Sounds like summer

What I wish it was like:

Ahhh, summertime. The kids can run around the backyard while I putz in my garden, we can drink lemonade to our hearts' content, they can run through the sprinkler, I can sit and read my book .... all the wonderful simplicities that we can enjoy in our backyard.

What yesterday really was:

I want a fence. Just like last year at this time, I desperately want a fence. Then I wouldn't have to put up with so many kids using our backyard as theirs. Ok yes, I told the parents the kids could walk through so they didn't have to walk along the busy street but seriously, they're turning it into an extension of their own backyard. And seriously, kid. Is yelling the whole time actually considered communication in your house because it's been over an hour and that is all I've heard. A loud, guttural yell that doesn't make you sound cool, it exhausts me and makes me want to shove that football-with-a-tail-on-it down your throat. The kids jumping on the trampoline which is on the other side of the fence from you aren't yelling half as much as you! And really, if you're going to throw that damn thing over the fence, perhaps actually get it over the fence. I know it gives you one more thing to yell about and feel like your cool and perhaps actually getting the attention that you want. But if it ends up landing in my garden you sure as hell better not think that you are allowed to walk in it and stomp all over the little plants that are just starting to emerge. Great, here's comes neighbor kid. I can only imagine how many hours I'm going to have to spend involuntarily babysitting you once you're all done Kindergarten because rather than play with you themselves, your parents will tell you that Sweet One is outside and you should go play with her and teach her all sorts of nasty, spoiled girl ways to disrespect everyone else around you. Did you seriously just walk up to my daughter only to tell her that you're not going to play with her? I can see from the look on your snotty little face that you are doing it only for your own little power trip. Please let us be busy when it is your birthday party this year because I really don't want to have to spend any money on you nor socialize with your extended family that pretended we weren't there last year!

What I hope might happen:

That we will move. To a sweet area in a larger center where we can have a house with a fence. And that when it comes time to move, this house which I do so love, won't take more than a year to sell!

Where I'm from

I had forgotten how much light there is where I grew up. Some nights the sky doesn't get completely back. And then in the winter the northern lights are beautiful. When I looked up at the skyline it seemed absolutely empty to me. When I look up where I live I see houses and trees. For the first time in a long time, I stopped hating the town I grew up in.

As our trip progressed I started to find calm and peace in looking at the sky. I was actually able to slow my brain down when I looked at it. It was huge and endless. As I was driving back to my Mom's, I kept looking at the fields of canola. They're so beautiful. The landscape in this part of the country used to bore me but this time I couldn't get enough. I wanted to absorb every inch of it and remember where I came from rather than trying to forget.

Sweet One had been saying, "I wish I had a kite," ever since she saw Curious George fly his and so we got her one. A special tly to remind her of the trip. The days were fairly windy and she had an amazing time running with hers. (This field was a 5 minute walk from my sister's house. It's actually part of a school.)

Somewhere between common sense and hysteria

There are times when I think that I have been plunked down here in this town as a giant sociological experiment. I try to sit and watch and understand people's motivations because there are times when I simply can not understand what is going on.

Take for instance the last two days in our little town. There has been a manhunt. A guy was being served a warrant for something involving theft and drugs as well as possibly shooting at cops. Not great. But to a certain extent, a run-of-the-mill douchebag who has gotten himself into trouble and won't just man up and face the consequences. Instead he runs with a gun. He runs away from the cops in this small town. Through some residential areas. Helicopters, police dogs, law enforcement are all out trying to track him down. And like any smart dumbass he goes into wooded areas where he will be hard to track. So they give up.

Ok. This is something that could happen anywhere. But from my facebook page you'd think that a serial killer had been let loose and was pounding on everyone's doors trying to get in! People have been terrified. "Pray for the safety of our children!" (I do that everyday anyway.) "There's a crazy man in your neighborhood and he has a gun! Lock your doors!" (Ok. I did lock my doors. Common sense. We lock ours most of the time.) "Search is called off and now this crazy man is making my children stay inside on such a beautiful day!" (I let mine play outside. As usual.)

