Garbage men, fences and pee pee pants

Oh my...last week was full of drama! It started Wednesday when Bumblebee came from from school and basketball having peed his pants. When Husband #1 picked him up he was not participating in basketball. The coach explained they had a bathroom break but Bumblebee chose not to go potty and just got water. He then went back in the gym and peed his pants. When she quietly told him to go change into his spare sweatpants, he refused. Then he refused to participate in the activity anymore. This was not the first time or even the first few times this has happened recently. He has already peed his pants more in Kindergarten than he did in two years of preschool combined. We have tried different things and have even spoken with his doctor and had his urine tested. He simply does not want to stop what he is doing to go to the bathroom. So, he got grounded from watching television for a week. Unfortunately that day when he got home we had a nurse at the house to do our life insurance physicals. This were kind of crazy with that and getting dinner ready and lecturing him about peeing his pants. Poor kid, lost his second tooth at school that day but it kind of got brushed aside with all the other insanity of the evening.

The next morning I got home from dropping the kids at school and the gym to find that our recycling dumpster in the alley behind our house was now resting on our fence. The garbage truck apparently dropped the dumpster off the truck while emptying it. It landed on our fence and crushed the chainlink and the support poles. It was still resting on one pointy corner of the dumpster, leaning up against our fence! WHAT??!! He just drove away and left it like that!! I took pictures and called the city refuse department to file a claim. They said they had until March 2nd to contact me (it was Feb 24). That day after school we went straight to horseback riding. After Bumblebee sat in the car with me for an hour and got out in the rain once to pee in the bushes, Double A got back in the car and said it smelled like pee. Bumblebee then admitted he had peed his pants at school. Upon questioning he was sketchy on details but I think he peed during recess and then never told his teachers or did anything about it. Bumblebee cried and asked me not to tell his dad. I told him we did not work like that. I asked what we were supposed to do with him and he said "ground me." Well, we did that yesterday and it obviously did not work. When Husband #1 came home he was very angry and took Bumblebee in his room and laid down the law. Bumblebee tried to lie to him and say he peed his pants at horseback riding because it was raining and he could not go pee. That just got him in even more trouble. The result is he has no tv for a week and no playdates, no birthday parties and no more basketball for two weeks. We have designed a schedule for him at school to take trips to the bathroom and we are 5 days in and so far so good.

Luckily they called me Friday at 4:40pm to get some more details about the dumpster incident (instead of March 2). I explained there was a bit of a safety issue with the precariousness of the dumpster and he said everyone had left for the weekend and there was nothing that could be done. He said they would send a letter in 5 business days and then contact me to come out and do the investigation. I got the letter Tuesday March 1 and it basically just said they got the claim. It also said that state law puts limited liability on the city refuse department, blah, blah, blah. Well, I received another call today from the investigator. He had two short questions and then promptly said "that's all I needed" and hung up. I am not sure where we are now. I do know the guy pulled the dumpster off my fence and it is now usable again. My fence is still crushed.
So, that was just part of my week! What have you been busy doing these days?

Blizzard remnants

So, I took a video a week after our "Blizzard." It showed how much ice was still left, etc. I cannot get the video to embed in this post because the file is too large. I don't not have the patience to figure out how to edit the video or post it elsewhere and link here. You will deal without the video to accompany this post! Sadly the post doesn't seem relevant or interesting or noteworthy without the video. Of course, I suppose it wouldn't be any of those things even with the video! This all happened in early February. I am just a smidge behind on my posts!

Turns out we lucked out in the blizzard department. We were predicted to have Monday freezing rain, then changing to sleet Tuesday and by Tuesday night and Wednesday up to 10 inches or so of snow. We had everything but the snow. Husband #1 flew out of town for California on Sunday midday and we had no idea this was even headed our way. They were predicting power outages due to iced power lines, being snowed, in, etc. There was even supposed to be THUNDER SNOW. Husband #1 and I decided this sounded more like a bad 80's band than a meteorological event. Thankfully it was nowhere near as bad (in our area) as they predicted. The kids' school prides themselves on hardly ever taking a snow day. They had two days in a row!! Unheard of!


Double A had just purchased her first CD (and with her own money). Wow was that great timing. I was trapped in a house with two kids for several days with no other adult contact listening to an endless loop of Taylor Swift. Even Bumblebee looked at me and said "Do we have to listen to it again?" There might have even been a point I was hoping for the power to go out so we could end the TS concert in our house!


So in the end...no power outages, no TS related murders, no snow but LOTS of ice. We had about 4 or more inches of solid ice on the ground. We got out and shoveled that weekend when it was cold but sunny. We had to hack at the ice with a garden hoe and then shovel it off into the yard. It was hard work because everything was so thick and the ice was so heavy. The kids took the chunks and used them for walls of a fort.


Over a week after the storm there was still ice everywhere! Parking spots were hard to come by due to the plows having scooped everything into HUGE piles of ice that just was not melting. Things were slippery for well over a week so going outside for any reason was quite treacherous. The roads would melt from the cars driving and the sun but there was no place for the melted runoff to go so it puddled up in the road. The sewers and storm drains were blocked with ice. So when night came and the temps dropped it would all freeze over again and made super slick puddles.


