Livin’ Life On The Lamb

SEE! NOT FAKE! (ok, so it’s not completely wordless…)

Gila Man sent me this link last night and I just about fell off my chair laughing…ENJOY!!!

Or something like that. That what Templeton the Rat sang on the first Charlotte’s Web. Since Gila Man has Sunday and Monday off, we were trying to plan a fun (and cheap) family activity that we could do. Now the zoo is always a given, you never have to ask us twice to head up to the big city and visit the zoo. But I happened to go online and find out the dates of our (semi) local fair. Monday was family day - $2.00 parking, $2.00 admission, and Mr. B was FREE! WE LOVE THE FAIR! The sights, the smells, the shows, the rides, and of course, the food!

Something about going to the fair makes me happy. Silly, I know. But I remember going to the fair as a kid and participating in what seemed like EVERY event in the livestock barn. Growing up, we had a small farm since I was born. Um, not that me being born meant that my parents suddenly had a farm…but one of my earliest memories is looking out the sliding glass door in the back of our little home and seeing (what seemed to me) thousands of little fluffy chicks. My dad went to go buy a few and ended up filling his hatchback Honda Civic with flats and flats of chicks.

When I grew older, nothing changed; I remember all the work we had to put in to get all of our animals ready for the show. You could always tell which kids waited until a week before the fair to put a collar on their animals. There was walking and brushing and trimming and putting on the coats so they don’t get sick because we just chopped off all their hair and making sure that everyone was ready to go.

Then we would pack up the travel trailer with everything a family of five could live on for 3 or 4 days, pack up the horse trailer with all the critters (mostly goats, we did chickens, rabbits, pigs, and sheep at the local fairs), and head to the BIG CITY! Once we were there, we would, of course, have to unpack everything and everyone and get the critters ready to show.

I remember going into the pens where the goats were kept and just hanging out because it was incredible to see the looks on the city folk’s and the little kids faces when they saw a goat for the first time. It was soooo cool to actually have someone ask ME a question about the animals and be able to answer them and be right!

I remember that the nights in the travel trailer were unbearably freezing and the days incredibly hot.

I remember that the food we packed was never quite as scrumptious as that greasy, nasty, overpriced food at the fair was.

I remember helping to milk the goats after the show and squirting the warm, creamy milk directly into my mouth (much to the shock or delight of the city folk).

I also remember snacking on the goat grain in between meals. Really. The corn was yummy!

I remember running off as soon as my brother and I could so we could check out the runway and covet the dorky stuffed animals hanging everywhere.

I rememeber the amazing feeling of pride as we drove home from the fair - dirty, smelly, tired and just plain wore out - but with a stack of ribbons to rival just about anybody…most of them blue!

So, I get a little nostalgic when I go back to the fair that I spent so much time at as a child. There’s also something really, really, cool about bringing my child there to build memories as well. Not the same kind, certainly the more carefree-I-don’t-care-what-time-the-goats-have-to-be-ringside-for-the-yearling-class, but he sure did want to put those baby goats in the stroller to take them home “so they won’t be lonely”, he said. I guess we are all still building memories, though they might be a little different…here’s an example…Gila Man wants this to be this year’s family photo…what do you think?

Well, when we bought this house and went to turn on the utilities, we found out that the whole house it entirely electric. This gave us a great discount on our electric bill and makes for really fast heating, cooling and cooking also.

We have been doing really well with keeping the bill down, but last month it jumped up to $145.00. That is the very highest bill we’ve had. Granted last month was a COLD month, but we knew we had to change a few things. We turn off lights, fans, the stove, and just be very aware of what electronics we have on. We’ve also opened the windows during the day to keep the house nice and cool.

I have changed a few habits as well; because we have those really great LED nightlights in every room, I rarely have to turn on any lights when I, say, go into our bathroom to brush my teeth. I have been doing this for a month now and never had a mishap.

Ahem, all I have to say is that I yelled at Gila Man to never, EVER put his tube of hydrocortisone cream on the same shelf as MY toothpaste ever again.

What a price to pay to keep the freakin’ bill down. YUK!!!

You know, everybody has bad days. Noah had one of those kind of days last week. He didn’t sleep well all night because he had a sore throat, he didn’t want to eat breakfast, he spilled his milk that morning, our play date fell through (because of the sore throat), and he just had a rough day.

I tried to make it as best as possible hanging out with him and playing trucks all morning and that helped, but it was playing outside that really made him happy. Gila Man and I spent the afternoon planting trees while Mr. B “helped”. We moved dirt (if that’s what you call this white Caliche sandy soil around here), mixed potting soil, and filled the wheelbarrow all afternoon long. Needless to say, we were all a little tired that evening around dinner, so we had a quick bite and I put Mr. B in the bath.

