The Lumberjack's Wife

So.  A lot has happened.

We just found out schools will be out for a few weeks to help control the spread of the virus.  We had no time to prepare our students, send them home with anything, or even say goodbye.  I am hoping to connect with the kids through online learning, however, I do not think all of my students have access to internet at home.

David and I braved Costco this weekend to make sure we are all stocked up on what we need so we do not have to leave the house much.

Me:  Well, at least we know we will not starve!

David:  Yeah.  I mean, I guess we can butcher a cow and cook it over the wood stove.

Me:  !

Me:  What on earth do you think is going to happen?  I just think we are going to have a well-stocked pantry.

And my cows are for companionship, not for nourishment.

I have sad news, Readers.

David sold my cute calf, Jesse James.

I could not bear to watch the transaction.  But I had a lot to say when the deal was done.

Me:  Did you tell them his name?

David:  Nope.

Me:  Did you introduce them to his mom?

David:  Nope.

Me:  Did you tell them he was born to Babs on August 5, 2019?

David:  Nope.

Me:  Did you tell them that your wife could send them the video of his actual birth, plus several photos of his first six months of life?

David:  Nope.

It´s almost like it was all for naught.

Oh!  And here is a newsflash:

Taylor knows nothing about cows about to go into labor.

I have been religiously checking cows every morning and every evening, hoping for signs of impending labor.  And I will be 100% sure that one of the gals is about to bring joy into my life.  And so far, I have been 100% wrong.

The new puppy, Charlie,  fancies going along with me to check on the stock.

Charlie is not one bit afraid of cows.  And she should be.  She has made enemies out of them and they wish to murder her.

In the above photo, you can see her getting close to a bull calf named Coco.  Moments later, she decides to jump on him and play bite him and try to get him to play with her.

He moos like a big baby and runs away.

Charlie follows and barks and jumps and bites.

And just like that, EVERY cow, not just Coco´s mama, started their angry mooing sounds and went after Charlie.

And Charlie jumped on out of the way and ran off.

Only to come and jump up and try to bite a cow´s tail moments later.

***

I hope you are all well.  Things feel a bit out of sorts with this virus.  It is so weird to have so many things shut down and canceled.

Stay safe and healthy, Friends!

Today in class, one of my sweet girls proudly brought me a sealed envelope.

Student:  Mrs. M.  I wrote this for the whole class.  I need you to read it to EVERYONE.  But, actually, I need you to sing it to everyone.

Me:  Ooh!  Ok, we will do it later this morning.

So we get into the morning and right before morning recess I remember her letter/song.

I call her up with me and we open it together and this child is beaming sunbeams of absolute joy and pride.

And Readers, I kid you not, she had written out on four pages the lyrics to the entire song of ¨7 Years¨ by Lukas Graham.  Here is a link if you would like to hear the song.

So, I start to read the lyrics and she reminds me that I must sing.  So I am trying to sing the song and the entire class is laughing because, well, I sound ridiculous, and I am just hoping that the lyrics of the song are first grade appropriate.

I sang/read a bit of it and then we talked about why she wrote it.  She was so proud and said it was her favorite song and she knew it by heart.  I was impressed by the neatness of her handwriting and her spelling.

So that is how one of my students spent her four day weekend.

Would you like to hear what I did with mine?

Stared at the lady parts of all my cows.

Stuff was happening, things were exciting, yet, no calves were calved.  It was all very disappointing and not how I wanted my 4 day weekend to go.

I walked 20,000 steps around our property yesterday tracking them all.  I have several photos and many strange searches in my Google search history.

¨What should a cow´s vulva look like when in labor?¨

¨What should a cow´s vulva look like on a normal day?¨

I have no shame.

Here is what we know, Friends:

Some of the cows have a lot of mucus-y discharge.  According to THE GOOGLE, that COULD mean they MIGHT calve within about two weeks.

Cows lift their tails to poop and pee, but they also lift when they are pushing out A CALF.

And please picture me, if you will, standing in the cow mud/poop, elated, waiting with bated breath each time one of my bovine friends lifts her tail.  Only to have all my hopes and dreams shattered when poo emerged instead of a new calf friend for me to enjoy.

It was all a huge disappointment.

But!  The eight calves survived The Great Grain Over Feeding Travesty of 2020.  All is well.

Anyways, I have calves on the brain.  Since it is getting light out earlier now, I was able to walk around and check on all my cow pals this morning before work.  And then I totally ditched my whole family in the city and drove home right after work so I could do another head count.  And stare at cow bottoms.

For school today, I ended the day at a teacher training.  The leader of the training had us separate into two groups:  one group being people who spent most of the weekend indoors, and the other group being people who spent most of the weekend outdoors.

I have less than ideal hearing, so I had to ask a friendly stranger from another school what the directions were.

