Mommy’s Joy

Last night I had one of the most wild nights of my life.

When I say that it I know it brings to mind all sorts of crazy times of your youth doesn’t it.  I know it does for me.  Hanging out down by the river as teenagers hoping to not get caught with our smuggled beer. (Sorry Mom and Dad but you had to know I wasn’t always wearing my halo.  But I survived it just fine.) Skinny dipping in downtown Austin in Zilker Park in the middle of the night. (Ok, I was still in my bra and panties… I have my limits and the water was FREEEEZING!) (Again, sorry Dad….Mom, I know you would understand.)  Or hair pinning around corners on Lake Travis with the Sheriffs department lake division on a call to a boating accident with possible drowning.   (At one time I had a lot of friends in the Sheriff’s department and got to go on a lot of ride alongs.  One day I’ll tell you the story about how I almost went into law enforcement.) (Why do all my crazy wild nights have to do with water? I’ll ask my shrink later about that one… Oh wait! I don’t have a shrink. I’ll ask my dog, he’ll know.)

All very crazy times in my life, and this newest episode rates right up there on the crazy scale.  But this one is definitely more befitting my age…. I guess… Is 35 too old to skinny dip?

Last night, while sitting in bed alone (hubby was hiding in his office), I start hearing this odd noise coming from my nightstand.  At first I thought it was just the same noise I’ve always been a little startled by which is the rustling sound of the power cord on my Iphone (which I’m glued to still at night) brushing up against the liner in my trash can.   I know, scary huh.  But this time it happened while I didn’t move.  I start thinking theres a big bug or something on the prowl, so I go on the hunt in my drawers.  I was stirring the drawer with a spoon, cuz I’m not touchin’ a bug, I brought it up for some nighttime yogurt eating. Exciting…I know.  But then I heard the noise in my bottom drawer.  Hence, I start digging in that one.  Nothing.  ???? Then I get the wise idea to remove the drawer completely.  Good idea…but OMG!!!!

There it was!!! The most massive, most disgusting, most beady eyed creature.  And he looked an awful lot like this:

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

In my mind he was as big as a cartoon street rat but in reality he was just your typical teeny tiny mouse. Cute by any kids standards.  Creepy and disease laden by adult standards.  BLEH!

And he was lookin’ at me. I had him trapped….Or so I thought.

Because, now I’m starting to wonder if he wasn’t truly the reincarnation of Houdini. Because one minute he’s staring me down and the next… POOF!  Can’t find him anywhere.

So I do what any normal person, and redneck gal, would do.  I go find my cat.  She’s a good cat.  I rescued her when she was very young and I think she replaced me as her momma.  She’s very dedicated to me.  Her only real quirk is if she gets wet she has to come running to me and start yowling till I dry her off. That and her tendency to bring me “gifts”. Her name is Krispie and she prefers to sleep under my neighbors bird feeders so she might grab herself an afternoon snack.  And she’s a great mouser.  So I knew she would save my bacon.

By this time my husband is also sitting in bed watching all this holding his tongue like a good man trying not to say anything while I shove my cat into the open space where my drawer was.  She picked up the scent and I could see she got agitated.  Yay! The hunt was on!

This is where I go back and take the upper drawer out of the cabinet. I set it down and stir it up a bit, with Krispie watching the whole time, and BAM, just like that, there’s the evil critter staring at me. And BAM just like that! My cat snatches her!  Yay!  Good kitty!

Except…. Like all good kitties…. She also likes to play with her dinner. Sigh.

So she LET IT GO!!!

It scurries under our bed and disappears.  Krispie is yowling. I’m crawling around on the floor with a flashlight praying it didn’t go into our box spring.  My husband is barely keeping himself from busting a gut laughing at me….

So what do I do… I start opening his nightstand.  Hubby says, “He couldn’t get in there, its closed up tight. You always had your drawer hanging open.” WHATEVER! We were dealing with Houdini here remember! So I start looking through his drawer and what do I find to my disgusted glee…. Mouse poop! Take that hubby! He violated your drawers too! So I pull out the top drawer… Then pull out the bottom… And again hiding under the drawer was the creepy crawly mouse!

