Today I took my kids to feed the ducks at Flow Serve- they have  the nicest ducks; and they also have huge carp that will literally jump out of  the water to eat. The boys think this is awesome.  

For baby girl- this is the first time that I have taken her when
she is actually aware of what we are doing. We went a few times last   year but she just sat  happily in her snuggli or stroller and watched the clouds.  She  has an obsession with our Bob’s (the name that all the chickens have) and LOVES
when they come really close to her so she can try to touch them. It is very  common that she walks behind the flock of Bob’s, arms out stretched and calling to them “Bob, Bob…” I know she is really saying ‘come here and just let me hold  you for a minute, you curious thing.’  I was certain that with this love of all  things Bob that she would think that feeding the ducks was the second best thing  in the world. (Spoiled little thing is still being nursed. Nuff said about her  favorite thing.) We got there and the ducks (and geese) all ran up near our car-  they are smart little buggers and  must have sensed that we had bread for them. We got out and starting ripping  bread to give to our feathered friends. Kenaley sat right on the grass with me  crouched down behind her.  She know that this is what she has to do to get the Bob’s close to  her.   I started throwing out  bread for her and she was amazed. 

You see, the Bob’s don’t come over when we try to get them to eat  next to her. I think that they know her as super-sonic-ear-piercing-screamer, so  they steer clear of her. But, these ducks had never heard her go super sonic.  They All started eating within arms reach of her and she did what any 1 year old  would do: scream in super sonic mode in pure delight and excitement. 

Then it happened:  the group of about 10 ducks gathered  around us all flapped their wings and flew/waddled away in a hasty kind of  manner.

Kenaley. Freaked. Out.

I couldn’t help but laugh. She was so very scared of this different looking Bob (she actually was calling them Bob the whole time-
it’s what all 2 legged feathered things are.) She thought they were friends and  she wanted to tell them, in that super sonic kind of way that she loved them.  And they broke that friendship with the flapping of the wings.  And  this was all within the first 2 minutes of our arrival. 

She  then became allergic to the floor- when the legs magnetically stick to my hip  and any sudden movement of my arm holding her results in tightening of the  legs/arm and a little whimper  to  remind me that she is not okay with me  letting her go. 

It took about 10 minutes of me standing way back from  the pond, just watching  the boys  feed the ducks that she was finally comfortable enough to get down and ask the  ducks if they could be friends again. She followed one around for a minute and
when I threw out a piece of bread that made the duck stop in front of her, she  put her hands out for me to give her a piece of bread. So I did. She held it out  to the duck, not knowing that throwing  it was part of the deal we humans have  with ducks.

Apparently, the duck missed that day in Duck Feeding 101. Because this duck came right  up and ate it out f baby girl’s hand. Right out of it. Luckily, the duck didn’t  bite the tiny little fingers, just the bread. Kenaley had a friend for life. She followed that duck around for the  next 20 minutes stopping to ask me for a new treat for her “Bob”  and  then yanking her little hand back as soon as the duck got it from her, laughing and crouching down like the most excited of any one year olds does. The boys  were happily trying to touch the carp that would jump up to snatch bread from  the ducks, screaming with excitement each time they did.

Afternoon well spent. 

I mean,  other than the unnecessary flapping of the wings when the super sonic occurred. 

How bad is your OCD? Mine is bad and getting worse lately.

Made cookies today- the peanut butter ones with Hershey’s kisses in the middle and when I was done I had these perfect rows of  4 cookies. Then someone ate one and there was a gap in my rows, naturally, I rearranged them so I had perfect rows of 5. Then more people ate some and I had to rearrange them over and over again. Most of the time I had to eat another cookie so I had an equal number, too. Now I have a stomach ache.

If I have only 1 message I won’t listen to it on the answering machine. If there is 2 I will, 3 I won’t 4 I will. You get the pattern.

If Kenaley’s shirt has a lot of pink on it, she can’t  wear pink socks. If there is only a tiny bit of one color on her clothes- that I the color bracelet she has to wear.

My dishes must be done before I drive the kids to school and before I eat breakfast.  If I only have enough time to do the dishes before the kids go to school, then my breakfast waits until after my shower, because that is the first thing that needs to be done when I get back from dropping of the kids. There are many, many days when I don’t eat breakfast until after 10.

I can never watch just one rerun of Grey’s. I have to watch either 2 or an entire disk at a time.

I check my email 4 times a day. At least.

When I go to restaurants that I have been to before I order the same thing. Even if I didn’t like it last time.

When I wash laundry, whites get washed first, jeans last. Jeans get folded first, whites last. I usually have wrinkled whites.

If I am not serving a vegetable with my dinner then I serve it in a bowl not a plate.

The first thing that I do when I get done with my shower routine is make my bed and my boys beds.

I get super edgy when I am late to something. Especially when I have no control over it.

 

I haven’t gotten to the point where I count lights blinking or only eat even bites of something, but I don’t think it’s far off.

Tell me I’m not alone. PLEASE??

So I think I have it figured out.

