Danny

All I wanted was a dog. Something warm & fuzzy. Something to sound the alarm on the nights the Dad isn’t home. Turns out kittens fill the bill quite nicely. Middle child has even discovered they come running at the call of “puppies!”

I was feeling very happy with my kitties, really learning the appeal of cats after all these years as a self-professed dog person. In fact, both kitties sleep with me and I’ve never felt safer when the dad is gone. Last night, however, I felt extra safe.

Last night the dad came back and brought a buddy with him. A big, huge, retired policedog. “He needed rescuing” the dad explained. This being the same dad who groaned & moaned & looked mean as my kitties were dropped off mere weeks ago. The dad was just beaming. The cat was steaming.

Urgh, sorry, just read Green Eggs & Ham and I can’t stop rhyming. Poor Dinghy was less than thrilled at her new companion, let alone that the new companion is now ensconced in my bedroom. Her previous roost. I’ve never seen a short-haired cat fluff up as much as Dinghy when she first laid eyes on Danny. Think cartoon cat gone wild and maybe, just maybe, you can picture the full fluffiness of my poor kitty.

Eldest took Danny on a reconnaissance mission around the yard while I rescued kitty and brought her to the other end of the house. Thank God for tons of intervening doors because I think it will be weeks, if ever, before she accepts him. Not that I blame her, he is huge. He even scared me late last night. We are finally tucked in, I’m drifting away and I feel a shift in the bed. I assume it’s the dad and turn over for a kiss… and had to stifle a scream when I saw Danny’s big moose head grinning at me.

Here I thought a retired policedog would be well-trained.

Happy St. Paddy's Day

Teacher is crazy. We arrived bright & early for the much anticipated St. Paddy’s at school. Teacher did not disappoint. Bright green glitter, yes glitter, was EVERYWHERE. All over tables, chairs and carpet. The excitement this causes 4-year-old boys and girls is quite headache-causing. Unfortunately I couldn’t help but sit down and play w/their clay myself. I soon found myself the Queen of Shamrocks as I made shamrock after shamrock for each clamoring child. Except for Aidan. Aidan wanted a four-leaf clover.

Alarm Cat is crazy. Eldest lay down at the foot of our bed again last night. Now I not only have to sleep train daughter, I have to sleep train the 15-year-old. Again. He tried, twice, to get Alarm Cat to cuddle up with him each time Alarm Cat went tearing out of the room like a bat out of hell. An earthbound bat out of hell, but a batt out of hell nonetheless. I can’t adequately describe the mad scrambling over the floors that cat does but if you picture it like a cartoon character who’s desperately trying to run but staying in place, you wouldn’t be far off. The third time Alarm Cat cozied up to eldest by choice. Then the dad walked in. Alarm Cat couldn’t get out of there fast enough. In the process almost knocking the dad off his feet, and Alarm Cat is small. Still a kitten really. If eldest and I hadn’t been laying down we would’ve fallen over laughing.

This morning was crazy. I worked late last night, a twelve-hour shift kind of late, and didn’t lay out the St. Paddy’s day clothes. Then I was tired and hit snooze three times while Alarm Cat gave up. Let’s just say each kid had issues with finding green clothing so they wouldn’t get pinched. Poor Aidan in daughter’s classroom had no green clothing. Teacher and I both watched in horror as the 11 remaining four-year-olds started to get up to pinch the poor boy. She may be crazy but she’s smart. She quickly stuck a shamrock sticker on his cheek and called him safe.

Alarm Cat

I am all for the family bed and co-sleeping, practice it myself. However. Be warned. This has a very long lasting effect on everyone involved. This morning Alarm Cat woke up not just myself and the dad but also daughter, squareboy and eldest. Being as we have a queen bed only myself, the dad and daughter were in the bed, though daughter did start out on the floor which is where Alarm Cat found eldest and squareboy.

Eldest and I have been rebonding over Firefly for the last week or so. He has some serious stomach issues, inflammatory stomach disease, reflux and IBS. I’m not sure what triggered it but he’s been having a series of horrible attacks. Maybe it’s hormones. I don’t know and neither does his gp doctor, so we will be seeing a specialist. Regardless he’s been home a little more than usual. And I decided to share the Firefly series with him. He is as in love with Mal and Jayne and the whole shiny verse as I am.

Last night he bought Serenity, the DVD. So he crashed out at the foot of our bed to watch it with me. There is nothing like having your child chuckle at the same time during the same moment of a movie you love. Daughter always sleeps with us though I am working at weaning her out of our bed, the boys were all out by age five and daughter is almost five. Wow! Daughter is almost five. Squareboy snuck in sometime after midnight, not for lack of trying earlier but I was awake then. He’d felt very left out with eldest and daughter in there.

