Actual Phone Conversation

Tavis: "Hello!"

Me: "Hi, babe! How's your day going?"

Tavis: "Pretty good. Just runnin' the equipment today." (Which explains his good mood. He loves to be in the equipment. Boys and their tractors!)

Me: "Well I just called to tell you I love you." (I'm nice like that.)

Tavis: "Aw, thanks! Love you, too!"

Me: "When do you think you'll be home?"

Tav: "I'm not sure. I'll call you when I get off this hoe."

Me: Long pause "Wow. Any other wife might be a little concerned about that statement."

In Which I Take Back All the Nice Things I Said About Old People

So I'm in line at the post office the other day. I was probably six people back and the line continued to form behind me. Along one part of the wall was a rack of greeting cards. As Harley and I waited in line he took interest in the cards. Of course. He'd pick out a card, look at it and place it back exactly where it didn't belong. So I'd take the card and put it back it its spot. This had happened a good ten times. It wasn't hard. He'd take a card, I'd put it back. No biggie. He wasn't being bad. He was entertained and staying close to me so I was fine with this "game".

Then an old man and his grown daughter got in line about three people behind us. He asks the gal behind me, "is that your little boy?"

I tell him he's my little boy and, naturally, prepare myself to hear what everyone says, "oh he is so CUTE!!! Look at his darling blond hair!! Oh, those blue eyes!!! His smile!!! What a doll!!!"

No.

To my surprise the old man says, "well he's playing with all the cards! If that was my child I wouldn't let him play with that. Oh, now he's moving them. NO! NO! That's not where that one goes!! HEY!! Hey, you can't put that there!" His daughter tried to politely shush him. He tells her, "I'm just being mock-serious".

Mock-serious??? Who says that? Old Man River, that's who.

I keep giving him my best "stop talking to my child like that" smile. I don't get offended easily. I know old people have lost their filters. And their ability to control the VOLUME OF THEIR VOICE. His daughter was clearly embarrassed by her father. She had the look of "please don't get mad, he's an old geezer" on her face. But the only reason I'm mad now is because I continued to replace the cards but he doesn't know I've been doing this all along. He thinks I'm doing it now because he made a fuss about it.

By now I've moved far enough up in the line that Harley's too far away from me for my comfort. So I gather him up and set him on the counter. He tried to grab all the "change of address" forms and I told him he'd send that old man into a tailspin if I let him play with those.

So we mailed DeNae's 25th wedding anniversary gift and were on our way. It got me thinking, though. Will I be a sweet old lady or an ornery old bag? I haven't decided yet.

Today is the last day to donate your Snuggie to Kristina's oldies. But don't give one to that old man. OK, give him one but make sure it's a PINK one.

It WaS HITting Everything BUT The Fan!!!

Alright, people. This post is going to contain a lot of TMI. Seriously. A. Lot.

I LOVE TMI!!! Love it, I tell ya! I live for it! I love everything from child-birth to periods to bowel movements to **sex** (not tons of details, just generalities) to toenail fungus to...to...to...well, I love it all. And I want to hear it all. And, my friends, I tend to share it all.

Last Tuesday I got up and had my morning movement. Typically my #2 is round and pebbley (which I learned later wasn't the way it's supposed to be. But it's always been that way so I'm not going to worry about it.) and I'm able to (if need be) give a courtesy flush. This time, however, it came out in one long piece. Not allowing for the courtesy flush. Then, like I always do, I used too much TP. Tavis gets so frustrated with me because I use a ton of toity. But I can't risk having a finger break through!!! Hayden and I use waaaaay too much. Avery, on the other hand, uses like half a square which is just gross.

So I flush. And the toilet makes that sound that we all know. The sure sound that it's not going down. It fills up. Then slowly drains down. The...um...culprit, however did go down. So what I'm left with is a wad of T.P. at the bottom of the toilet with no water in it. You got the visual? A few minutes go by and I flush again. Again with the filling of the toilet.

Crap.

Again it drains slowly down while I go get the plunger. Flush again and plunge like crazy. The toilet fills up and this time it overflows! But during these couple of seconds of overflowing I think to myself, "well this sucks, but once the toilet stops filling it'll stop overflowing".

But guess what? This time the toilet doesn't stop filling. Y'know how your toilet will sometimes continue to run and you have to jiggle the handle? Well, that's fine as long as your toilet isn't clogged because it'll just drain as it fills. Yeaaaaahhh...not so much when there's a...um...thing in the pipes.

So the water keeps coming. I keep plunging. Water is filling my little half-bath.

"SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTT!!!!!!"

