won’t remember a thing about this party. By then I can play the senility card.

But something is bothering me quite a lot. The girl loves Curious George, so at the very least I wanted to have a few things that represented the darling monkey; plates, ineffective cute napkins, maybe a cheapy plastic table covering. Curious George is pretty popular so I’m thinking it shouldn’t be too hard.

Well, Michael’s craft store has nothing George. Nothing monkey. Nothing even banana. Besides getting some frosting bags, frosting tips, and a tube of black icing, the entire trip was a bust.

I know that if I headed to iParty I could find an entire section devoted to Curious George, with little plastic tumblers, party favors, monkey masks, and maybe even some banana flavored candy. Artificial banana flavor, yummm.

But iParty is a 15-minute drive from my house and in the course of the last few days, I did not have the time to spare. At all. I headed to Target to get what I could, crossing my fingers that some corporate buyer also had a child who adores George.

Well, guess what. No George. No banana stuff either. But wait! They do have some monkey things but nothing resembling the cuteness of the curious one. 

This is that creepy looking Paul Franco monkey design that seems to be all the rage these days. This is a George monkey knock off. I’m thrown back to my childhood when my mother forced me to wear Lee brand jeans instead of Levi’s because they were cheaper, and they “look just the same.” No one wore Lee jeans. Everyone wore Levi’s. Just because they both use denim doesn’t make them interchangeable. Turns out, a monkey isn’t just a monkey either.

What bothers me most about the Target monkey—and I’d hold onto your seats because I’m going to get a little inappropriate—is that the mouth really bothers me.

A lot. It’s just too…vaginal for me. Labial if you will. I know Freud would have a field day psychoanalyzing why I must turn that stupid monkey’s mouth into a vagina, but I’ve said it. It’s clearly the same part of me that thinks Muno looks like a big, bumpy, one-eyed dildo. Judge me if you will.

I know Child C will not think that anything is wrong with knock-off monkey, but it bothers me that over 10 little children are going to be eating chocolate cake off labial-monkey faces. It’s just gross. And even though I have a problem with this monkey face, do you think it encourages me to get my ass in the van and drive the 15 extra minutes to get REAL Curious George monkey paraphernalia?

Of course not. Because I do not have the time. Because she is my third child and this is what’s left of me. So tomorrow while the kids are inhaling cake off inappropriate plates and wiping their little innocent mouths with primate porn, I’ll just have to grin and bear it. I suppose it could be worse. That funky monkey could be eating a banana. 

It’s Van-Tastic

Today I started my morning off with a list of things I’d like to accomplish. I then proceeded to walk outside and start cleaning out my van which wasn’t even on the list. The catalyst for my decision was the fact that my van had started to smell like rotten milk. I’m past the stage of hidden baby bottles, but I am not past the stage of the Go-Gurt. My children cannot get into the van without grabbing one in their pre-trip ritual: go to the bathroom, grab your shoes, get a yogurt. Thank the heavens that Yoplait invented little tubes of dairy product, just perfect for busy families on the go. But now my vehicle is littered with (mostly) eaten yogurt casings. And the tiny little tip the kids rip off while opening the tube. In fact, I put this heinous chore off as long as I can and for good reason. If my family was stranded in New York City, in temperatures of 110 degrees, and a cab pulled up with an interior that looked and smelled like my van, I'd shove the kids out of the way, slam the door, and say, "No thanks, we'll walk." But since it's crap from children I know, while still gross, it's oddly acceptable even for my germ-a-phobic nature. But my van smelled. I could ignore it no longer.

I’m sure all of you have seen the You Tube clip, “Mom My Ride,” but if you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t seen it, you really need to watch it. I wish like hell I had been the one who thought of putting this together, but alas, I wasn’t. However, it is pretty much exactly what my van looks like and was what I was dealing with this morning when I decided to actually clean my vehicle.



Step One: Crap Removal

This is what I unloaded from the van today, although it was much worse a few days ago, when trying to find one of my children, I had to remove some trash from the floor. So while my trash bag is not nearly as full as it should have been, I did remove enough items to require four trips to the house to carry things in. While taking this photo I thought it would be a neat idea to put together some “I SPY Van Crap” fun.