Seriously? I just don't get it. If I were living in a city I wouldn't have thought twice about it. There is a fine line between being safe and being paranoid. A friend of mine actually packed up her kids and high tailed it out of town to stay at her mother's because she said she wouldn't be able to sleep with her husband out of town. 

At no point did they consider that there was a risk of him going on a shooting rampage so really. A school was locked down for awhile because it was common sense to keep the kids in when the suspect was in the area. I just don't know how it got to the point that people were so afraid he'd be right on their doorstep ready to pounce. I'm a person of moderation (or at least I try to be) and I strongly feel that this situation was made worse because of the small town hysteria that surrounded it.

(We mentioned it to my inlaws. They checked out newspaper article online and actually found it funny how everyone was going crazy!)

There is no where else to go

I've been struggling over the past few weeks about whether or not I want to continue attending the moms group that I do. Twice a month Sweet One and I go while Little Man stays home in the morning with his Dad. I drink coffee, sit at a table with other women, listen to the 'lesson' that they teach, do a craft and eat some food while Sweet One goes to the room where they have things set up with age appropriate activities for her. She seems to like it and I do not have another place at this point in time where she can go and socialize with her peers.

The group is a chapter of a national organization based upon concepts and beliefs of Evangelical Fundamentalism and we meet in a large church. The building is enormous and the strange bubble that we meet in is their sanctuary, carpeted to look like it doubles as a basketball court. I've struggled with Evangelical Fundamentalism since I first attended a church when I was sixteen. The sermon hour ended up with people laying on hands, fainting, crying out and having muscle spasm that they claimed was 'the spirit of the Lord God upon me!' The language they use to express their beliefs, the minimal education required for their pastors and how the bible is interpreted are all things I do not fully understand.

Last year it felt different for me. There have been a lot of new moms joining the chapter this year and the bigger it gets the more uncomfortable I am feeling. I am an introvert by nature and I get overwhelmed in too large of a group. I express these feelings by spurting out things I later regret or by getting too eager to talk (our discussion time is limited and I wonder if others feel like I don't share that time enough). I wish I could just sit back and relax, contributing to conversations only when my brain isn't feel like it is about to short circuit.

Another factor that seems to be contributing to my sense of uneasiness here is that I sense a division growing stronger within the group. The very large steering committee is comprised mostly of women who attend the church where we meet. They do a lot of things together. This chapter seems to be an extension of their already established social group that goes from church, to home to everywhere else in their lives. As the overall chapter grows larger the divisions of cliques becomes more established. I think I fear the meetings might end up like their Sunday morning services.

It is so hard for me to fully understand what I am uncomfortable with. While sitting at my table yesterday morning I had a complete view of the entire room. I looked around and saw some faces I recognized and many I hadn't. I starting feeling like we were all there to sit back and watch what the steering committee was doing; that what was being done was more to fulfill their own sense of purpose and self-importance than to build and foster a community of women.

If I were to stop attending these meetings there is nothing else like this in this little rural town. My friend attends as well and I know that she would be sad if I were not going. I like that it gives Sweet One somewhere to play with other children and begin to develop her social skills. (One of the women in the two year old room was my discussion leader last year and she says Sweet One is doing better and better every time.) However, shortly after each meeting this year Sweet One has developed a cold which has also affect Little Man. I don't want to spend the entire winter with sick children!

Maybe I can let go of my own ingrained biases about the denomination. Perhaps I'm dwelling on what I don't like about the denomination because I'm feeling self-conscious there. I'm 33 years old, fer fukk sake, so I should be able to behave myself a little better when I recognize my anxiety growing during the meetings! I just hate sitting here more than 24 hours after the meeting ended still regretting the petulant child who whined too much about the decaf running out quickly. If I'm really lucky, I may be able to gain enough self-confidence to not feel like people are looking at me funny wondering why I'm there. And the cherry on top would be that Sweet One won't get sick every time we go and if she does get sick, she'll fight it off quickly and not give the gersm to her brother. I don't really know. I do know that I wish there was a group in this area I could become a part of that I didn't feel like a sore thumb sticking out.