Anyway, the dad and I both have very bad colds. The dad fell asleep very earlier and never had the opportunity to set his alarm. Alarm Cat to the rescue. Promptly at O:Dark Thirty the Alarm Cat strolled in miauwing and trilling the Alarm. Waking the dad and off he went to work. On time. At 6:30 Alarm Cat strolled into middle child’s room and miauwed and trilled until middle child was up and on his way. At 7:00 am Alarm Cat was back in my room pacing all over eldests prone form on the floor while miauwing and trilling till the last of us were up. I don’t know what we ever did without Alarm Cat, but now that we have him, I think we’ll never be late again. Not that we have a problem with being late. Not us.

Double U

It’s tough to be the youngest of five. Luckily daughter is a tough cookie. Squareboy was picking on her last night, now in a fair fight she doesn’t stand a chance, however, he’s got a missing toenail. He landed one punch. One. She whirled around and stomped square on his toe with the missing toenail. Squareboy 0; daughter 1.

A little later she and I had a conversation.
“What letter am I learning next week?” she asked.
“U” I answered.
“U is for umbrella.” Pause. “Oh I know that one, we learned it before.”
“W” I corrected. And one of her infamous screaming fits ensued. ‘W’ you see, sounds like Double U. And she’d just finished explaining she’d already learned ‘U’.

Soon after that, while digging in my stuff still stored in boxes in my room from the move, she found a picture of the seven of us taken for a “We’ve Moved” announcements from the previous move. See above. She was very sad she was at the bottom of the stack. Apparently it’s not fair to have the smallest at the bottom of the stack. She can tell she’s being squished.

Doctors, Dentists & ER's

Do you know that when you lose weight your underwear is baggy and gets, um, out of place easily? Well. That only took me three months to figure out. I’m not only in a smaller pant size, I’m also in a smaller panty size. Now back to the semi-regular, about-my-kids, blogging.

It’s been a week. Pretending that a week starts on Saturday, let’s start with the first day of the week. In case you didn’t know, Squareboy bounces off of walls. Literally. He manages this by getting a running start, bouncing onto the couch, scrambling up the back, onto the wall (think Alley-Oop in skateboarding terms) and back down. On Saturday he missed his landing, skidded across the carpeting and smack into the solid brick fireplace. At first I ignored his wailing, then it got annoying and I strolled over to look. All I saw, from my great height, was a slightly bloody toe. I warned him not to drip on the carpet and strolled away again.

He kept wailing, the dad strolled over and promptly hollered for me. Turns out Squareboy had torn up half his toenail, it was poking just about straight up. OW! We debated the emergency room, and decided to wait. Sunday, at work, the kid’s doctor stopped by. He’d missed us. I got in a quick consult and learned that I just needed to watch the toe for infection. I love living in a small town.

That night, while at the emergency room with Daughter, Squareboy pulled off his own dangling toenail with the dad’s pliers. I think the doctor cursed us by saying he missed us. Squareboy had disclocated Daughter’s elbow while rescuing her from the collapsed “fort” of couch cushions & beanbags. Daughter cried and played it up beautifully at the emergency room and we got in before the tons of other people in the waiting room, much to their dismay when she walked out happily chatting 30 minutes later. Days later she’s still talking about the wonderful doctor who saved her. He’s her new hero.

Tuesday night Daughter ran a fever and her cheek was swollen. I figured mumps or an abscessed tooth, but she wouldn’t let me check. The dad finally rolled her up like a burrito while eldest shown a flashlight in her mouth and giggled like a hyena. We saw what looked like a tooth growing out of the bottom of her jaw. Wednesday at the dentist it turned out to be an ulcer. Easier treated than a funky tooth anyway, but still painful. Wednesday also was the doctor’s turn to see us, I whined at him that he jinxed me as I recited our list of ailments. Poor eldests reflux is out of control and we are on double meds from just a month ago.

Thursday every single kid woke up with a fever and the sniffles. Every. Single. One.

Ash Wednesday

“How do you make holy water?” asked Squareboy. I, of course, thought he was serious being as he asked this after a day at catholic school. I launched into what could best be described as a dissertation. He interrupted me not even halfway through, laughing like a hyena;

“You boil the hell out of it!” For that we pay $700 a month.

Wednesday I picked Squareboy and Daughter up from school, both proudly wearing ashes on their forehead from the Ash Wednesday mass they’d attended. Actually, daughter only had the remnants of a bruise left from the previous week, she’d touched her ashes so many times there wasn’t a speck to be seen. But I ooh’ed and aah’ed anyway. Once in the car, not sure what triggered it, daughter started crying and having a fit. Great.

“I don’t want to go to Heaven! I just want to go home.” Somewhere in the whole explanation of Ash Wednesday, Lent and Easter her poor 4-year-old brain got overloaded and she really didn’t care that Jesus died on the cross so she could go to Heaven. She wanted to go home. Squareboy tried his bestest to make her feel better.

“Trust me! You want to go to heaven.” Then, sotto voce, “not down there.” Pointing dramatically. “That’s like a dungeon and you’ll be tortured!”

“I hate Ass Wednesday” daughter screamed.