I spy a bucket and a spool of thread,
I spy a hat for wearing on your head.
I spy a water bottle, phthalate free,
I spy an orange cup and pink pony.

I spy a rain slicker and bag of clothes,
I spy tissues for a snotty nose.
I spy sunglasses and a foil pan,
I spy some socks and a stained hot pad.

I spy a canning jar and a striped sun hat,
I spy two baseballs that you’d hit with a bat,
I spy a table cloth white and green,
I spy a bag of trash just for me!

Perhaps I’ll sell this photo to the I Spy book people. Maybe I could make a buck or two. (I also took a picture of the contents of my purse which I emptied out the other day as well. I’ll be doing another post on purse crap, with more I SPY fun to come.)

Step 2: Department of the Interior

Once the crap is removed, it’s off to grab the vacuum with the super suction. I admit that I didn’t do a stellar job with the floors; I just vacuumed over the floor pads without removing them. Upon first glance at this photo you might think that I have some groovy, retro tie-dyed carpeting in there, but alas, it’s fabulously stained from coffee spillage, sodas that leaked after the waxy bottom of the cup disintegrated, and other assorted liquids one might carry in the van. I don’t kill myself trying to suck up every last rock and crumble because I live with stains like these, and really, the bitty grit on the floors makes the stains less noticeable. I do however vacuum all the seats, especially the ones in the back where the kids inhale snacks and assorted sundries by first smashing them on their face, and then eating the crunchy bits. The seat around my daughter’s buckle is pretty malleable, considering that I had to dismantle it some years back to clean up a quart of chunky vomit.
I’m not even going to say it outloud because you know it’ll jinx me, but since then we haven’t needed to perform that particular service again. I understand this is just a matter of time.


Step 3: Put Van Back Together, While Admiring It’s Beauty

If cleaning out and vacuuming the vehicle wasn’t enough of a time suck, you then have to actually put away all the garbage you shoveled out of it. I had a pile for the laundry, a pile for the kitchen, a pile for the garbage, and yes, there is still a foil pan with a few remaining stragglers sitting on the driveway. I put back the driver’s side floor mat, admiring the cool hole that has worn through the bottom, but it does make a cool new way to play peek-a-boo with your three year old.

And lastly, the favorite part of my van has to be the passenger side mirror:

You too could be a proud owner of a carpet-soiled, rotten milk smelling van with a broken side mirror. The only thing you’ll need to do, is back out of your garage early in the morning (before your cup of coffee) while looking through the rearview mirror to make sure you’re not actually running over your children, and wait for the CRACK! CRUNCH! that is to ensue. For while we have a two car garage, it is obviously designed for two Tato Nano’s  and not for a Dodge minivan and Toyota hybrid. When the cars are parked in the garage together, I have to climb into my van through the passenger door and into the driver’s seat. This is not a reflection of my growing arse, but simply a statement about how large our garage is. (Although those wood-working tools along the side may be taking up a bit of room as well.) The interesting thing to note about my side mirror, is the entire apparatus popped off and is too broken to work again unless we purchase an entirely new side mirror part, so my handy man-y simply popped in the mirror just so it doesn’t look as tacky. This mirror is no longer able to be controlled with the little buttons on my dash, nor does it even reflect anything, because it’s so loosely popped in there, that it vibrates so much that the images are just a blur: like trying to watch a movie while someone is fast forwarding it. But whatever makes him feel less like a white-trash van owner. I’m happy to own up to it.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, with a little hard work, a bachelors in education and a masters degree in English, you too could own a vehicle just like mine. If you need any tips on how to get the fab smells like vomit and rotted dairy products out of your vehicle, give me call. If you’re needing information on how to disassemble the vans seats to clean up excrement, body fluids, or to find a lost limb or missing child, I’m here to help you. If you’d like to post information on the state of your own vehicle and attach pictures for us to commiserate together, I’d love you forever. It’s my calling to turn my misfortunes into learning experiences that help others. No need to thank me.