The water flows out of the bathroom, into the hall and into the kitchen which is right next to the bathroom. It covered half the kitchen floor. (Trust me, the thought of sh*t water on my kitchen floor is nauseating.) I tried to turn off the water to the toilet but it wouldn't turn! Luckily just one week prior Tavis showed me where the main shut off valve to our water was. (Conveniently located inside the heat vent next to the front door.) So I run and turn it off.

Ran downstairs to the laundry room to grab some dirty towels to sop up the water and Oh. My. Gosh. It's running in to my basement!!! We have a 6 ft crawl space under my house and the toilet water was running in to it.

"CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!!!!!!!!"

Now I'm just at a loss as what the *h* to do! So I call Tav. Every husband wants to get a phone call from his frantic wife saying there's crap water all over the house. Luckily he was almost home. People, there was so much water on the floor that the towels wouldn't even touch it. Wouldn't even scratch the surface. I put three down on the bathroom floor and there was still literally 2 inches of water on the floor. Not to mention the totally soggy hall carpet and the half-inch of water on the kitchen floor.

So Tav gets home and we survey the scene. I've thrown away my hat that was on the floor. There's a bag of toilet paper in the garbage because it's soaked. Ironically, the toilet bowl cleaner pad thingies were floating around the toilet. And I've got an empty storage bin with the soaked towels in it.

"Where's the shop-vac?" I say to him.

"It's not meant to suck up THIS much water."

"THE CARPET CLEANER!!!!!"

So we got our carpet cleaner and started sucking up the water. It worked great! And came in very handy when it came time to clean the poop water out of the carpet in the hall. Although, let's be honest. Every time we walk past there, we're gonna remember. I find myself skirting around the area all the time. Even though he did a good job of steam cleaning it.

After all (most) the water was sucked up I Pine Sol-ed the hell outa that bathroom! And the kitchen! Did I mention my darling niece was on her way? Ya. Just as the mayhem was winding down, Vanessa got to my house. I went running out to greet her....."VANESSSSSSAAAAA!!!!!!! WE'RE HAVING A CRISIS!!!!!"

She called her mom to tell her she'd made it safely and started telling her what had happened. The story really could only be told first hand so I got on the phone with DeNae and told her all about it. First we laughed at how completely insane the story was and then at what our lives have become. Every crisis or trauma is....what? A BLOG POST!!!!! You know the whole time I was trying to shut off the toilet I was thinking, "I should grab a picture of this so I can blog about it". But I also thought, "pretty sure Tavis wouldn't see the great blog potential this story has and would probably be all...'get the poop water off the floor'". He's such a fun hater!!!

I have two other number 2 stories but this one is really long so I'll summarize: The next day I was changing a number 2 diaper of Harley's and took his pants off only to find number 2 all down his leg! Of course I'm not expecting to have number 2 outside the diaper so I'm not being careful and it get all over me! My leg, my hand, etc. I called Tav inside from the garage to help me with that one.

The day after that, Hayden and Harley were in the bath together (My older kids literally fight over who gets to bathe with Harley. He's just so dang CUTE in there!) and I was on the phone (a rare occasion as I really don't like to use my phone voice). Hayden starts screaming "MAMA!!!!! HARLEY POOPED IN THE TUB!!!!!"

Yep, he sure did. A lot.

Snuggly Buggly (my mom says that)

It seems the topic of old people has been on my mind a lot this week. On Wednesday my maternal grandpa would have turned 100 years old. He died at 88 1/2, so he lived a very long life. My grandma is still alive and kicking (butt) at the age of 96. Yes, she's a little slower and a lot deafer and requires constant care (which requires my mom to go tend her every other weekend) but she's sharp as a tack up there (taps side of head). She can tell you the names of all her grand kids, great-grand kids and great-great grand kids. (Yes, that's FIVE generations!!) She can tell you most of their birthdays or at least the general time they were born.

This is my grandma at my dad's funeral. No, she doesn't have a black eye. That thing's been there for as long as I can remember. I don't know what it is. DeNae, do you?

And on that same Wednesday I ate breakfast with my very good friend Kristina P. Who is doing something really, really great. She's doing a "Snuggies for Seniors" drive. If you don't know Kristina then A: you're really missing out on one of the funniest people ALIVE and B: she's kind of obsessed with the Snuggie. And by "kind of" I mean it consumes her every living, breathing thought.

Oh my heck, I did it!!! I "grabbed the button" and I put it on here! I've never done it before! YAYAYAYAYAYAY meeee!!! I don't know how to get rid of that line next to it, though. Baby steps.

So please, click on those cute little old people and do your part to keep these geezers warm! I know I will be!

