These better not be the best years!

I'm not sure if the world hates me or if its just a phase. I'm thinking I'm done, either way. To start, let me mention that I think I have a thyroid problem. Me, who is never cold, is now bundled up every day. the thermostat has not changed, but I am freezing. Seriously. Me, who kicked covers off at night, now sleeps in sweat pants and under 2 blankets. I hate being cold and I'm cold all the time. (I do have a doc appt but its in almost 2 weeks. blah.)

So, I'm already cranky. Add to that the not sleeping. I actually did sleep more than I thrashed around last night, although I still woke Dan up once. (And the man does not wake up for anything!) I'm tired, I'm cranky and things just seem to keep happening!

You may have read about my ill fated attempt on the bathroom drains. I called them in and the guy said he be here at 1pm yesterday. 1pm came and went, no guy. By 4:30 I called the company and left a message that he was a no-show. 5:30 and the doorbell rings. It was the maintenance guy. Wow, only 4 hours late!

He snaked the drains and they are now clear and I am quite happy about that. He did not bring a garbage disposal, so he scheduled to come back today at 2. If you note the time of posting, you'll know he's at least 3 1/2 hours behind again. I'm really grumpy that he hasn't showed up again.

Also noteworthy today, I walked into the bathroom (okay, I ran, but that may be TMI) and discovered that Delaney had dumped the whole roll of toilet paper into the toilet. Fun-fun! Later, I put her down for her nap. An hour later it was pretty quiet, so I peeked on her. She was laying on the floor, buck naked, poop on her bum and a wet mark around her. AAACK!

She had taken off the poopy diaper, so the only poop was on her bottom and on the diaper. She'd just peed while lying there. And then she stayed, laying in the puddle of pee. Can this get any more fun?! I cleaned it up and was very grateful it was just pee. and I put Delaney back to bed. She never did go to sleep. Sigh.

And there is a poop smell I can't get rid of. Delaney had a blowout at the end of church and had poop all over her tights and her dress. I cleaned it up and somehow after washing it, it caused the whole load of laundry to reek of poop! What's up with that?! I have run the clothes 3 times now and I swear I can still smell it.

I'm done. I've complained enough for today. I promise to have something more positive next time!

Sunday Morning Antics

There are some great advantages to now having church at the 11am time block. I have all the time I need to bathe and dress 4 children. Heck, I can even make a good breakfast if I want to! And I have time to get the girls' hair done. You may have already heard my theory, but here it is: you can tell how good a mom is by how cute her girls hair is.

I know, totally not true, but that's what people think. I first noticed this in Little Rock. The moms who had girls with really cute hair were automatically labeled as moms who could do it all. And how could they not be! If a toddler has cute, perfectly done hair, it would take a genius to do it, so that mom must be wonderful! I vowed then that my girls would have their hair done all the time.

This mostly works. I have to do their hair anyway, since they all have cowlicks and hair that grows directly into their faces unless I do something to keep it out of their eyes. I can do cute pony-tails and stuff, but I do not have prissy girls. I do not have girls who WANT to keep their hair looking cute. This is a bit of a problem on Sunday mornings. If I do their hair at 9am, and we don't leave for over an hour and a half, lots of things can happen!


Here is Calli, posing for a picture. she has been running around, but her hair is still presentable. A bit wispy, but good enough.

Marian is in a phase where she only wants one ponytail in the back. She eventually will have little wisps all around her face. It doesn't matter how much mousse I use. I refuse to use hairspray yet.

And here is my little stinker. This is what I found her doing when I came back downstairs after getting myself dressed. She was hiding in the cushions! Do you know what that does to Ponytails?!!

Yes, so pleased with herself and having a very good time while her sisters laughed at her and giggled at her silliness.

And then Marian wanted in on a picture as well. Good thing they are such cutie pies!

Disaster (mostly) averted!

The sink and tub in the bathroom have been slow to drain. This means when I shower, that I have to make the decision: Do I want to have great water pressure and be ankle deep in water before I'm done, or will I be happier to have a trickle of water on my head, but have none lapping at my shins? And the sink.... you really don't want your spit floating arund for 5 minutes after you spit while brushing your teeth. Plus, cleaning out the soap ring leftover from washing my hands is no fun. I got tired of going through this on a daily basis. So I called my favorite handy man and aksed what would be best for clearing out the system. I mean, why call a plumber if Liquid Plumber will do, right?!

I was informed that there is a fabulous heavy duty item at Lowe's. It is SO heavy duty that it comes in a plastic bag. They recomend you wear eye protection, gloves and a face mask. I got gloves. Armed and ready I decided to tackle the job today. Dan took the older 3 to Mt Vernon, and I put Delaney down for a nap. It was me and the bathroom.

