To borrow from Stephen King

Oh boy, where do I even begin? Maybe I should mention how someone always gets sick before our annual Christmas party, and I debate, "should we cancel, or not cancel? Cancel or not?" This year I was thrown for a loop. Nobody got sick! Amazing! Rejoice! I LIKE this having a Christmas party in the summer weather and fewer viruses and not competing with shopping and...

Let me tell you about this week. Dada's been in Maryland since Monday. He got home last night, but still. Two mornings ago, Liam bounces out of bed and I go to see if Carrie is also awake. She is. She tells me that she threw up three times in her dreams. I ask if she also threw up in real life. She informs me, "yes. In my curtains."

It's been that kind of week.

Yes, you read that right. That previous night, I'd turned off the A/C finally and opened up the house. Since the curtain rods in the kids' rooms both had been "helped" off the wall more than once, I've given up and used push pins to hang sheets up as curtains. Since I opened the window in their room, I'd draped the sheets over the headboard of Liam's bottom bunk. She'd vomited over the end of her headboard and the curtains caught it nicely before it hit the floor. Not a huge deal. Simply unpin the push pins, shake out the excess into the trash, and wash, dry, and rehang. She went back to bed until 10 AM which is about unheard of for her.

She had a fever of 101.1 which was gone the next day and today she is her completely usual spirited self. Her curtains are fresh and clean.

Today is sheet day. Fridays I usually wash all our sheets. The kids love to help. This morning Liam was the pokey one and didn't get me his sheets until about 10 AM. Mine were already done and back on the bed at that point. (It helped that they just did the washer & dryer this time... I prefer to hang them outside, but our party tent is in the way of my clothesline space. Dada is secretly rejoicing over this.) At any rate, the kids' beds are re-made and I have her on the couch downstairs with me while he's on the top bunk for his break. About an hour into break I hear a THUMP. Carrie rolls over, looks at me and says, "what's that?" I say, more than a little bit aggravated-ly, "that's what it sounds like when you guys crash around upstairs!"

Then I hear this pitiful, near-tears voice claim, "Mama, I pooped!"

Here's where the title comes in. If you've read a fairly serious amount of Stephen King, you've probably more than once come across something like this:

Mainers have an expression for when something goes wrong, stops working, or goes to hell. They like to say, "the damn thing shit the bed," and everyone knows what they mean.

That's roughly translated by me. Since I've never been to New England and don't know anyone from Maine, I can't say for sure, but if it works for Stephen King, it's good enough for me. I've always thought it was a funny saying. I've secretly always wanted to hear someone use it in context. Sometimes I wish real life was fiction. I'd love to be an Elf in Middle Earth, but that's another story altogether...

I've SEEN the damn thing shit the bed, and it ain't pretty. I had a talk with myself last night about that verse in the Bible where you give thanks in all circumstances, so while I was cleaning the carpet and the sheets and the ladder to the bunk bed and the mattress cover and the boy, I was thankful for my washer and dryer, thankful for this sweet baby who looked all the world like he was listening when I told him he needed a nap so I could clean up a mess, and mostly thankful that I'd had the boy poop last night before bed or dear God, what a mess I WOULD have had. The one I DID have was quite enough, thanks very much.

So now when someone says they've had a shitty day, I will completely be able to empathize. I don't know how nurses do it. You nurses have all my admiration, and for reasons more than that.

So no, nobody was sick before the Christmas party, but this week of recovery from said Christmas party has been unexpected, to say the least. Oh, there's my washer beeping at me.

Photo feature

Damon's had his picture taken with everyone by now, I think. Here's the elusive "Grandma Barb being held down by Damon" photo:

She doesn't really seem to mind, does she? ;)

For the Anne Geddes fans out there

Carrie vs. Theresa

I can't believe these are the only pictures we took of the Christmas party. Oy. Here are Carrie and Theresa:

We had about 50 people including those 8 and younger. We had meatballs, hamburgers, brats, pierogies, cookies, fruit, more fruit, veggies, more veggies, cheese and crackers, chips and salsa, chips and a bean salad/mixture, a carrot cake, more cookies, pop, water, gatorade, beer, juice boxes, more cookies, buffalo chicken dip, and punch. And probably more that I'm forgetting. Anyone hungry? I've been reaping the rewards of leftovers this week, that's for sure! Meatballs, anyone?