Meredith loses her chief resident job; not her entire job at the hospital. They would never say such a huge teaser about that on a preview. They would hit you with it as a huge shocker out of nowhere. And the show is named GREY’S Anatomy. She couldn’t be taken off the hospital staff. Mer is the show. I really want to see the chiefs reaction when he learns that Mer did such a huge thing FOR HIS WIFE!! I want to see the initial reaction that he has, and then the reaction that he has when he realizes the consequences that it will have for his hospital. Very interesting.

And when Meredith walks into the room that is empty right after Derek says he doesn’t want to raise a baby with someone who doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong; (little too harsh, BTW) it isn’t her bed that is stripped down. It is ALEX’S bed. He moved out. Which is good and bad. Good because, as evident in the preview, Mer has baby Zola which means they got the waiver that they needed to adopt her (YAY!!) and they are going to need that room for her little baby things. But bad because Alex and Meredith are good friends. Well, they were good friends until Alex decided to have diarrhea of the mouth and rat out Mer’s secret and make her world go tumbling down. Still not sure how I feel about that. It was a good intentioned lie. She was trying to ensure that Adele would get her best fighting chance to cure her Alzheimer’s. She feels that her mom’s affair with her husband has damaged Adele and she feels the need to pay penance. Plus, the chief really is the best father figure in her life and she really wants to please him, whether she wants to admit it or not.

Cristina!! PREGNANT!?!?!? Wow! Didn’t see that one coming. That is going to be an interesting play of events. It would be pretty stupid to do a repeat of what happened last time when she got pregnant, I really have a feeling that she is going to have a change of heart and keep the baby. Owen will convince her, she won’t want to at first, but baby Zola will help her see the fun in it. Look at her adorable cheeks and hair- who wouldn’t want one??

And really, good riddance Lucy. Stealing Alex’s job? And then making him all rageful and heart broken and causing him to blurt out Mer’s secret?! I blame her for all the problems in the world.

Teddy, don’t do it. Stay with Henry. He is WAAAAY better for you than the mind reader. Andrew annoys me. A lot. All the time. Stick with your husband.

It’s going to be a LOOOOOOOONG week. And an even longer summer.

That’s all. I just had to get it off my chest. To someone who understands. Because as many times as I have told Kenaley about these thoughts, she just isn’t giving me the response I want.

One of the most intense Grey’s Anatomy episodes starts off by Merideth having a feeling in the morning that she should not get out of bed that day. She feels like something bad is going to happen.

I did not have that feeling this morning. It was just another day…kids complaining about going to school, breakfast dilemmas, dish doing. The works. I had a project that I wanted to surprise Anderson with today. He has an obsession with his build a bear and wants to buy a bear back-pack (similar to a Snugli, that you can carry baby around in) and I imagined a pattern for it and was planning to start on it after I got all the laundry put away. Cursed chore. I am sewing and cutting and pinning and my friend- best friend- called me. We were chatting, all the while I am building the back pack for Jesse. Miss Kena was happy as could be with a bowl of grapes  on the couch and Olivia on TV.

All the sudden I hear my back door open, dog barks, (which if you have ever heard my dog bark you know, if not, it could scare the life out of a full grown man- she is a mastiff, intimidating to look at, more intimidating to hear) door slams shut. I interrupt the conversation on the phone with my friend and call out my husband’s name, assuming that  it is him and he needed to grab something for work. No answer. Go into my kitchen, no husband there. Open the door, call out to see if someone is there, no answer. Friend still on the phone. I conclude that someone, not a someone that I know since there are no cars here and no one in my yard, just tried to come into my house.  We discuss the possibility of who it could have been, leading to no good possibilities. I decide that I need to grab the baby and get a  gun. We are there by ourselves and I didn’t see if the someone who randomly opens doors is in my house or out. I instruct my friend that if she hears anything strange on the phone she better call 911. I was not convinced at this point that the police needed to be alerted, after all I am a worse-case-scenario type of girl and was going to check the scene myself before calling wolf. I wander around my house, baby in arms, gun in hand, dog by side, checking if anything is out of the ordinary. See nothing. Venture outside and check the immediate surroundings (I am totally feeling like one of Charlie’s Angels at this point) All looks good. Friend still on the phone. Look at all the places that one could hide, including all the closed doors to sheds, garages and tool storages and decide that it would be a really stupid idea for me to start opening doors.

You know, like screaming at a girl who is in a horror movie, who keeps doing all the wrong things to get away from the psycho killer, stupid.

Decide that I should go back into my house and lock my doors, and write it off as a freak occurrence. Another ½ hour passes and I need to run to pick up Anderson from school. Friend on the phone convinces me that I should somehow booby-trap my door so I would know when I come home if someone tried to re-enter my house. So in my geniusness I stick a toothpick in my door jam, where only I could see it and if the door was opened it would fall and I would know that, in fact, there was someone in my house. I watch too much crime  TV . I get back and the toothpick is untouched. So, I convince myself that I am really going crazy. And vow to watch less crime TV. And put the gun away.