Violence at my doorstep

Last night I spent more time awake than I'd like. Little Man woke me up for a second time around 3am and I didn't fall back asleep until nearly 5. The longer I was awake, the more frustrated I got. I starting thinking that if it were actually happening 'now' rather than the few days previous I might have known something of such magnitude was going on.

Three gunshots. One to gain entry, one to kill her and the third to kill himself. She no longer loved him and he wouldn't have it. A sad situation of domestic violence that her two children in the apartment when it was happening. I can only pray that they were asleep when their mother was shot. But I am not so naive to think they wouldn't have seen her body lying there or his as he took some of his last breaths before he died in the hospital. A grim scene that shouldn't happen to anyone.

My bedroom is approximately 50 feet from where this happened; Sweet One's is even closer. All of us were completely unaware of the entire event that took possession of the early hours. I didn't hear any shots nor did I see lights from all of the emergency personnel who came to the scene. I am ashamed to say that I didn't notice the crime scene tape around the building until Big Love pointed it out around 930 the next morning. He only noticed it after our friend pointed it out. That's six hours after it happened.

The only time we've been aware of things going on in that building were when people were screaming at each other on the balconies facing our house or when a young woman's children were playing on the steep hill that makes up the backyard (she was no longer living there when all of this happened).

So it does make sense that it could have all passed us by. But it feels wrong that we only learned of it the way the majority of this community, by word of mouth and the newspaper. "Too close to home" and yet it still feels miles away.

Finding the music

Sweet One was walking around the porch while I sat with Little Man on the anti-gravity chair that I got for Mother's Day. After only a few bites on her green popsicle I heard music that was carrying through the air like only live music played outside can. I had a feeling it wasn't far at all given how precisely I could hear a lot of the rhythms; there was clarity that would have been distorted into a mush of notes if it had been traveling from further away. On the other side of the block there is a Big House with a large lawn that was once home to a prestigious person in this little town. Our house is actually on land that would have once been the orchard to the Big House. I was pretty sure that that was where the music was coming from.

I asked Sweet One if she wanted to go and find the music. Her reaction surprised me somewhat as she was ready to give up her popsicle to go on her search, wearing only a shirt and diaper. Luckily, it didn't take long for me to persuade her that she needed pants and sandals. Big Love was pretty much done cleaning up the few dinner dishes that BBQing leaves behind. I tied Little Man into the BabyHawk and we were off.

Sweet One ran around the block where we came upon a band of about 12 playing swing music, big band style to a small crowd. Little Man didn't allow me to stay for long but Sweet One having a most enjoyable time sitting in her Daddy's lap and listening to the music. When they got back to our house Big Love said that Sweet One was up and dancing for awhile. Swinging her arms and bouncing up and down. Oh, to be a little girl again. The sole dancer in a small crowd, moving whichever way the music moves her without a care in the world!

Memorial Day Parade

We watched the parade go by as we ran past the different participants parked along the street waiting to start marching or driving. Sweet One seemed to think that you walk alongside the parade as we came to a stop just as the first few groups were starting to go. In a very contained way, Sweet One loved last year's parade and so we wanted to go again. This year the flag she was given was even bigger than before and so was her personal display of excitement. I marveled at each of her shouts of joy as all the various sections went by. Fifteen minutes that flew by much too quickly with fifteen minutes of screaming that followed from her disappointment that she couldn't follow and see more.

The holidays that mark important moments in this country's history are slowly becoming more of our celebrations, too. How could they not with two children who are American, as well as Canadian? As I watched my little poster child with her pigtails and flag in hand, I almost had to choke back tears. At first I thought this strange. Memorial Day isn't Canadian. It isn't my holiday. But in the end, regardless of what country I am in or whose holiday it is, recognizing the toll that war takes on soldiers, families and all the human race isn't something that needs to be categorized. And so I continued to watch my daughter as she delighted in what was passing in front of her, hoping desperately that by the time we have to explain what it all means perhaps wars would be stories of the past and not the present.

