Follow up on the other random thoughts

So, still looking at cars. Will be for some time since trying to narrow down my list has backfired and the salespeople are unintentionally giving me more options for potential vehicles. Looked at the volvo options today. Lovely car...just not sure I want to pay $10,000-$15,000 more for the same or less options than other cars. I mean, I get the safety and all but really, is that such a huge deal these days with the other cars having the side curtain airbags and what not? BTW...if you have not seen a pic of side curtain airbags you should go to some car website and check that out...CRAZY! In the next ten years we will be strapped into our cars with those over the head harness things like roller coasters or the space shuttle. One good thing about the volvo was that it had a "pistol pocket." Never heard of that but sure would come in handy when the kids misbehaved in the back!

Debate issues. I tivo'd the VP debate and who am I kidding? I am probably not going to watch it. i feel like I should care about politics but really, I just don't. However, I was stuck in the motorcade at 4pm before the debate. I assume someone was going to dinner? Anyway...how many STL cops does it take to escort two suburbans and one towncar? SEVENTEEN!!!! Between the suburbans and 17 cop cars and motorcycles I had to wonder who I was watching drive by cuz that can't be good for the environment!

Now, my dog. Belle is her name and being weird is her game. She is now 9 years old and still full of energy and vigor...despite the fact she has suddenly developed weird food issues. I took her to the vet for her checkup and mentioned how she will bark in my face and jump on me when she wants to eat...except she does this even when she already ate! It was like she forgot or something and then that made me wonder if I had fed her or what...nothing like your DOG making you feel like a crazy person. Anyway, the vet suggested feeding her earlier in the day as we are hungrier morning or midday. Also to add in some green beans or carrots for more bulk in her belly without more calories. ALSO...seems I am an idiot. Different types of dog food require different amounts per serving. This has never occurred to me, that there could be varying caloric counts for different foods. Why? I don't know, likely cuz I dump the food and off I go and don't think about it again until she is mauling me at the computer. That got me thinking... the last time I actually checked how much to feed her could very well have been 8 years ago. I gave it a look in the pet store and by golly I was underfeeding her by 1-1.5 cups! No wonder she is hungry. Oddly though, I have been doing this for years and she has just started complaining in the last few months. Also, she has been gaining weight so must not be going too hungry. So I increased her amount of food and laid off the green beans to see how she did with just more food. Well, what do you think happened? If you guessed...SHE QUIT EATING you win!! She has had the same bowl of dog food down there for almost two days now...some will be gone but not much...new behavior for her. SOOOO, I figure she will eat when she is hungry. I then noticed she would follow me up from the basement after a few bites. I experimented today and brought her bowl to the kitchen instead of the basement...she ate EVERY BITE!! So what, now she needs COMPANY to eat!!!??? AARRGGGHHH!!

Okay, kids in bed and hubby not home so off to watch some TIVO shows that no one but me likes :)

Random Thoughts I had to get out of my head

Okay, so there is this girl in Double A's kindergarten class who is 5 years old. She can read and write. I know, so what?? you say. Well, she has read the first two HARRY POTTER books!!! What??!! I am unsure why this is bugging me so much but that just does not seem quite right. I am not referring to content. I have not actually read them and her mother tells me the third one the content gets a little much for her age. Gee, maybe when she is 6 she can read Where the Red Fern Grows and when she is 8 she can move up to War and Peace or something. It just seems wrong someone that young can read that well. I wonder if she is really comprehending it?

Meanwhile my 6 year old is making huge progress with her reading in the one month she has been in school. She can read an early reader book with some help sounding out words and only needing me to tell her a couple of words. She likes to practice and gets better everyday. We talk about reading so much that Bumblebee told me yesterday on our way to speech therapy that his "teacher" (therapist) was going to teach him to read. With basically no help from me he has started identifying the letters in his name in other contexts and can even write an A and B on his own.

So the vice presidential debate is this evening and for those of you who may not know...it is being held here in St. Louis. I mention this because you would think it was Christmas! Almost everything has shut down. The university where Bumblebee has speech has closed (it is near the debate site), roads have closed, sidewalks have been closed for days. I overheard some parents at Double A's school get excited and envious when one of them stated they would be attending the debate. Interesting times here in STL between debates and beer being bought out...things are topsy turvy.

