the dishwasher dilemma

We live in a rental home right now which means our appliances are "bottom of the line". I understand why owners do that, but it doesn't change the fact that my dishwasher is completely useless. I have to hand wash my dishes before I put them in the dishwasher. If there is any food left on the dishes one of two things will happen; 1. Absolutely nothing. They will come out exactly the same as I put them in. or 2. If by some miracle the food does come off, it just swirls around and sticks on another dish. Then when the wash cycle is over and it starts to dry, my entire house smells like melting plastic. So here's the dilemma. I still use it. I don't know why it seems easier to wash my dishes and re wash them in the dishwasher rather than just using it as a drying rack, or putting them away. I know I'm using unnecessary energy and water, but I can't help it. Maybe I have a minor case of OCD. Is this normal?

Babies CAN"T have tastebuds

Once again, based on my experience as a mother, I am going to have to absolutely disagree with science. It has been "proven" that taste buds emerge at around 7 to 8 weeks' gestation. I beg to differ. Based on my acute observation of the human infant and toddler, I would propose that taste buds emerge around two years of age. As Heidi is just over a year now, it is quite clear that her taste buds simply could not have developed yet. I have irrefutable evidence to back up my theory.
Argument 1: We were visiting our friends and playing in the back yard. Yaya yelled to me, "Mom, Heidi's eating something!" I ran over to find her double fisting cat food and packing it down her throat as fast as she could manage.

Argument 2: We were at another friends house a few days later when again Yaya yelled, "Mom, Heidi's eating horse poop!" I ran over and sure enough she had a nice hard clod in her hand. For my own stomach, I didn't look to closely for teeth marks but I took comfort (somehow) in the fact that at least it was several days old and dry, rather than fresh.

Argument 3: Today, Heidi took her bowl of cereal outside, threw a few hand fulls of dirt in it, sat down and started eating. (Please reference above photo.) She was seriously mad when I took it away.
I just had Heidi's iron checked last week and she is well within the normal range, so I can rule out that she is eating these things because of a mineral deficiency. Therefore I feel it is a reasonable conclusion that "science" has once again been overruled by parenting.

This is what makes my life entertaining

*Last night as I was putting Yaya to bed I was trying to put positive thoughts into her head in hopes that she would stay in her bed the whole night. So I would start the sentence and she would finish it.
me-"Stay in your bed all..."
Yaya- "Night"
me-"Have good..."
Yaya-"dreams."
me-"In the morning you'll wake up...
Yayay-"happy."
me-"And you will feel...
Yaya-"the love."
(I was going for "good" on the last one, but I liked her answer much better!)

*Leah on the way home from school said, "I wish my tongue was made of gum. Then I could chew it!"

*Yaya was in the bathtub and she squeezed the rubber duck. A bunch of nasty moldy goop came out of it and was floating around the bathtub. Yaya said, "Mom! I can see fish feathers!!"

*Leah was very excited that Naomi could spell our last name. Naomi simply said, "I know! It's easy peasy lemon squeezy!"

*A couple nights ago Yaya got out of bed and came into my room. She tried to climb in my bed, like she does EVERY night. I put her back to bed. A bit later she came back in complaining that she couldn't breathe, but wouldn't let me wipe her nose, so I put her back to bed. A couple minutes later she came in again complaining that she still couldn't breath. So I said to her, "Yaya, you just told me not to wipe your nose." She looked at me and said, "Well, now I told you to." Alrighty then!

*In the car Heidi usually sucks her thumb. Yaya looked over at her and yelled, "Heidi. Un-suck your thumb."

*Leah, Naomi and Yaya were all bickering back and forth in the back of the car. I couldn't tell who was saying what, so I said, "Who's making snappy comments back there? Leah, is that you?" Defensively, Leah answered, "No! I don't even know how to snap."

Doh!