My Head or Theirs: Somebody's is About Ready to Roll

We all know how difficult it is to live with other people. If you are a mother, or are married, you understand that there is only so much you can do to pick up, clean, and establish organizational protocol when the people you live with refuse to acknowledge the systems that are set in place. And since being a family member is not an elected, appointed, or salaried position, there is not much recourse available to us in curbing other's behavior. There are days I'd really like to doc my kid's paycheck, but they don't get one. Not even an allowance. Plenty of hours in my lifetime have been devoted to asking my husband (yet again) to please do, well... whatever it is at the time that is bugging me. Nagging is not working with any of them. Yelling is even less effective. So I figured I'd vent publicly a little; hoping that some of you out there will reach a hand out to me, commiserate about our pet peeves, and help me by sharing about the things in your own home that remain unchanged, because no one bothers to listen to you.

So, hop on the tram with me today ladies and gentlemen. Keep all arms and legs inside the moving vehicle at all times. Fasten your helmet, and let's go.

Stop #1: The Toilet Paper Roll

As we slow to a halt, please look over to the left of the picture, noticing the brand new roll of toilet paper ladies and gentlemen. Now look over towards your right where you can see the empty roll of toilet paper visibly displayed on the tile wall.  The new location for our family's butt tissue is now on the back of the toilet, on the floor near the toilet, or on the sink beside the toilet, but never, ever on the toilet paper roll holder where it belongs. In fact, the empty cardboard tube has been there for approximately three weeks. We have gone through 5 rolls of toilet paper since this last one ran out, and no one seems capable of squishing in the spring action rod to remove the old one. I'm thinking of hot gluing on some gems and sequins and simply calling it a bathroom decoration. Or perhaps I could hang a small hand towel there. But that too would probably end up on the floor. 

Stop #2: The Laundry With a Mind of it's Own

My husband may be upset with me for this stop folks, but as he doesn't read my blog too frequently, if you don't tell him, I won't either. Please observe the big-ass yellow laundry hamper rising stately above the laundry on the floor. I'll admit my husband did not play basketball as a youth, but he did play baseball, leading me to believe he is capable of throwing something in a certain direction and having it land where he would desire. It is fact that we have had this laundry basket since we have been married and that it originally had a lid. In the first few years of our marriage his dirty clothes would find themselves piled on top of the laundry basket, but never actually inside it. To make things easier for my husband (because I am incredibly accommodating), I removed the lid which now lives with the dust and lint balls on the closet floor. Regardless of my efforts, his clothes seem to end up on the floor next to the laundry, but again, never inside the laundry hamper, leading me to believe that the laundry is crawling out of it on it's own accord.

Stop #3: The Empty Food Boxes Left for Posterity

I'm pretty sure I know who the culprits are for this tricky act. Yes, the very same kids that eat these delicious, non-organic, full of sugar, snacks seem to have no problem telling me we are out of a particular food item, but do have a problem throwing the empty boxes away. I have one pantry. It is very small. Space matters. In fact, as a lesson I think I'm going to remove all the food from all the packages, so it just looks like we have things to eat. Then when they complain we are out of something, I'll simply reply, "No, I'm pretty sure I saw the box in the cupboard. Look again." 

Stop #4: The Lonely Amish Pegs

Look carefully ladies and gentlemen or you might miss this one. If you'll look at the top of the picture you'll notice a row of very nicely painted Amish peg wall hooks. You might be focusing on how cool that checkerboard stencil is, or how craftily the decorator made it look worn by sanding the edges and giving it a coat of stain. Do not be fooled! It too serves a purpose! If you look at the bottom of the photo, what do you find? Yes Yes!! Two jackets and a book bag in desperate need of some hooks! How ever will we solve this issue? Could it be, that the owner of this house, (the one with female anatomy) personally hung this set of hooks in this specific place, so as to combat her family's propensity to pile crap at the bottom of the stairs after they return home from school, on the weekends, and all days ending in 'y' ? Are you aware, tram riders, that this woman was also chided by her husband for hanging these hooks because clearly, "no one uses them"? Sigh. I've got it on good authority that after she hung these pegs, she gave the in-service to the family (and neighbor kids) who all (still) blatantly disregard the family operations manual. A manager can only take so much insubordination before someone gets the boot.

