Hello, Again

Well, we closed on the house. Husband and I now own two houses, which sounds a lot fancier than it really is. 

Good god, I hope we can rent out our first house.

We've been packing and trying to get two houses ready for the big move and otherwise just generally trying to get our shit together. 

Rather than blabber on about how stressful my life is right now, how about some Elisey talk?

She's still hellbent on embarrassing me at every opportunity. Yesterday in the grocery store, Elise sent an old lady in the cereal aisle into a giggling fit when she kept loudly declaring that we are all out of "peenie butter." Not peanut butter. Peenie butter. Over and over again. Peenie butter peenie butter peenie butter.

Then today at story time at the library, while we were singing one of the regular songs which repeats, "Turn to your neighbor and say how do you do, how do you do, how do you do..." Elise decided to change the words and started scream-singing "Turn to your neighbor and say how do you POO?" 

She's an imp. I love her. But she's an imp.

Closing On the House Soon!

We're closing on our new house next week!!!

Very exciting. Also, there is no way I will ever get everything done that needs to get done before we move and I am currently caught in a rapidly cycling loop of frantically trying to organize and accomplish everything, and then curling myself into a ball on the floor and letting the panic melt into despair.

On top of the inevitable stress that comes with moving, my car broke today. Broke broke. I was driving and it just stopped working. The engine made some dying noises, my power steering went out, then my brakes felt funny. Yikes. I managed to get my car off the road (fortunately no one was too close in front of or behind me) and I called for roadside assistance. Husband came to pick me up, and of course he brought the kids. Their lucky day. They LOVE tow trucks, and the fact that it was OUR car on a tow truck was extra exciting.

Mommy, of course, was less happy about the situation.

Broken Table and a Warning

What happened today? Well, let's see...

Our kitchen table broke and I got pulled over by a cop while I had all 4 kids in the car.

By the way, I was not pulled over for speeding or running a red light or anything like that. The reason I was pulled over was technically not my fault and I was given a warning. Elise did ask, though, as I was stopping the car if I was going to jail.

Tomorrow will be a better day.

Cut, Cut, Smash

Clark had his first hair cut ever on Friday night. He had a little baby mullet, so I gathered up his wispy, softer-than-soft little hairs into a ponytail and snipped it off. I'm secretly trying to grow his hair long (not sure if Husband approves-- I'm not going to ask), but his bangs are so short that it all needs to even out, so trimming the back is a good step in the long-hair-plan. I saved the hair, of course. For now, it seems like the motherly, sentimental thing to do, but I'm pretty sure that in about 15 years I'll be stuffing it into a voodoo doll.

On Saturday, Clark got his first big boo-boo. He fell down when he was running on a sidewalk and skinned the crap out of his knee. It was quite bloody for a skinned knee. He cried, but he was over it within about two minutes and by the time we all made it back to the car to put antibiotic ointment on the cut, Clark was just annoyed that I wouldn't set him back down to play.

While I was washing Clark's knee off with some bottled water, Elise fell and scraped up her leg from her ankle (which got the worst of it) to almost all the way up to her knee. Unlucky day.

But the weekend injuries didn't stop there. Sunday was the worst.

On Friday Husband accidentally preheated the oven with a plastic container still inside. Plastic melted everywhere, got all over everything when Husband took the warped container out of the oven, and stunk up the house. We meant to clean the oven as soon as it cooled down, but then life happened and we kind of temporarily forgot the whole incident.

On Sunday I cooked chili for dinner and I decided at the last minute to bake some dinner rolls. When the oven beeped that it was done preheating, I flung open the oven door and was greeted with blast of toxic fumes. They floated right past my eyeglasses (or maybe THROUGH them, for all I know) and into my eyes. It burned like a motherfucker. I screamed, dropped to my knees, and hoped that I would be able to see whenever the next time is that I can convince my eyelids to open up despite the searing pain.

Husband ran in to help me, we washed my eyes out in the kitchen sink, and immediately started opening windows around the house. My eyes were watering like crazy, but I could still see, so that was reassuring. While I was in a back bedroom unfastening a window latch, I heard a sickening thud, Husband's voice, a pause, then Clark start screaming. Fuck! So I ran back into the living room to discover that Clark had walked into the front door while Husband was swinging it back and forth, trying to fan the fumes out of the house.

Clark's mouth was filling with blood and he had a CRAZY, pointy knot on the back of his head where he had fallen backwards and hit the ground. I started flipping out, as I am extremely not-calm when my kids get hurt, and decided to take him to the hospital. I was probably also hyper-emotional because I was still dealing with my own injury. It was just a bad situation, all around.

I got about half way there when Clark finally started to calm down, and I started to calm down, so I pulled over for a second to better assess the situation. Clark was clearly alert, hadn't thrown up, and when I shined a light in his eyes, his pupils constricted. So, probably not a concussion. His mouth was still bleeding, but all of his teeth were there and in the correct place, so probably no major dental problems. Clark's lip was swollen and puffy, but when I felt the back of his head the lump was already a bit smaller and less pointy. Okay. Okay. He's okay. I decided to go back home.

Clark got to eat vanilla ice cream and a bowl of frozen whipped cream for dinner, as he wouldn't let us put an ice pack on his lip and that was the best we could do. Today, the lump on the back of his head is much smaller, his lip looks normal, and there is hardly the faintest shadow of a bruise on his mouth.

About three times yesterday and then once today Clark said to me, "I mad!" (We teach the kids to say "I'm mad" instead of hitting each other or throwing a temper tantrum.) Each time I've said, "I'm sorry. Why are you mad?" and each time he's touched the back of his head and said, "Boo boo head!" Poor little guy. Very articulate for a 17 month old. I think his brain is working just fine.

Husband's really upset about the whole thing with Clark, as he feels responsible. It was an accident. And Clark won't even remember it.

Crazy weekend. Glad it's over.