I was sitting in the bathroom reading a horrible book when I noticed that Mr. B wasn’t splashing or growling like a shark (do sharks growl?), so I looked over to see what he was doing. This is what I saw:

Now, I know you may be thinking what I was thinking, that the kid is just relaxing a little. But for honest to goodness really I am TOTALLY not lying to you, the kid is ASLEEP. And I mean not just a little cat-nap asleep, but down-for-the-count kind of asleep. I yelled for Gila Man to come and witness this sight, so he grabbed the camera and we got a shot.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all have such a relaxing bath at the end of a bad day?

Hello out there?!?! Mean people? You suck.

I got my first negative remark on my blog today! I think it was written by a 4 or 5 year old; what with all the spelling and gramatical errors, I think it was just plain silly. I’m obviously NOT going to post it, cuz I wouldn’t want to embarras any-jerk-body named kat (Not like Chassy Cat, who TOTALLY ROCKS, btw).

You know you’re making your mark on the world when people start telling you what a bad job your doing on your own freakin project. Cuz they had the choice to sit down and read the darn thing…don’t like it? don’t read it.

Hope everybody else except grumpy kat is having a great weekend!!

Maybe I’m a lucky Mom. Maybe I was just careful enough to avoid it. Maybe…oh I don’t know, I think I was just lucky. Then I went and ruined it. Typical of me, naturally. What happened is that I posted on someone else’s blog that I had never had to clean up puke before, only a little baby spit-up and some pee once in awhile. I did it to myself really.

Last night I had to go to The Church and put a few things on the bulletin board for Primary because the pictures of the kids didn’t take up nearly as much space as I thought they would. Mr. B asked me very nicely if we could please go home yet. I told him we would head home as soon we went to w.a.l.m.a.r.t and I picked up cat food, lysol, and PAM. While in said store, Mr. B sat calmly and quietly in the cart, occasionally asking if I got “the list stuff” yet so we could go home.

“Let’s PLEASE be Homies, Momma.” he said softly.

I relented (because that place is just a disaster and a mess and was super crowded!) and we checked out with our stuff and made our way to the car.

“Are you hungry?” I asked.

“Yes, Momma.” he replied. “I would like cereal for dinner please.”

“Sorry, buddy” I said, “Daddy said we aren’t allowed to eat cereal for dinner anymore. It’s not healthy. How about a bean burrito?”

“Ok,” he said.

I ran to Taco Bell, grabbed two bean burritos without onions, drove home, unloaded the bags and we sat down to eat.

“My beans are yucky, Momma.” Mr. B informed me.

Thinking he just wanted to eat mine, I let him take a bite to see they were the same.

“Yours is yummy, Momma. May I please eat more?”

“Eat two more bites of yours and then you can have more of mine.” I told him.

He obeyed. I shared the rest of mine and we got ready for bed. All he wanted to do was sit on my lap, so we went into my bedroom and sat in the rocking chair for a little bit. Anyone who knows my son knows that he doesn’t just want to sit on anyone’s lap for long, so I suspected that he wasn’t feeling well. That feeling was confirmed when he fell asleep on my lap a few moments later.

Not wanting this rare and tender moment to pass, I just sat there and held him for a few minutes. My baby. My big boy. My son.

Mr. B coughed. The coughed again. Then he started to choke a little. I lifted up his head and out spewed half of the dinner he ate. And let me tell ya, bean burritos don’t smell so great after they’ve been ruminating around in a young boy’s stomach for a few minutes.

Still half asleep, I tried to stand Mr. B up to keep us from stepping in the PUKE, and he came to enough to stand there and look around and say, “What is all that stuff, Momma? It’s stinky.”

Then he started to cough again. And then he started to PUKE so more. I lifted him up by the arms in an attempt to swing him into our bathroom, which only ended in PUKE being spewed on the door, cabinet, floor, and around the bottom of the toilet. Mr. B stood looking down into the toilet water and managed to spit ONE BEAN into the water. ONE BEAN when my whole room looked as though someone had exploded in it.

Now, I have never, NEVER, cleaned up PUKE before. Spit-up, bird poop, stinky diapers, dog throw up, lots of other gross things I have dealt with. But not PUKE. It stinks! It’s nasty! It’s just gross!!!

I had to strip Mr. B down to his chonies and get clean jammies on him. Then he rinsed his mouth out, brushed his teeth, and climbed into his own bed with his very own PUKE bowl resting next to him. And then came the hard part. If it wasn’t for her, I don’t know what I would have done to get the smell out of the carpet.

It took me 8 teakettles of water and 16 towels to clean up the entire mess so my room didn’t smell like PUKE anymore. I looked kinda like this girl, but I was stepping on towels and sopping up boiling hot water.

I did discover something, though. If I used a dry, dark towel and put it on the boiling water right after I poured it, I could step on it and write my initials and other shapes on the towel (until I had to keep stepping to keep soaking up the PUKE water).

When Gila Man called from work to see what I was up to, he got quite an earfull. We finally just laughed about it and reminded each other about how there’s a first time for EVERYTHING. Even PUKE.

But you can bet your bottom we’re having cereal for dinner tonight.