So we are thinking of buying another car...for me this time. Yes, you are correct when thinking back...it has only been one month since we purchased the truck for Husband #1. We do not want to purchase another car. We were hoping we could get another couple of years out of the Expedition. It has 115,000 miles and has had some major repairs over the last few years. We thought this would mean that it was kind of "rebuilt" so to speak. Well, my electric locks stopped working. No big deal except there is no key hole on the passenger side...at all. So I have to unlock the driver door and crawl across to unlock the passenger side so Double A can get in. It is a big car so it is kind of hard to do and will be even less fun when the snow gets upon us. We took it in and they said it will be $700+ to repair the locks. Well, I guess I will suffer with it. Problem is when we had it in there they found FIVE other issues and now it will be $1700 to repair them. That is 3-4 car payments so now we are wondering what to do. The fear is these things will keep piling up and we will keep spending the money which we could have just used for a new car. The other problem about buying a new car besides the ridiculous expense is I have NO IDEA what I want. Very overwhelming.

I have been painting the guest room, bathroom and upstairs hallway this past weekend and Monday. Husband #1 helped on Sunday and we got a good chunk done. I have an amazing picture of Husband #1 from the painting that makes me laugh out loud so I will post that later when I find the camera and upload the pics. I am still working on the trim which is quite extensive in these rooms...not typical trim rooms. I'll spare the details of the trim work but it is driving me CRAZY!!! Guess I will get back at it next week while the kids are in school. I have taken the rest of this week off painting so I can clean the house very thoroughly so we can decorate for Halloween (and because it is disgusting). I think it is a bit early but I always think that and by the time I end up getting around to it it is a week away and hardly seems worth the effort.

On the house cleaning note (can you tell I am procrastinating??) my mom got me a Shark and I used it on the floors. I think I really like it. No bucket and dirty mop to lug around and the floors are a lot less wet but still clean. Plus, the kids are not slipping and getting muddy footprints on the still drying floor. Since our entire house is hardwood floors it makes it easier than mopping.

Okay, enough rambling and back to the cleaning. Makes it harder when you have a 3 year old "helper" who creates more messes during the act of cleaning that you then reclean everything.

OH!!! one last thing! EGADS!! My Dyson vaccum has sprung a mortal wound. The hose for the attachments has a gaping hole in it...obviously hard to suck stuff up when it all goes out the hole on the hose. For those of you who know me well, know my love of the Dyson. I am bascially a walking commercial for the darn thing and this really hurts. I am now off to google some Dyson repair places so I can staunch the bleeding and get my purple lovely back on it wheels.

Apple Picking

Today the kids and I went with some friends to go apple picking. It turns out the orchard was actually a full fledged "fun farm" and we took advantage of all the fun we could stand.

There were pig races...

There were actual pigs doing the racing but this one was much cuter!

and punkin chunkin...

Husband #1 has wanted to see this sort of thing forever and he was not even with us! Those pumpkins shot about a half a mile!

It was a little boy's dream come true with tractors every where you looked!...

We even actually picked apples. Double A could not decide which she liked best...the Golden Delicious or the Jonathon!

We had a great time and even baked an apple cake with caramel sauce when we got home. We brought home over 12 pounds of apples so I imagine we will be baking some more apple goodies this week...anyone have any favorite recipes??

We laugh in the face of PLANS!!!

This past weekend our plans went slightly awry. Husband #1, Double A, Bumblebee and myself were planning on driving to Mississippi on Thursday around 4:30 to see a home football game at the University of Southern Mississippi. Husband #1 had a rough day with patient issues and what not so he did not make it home until about 6:30 at which point we loaded up and left. We had planned on staying in a hotel anyway so no big deal for the few hour delay. Friday we got up and finished our drive to Laurel, MS to stay with Husband#1's parents. His brother also flew in from Pennsylvania for the game. We arrived at about 4pm and about 4 hours later Husband #1 gets a phone call that a 1 year old patient of his has been offered a liver and he must return to Missouri to put it in her. By the time it is all said and done and organized he has a 2:45 a.m. flight out of some tiny private airport in Hattiesburg. The transplant organizing agency has sent one of their jets to pick him up. I drove him the 40 minutes to get the plane and then drove back. It was a bummer but the rest of us went to the game anyway on Saturday. As we were entering the stadium to find our seats it began to rain and did not stop. We had ponchos and the kids did surprisingly well but by half time we were really wet and getting cold so we left. Ultimately our team lost. I had to go to bed quite early so I could function because I had basically been up the entire night before with small snippets of sleep. We woke up Sunday morning and were on the road by about 10am...me and the two kids in the new truck. We got home about 8pm and Husband #1 called at 9:30 to say he had just finished helping on an adult liver and was eating and would be starting a kidney for this same adult. He did not get home until 2:30am Sunday night. Pretty crazy times. We plan to go to another home game next month. Hopefully things will go better!

