Rugrats and Dirty Rugs

We have elephants living in our house. It's true. We hear them stomping around all over the place. They go up the stairs, down the stairs, and tramp across the kitchen floor. Occasionally, we hear a big boom as if one of them had fallen off the bed that they had climbed onto. These elephants are just like any other elephant. If they are not stomping around with their big feet, they are stinking up the place. So, just like any other elephant, they need to take a bath. We get them all soaped up and then rinse them off. We can even do this in our bathroom because these elephants are just a little bit smaller than the regular-sized elephant. Like other elephants, they are also family-oriented. They have to be with us wherever we go. If they weren't such loving creatures, I would have a serious problem with all the feces and urine. The training takes years! Their stomping isn't the only thing we hear all the time. It's the trumpeting as well. Sometimes, it can b...

One of the things that I love to do is read to my kids. We love to climb into my favorite chair with a soft, warm blanket and snuggle together as I read. One of the stories that I read to Sleepy lately is The Elves and the Shoemaker. Sometimes, I wonder if the boy listens to me, but yesterday I was pleasantly surprised. In the morning, we visited the library and I noticed my oldest son, Bashful, walking around with his shoes only half on. When I noticed his heels sticking out, I said, "Bashful! Put your shoes on the right way, please." He glumly said, "They don't fit." Now, I'm sure the child has told me this before, but since he is not the whiner and complainer that his younger brothers can be, I was totally clueless. Of course, I felt bad and told him we will go and get him new tennishoes immediately. He was happy and relieved to hear this news, I'm sure. So, off we went to the shoe store and once we went inside, a nice lady behind the counter asked i...

In this house, dog is certainly not a boy's best friend. It's a cat. When we first got Cleopatra (can you tell that I'm the one who named her?), she hadn't decided who was going to be her best friend. Grumpy, at that time, was being ousted from his bed by Happy. He had been bunking with Sleepy in the same room, but Happy wanted to be in the room with his "best brother", so Grumpy needed to switch rooms with Happy. He didn't like this arrangement calling Happy's bed "stinky". I assured him the sheets and bedspread were clean, but he still didn't feel comfortable with this arrangement. Instead, he took his blanket and pillow and ended up on the couch in the living room. He slept on the couch for two weeks. During this time, he made a new bed mate. Cleo started sleeping with him every night. I think it comforted her to have him down there and vice versa. When Grumpy had no choice but to move back upstairs in Happy's old bed (due ...

Today, I took my son, Bashful, to his old school in order to take a standardized test in accordance with state law. A few of his friends were there as well and I left him there knowing he was happy and content in his environment. As I was leaving, I noticed a woman that I was aquainted with standing in the doorway of one of the classrooms. Her little girl had gone to this school with Bashful and when her daughter greeted me, I moved closer to say hello. Before I reached her, she scooped down to pick up a little bundle. As she stood up, I looked into the blanket in her arms and saw a beautiful, little baby boy. His tiny face was scrunched up in annoyance and I chuckled at the frown on his forehead. I reached out and ran my finger over his hair and smooth cheek and exclaimed softly, "He's beautiful!" "He's a new one," I added. She expressed her thanks and by the gentle smile and loving look on her face, I could tell she was proud of this sweet baby and that he...

Someday soon our family is going to move away from Critter Heaven of the Semi-Desert and move into the glorious mountains full of evergreen trees and rippling brooks. This past Saturday, we had the opportunity to explore our future home and we were delighted with how beautiful the scenery is. The curving roads brought forth views of the surrounding mountains and the sunlight glittered on the lakes and river. It was heaven. Yet, that night I realized that even though the mountains are indeed beautiful, they can also be deadly. We were staying in a beautiful home surrounded by trees. I was enjoying the scenery when the daughter of the lady of the house regaled me with a story about the neighbors just down the road. One night, they were sitting on their deck enjoying the night air when in the dark they heard a mountain lion take down an elk right in their backyard. They knew this because they heard the death screams and then found body parts laying in various places the next day. Alrig...

