this is what happens when mommy is at work...

as you can see, clay was really enjoying himself. nick... not so much. cleanup was a bit of a job.

i like the look on his face in the second picture. it says, "busted!"

this... is how clay eats a chocolate pudding snack cup by himself.

nope, nope, nope...

we went shopping today, and afterwards stopped at A&W, so i thought i would be saved the trouble of cooking when i got home. but, when we got home, clay climbed into his high chair and said, "et, et, et..." and did the sign for "eat". "et," is clay's word for eat. so i said,

"you're still hungry?" in amazement, and clay said, "hawgwee," and grinned at me.

so i said, "what do you want? a sandwhich?"

clay shook his head vigorously. "nope!" he said. this is so cute and unexpected that i decide to play the game and see where it leads.

"granola bar?"

head shake. "nope, nope nope," he said.

"crackers?" i'm running out of snacks here. i start to wonder if he he's just saying no for the sheer joy of it.

head shake. "nope, nope nope," he says, this time blowing a raspberry.

right. well, there is a fresh pineapple in the fridge that needs to be cut up, and if i leave it much longer it won't be fresh anymore.

"pineapple?" i say, hopefully.

"'ah-POLE!" he says, thrilled.

i cut up some pieces for him and he loves it. will he touch canned pineapple? absolutely not. my child has very sophisticated taste, apparently. he loves his fresh pineapple.

never, ever brag about your kid's accomplishments -- here's why:

so today, clay says, "POOOOOOOOOOO!" and we run to the potty. nothing. we sit. nothing. i give him a book. still nothing. he decides its more fun to play with the drawers by the side of the toilet (which hold nick's razors -- not good). i tell him no, and he keeps opening them. he thinks its a game. at any rate, he's lost interest in the potty thing, and i can't re-interest him. he finally says, "all done!", and happily gets off the potty.

now, here, i do something really, really stupid. i notice he has a slight rash and decided to let him run sans diaper. which he likes. so he's running around and things are going well, when all of the sudden he goes to the corner, squats and makes a really grumpy face. the kind he makes when he's doing something he's not supposed to do and thinks he's been caught. then really quick, he stands up and starts peeing. so, i run to clean up the pee... and notice he's also left a poo on the floor! then he almost steps in it, and i frantically run him BACK to the potty, where he finishes.

after putting a nappy on him (i learned my lesson!), i give the carpet a good scrub and decide that the sans diaper thing is not such a good idea. a few moms i've talked to have suggested it when potty training because they are supposed to realize and stop. well... may have realized, but he sure as heck didn't stop!

so yeah... apparently, i spoke too soon regarding his "success". maybe we ain't so ready. i guess its a work in progress.

things you do when you're sleep deprived...

so the other night i got home from work late, and stumbled into the bathroom to brush my teeth and go to bed. i blearily picked up the tube of toothpaste and schlopped some on my toothbrush and started brushing. and then i realize that something isn't quite right. the toothpaste has a really strange taste and doesn't feel right either; so i look more closely at the tube sitting on the counter. its A&D ointment. yuck. i spit it out. i rinse. i spit again. i repeat. yeah, that took a while to get that taste out. i then used some REAL toothpaste (that had actually been put away), and my mouth felt much better.

in which clay learns to say a new word

POOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! that is his new word. his has been using the potty for some time now, but he's finally got to the point where he says, "poooo!" and pulls on his trousers, and then runs to the gate to let us know he has to go potty. he is ever so pleased with himself when he is dry and does his business on the potty.

so he is in the next phase! yay!!! except, of course, being a boy, he is not quiet about anything, and SHOUTS pooo! this could prove to be awkward and embarrassing in the future. But, i am just glad he is getting it and telling us when he has to go. so i'm not going to tell him to be quiet, am i?

i'm also weaning him at the moment, deciding that i would just nurse him in the morning when we cuddle. he doesn't like this, understandably, but he's getting to the point where he is getting pretty demanding about it and likes to pull up my shirt. since this is kind of embarrassing, i've decided to just not do it anymore. he also sometimes throws tantrums if he doesn't get it, and that's not fun to deal with. i'm kinda sad about it, because it means he's not a baby anymore. its hard to explain, if you haven't nursed... but it really is a special thing to be able to do. i'll miss it. which is why i'm not ready to totally give it up. not just yet.

so my baby is really turning into a big boy now! *sniff*

in which i get a compliment from a patient

i was bandaging someone's arm last night, and the guy doesn't talk much. in fact, he usually speaks in monosyllables. so i was very surprised when he said to me, "you've got good hands for that sort of thing," and then the told me he thought i was doing a very nice job.

it felt good to hear; when you are new at something you always wonder if you are doing a good enough job. last night was a pretty long shift, so it really brightened my night. :)

i really like nursing. it feels really good to do something that brings comfort and healing to someone, and know that your care can make a difference (for the better) in how they feel.

murphys law...