One man's struggles

During our weekly trip to the library today I ended up chatting a bit with a dad who I had never seen there before. It didn't take him long to tell me about some of the largest struggles in his life and I got the impression that he is both lonely and desperately wanting change without really knowing how to approach either.

He had a rare day off and decided to take his eldest son, who is five years old, to the library to look at books about trucks. There was a pile of neglected books as the son spent the whole time playing in a large helicopter that our library has. I can honestly say that he sounded sad and frustrated where his life is at the present time - too much work and not enough functioning relationships. Two kids, 5 and 2, each with different mothers. A self-employed man soon approaching 30, he told me how his work keeps him in his car for the majority of his time driving to and from places to purchase high end fashion and shoes. The time requirements of this job had "ruined every relationship I've ever had". From the sound of it, the work pays well and he had been able to provide his children's moms with Juicy Couture purses and other high end items that they wanted. He alluded to many arguments during his previous relationships revolving around how much he worked. In his opinion, if he got a different job that kept him around more they'd all have to wear Walmart clothing.

"I don't wear designer clothes but I don't wear Walmart clothes, either," was my response. The way I understood it was that he believed he either has to work as hard as he does to make lots of money and have the fancy things or be broke. I strongly think there is so much room in between these, especially since that is where we live. I left feeling sad for this dad who, at 30, seems to be floundering and not sure how to stop. Revealing so much to a complete stranger within the time span of maybe 10 minutes seems to be a cry for help and a feeling of loneliness - desperate for someone to hear his struggles. Luckily at 30 there is so much life left that if he chooses, he can figure out a way to be happier and build better relationships for himself. To me it was obvious that he was concerned about his relationship with his sons and I hope he can start there.

Small town, smaller options

It has been awhile since I have felt bitterness at living in a small town. The resentment and anger I had been feeling for a good portion of my time here wasn't doing me any favors and I decided that a change was in order. I found reasons to be happy - the low standard of living enabling us to own our house and for me to be at home with Sweet One was a big one.

Today I was reminded of what can be lacking when living in a small town. Choices. And not just choices in terms of stores, restaurants and concerts. Today I was shown that there are limitations to my health care. I made the decision to pick up the phone and ask to be moved to a new OB. After my previous one went on medical leave (I adored her and would trust her with my life to this day) and I got put with a doctor I didn't feel comfortable with, I spent much time trying to see if I was going to be ok. But I just don't. A male doctor of similar age to my father, whose emotional and physical abuse has left me with many wounds that I am still trying to heal, leaves me feeling uncomfortable. I have plead my case in the most gracious and level-headed way I know how with a receptionist and the office manager but I do not know if they are going to move me. While they argue that there is a 50% chance a male doctor will deliver my child, I argue that it is not just the delivery that I am uncomfortable with but the consultations leading up to delivery and after. I simply do not feel comfortable in the care of a man who is from the same generation who spent so much time making me feel horrible about my abilities, choices and who I am.

This is the only OB clinic in town. I can not go to a nearby city because at the time of delivery I believe that it would be too hard on Big Love and Sweet One. Added stresses of travel at a time of year when weather isn't the greatest is not something I want to put them through.

I may also have the decision of whether or not to VBAC and this is also a bit disconcerting. Up until a month and a half ago I had been told that they do not happen in the local hospital and that I would be delivery via c-section again. But now they may be implementing protocol to encourage VBACs. Do I want to choose this with a doctor that I am not familiar with and be one of the first people in this area to attempt the VBAC? While the doctors are capable they are obviously inexperienced in this area since their policy has been against these types of deliveries.

More doctors with more opinions to help me make the choices I need to make. That is what I desperately wish I had right now.

I'm happy to say that I got a phone call the next morning with the news that one of the female doctors will be taking me on as her patient!

Lonely Ladybug

A few weeks ago I got a costume made for Sweet One and, thinking it was pretty cute, in my head I anticipated a lovely Thursday evening of Trick-or-Treating with her for the first time. (This town does things weird with the Trick-or-Treating happening on the Thursday before Halloween so that teachers don't have to deal with the kids on 'sugar highs'.) Things don't always work out as we plan when we're parents and this was definitely one of those. The moment I tried to put it on Sweet One, she hit the floor in a tantrum! I did manage to get the wings on her red jacket and so Big Love spent about half an hour taking her to a few houses. The best part was watching her run away from a house as quickly as she could so that she could follow her friends! I just chuckled as I handed out candy to those who stopped by!