I decided to try to remove the U joint under the sink first. Why make the stuff work harder if I can pry a few feet of hair out first? Unfortunately, I couldn't get the durn thing off! It was stuck on tight, even after I unscrewed the big screws. I called and talked to my sister who suggester hammering a wedge to pry it off. I didn't think I wanted to chance that. So I screwed the screws back on, checked that they were tight, and got down to business.

I poured the serious chemical stuff down both drains and ran away. Okay, really, I opened the window and closed the door. The stench permeated the entire house in about 3 minutes anyway, Yikes! I opened all the windows and was grateful that its 55 degrees out today.

I waited the required 15 minutes and braved the foul smell and entered the bathroom. At this point, I was suppose to be able to run cold water through fresh-flushed pipes. Imagine my dismay when I saw that the sink was full. Not just full of brown chemical. Nope. Full of truly disgusting nasty black stuff. And it wasn't draining. Let me be clear here- it drained (just slowly) right up until I poured the evil, cancer causing chemicals into it!! AAck! On the plus side, the tub was clear. It still doesn't seem to drain well, but at least IT wasn't backed up!

So, I have a sink full of disgusting black ick, and it's putting off an aroma that simaltaneously makes you gag and pass out. I called my favorite handy man for more help. He said I was screwed. His best suggestioon- other than calling a professional plumber- was to use the hacksaw to saw through the PVC U-joint to get the stuff to drain. I don't have a problem with that, it was the whole hassle and procedure of having to go back to Home Depot and find someone helpful (few and far between here!), and replace tha U-Joint. Acutally, I think he called it a Pea- Trap. (P-trap? Pee trap? hee hee hee!)

Under just a bit of pressure, I decide tackle the romoval of the P-trap/U-joint in the usual manner; I unscrewed the screws. That got a trickle of icky stuff to come out and lowered the level in the sink. I thought it would work well enough to drain the sink so I could wait till Monday and call for a plumber. After 30 minutes though, it became clear that the thing was not draining fast enough. I thought about Deborah's advice and hunted down my flathead screwdriver. I used it and after much gnashing of teeth and great heroic effort, I actually got the joint off! It came in a splurt of gross liquid, but I was prepared and the towel was the only casualty! Yes! I drained the sink and cleaned the P-trap/U-joint. Whew! Mission Accomplished!

Well, sort of. The stinking thing still doesn't drain properly. So I'll have to get a real person to fix it anyway. Sigh.

My Day

I wanted to go running this morning. Dan offered to let me go at 7am, but I don't like getting up before 7:30. I am so spoiled! (And I like it!) So I figured I'd just go later with the girls. Unfortunately, about 7:30 it started to snow. No problem, I thought, its not much. I got Joshua and Marian off to school and got ready to run. I put the girls in my fabulous stroller and put up my lovely plastic rain rain guard, that I am very proud of. And off we went. I got to to end of the block before turning around. It was coming down too hard and it was sticking to the street, making it a little slick. Plus, gigantic snow flakes kept flying in my eyes and I couldn't see. So I consoled myself with the elliptical machine.


Here's Callie, before our ill-attempted run. she's catching snowflakes on her tongue!


And, to randomly jump to a totally different topic....

I believe I have mentioned that Delaney has learned to climb out of her crib. Now, we have a lovely white metal frame bunk bed that is currently un-bunked. Actually, one half of this bunk bed is dismantled in the basement. The top part to this bunk bed is currently in Delaney's room. (This matters because it has the bars to keep kids from falling off. It also keeps Delaney from rolling off the bed too.) I placed the bed right next to the crib so she can climb out of the crib and into the twin bed.

This is now how she sleeps:

This is Delaney today, at nap time. It does take longer to get her to sleep, but once she does, its so cute!

Check out the drool spot! She's so sacked out she didn't even twitch when the flash went off.

I think she may have permanently transitioned to the big-girl bed. In few days I'll move the bed away from the crib. I don't think she's slept in the crib in 3-4 days already.

The Normal Mormon Husband

For those of you unfamiliar with the Normal Mormon Husband, this does not refer to my own husband. It is a blog done by a man who calls himself that. An amusing blog. I love the Normal Mormon Husband blog. And his most recent post was so well done, I had to tell you to go there. Somewhere at the bottom my blog is a list of links to my favorite places. NMH is on it. Click and visit and enjoy. I know I did!


(This is my PS- I am referring to the post about being Un-American and Misinformed.)