...is such that if everything in your life is going honky dory (i probably spelled this wrong), that something will jump up and bite you in the butt.

one of those rules would be that once you pay off your vehicle, something will go wrong. our something, in this case happened to be a $6oo job. *sigh*

so our car is junk; it is beyond repair, so i thought i would take my trusty truck to school. cuz that never breaks down. ever. unless i need to be in class and an assignment is due.

but anyway, i literally got to the end of our driveway and the car stalled quietly and died. i tried starting it. the engine turned over, but it wouldn't rev when i stepped on the gas. my first thought was that we must be out of gas, but we had just refueled. so that wasn't the problem.

i send nick out there, and he tinkers around with it for awhile before admitting defeat. he comes in, turns on the telly, and says, "you better call those AAA guys you have a membership with, so they can come and tow that truck somewhere. it's not moving anywhere on its own."

great.

so i ask him to call the mechanic, since he knows more about cars than i do. he doesn't; he's watching the game. so i call, and sound stupid, and the mechanic is probably laughing silently as he talks to me. nick, stands and hovers by the phone, to see if i tell the mechanic everything i need to tell him (which defeated the purpose of me calling so he could watch the game...)

the mechanic says he will have time to look at it, so i call the towing company, and they say they'll be over shortly. I tell them very clearly, in the clearest english possible, that they should take the second driveway, where the truck is parked, past the mailbox and fire number. the first driveway is on a treacherous hill, and it is not fun for a huge tow truck to back up.

what does the driver do? yes... he drives in the first driveway. gee, someone must not have told him, because he's not too happy when he realizes he has to back his truck up. while he's talking to nick, the culligan water man shows up and parks behind the tow truck guy.

because of course... or water softerner died too. so we needed that fixed. so now the two truck guy needs to back up and theres a pickup behind him. so the culligan guy has to back out and park on the street, while TT guy backs up our incredibly narrow and steep driveway. he's probably praying the whole time.

nick deals with TT guy; and i deal with the culligan guy, while clay decides he doesn't want to be held anymore and struggles to free himself. i try taking clay inside and he throws a tantrum. so with clay screaming in the background, i'm trying to explain the problem with our water softern to the culligan guy. its some relic from the 80's, and the guy takes one look at it and tells me that it would cost too much to fix it; i was better off renting a new one.

happily, i got a good deal -- $10 a month for the first 6 months, then $22 a month since we decided to lease one. leasing is nice; if something breaks, they fix it. i can handle that. everything breaks around here, so it would be nice not to have to worry about it for once.

oh yeah, so back to the truck...

nick informs me this morning that the truck needs a new fuel pump, and it will cost us $600. he also tells me that we have no car all weekend, and this is a problem because i'm supposed to work friday.

do i want to walk to work? well, no, not really. its a 7 mile trek... so... no.

so i call my friend becky and ask if they have an extra vehicle i could use. they do, and she says i can use hers, and then she can take the truck to work. its a really niiiiiiiiiiice truck. but then her husband decides that he would like to take the truck to work, so says i can use his car.

he even vaccums it out for me. becky says i must be special.

so... i have a way to get to work, the truck will be back next week (hopefully nothing else will go wrong), and we are going car shopping for a car to replace the much loved and faithful dodge neon. the one with the broken reverse, windows that wouldn't stay up, and that smelled faintly of mold ever since the windows were accidentally left down after a thunderstorm.

we'll probably end up with a minivan. we're thinking of having another kid; and, with kids, the minivan is one of those sad changes you fight but eventually give in to. the cool car is gone, in its place is an old-fart's-mobile, with that ever so lovely faux wood paneling on its side. it screams, "middle age" all over it. (okay, so i'm a tad apprehensive about turning 30 in a few short months...) anyway, whatever tad of respectable hipness you had is gone, as soon as you drive that mini-van off the lot.

actaully, the new ones aren't so bad, but we'll have to see what we can afford. i just want something that isn't either a non-air-conditioned death trap in the summer or a mobile refrigerator that takes passengers (in the winter). oh, and some more room would be nice. so we'll have to see.

so... i guess i'll let you know if i turn into some mini-van driving soccer mom. i think the popular "soccer mom" mini-van package comes with a complimentary cooler. ha, ha!