So my costume may have to wait another year or perhaps it will always be the lonely ladybug who hoped to be someone's first Halloween costume.

****

On another note, the netbook seems to have survived the flood! I am so relieved.

The perfect mini vacation

All summer we have wanted to take Sweet One up to the nearest Great Lake to go swimming but every time it was hot enough we figured that it would be too crowded. Today, however, we thought would be different since it was the first day of school. I'm so glad we did.

Despite the strong waves coming into shore, Sweet One managed to play and dance on the wet sand and then venture into the water with us from time to time. It completely killed the sweltering heat that we have been having for the passed few days. Sweet One wasn't afraid of the water at all. I was surprised at how difficult it was for her to walk on the sand - I definitely didn't expect that!.

It was truly a mini-vacation and by the end of it Big Love hardly remembered even being at work today! We finished it up with Tim Horton's chili and McDonald's fries in the car on the way home and then stopped at a local ice cream place to sit on their patio and eat some tasty ice cream. (Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures because the batteries died as soon as we got there. I hate our camera. The batteries die constantly and it takes forever to get ready to take the next shot after one has been taken. Oh how I wish I could get a new, more reliable one!)

Bark-o-matic

So what do you do when your neighbors are completely and utterly incapable of responsibly training their dog to shut up? There is a sheltie that lives next door and he will bark and anything and everything constantly! I understand that shelties are a noisy dog but I also know that my mom was completely capable of training ours when I was not even 10 years old. She had three children under 10, worked and still found the time to train our dog. Our neighbors have no children, spend quite a bit of time at home but have basically given up on training their dog. They have said to us that they worry about the dog annoying the neighborhood. Why? Because their dog barks more than all the 6 other dogs put together that live along this block? Last week I was outside painting my porch and for half an hour the dog barked at people across the street. I'm seriously at the point that I want to throw some chocolate its way. Or perhaps I'll be able to find one of those ultrasonic bark stoppers for a cheap price that I can put in my yard.

My little butterfly

If you help a butterfly out of a cocoon its wings will not be strong enough to survive once it is out and it will die.

That's what a friend told me yesterday when I was telling her how bad I feel for Sweet One as she is teething. At a year old she only has 2 teeth - the second arrived on September 19th and it wasn't far behind the first. It has been months of gnawing on anything she can put in her mouth. Recently, she has even been putting her hand on her gums when nothing else is within her arms reach. Today I got a good look at her gums and there seems to be 4-6 little buggers on their way down. Maybe getting a whole bunch at once will make this drawn out process a little bit more worth it.

I wish so much that I could stop it from aching for her. I can't imagine how much teething might hurt since I don't remember the process myself but I'd love to spare her the pain. And then I thought that perhaps this is the little stuff that is preparing me. Physical pain that is guaranteed to have relief once the process is over. Down the road I'm sure there will be so much she has to go through as she grows up and I won't be able to fix it at all. I'll only be able to be there for her, if she'll have me, and let her know I love her.

***

As a side note, I did not win the snow stroller.

As another side note, houses of similar vintage as ours are very poorly insulated in this area which makes A LOT of huge icicles from the heat escaping out the top. When I returned from going to a movie this afternoon I looked at our house and realized that the entire length of our upper gutters was ripped off as the weight from the ice was too much for it to bear. Too bad Sweet One wouldn't chew on one of those!

When Mormons come a-knockin' on my door

In my world, Mormons were not part of the general population until I started my Masters degree in 2001. I have two points of reference for Mormonism. There were a number of them in the music program and a few of them became good friends. I didn't know a whole lot and most of what I did know made Mormonism seem extremely bizarre to me. Luckily, a couple of my friends had absolutely no problem laughing off the stupid things people say about what Mormons do and then telling me their own take on it. My other source is from watching Big Love. I figure that's enough said about that!

