We have been trying to tempt Charlie into crawling as he’s been on the verge for weeks now.   What finally did the trick was Jamie’s legos; the small easily choke-able kind.   I dutifully kept dragging Charlie away, and Charlie kept stubbornly crawling over to the lego toilet Jamie was designing (more on that later).  I wasn’t surprised when Charlie triumphantly managed to sneak a lego into his mouth, which I promptly went to fish out.   They teach you the hook and sweep method in CPR class, but it comes more in handy with mouth-happy babies.   I “hooked” and “swept” but to my surprise the lego wiggled and squirmed.   I’m not normally squeamish, but I was so surprised and caught off guard I shrieked (just a little) in horror as I pulled out a very large half eaten beetle with two thirds of its legs waving around frantically. *gag*   Charlie was very peeved with me. 

If beetle babyfood wasn’t disgusting enough, I pulled the car out of the driveway yesterday and noticed what looked like a gray rag on the middle of the garage floor.  I left the car running and ran in to pick it up, only to discover it was a big nasty rat.   A rat that oddly enough didn’t move when I came screeching to a halt in front of it.   It had obviously ingested a large amount of the poison Jim put out in a bait trap (in an attempt to protect our car from more rat inflicted damage), but I had no idea what to do with it (the rat).  I couldn’t leave it in the garage, but I wasn’t to keen on touching it….with anything.   What if it suddenly came to life and charged at me.   So I stood there looking at the rat, the rat looking back at me, as if waiting for me to hand down its sentence.  That’s when I noticed it was an awfully cute looking rat.  It had even the Ratatouille rats beat on looks.   It looked more like a large stuffed animal mouse, vs a beady, sinister rat.   She was also in terrible pain (yes, at this point I decided “it” was a “she”) and was plainly terrified.   I started to imagine all sorts of things.  She probably was just out looking for food to feed her starving babies when she inadvertantly stumbled across my evil husband’s poison apples.   I called Jim for advice, by this time I was actually sobbing and my eye makeup was running down my face (I’m seriously losing my grip on reality lately), his sympathetic advice was to tell me to take the rat out of the garage and bash its head with a rock.   Yeah, like that was going to happen.
I finally got the rat up on a shovel.  She was shaking in terror.  I seriously could not look at her eyes.   As I’m carrying the dying rat out, I run into the UPS guy.   He looked at the rat, then my face, then back at the rat.   I don’t even want to know what he was thinking.  I put the rat down in the shade next to the garage, apologizing profusely for not having the nerve to put her out of her misery, and I ran back to the car where I was met with two screaming children, which was fine.  We all bawled together. 

Ugh, I got lost in the world that is Twilight.  Three days spent drowning in 2,560 pages of total nonsense.  My own fault I realize, but as much as I like good food, sometimes I can’t stop eating junk food.  I find it excusable when I tell myself she didn’t maliciously set out to destroy the very essence that is vampire lore, she really wrote a poorly written but entertaining series about x-men, but got her terms mixed up.

In case you didn’t hear my shouts of glee that traveled round the globe, Jamie is potty trained.  Today I almost *almost* wished he wasn’t.   We were picking up some paint and canvases at Michaels for the living room when suddenly he was hopping around holding his crotch and eying the clearanced easter baskets like a dog looks at a fire hydrant (I blame Jim for teaching him it was ok to pee in the backyard).   Why is it that little kids either don’t need to go, or they absolutely-must-have-to-pee-that-very-second?   We took off in a mad dash through the store with Jamie insisting that he didn’t mind peeing in a bucket, and me begging him to hold it until we got to the bathroom.   Sweet relief, we made it to the bathroom without taking out anything breakable or expensive from my mad cart driving skills.  But the bathroom was locked (both of them, because which is worse… pee all over the picture frames or a woman in the mens room?).   It wasn’t like anyone was using the bathroom, it was a regular, multi stall bathroom with a push open door that someone had so thoughtfully padlocked shut.  