Yesterday, I thought I was going mad. The crazy kind of mad. Insane. Coo-coo. The kind of madness with drool oozing down my chin. Not really. I was beginning to wonder about myself, though. In the morning, I was looking around for the loaf of bread that I thought Doc had just bought the night before. I had used almost an entire loaf for making grilled cheese sandwiches and later that night I saw Grumpy stuffing his face with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that he had made with the rest of the bread. So, when I couldn't find the second loaf of bread that Doc never bought, I accused my children of being little piggies. "Where's the bread?!" I exclaimed. "I can't find it anywhere! Did you boys eat the ENTIRE loaf of bread last night after dinner?!" I was amazed at this gluttonous feat of theirs that never happened. They looked at me as if they weren't quite sure how to proceed. Their mother was acting a little crazy. They said they didn't eat th...

A few days after Easter, the boys received a box in the mail. It was no small box and it was from my brother and parents. I wasn't expecting to find what was inside. The boys huddled around me as usual when something has been delivered and we all peeked inside when it was finally opened. At the top, we saw nine, little stuffed animals. There was a monkey, a pig, two cats, a horse, a tiger, and three dogs. (Grumpy is at this moment helping me to remember all of the animals. He is, after all, the one with the stuffed animal fetish .) Underneath the animals, we found bag after bag of candy. There was such a variety of candy that I can't begin to remember all the different kinds. Let's just say that they will have candy until Halloween. Since I don't want my children to develop diabetes, I have set down a certain rule. No junk food whatsoever until the weekends. Even then, I still hear, "Can I have some canny, Mom?" on a daily basis. That is Happy and Grumpy's...

Every night, Sleepy will ask, "If I eat my dinner, will I be a man just like Daddy?" I reply, "Yep. Just like Daddy." Last night, he finished his dinner and said, "I ate all of my macaroni, Mom!" I said, "It's rigotoni, dear." "Oh," he said. He ponders this for a while and then asked, "Am I a man now?" His question was quite garbled, but being his mother, it took me only a second to realize that was what he was asking. I said, "You sure are, sweetie!" So, he gets up from his chair and stands in front of his father. "I'm a man!" he announced to Doc. Doc said, "Hmmm. Well, wipe your face because you have spaghetti sauce all over it."

Last night, during family devotions, Doc decided to ask the boys a question. "Do you boys listen to me when I preach?" he asked. "Sometimes," Bashful said. Grumpy said, "Well, I listen to the words you say when we are in church, but by the time we get home, I forget them all." Well, at least they are honest.

Doc was a scrapper from the minute he was born. He loves to tell stories of his childhood and one of them is when he was in kindergarten. A little girl had been teasing him and finally he had enough of that. He climbed the ladder to the slide and came to the top. He noticed the little girl at the bottom of the slide, so as he slid down, he saw an opening. He hauled off and punched her right in the face. Doc has since learned that you don't hit girls and he has passed on this lesson to his sons. Apparently, though, they see nothing wrong with punching each other. Our little kindergartner, Sleepy, is the one most like his father in looks and temperament. He looks like a little clone and they get a lot of comments from gushing waitresses about how much they look alike when they go out to breakfast together. Sleepy is slight in stature, but I am assured by his doctor that he will be the size of his father when he is grown. Since that's good enough for me, I am not worried. Ri...

My kindergartner, Sleepy, gets the case of the itchies whenever we have school together. We will be learning subtraction and all of a sudden he starts scratching every part of his body. The kid can't sit still to save his life. Despite this, he is learning and even though I hear, "I hate phonics," or "I hate..." whatever, he does manage to cram some things into his brain. Yesterday, we were doing phonics in the living room. We were playing "I Spy". I said, "I spy something that starts with the /b/ sound." Now, the room has about four bookshelves crammed with Doc's books. So, the obvious answer was book.....to me...but not to my little stinker. He looks around for a couple seconds and then turns around, sticks out his behind, pats it and says, "Butt starts with the /b/ sound!" and he was very proud of himself. He's a cheeky fellow, that one. Pun intended, of course.

I was hoping I would be able to spare everyone yet another story from "There's a Mouse in the House" saga, alas, no can do. I must share another one. You would think by now that I am very used to seeing mice running around my house. I've lost count how many mice I've seen and how many the cat has caught. Yet, I still scream when I see one. A woman with stronger constitution would be able to grab a fleeing mouse by the tail without losing her sense by now, but not me. I'm not the strong, fearless type. Granted, I may look a little fearsome in my ratty pajamas, ponytail, and no makeup, but I still consider myself the little woman in the house and I don't really care if I run screaming from a little mouse who is more scared of me than I am of it. I keep telling myself that they are just mice, but it's hard to convince myself while still shivering and standing on top of the furniture. Case in point. The day before, I was holding the baby on my lap watching...