This afternoon I was in my bedroom which looks out onto the street, installing the new hardware for the curtains I've been working on and hyped up on a slightly higher dose of caffeine than I'm used to these days, when I saw two young men walking door to door. They had to be Mormons. I got quite excited and told Big Love (no, I do not have my own sister wives) that I was going to chat with them. A friend had told me awhile ago that Mormons have their underwear provided by the church and I was curious to know if that was true. With the caffeine running freely in my system I was getting overly excited about having new people to talk to in my day. I made up songs such as "Come to my house, Mormons. I won't slam the door. I'll visit with you for a little while if you come to my house, Mormons."

It wasn't until about half an hour to 45 minutes later that Big Love announced the doorbell rang. (Our doorbell rings in the kitchen which is absolutely stupid because you can't really hear it in any other room of the house.) "Is it the Mormons?" I called. "Probably," he said. He still did not believe that I was going to visit with them. I went to door, still wired on caffeine and now a little nervous about actually doing this. I had a huge smile on my face and I said:

"Hi! Are you Mormons?

Yes, we are.

I will let you know right off the bat that I had some good friends who were Mormons. Once I was in a car with one for over an hour and he told me the whole story and I didn't convert.

Oh. Ok.

But I'm curious. Does the church give you your underwear for free?

Um. (At this moment they looked like they weren't sure what they were getting into.)

Someone I know said that the church provides Mormons with their underwear and so you don't have to buy it.

No, I buy my own. (Slightly muffled, perhaps a little uncomfortable answering this question.)

Oh. Thanks! (There were two Mormons at my door. One was African American and the other was your traditional looking white Mormon boy.)

Where are you from?

I'm from New York, answered the first.

Cool! My friend got to do his mission work in Paris.

Wow. That's cool, he said.

How come you get stuck in this craptown?

They both looked at me and said, there are very nice people in this town.

Yes there are, but the little town itself kinda sucks. Are you stuck just here or do you get to go other places?

We go all over this state, said the second boy.

Oh. Where are you from?

I'm from Utah, he said. At which point my eyes opened twice as much and I very excitedly asked,

Really?! Do you have sister-wives?

They both looked completely confused and mumbled a what? as they tried to figure me out.

You know, like on Big Love.

The first boy basically told me that the show wasn't true. I told them that I had just read a blog posting by someone who has Mormon friends and she mentioned something about sister-wives.

How long ago was that?

Um, I read that post three days ago or so.

Well, maybe they're a breakoff because they'd be kicked out of the church for that.

That makes sense."

I'm a little fuzzy on the exact order of things that were discussed. The second boy did ask me if we were religious at all and I explained that yes we were ... blah blah blah. He seemed to have a look on his face as if he was trying to decipher whether I was on something or not. At one point the first boy said that going to Paris would be too hard because you'd have to learn the different language. He mentioned he knew spanish to which I mentioned that it was similar to french.

"You know the world leche for milk?

Leche, yes. (He pronounced it properly.)

Well it's the same word in french, just pronounced differently. I was reading about the La Leche organization. You know, for women who are going to feed their babies with their own .... equipment. (Now I didn't want to traumatize them too much and say boobs. And then I tried to smoothly change the subject.) Where I come from, people have been known to answer the door naked with a beer in their hand when Mormons came to the door. Have you ever seen that?

Well, yeah. They did have, um, robes on, said the first boy.

That's good. At least you weren't exposed to anything that would traumatize you.

Where are you from? asked the second boy.

We're from Western Canada.

That's quite the transplant, he said. To which the first boy said, I knew someone from Canada. It was a strange place, I think it started with S.

Oh, that could be Saskatchewan. How did you know her?

Her father fought in Vietnam and when he got back they were so mean that he left and went to Canada.

That's too bad. I knew draft dodgers. Some were my high school teachers. Well, we're going to take my daughter for a walk now.

Ok, said the second boy. Is there anything we can do for you?

Oh, no thanks. I'm sure you've provided me with enough entertainment for today. I hope you have a good rest of the day!"

