I don't have a belly button. I just don't. Its all very hilarious to " honk" the belly button of a toddler, but so much less hilarious to " honk" the belly button of a grown up, specifically me. Therefore, I do not have a belly button. There is no need to expose my stomach to anyone because I DO NOT HAVE A BELLY BUTTON.
Despite years of my practiced speech regarding the futile nature of a belly button search my children are undeterred. Of course the older ones have by now figured out that I do have a belly button but it does not get honked. The younger ones are still contemplating the mystery.
This morning Griffin honked his own belly button and cracked up. Very, very funny. So funny he needed to share. He honked Laurel's belly button. Hilarity ensued. He set his sights on me.
No Griffin, I do not have a belly button.
He grabbed at my pajama top.
No Griffin, go get daddy's belly button.
The cat hopped up and sat down.
Oooh the cat's belly button can get honked.
COME BACK! Griffin chortled with glee as he tried to get the cat's belly button.
But that spot right under the cats tail? Not a belly button.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Honing My Skills
I am so glad I went to college. College prepared me for life. I was able to hone my deductive reasoning skills. Had I not been able to hone these skills I would never have solved yesterday"s mystery.
Griffin went into the bathroom. Griffin came out of the bathroom. Griffin needed to wipe. Griffin went right back into the bathroom. I sat him on the toilet and he finished what he had started. I looked around the bathroom and his room and the hallway for any remnants I may have missed. All clear.
Dinner time rolled around, as it always does. OK everyone, time to wash hands!
They all trooped into the bathroom.
Oh NO! Mommy! There is poop on the floor!
I went and checked it out. No one had been in the bathroom and there was indeed poop smeared on the floor. There was nothing in the toilet or on the walls. I checked bottoms and bottoms of feet. Nothing. Everyone was clean, dry and free of anything vile. So how did it get there? And how was it smeared if no one stepped in it?
I thought and thought.
OK, if Griffin had in fact had an accident earlier how did I miss it when I cleaned the floor with bleach? That could not have happened.
I thought some more.
Finally my college education paid off...
I turned the step stool over. My answer laid in stinky wait. There it was. A small blob of poop. So, Griffin had gone into the bathroom, had a bit of poop on the floor, covered it with the step stool ( this also explains the vaguely guilty face I'd dismissed earlier). When it was time to wash hands someone scooted the step stool over, smearing the otherwise hidden poop.
Griffin? Did you poop on the floor and hide it with the step stool?
No, Laurel did.
I think you pooped on the floor Griffin.
NO, LAUREL DID.
No, she did not. I went to college where I honed my powers of deductive reasoning, little knowing at the time that I would someday put these skills to good use.
Griffin went into the bathroom. Griffin came out of the bathroom. Griffin needed to wipe. Griffin went right back into the bathroom. I sat him on the toilet and he finished what he had started. I looked around the bathroom and his room and the hallway for any remnants I may have missed. All clear.
Dinner time rolled around, as it always does. OK everyone, time to wash hands!
They all trooped into the bathroom.
Oh NO! Mommy! There is poop on the floor!
I went and checked it out. No one had been in the bathroom and there was indeed poop smeared on the floor. There was nothing in the toilet or on the walls. I checked bottoms and bottoms of feet. Nothing. Everyone was clean, dry and free of anything vile. So how did it get there? And how was it smeared if no one stepped in it?
I thought and thought.
OK, if Griffin had in fact had an accident earlier how did I miss it when I cleaned the floor with bleach? That could not have happened.
I thought some more.
Finally my college education paid off...
I turned the step stool over. My answer laid in stinky wait. There it was. A small blob of poop. So, Griffin had gone into the bathroom, had a bit of poop on the floor, covered it with the step stool ( this also explains the vaguely guilty face I'd dismissed earlier). When it was time to wash hands someone scooted the step stool over, smearing the otherwise hidden poop.
Griffin? Did you poop on the floor and hide it with the step stool?
No, Laurel did.
I think you pooped on the floor Griffin.
NO, LAUREL DID.
No, she did not. I went to college where I honed my powers of deductive reasoning, little knowing at the time that I would someday put these skills to good use.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Blogging with Liz's Reaction in Mind
I've been wondering how I could have become quite so bad at keeping things orderly. I like things put away. I don't like clutter. I don't like stacks and piles of things. Yet when I look about the house thats precisely what I see.
My life currently revolves around the 2-3 loads of laundry I do daily. I load, run, empty, reload, run and empty the dishwasher twice daily. I vacuum daily. You'd think this place would be spotless, but its a sty.
The fact is there is no way to keep up once I have been delivered the smallest of setbacks.
