I have a two year old in denial

My youngest (soon to be not the youngest), has been in a state of denial recently.

It started when my belly began to expand. I would tell her constantly that there is a baby in mommy's tummy and that she was going to be a big sissy. She would shake her head and say "no" and cover up my belly.

I kept on telling her this because somehow I wanted her to understand that she would no longer be the youngest. You see, she has been our baby, and we have babied her so much I'm worried about the transition period and jealousy of the baby. I want her to be prepared, well, as much as a two year old can be. So I continued to show her my belly and she continued to say "No!" and cover it up.

Two days ago she came up, pulled up my shirt, kissed my belly and said "LUCY!". I was pretty amazed. She has finally started to make some type of association with this.

So, she now knows that her old crib is Lucy's bed. Today I cleared out most of Myah's room except the big furniture, we plan to paint that this evening and move the little ones into that room. She saw everything missing from Myahs room and got very excited. She ran into her room and started pushing on the crib and saying "Lucy's bed! Lucy's bed" and trying to move it. She then ran around to her brothers room "Bubby's room?" asking if he was moving, I told her no. I then went to the door, and said "Evie's room" (touching the door) on her new room and "Myah's room" on her old room a couple times, to explain we are switching rooms.

She looked at me, smacked her door (her current door) and said ,"NO! Evie's room".

And the fun begins AGAIN.

4 Weeks to Go

I'm in the final stretch, the "Driving through Texas" stage of pregnancy. You know what I mean by that. It's that horrible stretch where you feel so alone in the world, so miserable, that there can't possibly be an end in sight. Every day moves on but it feels like a week.

So, that being said, you would think that I have the crib set up, the room decorated, diapers neatly stacked in the bin and Lucy's clothes all washed and ready.

But I don't. I have NOTHING done. Nothing I tell you.

Ok, I'm stretching the truth a tad. Last night Jamin and I switched the closets. We moved our oldest into the small closet and moved the girls stuff (Evie and Lucy's which Jamin now calls "the twins" which drives me crazy but that's a WHOLE other story) into Myah's larger closet. This is step one in the big room switch.

Our next step is to paint the rooms (Evie's is purple and green baby colors and Myah's is a blinding shade of hot pink that makes your head spin...I can't POSSIBLY subject an infant to that), switch furniture, then and ONLY then can I begin pulling boxes out of our attic and washing clothes, folding, putting away, washing bottles and taking inventory of what we have and what we need.

We have our work cut out for us. I have no desire at all to paint. I LOATHE painting. I can't even bend over to pick up a toy off the floor or sneeze without wetting myself, let alone paint. Just the thought of this daunting task makes me want to crawl into bed and pull the covers up over my head.

Can someone just wake me up when it is all over? Please?

The good news: baby is head down which means no c-section! YAY! The thought of a c-section has had me up in panic ridden night sweats for the past two weeks. I know, everyone says "what's the big deal?" The big deal is I DO NOT want someone basically gutting me while I'm awake, and the whole "you won't feel pain" doesn't give me any comfort. Someone would still be slicing me open while I'm awake and alert and that puts me in a complete state of panic. So the whole no c-section news is FREAKING FANTASTIC news to me!

The bad news: Jamin has come up with a new nickname for me during this pregnancy. I made the mistake of wearing a red shirt the other day. He has now deemed me "the kool-aid guy". Wonderful. Oh well, it could be worse. When I was pregnant with Evie I was "Jabba the wife," but on top of that every time I'd get up he would make the noises of Jabba to go along with it. Good times I tell you...good times.

So, in four weeks I will have myself another wonderful baby girl. I don't think the reality of this has completely sunk in yet, Evie is still so young and I'm busy with her constantly. It's a different state of mind than my last pregnancy, the excitement is still there, but it is overshadowed by fears of having four kids, and two little ones at the same time. I did it with Myah and Brett, so I'm sure I'll be just fine.

After all, once you have three, what is one more?

It could only happen to me

Anyone who knows me at all knows that I win hands down when it comes to crazy pet and animal stories. From my Shih-Tzu being dognapped to my suicidal Beagle, from frog orgies in my kids swimming pool to dying guinea pigs, I have the strangest pet stories of them all.

Our cat Scout has gone missing again, I decided to take a long detour through our neighborhood to scan for him. While I was doing this two dogs come running out in front of my car. I slam on the breaks to avoid hitting them. Rather than scurry on their way, these dogs just stand there and stare at me as if to say "you shall not pass." I honk the horn, nudge the van forward a bit, but nothing. They won't budge an inch.

You HAVE to be kidding me right?

So I get out of my car and the smaller of the dogs (a little ugly pug that looks like the dog from Men In Black) barks and barks at me, will barely let me out of the van door. I try and shew them away, but they just are hell bent on not letting me go anywhere. I see collars, but no tags on these dogs.