BAM, Krispie strikes, and this time comes up with a winner.  She’s running around the room with it in her mouth.  I’m trying to get her to a least leave our bedroom with it.  And, of course, what does she do?? She lays down…A foot away from it. SIGH!

And yet again…it scurries away.  Into my husbands closet! HAH! Take that you laughing hyena from your bed side perch!  I follow the mouse and my cat in to the closet and close the door.  But not before grabbing an empty cup that I had on the dresser.  Why I grabbed this I will never know… but I’m glad I did.  So here we are in the closet, the mouse is jumping from one shoe to the next (I realize this man of mine has more shoes then I do!! I’ll address that later.). My cat is jumping all over the place.  The mouse is running back and forth scurrying from one hidy hole to the next.  I think it may have run over my foot a few times but I’m trying not to dwell on that idea. I’m stirring up piles of shoes and clothes trying to root out the mouse.  Screaming over and over. “Krispie, GET IT!” I’m still locked in the closet with this wild beast!  I can only imagine what it sounded like to my husband on the outside.  And then suddenly it gets stuck between me and the cat on the floor.  It’s looking back and forth for an exit and that’s when I strike! BAM! Just like that with the cup. I trap him!

WINNER! I caught the mouse! Under a cup!!!  I yell out to my hubby to find a piece of hard paper or cardboard to slip under the cup, and manage to get the nasty rodent to the front door without dropping him, and deposit him outside! YAY!

End Scene.

Krispie missed her dinner but got a bowl of milk as a reward for helping save us from the evil critter. I got to shove all my husbands shoes back in place, in random order of course.  He gets to at least help fix the damage. I go to bed grinning and on a high!  It was a lot of excitement for this housewife.

I caught a mouse in a cup!

Open curtains to this morning:

Krispie has brought me a present.  A dead mouse.

SIGH!

Meet Krispie.  She may have a tendency to drop her dinner but she never gave up. And she gives gifts too.

SIGH! :

So. My house is still dirty.

I know!!!! You’re shocked!

I woke up this morning with all good intentions to clean my house. See, for a house to sell the seller must be diligent when it comes to upkeep. No one wants to purchase a house that looks like it was owned by two very hairy shedding dogs and a toddler. A VERY messy toddler who’s favorite game is “Toss it”. Toss it here, toss it there, toss it everywhere! Wheee! And then laughs like a hyena when I try to get her to help pick all her toys up. Ha!

So ya, back to cleaning. Simply… I started, hubby came in and interrupted. And now I’m not cleaning. I’m enjoying a nice breakfast out with my family.

(Insert happy sigh here…)

Apparently I’m more apt to be part of the clean plate club then the happy homemakers association.

Hmmm. Who knew?

I wonder if I could teach the dogs how to vacuum? I’ll even let them use the cat as a duster in exchange for a job well done!

Either our potty has magical powers and is about to make us rich or I have survived another mommy milestone.

After taking my daughter to the potty for what seemed like the umpteenth time today I noticed a little spec of what appeared to be a foreign object in the potty.  Not that I really want to pay that close attention to whats in a potty on a normal basis but, since we are currently up to our eyeballs in potty training, I get excited about dark objects* shadowing the pale porcelain.  Just as I was gearing up to do a potty dance for my daughter I did an all stop chin drop.  To my dismay it was not a natural biological remnant* but….Money! A dime to be more precise.

WTFreak is THAT doing in there?!?

After taking a deep breath, since I knew at that point it was safe to do so without the aid of a haz-mat suit I allowed myself a brief moment of cataloguing all the ways money could end up in my potty.  I’ll even admit to a moment of delusional day dreaming where I imagined that our house was built on a hidden bounty of dimes, nickels, and quarters and they decided to find the quickest way to the earths surface by swelling out of my potty making me rich beyond my wildest dreams. I even pictured an image of taking this particular porcelain font of legal tender with me and installing it into a bathroom the size of my current house, since that’s the treatment it would deserve after flowing forth with its bounty.