I briefly considered letting him actually use a bucket and then buying it, but instead I hollered for Jamie to hang on just a minute longer while we careened through the store looking for an employee.   There. were. none.  
The bucket idea was quickly becoming the most viable option, but in a last ditch effort I pounded like an idiot on the “employees only” door in the back, hoping that it would (remarkably) contain an employee.   There were several moments in time where I stopped pounding and yelling because really…I looked and sounded like a delirious idiot, but then I’d picture Jamie saying “look what I peed on mom!” and my hopless resolve would be strengthened and I kept pounding on the door, which an eternity later was opened by an icy woman who made me feel about an inch tall with one look.   Of course unlocking the bathroom was absolutely the biggest inconvenience in the world for her, but I was in too big of a hurry to really care.   Got Jamie in, got Charlie in, couldn’t get the cart in so left it outside the bathroom in and went barreling in with a kid under each arm.   I had just gotten Jamie situated when I realized that I’d left my wallet sitting on the seat of the cart.    Being just two feet from the door, I lurched out again to grab the wallet only to find the door locked on my return.   Seriously?   I’m not sure what the protocol is in that situation.   They didn’t really cover it in any of the parenting books I read.   Do you leave the kid unattended while you go find someone to unlock the door, or do you sit outside the door and wait until someone wanders by, meanwhile your three year old is doing who the hell knows what in a room coated with germs like crispy creme coats their donuts.

I had to resort to pounding on the bloody “employees only” door again, which of course was eventually opened by Atilla the Hun. De ja vu.   I meekly asked her to unlock the door again.   If looks could kill, I would definitely be dead.  I kindasorta wished I were dead.
I quickly and quietly got Jamie washed up and out of there, grabbed the last few things on my list and headed for the only checkout that was open…with the only employee who apparently works in the whole store.  Yes, her.  Despite my best attempts to melt into the floor I still had to pay for my stuff and she had definitely not forgiven me yet for ruining her morning (hey, at least she didn’t have to clean urine off of anything, how was I supposed to know they deadbolt all their bathrooms every second of the day).    She finished off my lovely experience with Michaels and their non existent employees, by ordering Jamie out of the back of the cart because yes, that’s a violation of store rules.  

We got to the parking lot and Jamie announced he had to go poop.  

Having a bedskirt doesn’t make Charlie a bigger fan of his crib, but I can finally say I finished his bedding.   Whew, much harder to do on post partum hormones than the feverishly frantic nesting ones.   I finally got the pictures hung in their bedroom too.  This house is driving me crazy.   It’s got angry eyes like the Mr. Potato Head.   I walk out of my bedroom in the morning and the blank hallway glares at me as if I’m mocking its naked walls.   The living room has more unfinished work than Boston’s big dig (although please God may it not take me that long), and I have a daunting to do list that has seventy three blinking neon projects on it.  *groan*  I did get the furniture rearranged (with help because home decorating is nothing like photography), and so it looks better…. a little better; just better enough to make the empty walls look at me even more accusingly. Gah
   My complaints truly are quite pitiful and ungrateful I know, but sometimes I wish I had my wee little house back.  The walls liked me there.

The april fools bug hit me early this year, because although today was seamless and quiet on the pranking front, a couple of days ago I was on a roll, and I should thank my lucky charms, those nearest and dearest to me are very indulgent of my madness.  
 Jim’s cell phone broke, so while his new one was on its way, he was sporting the purple flowered lotus that generally finds its home in my back pocket.  I can’t even blame it on boredom, but regardless, I got a mischievous desire to create a new AIM screename and txt my phone messages as if I was some…er…random guy he didn’t know about.    Poor guy,  I don’t deserve him, because not only was he not jealous or remotely suspicious, but he honestly didn’t mind…figured it was just some friend of mine.   He both and equally assumes my popularity and trustworthiness are staggering.   The latter one is more true.   
While we both got a good chuckle out of it, I moved on to a much more entertaining target.  My sister Liz: The girl is a txting fiend and lives with her qwerty in front of her nose, so this was much more deserved.    I sent a veritable hailstorm of txts trying to get her to go out on a date with me (by me I mean “tall dark and handsome”).   I was just low key and believable enough to convince her it wasn’t spam, but outrageous enough to be telling her how divine her hair looked that day.   She meanwhile was freaking out and forwarding all the txts (my txts) to me asking me what she should do and if I knew this guy.   When she finally did figure it out, we were both rolling with laughter.  It felt good to laugh, and now you know if you receive any txts from “surfinsandieog80″ it’s probably my alter ego.

The test results came back on my mom and she was positive for Hepatitis C and CMV, and negative for Leukemia.  The cancer tests aren’t conclusive without a bone marrow biopsy, but for now she’s just going to wait and see if everything will eventually recover.  

I am hopeful and optimistic, and I promise the update on her is true and not a prank.  (this is Esther speaking not surfinsandiego80).