This standoff continues for about 5 minutes. I'm at the point I'm about ready to just run over the dang dogs, and I'm starting to envision horrific scenes from Cujo where they poor lady is stuck in her sweltering car for days trapped by this rabid dog. The kids get out and try and move them out of the way while I get the van a little forward, but while doing this the little one bites my son. It's not a massive bite, a teeny little puncture wound no bigger than a pin prick, but it does draw a little blood. I quickly get the kids back in the car. I begin nudging forward and the dogs move a bit, the kids look out the window to make sure I'm not hitting them. As soon as I'm FINALLY clear of these dogs I FLOOR it. The dogs CHASE MY CAR through the rest of the neighborhood and around the corner.

I swear I've never seen anything like this in my life.

A quick call to hubby and the doctor (luckily my son doesn't need a rabies shot), then a call to animal control while in the middle of Eyemart (getting yet ANOTHER pair of glasses for my son) gets some stares from a few individuals. Can't you just see me now? The two year old pulling glasses off the racks and hiding under chairs with me on the phone to the doctor saying "Yes, I think my son needs a rabies shot." While the lady at the counter is repairing my sons glasses (oh and the oldest is crying because they can't repair her sunglasses for her).

I just look at them as I leave and say out loud "Welcome to my three ring circus."

Our Suicidal Dog

My husband and I have come to the conclusion that our dog must be suicidal. He has almost died on us a handful of times, and we keep saving him. Maybe we doomed him the minute we named him "Charlie" (after the character Charlie on Lost). We are his Desmond, no matter what we do, or how many times we try and save him, he is going to die.

It all started when we first adopted him. He dug a hole under the porch of his old home, and crawled under there to die. It took hours for him to come out so we could adopt him. We get him home to find out he has Parvo. After a week of this dog trying to die we nurse him back to health with Pedialyte and chicken broth, along with antibiotics.

A few months later, he decides to steal food from our larger alpha dog. She of course tries to bite his head off, leaving his eyeball bulging out of the socket. (That has been fixed, popped right back in at the vet's office that night). I still have nightmares about witnessing this horrific event.

About three days before we leave to Paris, he comes in the house bloody and swollen (the dog seriously looked MESSED up see photo to my left). We have no clue what he did to himself, but we nurse him back to health with antibiotics and aspirin. Our dog lives to see yet another day. We are still debating if he got his head caught under the fence or if the big dog attacked him again. We just can't be sure.

About a month ago he gets himself caught on my staircase in a noose. If I would have gone downstairs 30 seconds later I would have had a dead dog hanging from my stairs (talk about having to go to therapy after seeing something like that...). Anyhow, he noosed himself around the stairs and actually let go of his bowels and bladder he was that close to death. My stairs now have claw marks dug into the wood where he tried to claw his way up them to save himself.

Two weeks ago he somehow got a hold of an ant bait and ate all the poison out of it. Luckily he survived that one. The "counter" went back (zero days since last Charlie suicide attempt).

I have NO clue what it is with this dog. I guess we just keep trying to save his life and live out the doggie version of the movie "Final Destination". He cheated death but it keeps coming for him? Sounds like a feature film to me...

Scattergories

How fitting that the head of the poor man on the cover is nearly exploding. This is how I feel sometimeswhen I play games with the kids.

Now, don't get me wrong. They are finally at the age where games are SOMEWHAT enjoyable with them, which is pretty darn cool, however there are a few games that NEVER need to be played with children. This is one of them.

My oldest asked if I would play Scattergories with her. First of all, there were only two of us, but she insisted that it would be just fine. Ok, I give in. I'll play.

Round one is over and she got four or six out of the ten possible answers. We go through and compare and I veto a few (for example: Things that are black - her answer: Elephant). I know you must think I'm completely cold hearted, but I'm not one of those people who let kids off easy. You want to play with the big kids, you have to be able to play by the rules. Also, my folks were ones that let me off pretty easy, and "let" me win a lot, which has well, created a monster when it comes to competition.

Anyhow we are going pretty well when the 7 year old comes along and wants to play. I have my doubts but what is the worst that will happen? Well, he first of all annoys the crap out of me by jumping ahead of the orderly process I have going and blurting out ALL his answers.

I can feel my head starting to explode because my natural order and progression of things is getting interrupted...I have control issues ok? Don't judge me.

This continues on for a few rounds until I'm fuming.

However something funny happens in the process. The category was "Nicknames" that start with the letter "L".

My sons answer was "Lincoln". He said (and I quote) "OH! I got it all wrong! I thought it said NICKEL NAMES, so I put Lincoln."