The Lulling tonic of Bob

Act 1; circa January 2007

The Daddy wears an ever widening track in the hallway floor as he rocks the baby up and down the hallway, back and forth, back and forth. Abigail Mae is the first child for the mommy and daddy and getting her to sleep without hours and hours of walking back and forth back and forth has been an ever increasing challenge. Pretty soon the daddy is getting frustrated and resigns himself to a long hard night of rocking and lulling. He reaches over and clicks on the television convinced that he may as well watch something other than the tops of his feet avoiding toys. Suddenly the vocal deluge ceases, quiet snoring envelopes the now practically silent house accompanied by the calming rhythm of 'One Love', and the Daddy thinks that perhaps they should all go to Jamaica.

 The mythic power of the Bob has begun.

Act 2: circa April 2007

The car jostles gently as the family rumbles down the 1-95 heading from Harker heights to Killeen, all would be peaceful except for the bloodcurdling screaming from the backseat. Abigail hates to be facing backwards in the car and feels alone and trapped where she cannot see her mommy and daddy. And then, suddenly, a percussive beat a chord of guitar and cue the drums soon it is Bob to the rescue as Marley and the Wailers put our little wailer into a catatonic trance. The mommy smiles as she settles into her seat knowing that her quick punch of the stereo button is all that is required of her for the rest of the carride. Ahhh Bob, wish you were still here to thank.

Act 3: circa March 2009

The little family has now grown and added another member a new baby girl named Norah who is just becoming aware of herself and that she really doesn't care for riding in that ridiculously uncomfortable carseat facing away from her big sister. Once again tragic crys interrupt the daily carrides, the daddy has trouble concentrating on the road, the mommy can't twist around far enough to comfort Norah and the big sister Abby just wants that new baby-thing to stop. Then a sudden idea, the mommy digs deep into the center console and pulls out a battered cd case, pops it in and... voila! Once again the Bob conquers all, silence and instant napping, nothing quite like it... but does it work on all babies?

Act 4: circa October 2009

The mommy and the daddy in a moment of insanity have added yet another baby into the fray, but this one is four legged and furry and somehow much more work. The mommy and Abby with doggy in tow are headed back from a playdate at a friends house, the new doggy is in his travel taxi for the first time in the car. Much howling crying and yipping is making driving rather hard to concentrate on for the mommy, she would really rather have that darn pup shut up but how can you reason with a furbaby? Well.... one quick jab to the stereo button with Bob cocked and loaded for when Norah is riding along and there is.. you guessed it.. instantaneous silence. The Bob is omnipotent.

Oh Bob, did you ever know that your music was such a snooze? lol

( I know Nemo isn't sleeping here but when he does sleep I never chance taking a photo because then he wakes up again)

*Sigh*

Well... in addition to suddenly and surprisingly experiencing my cycle again ( which is very interesting post baby #2) , the kids ( all five of them, including the furbabies) are being extra special crazy. Abby is not only suffering from sibling rivalry with the new puppy Nemo but now has a bladder infection of some sort. Poor kid, I mean we only just started sleeping without a pullup last week, and now she can't even hold her pee and is back in diapers. I think ultimately the bladder infection is directly related to the sleeping without a pull-up, she was really concerned about drinking too much water and peeing in her bed. Directly taken from mommy saying " now you can't have a full glass of water before bed or you might have and accident," which translated into " drink less water all the time" because a preschooler thinks in black and white. Kind of like a PTSD soldier.. sigh... I do love the grey area. :)

Norah is teething again and has a top tooth poking through, is working on another one and is walking up a storm. She is saying Momma, Dadda, AbAb and Hi, she wants to eat everything and anything that we are eating and will forgo cheerios for meatballs. That's my girl!

Asia is so unbelieveably jealous and mean to Nemo it is ridiculous, she won't let him anywhere near her even when he just wants to cuddle, makes him wait for the water dish, steals all his toys, and pointedly ignores even his most adorable advances. Geez! and the cat isn't much better,although she is finally coming downstairs, cuddling during t.v. time on the couch and sleeping on ourbed. But yesterday she attacked Abby and swiped her EYE, two claw marks above and one below, missed the eye thankfully. Holy Geez Lousie, I mean WHAT DID WE DO BEFORE KIDS! I think I was really bored and never even knew it!

Oh and did I mention the new little story telling we've been up to?

"waaaaaa!!!!!"
Me: "Abby what happened to Norah?"
Abby: "She hit her head"
Me:"How?"
Abby:"?"
Me:" Did you hit her in the head"
Abby: nods
Me: "Why?"
Abby: "She just hit her head"

Hmmm.... repeat substituting any given name, body part and action for red text.

