Livin’ Life On The Lamb

Here are the belated pics from the fair.

Well, it happened. The tell-tale sign of the beginning of summer: I got burnt. BAD. For some reason, I can’t just gradually tan throughout the summer. I’ve got to get that really bad, miserable, I-totally-just-want-to-die-please-find-some-way-to-sleep-without-laying-on-my-back burn, and then I might, MIGHT, get some color by the end of October. Highly unlikely, but everyone has their dreams, right?

During the week when I work out, Mr. B has to go see the babysitter in the gym for an hour or two. We’ve had our good days and our bad days with him going to see the sitter, but he has been a golden child since I started bribing him with “Swim Fridays”. If he’s good all week and uses his manners and shares the toys and uses nice words and does other nearly impossible things for a three-year-old, we bring our swimmies and our snacks and splash away for an hour or two. Thing is, I go to work out at 8 a.m., so we are in the pool by 9:15 and out by 10:30 or so.

Today, we (girls from the mom’s group and I) were supposed to meet at 10 a.m. to swim and have a picnic lunch - fun, huh? But I was late. 45 minutes late to be exact. What?!? I HAD to stop and get a Dr. Pepper at the gas station because, hello? Swimming and soda pop? It’s like, you know…it’s just like those other things that go together…like…ok, fine. Like peas and carrots, all right? Then they are re-paving the freeway and I was stuck in traffic also. Blah, blah, blah, huh?

Soooo…10:45 until we ate at 12:00. Then a little break and back in the pool we went. Mr. B had two layers of SPF 60 on, but I just quickly sprayed some SPF 15 on and away I went. You can actually see where the sunscreen hit and where it didn’t. I have two white patches on my shoulders where the sunscreen was, a white line where my suit went, and a HUGE patch of red accross my back.

I feel like I’ve been cooked. Just thought I’d let you know that I might not be able to sit up to post for a few days. Besides, there sure isn’t much going on in my life right now anyway. Except for the stimulus check. That was an exciting way to start the day. But that’s all for now. Hope everyone else’s summer is off to a wicked good start like mine!!

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

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?

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?

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.

Yep, after this, we have had a SLEW of “ies”. We’ve been sickies, sillies, saddies, maddies, laughies, and loads of others that are just a little to silly to say. But today’s was the cake topper.

We were getting out of the car and Noah knew that he had to go inside and take off his “nice” shoes off and get his “play” shoes on if he wanted to go out and play in the backyard. When he came back out in the garage, Helaman and I were still in the car talking about the plans we have for the house and Noah climbed into Helaman’s lap to see what we were doing. We figured we should get started, so we climbed out of the car, and Noah thought he should get out on my side “Because he was closer” to my side of the car. Sheesh.

As he scooted over my seat, his elbow accidently hit the steering wheel and honked the horn.
“LOOK, Momma! I’m honking the horn! It works even if the car is off! Look! I’m honking the horn A LOT! I’m a horn honker! I’m a HORNIE! WE can be hornies, Momma! Let’s be hornies! Come honk the horn!”

“I have an idea,” said Helaman.
“You go be a hornie in your bedroom, and Momma and Daddy will be hornies in our room!”

It didn’t work. There aren’t any horns in Noah’s room…gonna have to do something about that…