Now I Know Where the Expression Comes From....

I've never had a baby become interested in the toilet. Until A.J. came along. On more than one occasion since he's become mobile, we've found him happily splashing in the frequently "yellow so it can mellow" water (although I'd love to claim a fanatical love of the environment as the reason, it's more my kids forgetting to flush). Thankfully, more often than not, it has been clean toilet water.

Right. As if toilet water is ever really "clean."

Knowing that he fancies an occasional splish-splash, I try to keep the toilet lid down or the bathroom door closed. As I mentioned though, it's hard for the bigger kids to remember to flush half the time. Getting them to put the lid down, well, that would take a small act of God.

This afternoon, I came in from getting the mail to hear Nora announce, "Mom, I'm going to go poop now." She always announces the impending arrival of her bowel movements to us. It's nice to be in the poop-loop, I suppose. A special privilege given to only a select few...

So off she goes, and apparently A.J. follows because I hear her yell, "Mom, A.J.'s in the bathroom with me."

I holler that I am on my way and make a bee-line down the hall. Not three strides in and Nora very calmly announces, "MOM. A.J. IS EATING MY POOP."

Shit.

Literally.

I sprint the remaining 10 feet to find Nora mid-wipe and A.J. laughing and grinning with not one, but two hands full and a definite and distinct smudge across him mouth.

No he didn't.

Yes, he did.

As I said, you just can't make this mothering stuff up.

And now I know exactly what a "shit eating grin" looks like.

Polly Update

Polly has a new home. She actually had a new home 72 hours after "the incident" occurred, but with the crashing computer, a baby with bronchitis and volunteering for the YMCA We Build People Campaign, not to mention the regular, run of the mill, mom-of-four-kids stuff, the announcement of her "re-homing" was pushed to the back-burner.

She is now with a lovely couple, no children, but two cats and a 75 pound black laboradoodle who goes by the name of Melissa. She could not have been placed in a more perfect home. They have professional pictures of their pets, framed and hung throughout their townhouse. Their neighborhood has more dogs than children. There are geese and squirrels (not to mention cats) to chase. I received emails noting that Polly was "being observed for signs of depression" which, thankfully, she displayed none. They invited the kids to come see her if they want, or bring her a Christmas present around the holidays.

To attest to how well she has adjusted to her new life, I've posted a picture of Polly (as a lion) and Melissa (as Snow White with a blond wig). They took the dogs out for Trick or Treating on Halloween. Seriously. I'm not sure what the cats were dressed up as....

The kids have asked about her occasionally. Still not a single tear has been shed over her. I did come close to tears the other day though, once I realized that I was sweeping the food from under the kitchen table for the 4th time and it was only 2 o'clock. She was good for something.

Houston, We Have A Problem

My computer crashed. Not only did it crash, but my hard drive burned up. No flames, but it did have a nasty burned electronics smell to it. The lovely gentleman, Jim, from TechWizards, was kind enough to explain to me that it was perfectly safe to toss my hard drive, as there was "no way in hell" anyone could get anything off of it. it's not that I have/had anything worthy of a security clearance on my computer, but it would have been nice to back up those last few sets of pictures I had downloaded. Including AJ's first birthday...

And my Christmas card address list and labels document.

December is going to be ugly in the Elms house trying to round up all that information again. If you don't get a card, you'll know why.

So now the question is...do I stay with a PC (as Jim recommended) or do I make the bold leap to a Mac (HA! there's a Mac commercial on in the background as I write this...coincidence??). Anyone out there with any suggestions on what to do, please send them my way....

So Long, Farewell

Our mutant, overpriced, and underwhelming dog, Polly, has found a new home. It's been a long time coming, particularly since there was a sizable degree of buyer's remorse about 15 minutes after we got her. We had given her all the chances in the world to remain in our family, short of calling Cesar Milan (aka the Dog Whisperer), but when you bite the hand that feeds you, well... Adios Amiga.

Okay, so she didn't really bite. It was more of a snip. It just happened that Andrew (not quite one year old) toddled over to her and fiddled with her fur. Now while I have been tolerant of her little dog syndrome and sensitive tendencies, her punishment far outweighed his crime, as he wasn't being rough with her.

We've always instructed the kids to leave her along when she retreats under the dining room table or under a bed. And he is too young to understand that. But she was on her bed in the living room just hanging out watching the circus that is our house. To see the crocodile tears streaming down the face of a chubby little baby who's just been betrayed by the very creature he's been happily dropping food to over the last 5 months, well it was just too much.

I (mostly) nicely took her outside, grabbed my camera, and shot a few pictures. I immediately downloaded them and posted her little butt on Craig's List. Within 6 hours I had 40 email inquiries and she was in a new (child-less) home inside of 72 hours.