Last week Oliver crawled into our bed early one morning. Then he threw up all over our bed. Then he threw up in the bathroom, on the sofa, on a chair, on the floor, on his bed, and a little more on the floor for good measure. So I had a lot of sheets and blankets and pillows to wash and some floors to scrub .Oh, and some pajamas and clothes to wash. OK, but since I usually do 2-3 loads of laundry per day anyway this actually sets me back a week or so.
Oliver needs to vomit just as Laurel needs to pee. With one bathroom this means something will be hitting the floor. So add urine soaked clothing to the list of Things In Need Of Washing.
I try to remember to feed the fish. If the light in the tank is still out then no one has remembered. I get out the fish food just as more vomit occurs so I run into the other room, leaving the fish food on the ledge by the aquarium. You can't do that. The cats inexplicably like the fish food. So Walle and Paddington bat the fish food down and proceed to chaw on it until it opens a little and they can spread fish food all over the floor . So I have another mess to clean.
While I clean the fish food mess Griffin squirts half a tube of toothpaste down the already slowly draining bathroom sink.
While I try to deal with the sink I hear the soft thud of clothing falling. Paddington has taken to sleeping in closets. In order to access the closet shelves he must shimmy up the built in shelves then he reaches and grabs the overhead shelving and climbs up like an opossum, assuming thats how opossums do it. But, he doesn't actually fit up there. Not without knocking clothing out of his way. So our clothes are on the floor.
Oliver likes to curl up with an Lmax and play either School House Rock or Mr. Pencil's Learn to Write and Draw. However, he does not like to curl up anywhere. He likes to curl up in our bed. Without covers. So I can either make my bed 4000 times a day or I can just leave it in a depressing unmade heap the way Oliver likes it.
People have pointed out that I just need to explain to Oliver that he can't do that. While that works for most children, it does not work for Oliver. Special needs kids process things differently. There are some battles I will fight and I will do anything and everything to get him to understand. But unmaking beds, in the scheme of things, isn't such a big deal. Sure, the mess and disarray gets to me, but I also appreciate how far he has come.
Holden loves Legos. There are small Lego bits everywhere. I tried to cure the problem with an Elfa System storage unit. There are 2 small drawers for the mini figures and headlights and tiny wrenches and light sabers and helmets. There are two larger drawers for the bigger pieces, the knights and horses, the large tiles of castle pieces and trap doors. It helped a little. At first I thought it was Holden leaving the bits of Lego in every room. Until I saw the cats playing with them. I saw them! They were batting helmets to one another.
Oliver loves to write. I buy bulk packs of pads of paper at Costco and we blow through them. There is a down side to this. Oliver looks like a mad scientist, scribbling down words and flinging the used sheets of paper over his shoulder, his fingers trying to keep pace with his mind. I love that he writes. I love that he can suddenly show us whats going on. But the reams of paper all over the place can be disconcerting.
Griffin is a fan of trailing things. He likes to take parts of games and pieces of puzzles and trail them into different rooms. Game parts become sentimental and he will choose one or two to sleep with;- a fish from Fishin' Around, or a card from a Bingo game. Pieces and bits of things migrate to all sorts of unlikely places.
In the end I've realized I did not suddenly become bad at maintaining organization. I just can't do it by myself. Which is sort of unfortunate.
Maybe we should get a dog.
My life currently revolves around the 2-3 loads of laundry I do daily. I load, run, empty, reload, run and empty the dishwasher twice daily. I vacuum daily. You'd think this place would be spotless, but its a sty.
The fact is there is no way to keep up once I have been delivered the smallest of setbacks.
Last week Oliver crawled into our bed early one morning. Then he threw up all over our bed. Then he threw up in the bathroom, on the sofa, on a chair, on the floor, on his bed, and a little more on the floor for good measure. So I had a lot of sheets and blankets and pillows to wash and some floors to scrub .Oh, and some pajamas and clothes to wash. OK, but since I usually do 2-3 loads of laundry per day anyway this actually sets me back a week or so.
Oliver needs to vomit just as Laurel needs to pee. With one bathroom this means something will be hitting the floor. So add urine soaked clothing to the list of Things In Need Of Washing.
I try to remember to feed the fish. If the light in the tank is still out then no one has remembered. I get out the fish food just as more vomit occurs so I run into the other room, leaving the fish food on the ledge by the aquarium. You can't do that. The cats inexplicably like the fish food. So Walle and Paddington bat the fish food down and proceed to chaw on it until it opens a little and they can spread fish food all over the floor . So I have another mess to clean.
While I clean the fish food mess Griffin squirts half a tube of toothpaste down the already slowly draining bathroom sink.