Lucky you guys...two posts in one day...this is for all of you diligent readers out there who check the blog multiple times per day just wishing on a prayer that I have posted. :) Hmmm...maybe I am just bored (and delusional) and really don't want to clean up my messy house.

Anyway, just some random thoughts and shots from the past few days.

We finally go the table/buffet thing in the kitchen. We purchased it back in the middle of May but it needed some gluing (very minor) and Husband #1 just got around to that this past weekend. Now it sits half full in our kitchen and tons of stuff is piled on the counter and on it. The problem with this whole idea is that there was more stuff on the old bakers rack that now does not have a home. Some of the stuff that went in the buffet came out of drawers and some stuff from cabinets went into those now empty drawers, etc and so on and so forth. However, we are still at a point where we have things with no homes...maybe one day they will find their way home. The good part was I got to go to The Container Store...I LOVE IT!!! I practically had to physically restrain myself from purchasing containers of all shapes and sizes. Shelves, orgainzers, storage stuff and more!

This is the other funny from this past weekend. It seems that Husband #1's truck was so dirty after two weeks of living at our house it needed washed. Funny how his last car (the malibu) went two years without being washed one time!!!

First Day of Preschool

Bumblebee started real big boy preschool on Monday. (meaning not his one day per week Parent's Day Out or his Speech Therapy preschool) After a short but much deliberated decision on my part I (I say I cuz Husband #1 had no opinion, really...and I asked) decided to send him to Emmanuel, where Double A went for preschool. I'll spare the details of why this was a debate...it's done now. He walked right in and went for the toys. When his teacher spoke to him he came running back and hid his face in my legs for a second until I told him to go play and he went back to the toys. He was so absorbed he refused to take a picture at school. He was eyeing the other kids so I think he was concerned if he took a picture they might snatch his toys from him. When I picked him up the teacher practically had to carry him off the playground because he did not want to leave and come with me.

This is before we left the house for his first day...This is his second picture...at his request to take a picture of his funny face...

Today is his second day and he told me he does not want to go to that school. When we got there he was just fine, though. He would not provide a reason why he did not want to go to this particular school. I think he was just being cranky.

He goes M-W-F. Mon and Wed are full days from 9-2:30 and Fri is a half day until 11:45. He will start individual speech therapy next week on Tues-Thur afternoons at 1:30 for 50 minutes each time.

KINDERGARTEN

Well, it is official. Husband #1, Bumblebee and myself dropped Double A off at her first day of kindergarten today. I was cool as a cucumber and had the whole routine ready to get out the door on time. Husband #1 stayed home to go with us to school for the first day, which was great, except he throws off my whole routine. He asked what time we had to be there...I said 8:20 so at 7:50 he starts getting frantic and telling us we have go to go and made Bumblebee get up without finishing his breakfast :) While I was driving there we were discussing routes. He said one would be quicker so we went that way. He then asked what time we needed to be there...I again replied 8:20. At which point (it was 8:13) he said "oh, plenty of time, what are you so stressed about? Relax!" (thankfully he said this with the appropriate amount of chagrin) I don't know where the communication breakdown occurred but once we got it straightened out he calmed down and it was all very sweet.

Double A of course was so excited she was about to burst. We took a picture at home and then loaded up and took pics at school. She walked in the cubby room and put her backpack away, lunch box in it's spot and walked in. She had one moment where she looked slightly unsure but regrouped quickly and then there was no looking back. She did give her dad and I a hug and then we left.

So for those of you with money riding on the tears...you lost your bet...No tears anywhere!! I had one moment where if I thought about it much longer I would have started crying but I didn't let myself think much longer and off we went. Double A certainly did not cry...we'll see if she cries when I pick her up which would actually be more like her!


AT HOME BEFORE WE LEFT


WALKING TO HER CLASSROOM WITH DADDY

DOUBLE A WITH HER TEACHER, MONETTE - this is going to be hard for Husband #1 and I...no Miss Monette, just Monette. We are so not in the South anymore :)