But then I looked at my daughter and watched all my wild dreams of swimming in dimes flush right down the pot. Because I knew, standing in front of me, wearing her halo held up by horns, was the culprit. Now the question at hand is how? And let’s also not forget about when? Did she, in a moment of shear glee decide to see what would happen if she tossed it in there??  Did she stick her hand in with it???  Did she then touch anything else????  Did she touch the counters, the chairs, the couch, the tables, the…..????? Did she touch me???????

Gasp!  Urp!  ARRRRRGGGGG!

Did she at least make a wish first?

Another deep breath taken as I gather my wits which were swishing around me like a swirly**.

I’m fairly certain she didn’t produce the coin, ummm, naturally*. She’s never been one for sticking things in her mouth. So I’m thinking that’s one subject I can stop worrying about. Well, at least I’d like to believe it wouldn’t happen. I guess I’ll find out in the next few days if she starts spiting out change for a dollar.

So. Um. Ya. Chalk it up to another mommy milestone as I use our bar-b-cue tongs to fish out the offending change.  All the while EJ, sweet little girl that she is, is laughing her halo right off her pretty head.

Twerp.

Ps.  Please note the below “dictionary of terms”. I realize that most of you were not born in a barn like I was so you may need a guide to decipher some of the more colorful terms I used.

* In other words… Poop!

** The evil act of one arsehole adolescent sticking the head of another arsehole adolescent in the toilet and flushing.

Don’t cha’ love my title?  Thought it might get attention considering everywhere I look I see the envious posts of wonderful bloggers who got to spend their time this past weekend elbow rubbing and spewing out business cards like pinata candy to every eagerly awaiting hand that passes by.  Watching the halls, looking at all the faces, hoping to see a bright star from the mythical world of the internet.  Tweeting locations such as: “I’m in the hall and I think I just saw @……!!”  Only to find out it was only @…..

Nope, I’ve been back here on planet Joy.  Feet firmly planted in the reality that is my daily life.  I bet many of you were thinking I’d totally abandoned you.  And in a way I did.  Sorry, I’m an honest gal.  I love you all but…. Ya know…. You folks read what I rant but you don’t cook my dinners, vacuum my house, and wipe my kids butt.  (And if you wanted to come do all of the above I would let you… I could even maybe pay you… Do Peanut M&M’s count as currency in the real world outside of my casa?)  When you write a blog like mine there are so many times that life just gets in the way and you just have to put the unicorn readers (mythical creatures I believe in) on a shelf somewhere in your mind and focus on other things.  Life’s been traveling at a whirl wind pace for me and my family the last couple months and its been hard to even catch my breath let alone catch a break to write.  I wake up at the butt crack of dawn with a post idea in my head but then real life hits me and I hit the ground running hoping to catch up.

That’s why I’ve decided the best way to sum up whats been happening since mid June, which was the last time I visited your heads, is in bullet points!  YAY! I can almost feel your excitement traveling through the internets my directions! WHeee!   Don’t cha’ just love bullet points?  They read almost as fast as my brain and feet have been carrying me so hop on!

But don’t worry, I won’t leave you just to a few bullet points to lull over.  I’ve never been accused of being short winded and I have a lot to say about each point and I hope to expand on each of them in the coming days.  So think of each point as not a quick way for me to get back into your good graces and into your daily list of those blogs you can’t live without reading everyday (OK, I lie, please feel free to think of it like that if you want) but as a way to give you exciting trailers.  Like in an upcoming block buster movie. (Because you know my life is THAT exciting!)