We survived but this winter has not been enjoyable. St. Louis "lifers" have been telling us it hasn't been this bad since they were kids, over 20+ years ago. And it isn't over yet! We were mollified for a bit with a week of 60 degree days. Everything melted but it is so saturated I am not sure we will dry out until July. However, last week we got an hour or two of freezing rain. Just enough to cause bridges to close and a 25 car pile up on the interstate. Taking my kids to school is usually a 15 minute drive. It took 90 minutes. The roads were fine but the traffic was ridiculous! They were an hour late for school. Then the next night we had snow overnight. We got a light dusting but the ground is so wet it did not stick very much. Thankfully. Last night we had a cold front move through and bring a really bad rain storm with it. Complete with hail and tornadoes. The sirens went off at our house around 11pm. Husband #1 and I got out of bed and checked the TV radar. It got windy and rainy and haily but we ended up not waking the kids and carting them off to the basement. Our immediate area was fine and it moved through so fast we barely had time to notice it. Now today it is only in the 30's...it was in the 60's yesterday

February isn't over yet and we always have a cold snap (with or without snow) well into March and even April. ICK!

What happens at ALL SMILES girl's weekend...Stays at ALL SMILES girl's weekend...

EXCEPT THIS!!!!

Bath Time!

We have been snowed in for a few days here this week. I am calling it the "Blizzard That Wasn't." We got a layer of ice from freezing rain and then a few inches of sleet. The snow never really materialized, thankfully. The kids were out of school for two days but went back Thursday. Unfortunately, they were already scheduled to have off Friday for conferences so this has been a crazy school week.

While we were snowed in we decided to bathe the dogs because they were super stinky. I figured they would not be going out but a bare minimum so they would have time to dry inside before they went out and became dog-sicles. It went fine except the copious amount of dog hair that ended up getting strewn across our bathroom. However, it reminded me of an ill fated bath experience from this past summer.

Louie does not like water...especially not directly from the hose. Belle loves it and wants to be squirted and snaps at the water, etc. Louie runs and hides when he sees the hose. This makes outdoor baths very challenging. I took off his collar and squirted him while holding him by the neck fur. I managed to get him soaped with one hand while holding on for dear life with the other hand. While I was scrubbing him he got away and darted off. He immediately went to the sandbox area and began to roll in the dirt. He was wild and I could not get hold of him to drag him back to the hose. Finally I tricked him into coming towards me and grabbed him. I now had to re-soap him because he was covered in a lovely layer of black dirt from the yard. It was everywhere...his belly, his back, his head, his face and even in his ears. I got him soaped up and he ran off AGAIN! This time he actually got into the sandbox and covered the soap/dirt/soap layers with another layer of sand. Lovely. At this point I was just laughing to myself and decided I needed to get a camera he looked so awful. I coaxed him back to me and put his collar on. I then held on to that while I rinsed him off. I am not sure if he was ultimately much cleaner than when we started! So, enjoy these pictures of my crazy puppy...if for no other reason than you can see green grass!!

Double A soccer

This fall Double A played soccer for the first time. She had a great time and says "I am very good at defense" which means they stuck her in the backfield alot. All the other kids had played at least one other season before. She did great running after the ball but actually kicking the ball when it got near her was a bit more of a challenge!

Halloween

The kids had a Halloween parade at school where they got to dress up in their costumes. Bumblebee had a hard time deciding what to be. It changed almost daily up until a few hours before we left for trick or treating. So, for his school parade he was "evil" spiderman. He was regular spiderman a few years ago and the costume is reversible. Double A said she wanted to be a waitress. We found this car hop costume and she loved it.

Halloween night came and Bumblebee chose his pirate costume to wear for trick or treating. He looked adorable and like a very mean pirate!

Unfortunately we had a slight accident while trick or treating. Bumblebee got so excited he was running in his flip flops in the ocld with frozen feet and he tripped and fell. He scrped up his knee and toe and put a hole inhis pirate pants. I think they just look more pirate-y. His sister went to a few more houses and was nice enough to get him candy from those houses Bumblebee missed due to injury.

Double A was so excited to wear makeup. She had on eye shadow, mascara and lipstick. She must have commented twenty times on how "freaky" her eyes looked with mascara. She has absolutely no need for mascara as her lashes are crazy long and dark on their own. She designed her own pumpkin and drew it on the outside and I carved it.

SOUTHERN MISS FOOTBALL

This fall we had our second season of Southern Mississippi football season tickets. We drove down for three home games. It is 10 hours each way. Two of the games hapened to fall on weekends when the kids were off of school Friday so no school was missed. These photos are from homecoming. Bumblebee did not want to come to the game with us, which was fine since it was late and he really doesn't do well much past his bedtime of 7:30-8pm. Husband #1's brother shares the tickets with us and he was able to make this game also. Double A was soooo excited for him to be there and to go to the game and stay up late.