Peeeewwwww!!!

This morning after I got out of the shower, I walked into the bedroom and smelled a foul odor. It smelled like vomit. I looked around on the floor to see if one of the dogs upchucked something, but I could not find anything.

I went about my merry way and got ready for work. I went downstairs to my office and sat down at the computer and began my workday. My one little dog that follows me everywhere came along and plopped on the ground by my desk. There was that hideous smell again. I realized it was her! I briefly thought of spraying her with Febreze, but instead I ushered her out the door and closed it.

A bit later, when I needed to heat some water for tea, I went upstairs and told my hubby that the dog stunk horribly and she wasn't allowed downstairs in my office. J was there in the kitchen and said, "I was petting her. She didn't smell to me." Hubby looked at the dog and realized she must have rolled in poop the last time she was outside. Gross! As I was waiting for water to boil, I took a couple of wet paper towels and started to wipe down the dog where the poop was. Oh, it stunk! I realized this job was more than a few wet paper towels could handle and I said she needed a bath. Hubby was about to blanch a bunch of beans and he said he couldn't wash the dog right yet, and I couldn't do it either because I was working. We both looked at son #1 and said, "J, you are going to wash the dog." This was a first for J who had never done that before. J had to get dressed first as he was still in jammies.

I don't know exactly how it went, but the dog got washed. I was busy downstairs in my office. Hubby brought the dog down after she was clean and he closed my office doors (there are actually two doors that fold closed) with the dog inside. Oh she smelled lovely!

Chores

It always amazes me when kids are doing chores that they take their own sweet time, dawdling all the way. They don't want to be doing the chore - they want to be playing. So why don't they get the chore done quickly and get back to playing?

I was outside a little bit ago and saw all the plums that had dropped to the ground. I came inside and told the kids that there are plums that needed to be picked up. It's their job to do it. Anyway, I know that when I've picked them up myself, it takes maybe five minutes. It will take those kids an hour! They were happily playing in one of the bedrooms (quietly, I might add) but the plums needed to be picked up so our pet doggies don't eat them later. Time is of the essence - we need to leave for swim lessons soon! It'll be interesting to see how many plums they've picked up when I go out to gather the kids up.

"Mom, do you know where my ___ is?"

Every mother has heard this question, I'm sure. Your child asks if you know where X is. Apparently you, as a mom, are supposed to know where your son or daughter left X. The thing is, we have too much going on to have ESP or psychic abilities. I know I certainly have no idea where my 7 year old left his Leapster. He carries it all around the house and usually leaves it somewhere other than his room. In fact, it happens so often (when he leaves things around the house and yard), that we've started throwing things away that belong to him. He has enough stuff anyway and never misses these things at all (and doesn't know we tossed them, nor does he realize they are missing).

This week I have thrown out:

• Two plastic croquet hoops left in the backyard for at least a month
• An assortment of paper items (miscellaneous construction-paper pieces of varying shapes and folding techniques) that were all over his room
• A suction cup
• A pencil left on the couch
• Broken pieces of something of which I know not

However, for some freak reason, I decided to hand over a piece of K'nex and a Lego head that I found in the grass. My young son and I were picking up plums under the tree and I saw these two items. I said, "Here is a K'nex piece," and handed it to him. Then I found the other item and said, "Hey, here's that Lego head you lost," and handed it to him while also telling him to put these things in his pocket so he could (hopefully) remember to put them in his room when he went back into the house. Of course, when it's laundry time, those pockets better be checked (by my other son who does his and his brother's laundry)!

You found WHAT??

Yesterday morning I was busy working in my home office as usual. My husband had been outside mowing. My oldest son (J) was in his room, happily playing. My youngest son (K), who will be seven soon, was playing outside and hopefully staying out of his dad's way. Let me back up a minute here. We don't have a typical yard and we don't live in a typical neighborhood. We live on a rural street with houses scattered about. We have a portion of woods on our property and we have private forestland in back of the house.

K came inside and came down to my office (which is on the lower level of the house). He was all excited to show me something. It was two teeth stuck together. He said, "Mom, I found this. It's teeth." Yes, upon inspection, it appeared to be an animal's teeth. I couldn't quite tell what kind of animal as there were only the two teeth, but they were brown and looked rather old. He said, "They were on a stick and I pulled this part off." I said, "A stick? Where?" He said, "In the woods. Back down by the fence." I said, "Could you find it again? I want to see it." He said, "I know you can't come see it right now because you are working, but when you are done can you come see it?" I said, "Yes, when I stop for lunch." He left the room and went back outside. I immediately went to Facebook to post that my son found teeth in the yard.