After all, if we didn't have old people who else would give me a 10% tip???

The Post About Nothing

Not much to report here. I'm such a lame blogger these days. Why? I don't know!! I've noticed that ever since my dad died, I'm not not into it anymore. But I really wouldn't say the two are connected. I need to get better at it though, because I like the idea of keeping up with what's going on in my life. Like being hip-deep in toddlerdom.

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See??? That was Harley. Maybe that's why I'm a lame blogger. Because he's up in my grill all the time. But I honestly wouldn't have it any other way. He's been such joy. He really is my joy. Do you know that just a few days before my dad died he sent me a text in reference to this post that said, "I love you so much. You are my joy"? I can't begin to tell you how much I wish I had saved that text. And Harley really, truly is my joy these days.

So Harley talks a TON lately. Oh my heck it's the cutest thing EVER!!! His latest word is "Ma'er". It's Mater, from Cars but without the T. He loves Mater. I went on a Mater quest this past Monday. Couldn't find him in all the usual places...Wal Mart, Toys R Us. So we went to the mall and found him at the Disney store. Ohhhh, did we find him!

Did I mention that I should have been shopping for Hayden's birthday during my Mater quest? Well I should have been. Actually, I did shop for Hayden. I can't believe my (oldest) baby is ELEVEN!! Here's a fun little bit for you: My sister, DeNae was 11 when I was born. I was 11 when her son, David was born. David was 11 when Hayden was born and now Hayden's 11. Crazy, right?

This post is all over the place. I apologize. I got nothin' though.

I love my job. How many waitresses can say that? I really do, though! Last night I waited on a man who was eating alone. He was a soft spoken man. Very nice. His bill was $28. He gave me two twenties and asked that I just bring him $5 back. So I did. When I gave him his change, he told me he'd like to pick up the bill of the table next to him. Who does that??? Very nice people, that's who. Their bill was only $20. (They shared a steak.) He gave me $25 and told me to keep the rest. When he left, I was cleaning up and found the $5 change I'd given him still in the black book. Nice, right? See? I love my job.

Am I the only one who's ready for winter to be over? I feel like such a whiner because we really haven't had a harsh winter. I just want it to be WARM!!! And yet, I'm stressed about summer coming because it means no more bulky hoodies to cover my muffin top. And I have to shave my legs every day. I guess it's all about trade offs, right?

I had a great birthday. Probably the best ever. It seems like I say that every year. That's a good thing, I think.

I'm excited for this. I haven't bought my ticket yet but I'm for sure going. I can't wait! I want to have a big slumber party that Friday night. Braid each other's hair. Paint finger nails. Strip down to bra and panties and have a tickle fight. Freeze the bra of the first girl that falls asleep. Y'know, do it up right!

OK, that's it. I'll stop. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Prayers, Please

OK, so I know I didn't post anything in the previous post and instead of deleting it I thought I'd let you all see how freakin' funny and bratty Kristina is.

I was doing it from my phone while I sat on the toilet next to the tub as Harley bathed. It didn't work. Obviously.

So last week a girl I work with was telling us about a friend of hers who'd been giving her two young sons a bath and left them alone in the tub. One was two, the other 16 months. The baby drowned. His older brother (6) ran down the hall to find his mom and tell her the baby wasn't breathing. She started CPR, big brother called 911 and his dad who had just left for a bike ride. The paramedics arrived and took him away. He arrived 11 minutes after the 911 call at the hospital, DOA. Moments later they flew him to PCMC. Where they revived and stabilized him. He was still unconscious. His heart was beating on its own but he wasn't breathing on his own.

I only know all these details because I saw on Facebook that a girl I went to high school with was saying that her friend's baby was so resilient. She put a link to her friend's blog and I began reading. And bawling. My baby is only a few months older than this baby. I read and read and bawled. I read about the whole thing. My heart went out to this poor mother. What guilt she must be feeling! She mentioned in one of her posts that it was the first post she'd done since this little guy was born. Kind of ironic. So I read that post. I saw the pictures of that new little baby. And his mom. And I know her! I went to high school with her too! I couldn't believe I'd read this whole story. Heard about it for a week at work. And all the while, I know her! We roomed together in San Diego on our concert choir tour.

Anyway, the point of this post is not to depress you. It's to ask for your prayers on behalf of this little baby and his family. Once again I'm amazed at the way this blogging world works. On the first post this girl did there were 20-something comments. On her latest post (not even 2 weeks later) there were 500-something comments. That's incredible to me! Anyway, please go read her story. Or at the very least, offer up a prayer for her family today.