So there has been road construction going on near our house. I try to avoid this area as much as possible, but if I want to buy groceries...it's kind of impossible. So today it took me ten minutes to get to the grocery store. So what? I can see the store from my house, it usually takes two. Anyway, on the way home the sign holder guy waved the car in front of me and then me out of the parking lot. I wasn't really paying attention to the road and more just following the car in front of me. As I was passing the construction worker somehow I knocked my car out of drive and into neutral, so my engine revved really loudly about two feet from him. He probably thought I was checking him out and trying to get his attention. Um, no. So I sheepishly ducked my head, threw my car back into drive and took off down the street. Well, I looked in my rear view mirror and noticed the truck behind me was driving down the left side of the street. Then I heard someone honking their horn and I started laughing at this guy thinking what kind of moron drives on the wrong side of the road, his tires are probably going to get caught in the wet cement. About two seconds later I see another flagger waving us down and frantically trying to get us over to the left side of the road. This time when I looked in my rear view mirror, Mr. Truck was laughing at me. Just trying to leave my mark on society somehow!

Excuse me?!?

Yesterday, Yaya was in the bathroom and needed some help. I heard her sweet little voice call out to me, "Maaaaaaaaaammmmmmmmaaaa. Come here girl!"
I don't think so.

Back to School - 2009

Leah gives a thumbs up for her very own desk!

That's a "two" for second grade. Peace out Leah.

Naomi and Leah walking to school

Sweet Naomi

Naomi all ready for Kindergarten!

Leah started second grade at Monmouth Elementary School (MES) on Tuesday. Naomi had her first "pre-view"day today with one-third of her class. Tomorrow will be her first day of kindergarten with all the kids in the class. She went right into her classroom, found her seat, sat down and put on her name tag. She was a pro! I got a picture and a hug and then she said good bye. It's only half day and she was still smiling when I came to pick her up. It was very quiet in my house this morning with Leah and Naomi in school. Yaya wanted to watch a movie and Heidi took a nap...so I did too :) I think I can get used to this!

Priorities

This afternoon Yaya came out of her bedroom crying with blood dripping down her nose, face and shirt. We got her cleaned up and asked her what happened and where it hurt. She answered, "It doesn't hurt. I'm crying because I got blood on my new shirt!"

Back to school haircuts

Naomi and Leah

I cut the girl's hair for the new school year. I think they look pretty darn cute!

Mischief

Naomi and Yaya decided to have a slumber party on the top bunk and fell asleep like this.

Heidi baby after an ice cream sandwich

Yaya and Heidi sharing a green pepper

Heidi eating her favorite toothpaste

Yaya drew this picture and GLUED it to the wall

BUNS

Heidi baby's buns. I just couldn't help it. I love fat babies.

MUD

Yesterday the girls went outside to play. They turned on the water spout and started filling up every container in our recycling bin, making "potions" and "hot chocolate". Eventually our "back yard" which has no grass turned into a giant mud slide/puddle. So the girls got their swimming suits on and took a mud bath. It was pretty entertaining. Naomi didn't get a drop of mud on her. She preferred the nice clean water. When they were done I had to put Yaya in a bucket and push her to the bath tub so she didn't ooze mud all over my house. I didn't even try to get Leah into the shower. I just brought her to the front yard and hosed her off.

Naomi being silly

Heidi baby in the mud

Yaya's back

Yaya's transport to the bathtub

right before I took a hose to mud monster Leah

I've been absolved!

A while back I blogged about the blue jay that had adopted us, Biscuit. Well, when we were having our ant problem I had thrown a piece of toast with jelly on it outside. When it was swarming with ants I went out and saturated the toast with ant poison. A little while later, Biscuit (the blue jay) came flying down and saw the toast. He started pecking at it. When I saw him eating it I started banging on the window to scare him away. He did fly away, but he took the whole piece of poison toast with him. I felt awful. Now, I'm not a huge lover of animals, but I did feel a bit of guilt for killing the girl's "pet bird".

I kept hoping that the bird had enough of a brain to realize maybe it tasted funny and didn't eat the toast, but I didn't see Biscuit for weeks. I thought for sure he was a-gonner. Finally today Biscuit came back! It may sound strange, but I recognized his "voice". And sure enough, he was hopping on the fence looking around for food like he always did. One less thing I need to ask forgiveness for today. :)

Words to melt a mother's heart

This morning I asked all the girls to clean up the living room. Everyone started grumbling and Yaya flopped on the ground. She was rolling around, completely ignoring me. Finally she stopped and looked strait up at me and said, "I wish you were dead. Then we could do whatever we want."

Please. Tell me how you really feel.