Kenaley sleeps on the couch, Anderson perches on the kitchen counter and listens to Mumford and Son’s on my ipod while eating lunch, and I go into the office to finish Anderson’s back pack. I come out about 10 minutes later to try it on the little dude, who is still on the counter, back facing the 5’x3’ kitchen window, which is right next to my storage room door, which has been shut all morning long. He tries it on and I look what adjustments need to be made, go make them and return in 3 minutes. He tries it on and I notice that the storage room door is now wide open. I ask him if he went in there, he says no.

I freak out.

Grab the boy, throw him next to his sleeping sister on the couch, and get the gun back out of the safe in the next room, while calling the police.  I explain the events and they say they will send out an officer. I frantically try to call Kevin while hovering over my babies with a gun. Anderson is completely unfazed by this and just goes about listening to my ipod. I sit and stare out both windows waiting for police to arrive. 10 minutes later (no seriously, it took them that long!!) The police arrive and I tell the officer that I am certain the door was closed all morning long. He goes in and out of every building on my property, and tells me that I really should lock up all the stuff that we have in our yard. He says that there have been a lot of tool thieves in the area. We have about $100,000 (no exaggeration) of tools in our yard, all in sheds and such but not very often locked. Kevin FINALLY gets home and I get him up to speed. I am frazzled by the whole turn of events.

I assume that when the dog barked this morning when dude tried to walk right into my unlocked house and, I can only assume, burglarize me; he got scared and ran into my storage room which is right next to my house and the first available place that one could hide, and stayed there  for the length of 90 minutes until he mustered enough courage to open the door, saw my child sitting in the window, back turned, and just decided to make a run for it- leaving the door  wide open as a give away.

I am totally freaked out by the whole thing. I had 2, yes 2, cars in my driveway. All the blinds open and lights on. I was clearly home.

Totally freaked out that my son sat protected only by a pane of glass from this person while he  innocently listening to tunes and eating lunch.

Totally violated that such a bold person would stay in my storage room waiting for just the right time to leave while I was completely unaware inside my home.

Needless to say, I am heading to Home Depot today to get the best, top of the line, keypad lock for my doors and window locks and door alarms. Might stop and get another gun too- at least more ammunition. And the dog will be getting a steak for dinner tonight for having the best intimidating bark of any other dog alive.

Do you ever get that “puppy dog” look from someone? Anyone? I get it. A lot. Specifically from my favorite 3 boys.

Logan does it when he doesn’t want to do something. It is usually accompanied with whining.

Anderson does it when he wants something. It is usually accompanied with begging , pleading and bargaining.

Kevin does it all the time. When he wants something, when he doesn’t like something, when the world has wronged him, when he is deep in thought. I am convinced that he is the world’s best “puppy dog face” maker. He should give lessons to people. I think that while growing up he must have found it very effective and now is just second nature to him.

Personally, I would like it to be removed from the expression memory inside his brain and never have to see it again. For that matter- I would like it removed from all people’s expression memory. It annoys me.

Do you ever see in those movies when people get fed up with something and they envision themselves reacting in this totally outlandish and caveman like way?

I totally did that today. For a split second, when I was given the look from Spouse when I asked if he was getting sick again after returning home from the doctors with #2. He says “YES! I have been sicker than crud for days now!” and then throws the puppy dog face on and sighs as if to say “you haven’t even noticed that I am SO sick- what are you going to do to make up for it?!”  To clarify: he was sick a week ago and got better-ish and now seems to be heading back down the sick road.

 It was right then that I saw myself in an ape like manner running over to him, jumping on him, throwing him to the ground, ripping of that puppy dog face and stomping on it. I must have some serious pent up hostility towards the puppy dog face to envision that!! I stood there beside myself that (a) my husband thinks I don’t notice when he is sick and (b) I can’t believe that somewhere in my brain such a reaction to a puppy dog face is stored.

Maybe it is the use and abuse of  the puppy dog face from my 3 favorite boys. Maybe it was sleep deprivation at its finest. Lack of chocolate. Too much chocolate. (It’s a very delicate balance, you know) Maybe it is the idea of what I thought was my husband getting better and is now starting to get sicker possibility. (Have I ever mentioned that my husband turns into a completely helpless fetus when he is sick? I feel lucky if I don’t have to hold the tissue under his nose when he needs to blow. That level of helplessness. I REALLY don’t like being his nursemaid when he is sick.)

The good news is I didn’t actually act like an ape. I giggled a little bit- which seemed to throw the puppy dog face into defensive mode and the “pig snort” was added by the spouse.

You know, the grunt type thing that happens when the puppy dog face fails. It’s the nasal version of a sigh and kind of says in its own language "Fine! Be that way!!” That’s the one I am talking about.  Its next in line in the order of animal body language.

Following that comes the “herd of angry elephants stomp,” the “if I had poop I would throw it at you monkey arm cross” the “bird in a bird bath fit on the floor” where all the limbs flail  about. Mostly accompanied by the “screech owl howl.”

Please tell me I am not alone. You guys all experience a little bit of the wild kingdom in your children/spouses, right?

Oh, great. It IS just me.