When it came time to stop for lunch, I went outside to find K and ask him where the teeth were found. He led me down into the woods, along a trail, and I realized that some tree branches had blown over during the last strong winds and decided they'd need to be removed. I had to either duck real low or pull them away in order to get through. At one point, I saw what looked like K's black knit hat. I said, "K, what's this? Why is that there?" He said, "Oh, it's wet," and kept walking. I picked it up and it was sopping wet. I wondered how long it had been out there! I carried it with the intent of draping it over the porch rail when we got back to the house.

I followed K deeper into the woods and along the back fence where my husband and I planted tree seedlings. Here, you might be wondering why, if we have all these trees already, why we planted more. Well, you see, we didn't want to be seeing Bob's house in the winter when the leaves fall off the alders and other leaf trees. We can barely see Bob's roof but just don't want to see it at all.

Anyway, back on track, K got to where the teeth were found and the 'stick' that the teeth were on. I saw it on the ground at the base of a fir tree. I said, "K, that isn't a stick. That's a part of a jaw." It was about seven inches long with a slight curve to it. It looked like a side portion of jaw. My first thought was that it came from a coyote, but maybe not because the coyotes around here aren't very big. K asked what he should do with the two teeth he found earlier, and I told him to put it back into the jaw with the other teeth where it belonged. I said he could keep the whole thing, but NOT in the house. He put the two teeth back into the jaw and carried it with him back towards the house. When we got halfway there, he noticed that the two teeth were gone from the jaw. "Where did the teeth go?" he asked. I said, "They probably fell out somewhere on the trail. You still have the jaw, though, and there are teeth on it." He said, "Yeah, I'll keep this." I said, "You can keep it, but I don't want it in the house. You find a place outside where you want to keep it."

When we got back to the house, K decided to put the bone on a landscaping brick sitting in the front yard. We went into the house to fix something for lunch, and I told K to wash his hands. Seeing as how that jaw was part of a mouth and who knows how long it had been sitting out there, I didn't want to chance a germ/bacteria infestation.

K is happy to have an artifact that he can show people. I love how he is imaginative and creative and will play outside til the cows come home. Look what he found! A jaw and teeth. That wouldn't have happened if he had been indoors all day like his brother. The two of them are so different which is why I love them so.

"It's a 6!"

I am a work-at-home mom - thought I'd throw that out there because I don't think I mentioned it before. This started in mid March. So I was downstairs in my home office, working away, when my six-year-old son came down carrying a polo shirt. He said, "This is too small," and he handed it to me. I said, "It can't be, it's a 6." He said, "The sleeves are here," and he pointed to his upper arm, halfway up. I said, "It's a short-sleeve shirt. The sleeves are supposed to be there." I tossed it back to him and told him to hang it up in his closet. I think he thought it was too small because my husband and I often tell the kids that their long-sleeve shirts are too small when the sleeves are well above the wrist!

52 Free Apron Patterns You Can Make - site review and ratings

52 Free Apron Patterns You Can Make - site review and ratings

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It's Friday and the kids are home

It's kind of hard to work when you constantly have a child coming to your office to ask if he can play next door. It is hard to work when it's sunny outside! Most of all, it's hard to work when the child keeps coming into the room to ask questions. Why is it that even though his dad is upstairs and not doing anything significant, the child must come down to my office to bug me? Well, it's because I'm mommy and I usually give him the attention he needs. Now that I have officially quit for the day (quit working, not quit being mommy) that child is nowhere to be found. At least it's quiet upstairs. Makes me wonder what the kids are up to!

Friday and the kids are home. They had school but they get out early each Friday. A working parent's nightmare - if they work outside the home. We used to pay for daycare for the kids and it was quite a struggle getting the older one to agree to get on the bus to go there. The daycare was basically geared toward the younger set (toddlers, pre-K, etc.) and while my youngest didn't mind it, the older one was bored. As luck would have it, my husband ended up at home during the day and the kids no longer had to go to daycare. Now that I work from home as well, the kids will never have to go there again. Amen to that!

It's sunny out but it looks a little cold, so I am going to get out of this chair and go outside. I'll bring the dogs (and maybe the kids, too - if I can find them) and get some fresh air!