Look what we found under the Christmas tree!

Lights at Christmas in July

Special thanks to Chris George who helped get the icicles strung all over:

See the moon? Looks like a ball on the very top of the tent. It was much more impressive in real life...

Our resident strong baby. He's only 7 weeks old and granted, he can't stay up like this long, but he is so strong!

Smiles

Any smiles today, Damon?

How about now?

Are you thinkin' about it?

You big tease. Okay, we'll try again later...

Photo Thursday

We've been treated to some smiles and some tester-giggles by our teeny weeny sweetie. Here Liam was pretending to be Super Ducky Towel. Think Super Grover from Sesame Street, and you'll get the gist of the hilarity:

Getting some Vitamin D the old fashioned way:

And PLEASE let us know if you'd like some cucumbers! Nobody believes me when I say we're being overrun, but these are just what I picked yesterday! And green beans!

Binky and Blorp

I've been thinking a lot about how different these kids of ours are. I know you're not supposed to compare them, but who really pulls that off? Every parent I've ever talked to can rattle off lists of how their kids are alike and different at the same time.

Carrie and Liam both refused pacifiers of any kind. Damon is a binky baby. Naturally, we had none in the house when he decided he was going to be a binky baby. Dada made a near-midnight run to WalMart with uncle Rob to fetch binkies. We now have seven. One from the hospital, two more like it, two that are similar, and two that are way different. Since the other two weren't into binkies, I've been out and about and have totally forgotten about them... until Damon wants one. Oopsie... I have a hunch they're going to turn into something similar to chap sticks: one for the diaper bag, one for a hoodie pocket, one for my purse, etc.

Carrie was the original Unburpable Baby. You could seriously sit for days while patting her and repositioning her and bouncing her and you'd get maybe a quarter of a burp. (She makes up for it now, in spades.) Liam, however, was a champion burper. About his fifth day of life, Grandmama announced, "I've already gotten more burps out of this kid than I ever did out of her!" Damon hasn't settled into a burping or burpless camp yet. Sometimes he follows Carrie. Sometimes he sounds like a fraternity brother.


And most surprising of all, for me anyway, has been how blorpy he is. Neither of the other two spit up very much. I wouldn't say I'm concerned about how much Damon does, I'd just say that he's probably the more "normal" baby in that respect, because of the other two doing it so much less. The only time I ever remember Liam actually throwing up was after I'd had an entire 12 oz can of Pepsi because I was so excited to be able to have caffeine again. Apparently I couldn't. His little tummy couldn't handle it. =/ Let's just say that with Damon, better to have a burp BLANKET over your shoulder. You just never know what he's going to do.

His doctor visit was earlier in the week and the staff marveled at how consistent he was in growth and temperment. Damon means "constant" and he is that. Enjoy the pictures of our sweet Doodlebug!

Photo op!

 

 

Blue Moooooooon...

My mother is going to FLIP when she sees these, hehehhehehee...

 

 

 

 

Damon stats

 

Lookie at this big boy! He weighed 7 lbs and 12 oz when he was born and was 21 inches long. He just had his 5 week appointment and tipped the scale at 10 lbs 13 oz and a supposed 23 inches! As Grandmama says, "you can almost hear him growing..."

Liam on the left, Damon in the middle, and Carrie on the right

The kids giggled the whole way through this sequence and ended up dropping the cloth (Liam's robe) onto Damon entirely. Hope you have as much fun with it as we did!

 

 

 

 

 

Raised bed gardens, part 4

Dada, with his excellent eyes, found a baby praying mantis hanging out in our tent. He decided to transplant him (her? probably her...) to the garden so she could earn her keep. Here she is in her new home:

 

The peas are done. They got away from us. Triskal likes peas, but we do not like what peas to do Triskal. Enough said.

 

Dada has rerouted the cucumbers onto the pea trellis. See the big one that's almost ready to be picked? Anyone want any cucumbers? Anyone?

 

Green beans are coming along nicely too. Dada and I picked some in the rain, then he & Grandma Barb had them for dinner. I asked how they were and he said, "they tasted like green beans." That's good, right?

 

Anyone want any cucumbers? =D