• Still trying to sell our house.  Sigh.     Constant cleaning…. Keeping things “show ready”… At all times… With a 2 YEAR OLD IN THE HOUSE!!   Everyday I look at the mess my little tornado baby makes and sigh the sigh of a thousand house fraus, but with an underlying tone of a whimper, because I know there is no way I can just leave that mess till the next day.  Because if I do, that will be when we get the call to show our house. And that will be the call that says, we’re only 30 minutes away… Is that OK?  Snarl, grrr, @%&&$##@…. POOP!   Sure! I say with my most chipper voice.  As I run around like a chicken with my head cut off tossing things into any available hidy hole, where they won’t leave an obvious lump, and where I’ll be guaranteed to forget later and never be able to find them again.  Still can’t find a few really important pieces of mail… so if you didn’t get paid yet its because your bill is sitting somewhere in some cabinet or drawer or box or toy bin… or possibly under the couch cushion.  When I find it I promise I’ll take care of it.
• Still potty training.  Sigh.      I have come to the conclusion that pull-ups are useless and only are diapers that are more complicated to use and more expensive.  I can’t see what lesson they are supposed to teach. They are too thick for my daughter to actually “pull up” on her own.  They are almost impossible for me to pull up on her even.  You NEVER want to pull a really dirty one off, lest you smoosh unmentionable all down your child’s legs…. URP!  So you end up opening it like a diaper anyways, teaching your kid that even though they are supposed to pee sitting upright your obsessive mom will still lay you down to wipe your butt.  I’m currently in between rounds of trying using regular panties but had to stop the first time do to running out of laundry detergent.  Who knew a puddle on the floor could be so comfortable?  And apparently my daughter finds said puddle to be a great addition to her finger paints.  Oh! And I never realized her favorite place to poo was while sitting on the couch watching TV.  Clean up! Isle 9?….. Anyone???  Hello??? Can you hear me????????
• On a brighter note!  (Because they can’t be all messy right?) I was invited by the wonder people at Sea World to take the family to Sea World San Antonio with a great group of Texas Mommy Bloggers called the Wildside!  If you want to read some great tweets from this group search for #wildside or #swsa on Twitter.  I can’t wait to share with you all the fun details on that exciting experience!!!  I won’t ruin it for you but I will say this… My daughter can’t stop saying Shamu!  Comes out more like “Shmoo” but it tickles my heart each time just the same!
• While everyone who’s anyone in the bloggosphere, not really but its fun to say, were at BlogHer 2010 this weekend I was fighting it out on a blistering hot tennis court in Dallas!  Remember a while back I said my woman’s team was going to state to battle for a trip to Nationals!?! Well, we battled and we went all the way to the finals only to lose to another really great team.  Technically you can say our team is the number 2 ranked woman’s tennis team in the state of Texas! We played 5 matches in 3 days.  We only had the minimum amount of players we needed, which was 8, which meant everyone had to play each round so it was exhausting! But it was an amazing experience!  I can’t wait to share more on that one later….  As a teaser I’ll just say, when you get that many competitive woman in one spot, all vying for the same shot to go to Nationals, you can only imagine the fireworks. Can you say drama anyone?
• We got our garage door fixed!!! YAY!  My daughter won’t let us leave the driveway or go into the house without closing the door so she can watch.  She will stop dead in her tracks or scream from the back seat. “Ka-lose it!”  But whats funny is that even though she knows its coming she will still startle and jump when the little motor starts running.  Tis cute!
• Hmmmm… What else?  Its hot as a broken oven in nuclear mode here in central Texas… I’m a hormonal nightmare right now because I ran out of my birth control pills and decided to go off them till my oh so fun gyno appointment in a week since where I’ll be changing them anyway.  Hated them…  So now I’m avoiding my husband.  Can’t tell which is better sometimes…   Debating trying the panty potty training again but hesitating because of the mess.  I just know she will poop on the rug at the same time a realtor will call from my driveway saying “We were just driving by… do you mind?” &$%^*%!!  I have about a thousand photos to process and look at from the last few bullet points and have been avoiding them due to lack of interest and lack of time for sitting in one spot that long.  Besides, its difficult to look at a photo when your kid is jumping on your laptop.  Really…difficult.
• Sigh

So there you have it folks.  My last two months in bullet points. Add to that the constant laundry, the trips to the grocery store, the pool, the library, this direction, that direction, up, down, left, right. All the while melting in the heat.  I’m one step away from that woman in the old Calgon commercials (click link to go back in time!!) except the idea of a hot bath tub is revolting at this point…. “Take me away…”