Once was Lost but...

We found her! With a stroke of sheer ingenuity, we set a trap and I'll be darned if it worked. We set her cage on the floor and opened the door, which gave her a ramp to climb back into the cage. We baited the cage with some apples slices (dabbed with peanut butter) and carrots. Then, the for the piece de resistance, we wrapped the "ramp" in aluminum foil, so that someone would hear the little critter scampering around.

There was one false alarm (the dog) as she nested into the top cushions of our couch...that she's not supposed to be on. Then, after all the lights were out, at around 11:30pm, I heard a scratchy sound coming from Brady's bedroom. I hopped out of bed, ran to his bedroom and peeked in the cage.

There she was, running around the cage with a carrot in her mouth. I slammed the cage door shut as fast as I could.

To quote one of my favorite shows from the 80's... "I love it when a plan comes together."

So Wednesday, we got a friend, Moonshine, to keep her company. Hopefully, it's a "she and she" arrangement...I'll let you know if we have any baby hamsters for the taking over the next few months...

It Didn't Make It 72 hours

Brady's hamster, Bangs, named after a character in a book entitled, "Sam, Bangs, and Moonshine" has gone missing. Not even 72 hours after bringing her home, he forgot to close the door to her cage all the way, and the little escape artist now has free reign about the house.

We baited the cage with apples and peanut butter, hoping that tonight she'll miraculously find her way back home... The alternatives are grim. The poor kids is devastated.

He keeps asking, "How many lives do hamsters have?" hoping that they might be like cats, and that she has a few more shots at life.

We can kill fish like it's nobody's business, lose a hamster in the bat of an eye, but somehow we cannot seem to find a way to rid ourselves of the most annoying dog in the world.

Maybe I should put Polly in the fish tank with Violet.

Goldfish

We spent a week recently in Alabama, visiting my husband's relatives. I remembered to hold the mail, the newspaper, kennel the dog, make the hotel reservation, pick up UNC t-shirts for the Alabama cousins, and pack for the 6 of us, but forgot to have someone feed the goldfish.

Three days into our trip, a friend asked to borrow something from the house. I gave her the details of getting into the house, and asked her to check on the fish to see if they were still alive, and if so, could she feed them. If not, she was granted full permission (and immunity from prosecution by my kids) to flush them. I was secretly hoping for the latter.

Brennan won the largest of our fish, Violet, four years ago this month, at a church fair. I'm sure you know the game; toss the ping pong ball into a fish bowl and you win a goldfish. Both Brennan and Brady won fish that day. Violet has turned out to be the Black Widow of goldfish. The other fish that we pair up with her, have all died of mysterious causes within a few days of being placed in the same tank as her. We've had to send 7 of Brady's fish to a watery grave (8 if you include the Beta fish we got in a separate bowl to avoid another homicide)...First it was Victor, Victor 2, then Steeley (named for my Hometown Steelers), Steeley 2, Dottie, Gus, Constant...you get the picture.

The girl at PetSmart refused to sell me another 19 cent goldfish because in her estimation, "selling me another fish would be the same as sending a fish home with someone to be murdered." I am not making this up. I almost asked her to see her PETA card, but thought better of it and left. I returned to buy another fish a few days later when she wasn't working.

So, Violet (who has gone from a 1inch long goldfish to a 5 inch long monster) had been living happily with Constant and Spunky (Nora's addition to the tank) for a few months, but I could sense that trouble was brewing. Violet was on the prowl again. Constant succumbed first, happily swimming one afternoon, the next morning, limp and stuck to the bottom of the filter tube.

Spunky, true to his name, must have had a little more fight in him, but the outcome was much more gruesome. When my friend came over and checked the fish while we were away, both fish were fine. She fed them and two days later we came home. I peeked into the kids bathroom, which is where we keep the fish tank, to see how they were doing and only could see Violet. My heart sunk. My first thought was, "How would Nora deal with her first loss?"

My second thought was, "Where is the other fish?" I couldn't see it floating at the top, nor was it stuck to the filtration tube... I flipped on the light and looked more closely. There at the bottom of the tank were Spunky's remains. Picked clean. Not only had Spunky died, but all that was left of him resembled the little fish bones that you see in cartoons. It was a perfect fish skeleton, with just the faint remnant of a tail fin.

Two days after our return, we got Brady a hamster. He's been working on demonstrating responsibility for a long time to show us that he's ready to have his own pet. Here's hoping for better luck with hamsters that he had with fish. As for Violet, she has a long was to go before she earns herself another tank-mate. I have always heard of guppies eating their young, but cannibalistic goldfish?