more adventures in hicksville

so... the other day, i come home from work and nick informs me that frisky, one of our horses, somehow got himself tangled in our fence. thankfully, it was electric and wasn't working anyway. why it wasn't working, we never quite discovered, but there's no point in checking the fence-line now as he snapped the wire trying to free himself and nick removed quite a large section.

at any rate, he somehow got all tangled up in the wire and couldn't move his back legs, and after nick cut him free from the fence, he ran off and wouldn't let us catch him for awhile...

meanwhile, he's still got wire wrapped around his leg. so as soon as its daylight, i go out to find frisky, who only lets me near him because i'm loaded with grain and carrots. when that's gone, he takes off, but the job is only half done. and then he goes by the other horses, who crowd around me to see what's going on. they smell the oats, and i can't get near frisky b/c they are crowding around me. its a clever ploy, and i think they were doing it on purpose. horses probably have telepathy.

at any rate, nick came out to help, got some apples, and tried to catch frisky. because of course i was doing it all wrong. the other two horses saw that he had apples and made a beeline for him. so he couldn't catch frisky either.

but with two of us out there, i was able to get the other horses into the other pasture, and then we were finally able to catch frisky, who wanted the apples. he actually stood still for me to get the wire off, and his leg was surprisingly okay. i was worried, because the wire looked so tight.

then i called the vet and found out that a home visit would be about $100 or more, and that was just to look at him... the vet and i both concluded that he should get some penicillin, and told me i could give him the shot myself. and a tetanus shot. he made it sound easy, and i happily agreed, thinking about how much money i would save.

so, off i trotted to the vet's (after also visiting the pet store for some fish medicine... another story), and bought my penicillin. she gave me a 100 cc bottle and told me to give him 20cc twice a day by injection. and then of course, i had to buy another bottle. i didn't want to use the same needle on him, so bought 10 needles, which were 25 cents apeice. and syringes. she asked if i had any on hand. no, i'm not in the habit of giving my self horse sized doses with huge needles. oh, and the tetanus shot, which happens to only come as a triple vaccination for 2 other things ... equine flu i think and that west nile virus. and that was pricey. but if he develops tetanus, that would be a mess, so i get it. he won't, but that's beside the point. because if i decided not to get the vaccination... he would most likely get sick... at least that's how it always works for me. at any rate, i left with alot less money for a little bit of stuff that was in the paper bag.

then i got home, enthusiastic about treating my horse, and drew up my shot of 22 cc's of penicillin like the great and experienced nurse that i am. ha! the vet told me the best place was in the neck. the neck? holy hannibal!!!! i think i would KILL anyone who wanted to give me a shot of something in the neck. so i'm thinking okaaaay, the vet would know, and do it anyway. frisky FREAKS! he rears up, and the needle and syringe go flying. the needle lands like a dart in the dirt and i can't use it anymore. because frisky freaked out, the other horses came running to the fence-line to see if he was okay. so now frisky is running back and forth, all agitated, and the other two get really agitated, racing like secretariat up and down the pasture, from one end to the other.

so i have to run and put them in the end pasture, and after i close the fence, they come charging towards the gate again, and i have to stand there, shouting, "woah!!!!" as they come barrelling towards me. i really did not need two other horses going through a fence; this one was barbed wire. at the last minute, they turn, and run along the fence, finally slowing down.

however, frisky is still freaked, and when i come back with a fresh needle, he's just not having it. uh-ummmm, no way, jose' . i ask nick to help me and nick goes out there, and frisky just jumps and dances around. "hold him," i say.

"i can't hold him!!" nick says. "he's a thousand pound horse; he'll rip my arm off!"

well, that didn't work. we danced some more, but i finally gave up.

so then i called a neighbor who has horses and asked for tips. "oh, try the chest," she said -- right above the legs, where there are some big muscles. "pound the area really well before you give him the shot, and distract him with some grain."

i try by myself, because nick thinks its a lost cause. i pound his chest one time and he decides to take off again.

so i wait until today. nick and i go out together, tie frisky to a wooden fencepost, and nick distracts him with apples. i pound his chest, and give him the shot of tetanus. he doesn't freak!! yay. so i get brave, and give him the second shot of penicillin -- the needle is much bigger, so i worry a bit. he actually lets me give him this shot as well, so i'm relieved.

so, i have finally managed to give my horse a shot without getting kicked or trampled. but i think i'll stick to nursing. people are alot easier to give injections to.

out of the mouth of babes....

i've been working on manners with clay, and we've taught him to say, "thank you", when he gets something from someone; unfortunately, clay's "thank-you's" sounds like something else, for he says, "ak you". it could be mistaken for something very rude indeed.