While I try to deal with the sink I hear the soft thud of clothing falling. Paddington has taken to sleeping in closets. In order to access the closet shelves he must shimmy up the built in shelves then he reaches and grabs the overhead shelving and climbs up like an opossum, assuming thats how opossums do it. But, he doesn't actually fit up there. Not without knocking clothing out of his way. So our clothes are on the floor.
Oliver likes to curl up with an Lmax and play either School House Rock or Mr. Pencil's Learn to Write and Draw. However, he does not like to curl up anywhere. He likes to curl up in our bed. Without covers. So I can either make my bed 4000 times a day or I can just leave it in a depressing unmade heap the way Oliver likes it.
People have pointed out that I just need to explain to Oliver that he can't do that. While that works for most children, it does not work for Oliver. Special needs kids process things differently. There are some battles I will fight and I will do anything and everything to get him to understand. But unmaking beds, in the scheme of things, isn't such a big deal. Sure, the mess and disarray gets to me, but I also appreciate how far he has come.
Holden loves Legos. There are small Lego bits everywhere. I tried to cure the problem with an Elfa System storage unit. There are 2 small drawers for the mini figures and headlights and tiny wrenches and light sabers and helmets. There are two larger drawers for the bigger pieces, the knights and horses, the large tiles of castle pieces and trap doors. It helped a little. At first I thought it was Holden leaving the bits of Lego in every room. Until I saw the cats playing with them. I saw them! They were batting helmets to one another.
Oliver loves to write. I buy bulk packs of pads of paper at Costco and we blow through them. There is a down side to this. Oliver looks like a mad scientist, scribbling down words and flinging the used sheets of paper over his shoulder, his fingers trying to keep pace with his mind. I love that he writes. I love that he can suddenly show us whats going on. But the reams of paper all over the place can be disconcerting.
Griffin is a fan of trailing things. He likes to take parts of games and pieces of puzzles and trail them into different rooms. Game parts become sentimental and he will choose one or two to sleep with;- a fish from Fishin' Around, or a card from a Bingo game. Pieces and bits of things migrate to all sorts of unlikely places.
In the end I've realized I did not suddenly become bad at maintaining organization. I just can't do it by myself. Which is sort of unfortunate.
Maybe we should get a dog.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
The Fish Tank
I don't know whats going on. I mean, I generally don't, and I like it that way, but in this particular instance I'm a little more confused than usual.
About two weeks ago Holden came tearing into the kitchen holding the fish net.
" Look! Look!"
He had a teeny baby fish in the net.
"Put it back in the tank!" Jeff and I yelled simultaneously.
One of the fish had given birth. This thing was tiny. It was all eyes and a tail. The really surprising part is that our tank is a bit of a disaster. We usually find dead things, not extra alive things. We battle algae with neglect which isn't always the best technique. I would never have guessed that neglect would provide a fertile environment.
Well, now that we have a baby we have to take care of it. I wonder if thats how crack heads feel when they discover they are giving birth. We googled care of fish babies and unplanned fish birth. We learned we needed to sequester the baby.
We went to Petco to get supplies but they don't sell them. Why would they? They are a pet supply store. We went to the more high end aquarium supply place. We said we needed something to use to sequester a baby fish. They explained we needed to separate the baby fish. Yes, thats why we are here, to procure the supplies needed to sequester the baby fish. They explained the mother fish or any of the other fish could eat the baby. Yes, we are here to buy the appropriate supplies. Do you sell baby fish sequestering devises?
What is a sequestering devise? They wanted to know.
Well, presumably something used to sequester baby fish.
You will need to separate the baby fish , they explained.
OK, thanks for that. Do you sell something like that? ( Perhaps the word sequestering threw them off).
Yes.
Yup, the word sequester was the problem.
Eventually we bought a net to set up in the corner of the tank. We set it up. In two minutes baby Nemo was on the other side. We arranged the net with more gravel around the bottom and tried to seal off all possible escape routes. Two minutes later Nemo was out. We gave up.
Nemo is doing well. He has beat the odds and within the last two weeks has tripled in size. There was a point, a week ago, where I spotted an additional small orange fish. The next day it was gone. He did not have the staying power of Nemo.
We all check on Nemo periodically. We're amazed by him.
I always thought I wanted several kids and pets. But I never imagined four kids, 3 cats, multiplying fish and a snail.
Every year at the annual school fundraiser fair Holden likes to play the game where you toss a ball into a bowl and win a goldfish. No one ever wins that game. Except Holden. He wins every year. Of course he does.
The other morning Holden was feeding the fish.
" Mommy! What?! Look!....."
There is a baby snail in our tank.
Of course there is.
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