And off they went. Probably trying to quickly get their bearings after chatting with the crazy housewife who obviously doesn't get out enough so that when the two Mormon boys at her door make for a nice break from the norm in her day!

Stroller Skis would tackle this snow

I stepped outside this afternoon at about 2:30 to shovel the walk. The snow has not stopped falling in at least three days! Luckily, it is light and fluffy which makes all the clearing much easier. As you can see, the snow was up passed my ankles and Big Love had been out there around 7pm yesterday to do our third clearing of the day. The greatest thing about when I went out to shovel today was that the sun had decided to make a meager appearance for the first time in many days and there is nothing that makes my life better than the sun shining on my face. I didn't even care that there were wind gusts and a temperature of 17F/-8C and a windchill of 1F. Bring it on! I was
outside and the sun was with me. The only real challenge was finding places to put the snow!

Just prior to going out to shovel I was goofing around online and googled "stroller skis" with the expectation that absolutely nothing would show up. Much to my great surprise, I found this. I got so excited but the feeling quickly passed as I was unable to find any place online that had them available. If Sweet One and I could only go for walks! (The majority of people in this town do not clear their sidewalks!) My desperate plea is that if anyone out there knows where I can get my little hands on a set of these, PLEASE LET ME KNOW! You would be providing me with my very own holy grail and bettering the lives of not just me or Sweet One, but also Big Love because then he wouldn't have to deal with two girls who have been cooped up in the house all day long - for many days on end. In the 10 day weather forecast, Thursday and Monday do not have snow showers in them and the rest do. (I am not joking when I say that it has snowed non-stop here for three or more days!) There is a beautiful walking trail (featured on the blogsite) but it does not get cleared and if I only had a brain, er I mean these stroller skis, I could walk to my heart's content.

in the parking lot of a grocery store

I had just taken my keys from Sweet One so that I could get her into the car. A few screams of "Dammit, mama, I want those keys", me trying to reason and offer her my purse instead and within a moment or two she was fine. Another young mother with a son in tow smiled at me as she walked towards her vehicle which was parked next to mine (funny how when I passed her twice in the aisles she made sure she didn't look my way). The he said, "Hey Trouble". To which she answered, "Me? Trouble?". I looked behind me and there was a guy about our age in a car talking to her. I didn't continue to listen in as I wanted to get home so I could get Big Love's Birthday dinner cooking. But then a few minutes later I heard this:

Her: You need to use some birth control, [dude].

Him: It doesn't work!

Her: Well, maybe you need to turn it off.

Him: My Grandmother thinks the same thing.

I had to get a bit better view of who she was talking to and with this conversation in my head, I had a mild reminder of Cleetus and his crew. An older large sedan that had this guy talking and easily five children in it with him. He drove away, she turned around and looked at me as she said, "That was the nicest way I could say that." All I could do was laugh out loud. I'm still laughing about it!

Now as I try to get the blueberry out of my hair that I found just now, so kindly placed by Sweet One, I will get off the computer and go and have Birthday Cake with Big Love. It's nothing fancy but the icing (frosting is the term used this side of the border) recipe I found here is freakin' awesome - and simple to make!

So Happy 29th Birthday my love. Thank you for being the man you are. You love Sweet One and I patiently and completely. You take care of me at moments when I'm not sure you'd be able to. You are my rock and my best friend - and a wonderful father to our little girl. We are both very fortunate to have you in our lives. Here's to another 29 years ... at least.

To the Fair!

I grew up in a town that has an annual Fall Fair and Rodeo. It has a pretty good one, at that, with the rodeo now being a part of the pro circuit. When we moved here we were told that the county fair here is one of the largest in the area which makes it something one has to check out now and then. Today we took Sweet One to see how she'd be around the animals and she really seemed to be enjoying herself. Hanging from my chest in a carrier, she made lots of noise and smiled as we walked around.

At the pig barn and I saw this mama pig with a little one not really feeding but rubbing its nose all over the place looking for something, with its siblings sleeping peacefully in a pile. I couldn't help but look at her and think: "I can relate!"