Stop #5: Toothpaste Nastiness

Tighten your seatbelts for this one folks. It's the best stop of the bunch. This lovely picture (exposure issues notwithstanding), is what the Lady of the household deals with every evening when she tries to keep her pearly whites, pearly white. I have tried every type of toothpaste top imaginable. Screw on lids stop screwing on about day two of tube use, the lid falls onto the floor repeatedly, and eventually is lost all together, allowing the toothpaste to crust it's way around the hole eventually clogging altogether. The flip top lids are no better (as evidenced above) and the most beautiful part of this pic is the little black hair that's stuck to the ice blue nastiness. I find myself wiping these tubes clean more often than I wipe my three year old, which is pretty often. I have also attempted to use the toothpaste with the lid that is also the base for standing, but you can imagine how that ends up. All I have to say, is that if you come visit, you need to bring your own. Either that or bring some floss, because there is hair in ours, and your going to need it.

I hope everyone enjoyed your trip through my world. If you live in similar circumstances, I'd love to hear about it. You can even post pics to the East Coast Musings Fan Page on Facebook if you're so inclined. I'd love to know I'm not the only family manager who has to deal with these kinds of people.

The Ants Go Marching Ten by Ten

There are actually lots of ants milling around, but they are way faster than my cruddy point-and-shoot-camera. 

If you look closely, you can see their horrendously ugly black bodies.

I have ants in my garden this year. It’s not particularly surprising news I understand, but what is surprising is how many there seem to be. Half of an entire planting bed remains empty because the little black menaces have taken over the entire thing. Like over the winter the suckers have been rebuilding ant sized replicas of  Native American cliff dwellings; little tiny holes poking out the side of a cliff, the ants scurrying around the levels of buildings, making corn meal, drying meat, or chipping rocks to make spear heads.  

 Doesn't this look freakishly similar to the holes in my garden wall, if you use your imagination and have a drink or two? It's Bandelier Monument in New Mexico.

Besides my many neuroses regarding germs, I have a volatile hatred for tiny crawling insects that nest. One or two ants is no problem, but thousands of swarming ants carrying egg sacks, food, and milling about just under the surface of the dirt making it look like my garden bed is breathing, is another thing entirely. Same with worms. One worm, I can handle. 50 worms swarming on a rotten apple is enough to make me vomit. And I just got the willies writing that sentence just imagining the worms. Chiggars. Termites. Lice. Don’t even get me going on lice. Now my head is itching. Dis. Gust. Ting.

After all the research I’ve done about ants in the garden, they seem to pose no real threat. I’ve been assured that they won’t eat my food, that their purpose is to harvest and clean up dead debris, aerate the soil, and to basically leave them alone, unless there is a major infestation. Too many ants become a problem because they start to “farm aphids” (who knew ants were so sustainably minded?). They start collecting aphids and protecting the plants the aphids live on because they like to eat the “honeydew,” which is a fancy name for “slimy residue left by aphid buts” and not the refreshing melon you are accustomed to eating with your scones in the morning. (Which is what I first thought “honeydew” was referring to and I couldn’t figure out why people would give these suckers honeydew. My bad.)

But I do have a serious ant problem, if nothing more than I’m sickened by looking at all the holes in the ground and on the side of the planting bed, and I can’t imagine growing food there, mainly because then I’ll have to weed and tend to that area, and like I said, the whole mess is making me nauseous.

The good news is there are organic methods to try and curb ants, especially when they get too unruly and start throwing spit wads at you when you walk by. It’s rumored that they hate cucumber peel and chili powder. I gave it a try and laid a cucumber peel wall in between ant city and my marigolds and tomatoes. I also dumped an entire bottle of Badia red chili powder on all the ant openings, hoping the suckers microscopic intestinal tract would feel the repercussions of the red chili in the morning and die of dehydration from diarrhea. At least that’s what seems to happen in our house when we eat too much red chili. Not the dying part of course.