So, as the truth is a slippery thing to begin with and really depends on the eye of hte beholder ( which would make Seth cringe, and he is cringing as he reads this.. once again PTSD=B&W), I'm not sure what to make of the untruths. Still working on a game plan for that.

I guess the good thing is that I designed my first lace pattern the other day and it actually works, so more on that in the future. Now off to the doctors office to convince my three year old that she really does want to pee in a cup.. I'm voting 50% chance of finding it to be totally unbelieveably cool and 50% chance of complete mutiny... sigh.

Abbyism:
 "well you see dad, it's not pee, a monster snuck into my room and spilled gravy on my bed"
"No! if I drink any more juice my volvo will leak"

*&%$ you Mayan Calender of Doom!

We watched part of a movie last night that struck such a chord within me I couldn't watch past 10 minutes. The movie was Doomsday: big scary disease, lots of people die, walled off area, find out about what people really are like under pressure. I made it through the gory hospital shots of people contracting this hideous disease , coughing blood, all manner of revolting looking physical ailments and such. Then to the part where the people who are still healthy try to get out so they can get away from the pathogen, but they are stopped by riot police, who shoot blindly into the crowd and right into a little girl's eye.

SO, that's where I couldn't handle it any more. I know Seth has been to war and seen all kinds of terribleness and atrocities and that little fazes him especially hyped up movie violence that is ridiculously overacted and choreographed to be dramatic. However I cannot deal with it, I used to be able to, used to watch that kind of think and think "suckers! , too bad for you!" and now all I can think about is ; what about my kids. What would I do to protect them? how could I beat that terrible thing? could I smuggle them out somewhere? could we hide in the basement for weeks until it was all okay? How much food would I need to do said hiding? Should i get some more? I think there is a sale on at Rosauers this week.. canned goods... What about looters? maybe we should get a gun, because when the apocalypse happens everyone else will have a gun... WHat if there are zombies too....

And on and on it goes, the trailer for the movie 2012 makes my skin crawl and triggers 18 lists of things I am planning to purchase, including a motorhome, land in Nunavut, and a lifetime supply of Ichiban Ramen noodles. Life is scary enough without watching movies about cataclysmic disaster, I mean it just isn't my bag.

What about the little things we do everyday that might destroy us? just getting in a vehicle that might crash and kill , leaving disaster for your family. I know that on some level the larger hypothetical disasters are far less scary than the everyday ones. I mean it was only last year that my cousin got pneumonia and died, really, died from pneumonia; in 2008. That alone made me want to swear off bathing my kids in the winter, and put antibiotics in their cereal.

SO as mommies what do we do with the psychotic need to protect our children? do we become anxiety riddled and neurotic? Do we sit back patiently and get lulled into a false sense of security, thinking that nothing bad will ever happen? Or do we practice vigilance? and try our best to perceive the dangers? but where does that end?

All I know for sure is that when the continental shelf collapses and water is pouring East I will be driving, north, to my Mommy's house.

The Sicky Sicky Doldrums

Riddle me this; what has 4 arms, 8 legs, three noses, boundless energy, and is a recipe for disaster? well how about a 3 year old, a 10 month old and a new puppy.

Now add to that everyone being sick.

HA!

So, it is pretty interesting around here. Let's start from the beginning shall we? So we all know about Mackie , and then Mackie Leaving, which was devastatingly sad and had us all pretty depressed for a week. Until crazy Meghan got on the web and emailed Auntie Ali and asks her where a good dog could be found. Auntie Ali who is a finder extraordinaire point us to Kijiji.com. WHere we find a posting about a little Pomeranian Cocker Spaniel puppy who was reasonably priced and so very very cute. Now I have a bit of an issue with paying for a dog when there are so many dogs out there who need a home. But this little guy was the perfect breed , and a puppy so we could train him any which way we wanted and he would start from scratch instead of some hopelessly cute and yet strangely trained shelter dog with hangups. I mean we already have a shelter dog with hangups and we love her but one is enough. SO long story short on Friday we picked up Nemo

WHo is really an Uber cutie. But talk about WORK, I mean between the two kids and then the new dog, and now we are all SICK! Snotty and coughy, and feverish and terrible. And we are missing a birthday party tomorrow complete with supposed surprise Pie, and I have to finish my bag pattern for Interweave Knits by Monday/Tuesday and the yarn was late so now I have a flexible deadline which I hate because I like to have a firm deadline and really this post has degraded into sniffly whining drivel because for the first time in a long time I went through box of kleenex in one day and I can't take any decongestant because Norah is still nursing and I want pizza.

Okay

Got that off my chest

But I wish it was outta my nose

Blah!

SO off to do some serious knitting and child ignoring, thank goodness for understanding husbands