I went and checked on my organic methods the following day, only to find that not only were the ants alive and well, they were dancing to "La Bamba," drinking margaritas, and had erected a teeny, tiny, sign out of garden debris that said, “Thanks for the enchilada sauce!” Apparently Mexican ants have taken up residence, no doubt immigrants from Arizona. And here I thought they were Anasazi in heritage.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do about these guys, unless I pull up a lawn chair, grab my sombrero, and join them. I think I’ll try the boiling water trick next, which is to pour the scalding liquid into the holes which burns them? Boils them alive? I’m not sure how they die, but knowing my luck they’ll use the hot water to make some albondigas soup.

For now, that section of the garden bed is empty. But the ants know I’m out to end them. Let’s hope they don’t take their vengeance out on my tomatoes. They would after all, have to walk over my dried up cucumber peel wall. 

Germophobe Confessions

Greetings to all you East Coast Musings readers from the Muddy Midwest.

I had to chuckle at Rachel’s post on germs, mainly because I could have written it myself. I adore finding fellow germophobes, partly because true g-phobes seem to be somewhat of a rare breed and mostly because no one else in the world can commiserate about the disgustingness that goes along with kids quite like a g-phobe parent.

Suffice it to say, I was tickled (and sickened) to read about Rachel’s kids and the Port-A-Potty while berry picking. It seems that kids of g-phobes really outdo themselves when it comes to indulging in germ-infested areas. I found myself totally cringing as I read, imagining what I would do had I been in her shoes (shudder).

Antibacterial wipes and gel are staples in my purse and mini-van. My kids and I never drive away from a store without cleaning our hands with a wipe. I adore the fact that most stores now offer wipes for the cart handles (one of the grossest surfaces on earth, in my opinion) just inside the door. So I get a few strange looks; I really don’t care. It’s so much better than touching feces, mucous and other nasty substances.

My kids are older now, so they have pretty much learned to maneuver through life (around me, anyhow) without getting too disgusting. However, the one area we can’t seem to stop butting heads on is money, one of the most germ-riddled items in the universe. My boys, ages 6 and 7, think it one of life’s divine pleasures to dump out and then count their many coins, especially right before bed.

Now I realize that kids don’t get the whole germ thing. I was a kid once, and a typically gross one at that. Most days, I had a dried crust of snot running up my sleeve from wiping my nose on it. I hated baths, only washed my hands when forced and had absolutely no qualms about touching public door handles/toilets/animals and then my own face.

Ugh.

However, I come from a long, proud line of germophobes. Rumor has it that my maternal grandmother refused to kiss my grandfather when they were first married until he rinsed his mouth with Listerine. My paternal grandmother would re-wash socks that fell on the floor in the transition between washer and dryer, until my father, then a child, pointed out that the socks would be on the floor momentarily anyhow. My father insisted that we rinse all dishes thoroughly before washing them because he couldn’t stand the thought of the clean dishes being washed in water with food floating around in it, a habit that has long stuck with me.

My hope is that my children, too, will someday be much more aware of germs than they currently are. Perhaps not quite to the extent of awareness that I possess, but at least so that they’re past the stage of petting the dog, horse and cat and then blissfully eating the snack I sent out without washing up, or dumping their filthy money all over my clean dining room table without a second thought.

And when their own kids produce some of the same unsavory behavior that their parents did (sucking on money; exchanging pacifiers with a complete stranger baby; putting their hands in their mouths after collapsing on the department store bathroom floor), I will laugh as I hand out antibacterial wipes.

Sarah E. Ludwig is a mom of four and a freelance writer based in South Dakota. She blogs most weekdays at Parenting By Trial and Error, has an article coming out in the June issue of Parenting: School Years, writes children’s books that haven’t yet seen the light of day, enjoys infrequent moments of solitude, and plans to hammer out that parenting book proposal by the end of 2010.