Friendly Stranger:  Oh, you go there if you were inside most of the weekend and over here if you were outside.

Me:  Oh. I was definitely outside.  I am waiting for a bunch of cows to calve.  It was all very exciting.  I have a bunch of pictures of cows and their back ends on my phone, too!

Friendly Stranger:  Wow.

Me:  Yup.  I cannot wait to get home and check to see if I have any calves.

Friendly Stranger:  Yes.  I can see how that would be exciting.

Upon reflection, I feel like I overshared with Friendly Stranger.  I might need to reign in my excitement a bit.

Thoughts?

Happy Tuesday!

Today, as you are all aware, is Valentine´s Day. I have never much cared for the holiday and I certainly do not care for it as a teacher.  I do, however, feel it is 4,000 times better than Halloween as a teacher.

Halloween.

I shudder.

I do not know why, but we do not have school today, so we celebrated Valentine´s Day in the classroom yesterday.

My little ELL guy brought me in a bouquet of silk flowers and a card.  The card was a Valentines looking card and on the inside he had written in beautiful, very careful six year old print:
Happy Teacher Day.

Love him.

You might exclaim:  Taylor!  It was Valentines Day!  Not Teacher Day!

Reader.  This I know.  And this is why I love him.

I have been trying to communicate with his mama more and not use our district interpreter so much.  So I decided to use the Google Translate to tell the mama about how he would need to bring in a Valentine for each student in the class if he wanted to participate.

Side note-Parents.  DO NOT send your first graders to school with a box of unopened Valentines on Valentines Day and hope the teacher has time to help your child lovingly write out 25 Valentines for their classmates.  DO NOT DO IT.

Anyways.  I was feeling all accomplished so I cc´d the interpreter in on the email to impress her with my communication skills.

She replied that she was in fact proud of me, but that what I said to mom was that the child would need to write a card to SAINT Valentine.

She was going to text Mom and fix it for me.  I am sure she finds me endearing.

Later in the day at recess, two boys were play-wrestling.

Me:  Hey!  No wrestling!  This is Valentines Day!  It is a day for love, not wrestling!

ELL guy (proudly putting his finger in the air) AND TACOS!

Yes, buddy.  It is also a day for tacos.

He came up to me to tattle.  He does this all the time.  He knows how to say his classmates names and words like:  mean, rude, STOLE IT, and gum.

I do not ever need to check my sneaky students for gum.  This dude is all over it.  He is like an anti-gum superhero.

Anyways, when he tattles, he speaks mostly in Spanish and adds a few English words and is VERY animated.

So he is in full on tattle-mode and he keeps dropping the Spanish word ¨cuando.¨

And I took Spanish in high school and I feel like I should know this one.

Me:  Dude.  What is cuando in English?

ELL guy shrugs.

Me:  It is a question word, isn´t it?  Like who, what, where, or when?  Is it one of those, bud?

ELL guy looks at me like I am crazy and runs away.

And I later realized that if he knew what it was in English, he probably would have used the English word to communicate to his teacher who only knows English.

***

So.  Today.

Today I am home with the boys.  David left them a chore list which is lovely because it means they go outside and leave me be.

Oh!  And my new vacuum came and the boys set it up for me.  Moments later, I hear it running and I come out of my room in full attack mode.

Me:  That vacuum is NOT to be used by you.  It is just for me!

Boys:  That´s cool.  We were just making sure we set it up correctly.

So they went outside and I cleaned the house in peace.  At one point I notice them feeding the 8 calves grain, which I find to be strange because David is being very careful to not feed them too much grain as he is concerned about THE BLOAT.

We did lose a calf to THE BLOAT last spring.

So, I check the chore list and I do not see anywhere on it where David has instructed them to feed the calves.  So I call David.

He flips his lid.

He wants them to go out there and scoop it all up again.  And I am like, sorry, dude, those calves gobbled it up.  So he is sure they will die, all eight of them, and I call the vet and they say they will probably be ok but I need to watch them and make sure they are eating stem-y hay.

And they think I know what stem-y hay is.  I must sound like a true rancher now.

Full disclosure:  They are just getting their regular hay.  Let us all hope their hay is stem-y.

So, I am watching them.  I do not know exactly what I am watching for, but I am watching them.

Moments later, I see something hanging out of a cow´s backside.  So, naturally, I am excited and thinking one of the gals is in labor.  So I tell the boys to clean their room,  because it is a pit of despair,  and I go to check out the cow´s backside.

And something is definitely going on, Friends.  There is a lot of mucus and discharge coming out.  It is all very exciting.

I also looked at the 8 calves.  They are still alive.  So far, so good.

I went back inside to check on the boys.  HD is working hard on his room and LD is laying down moaning.  He is moaning because he burned his arm on the wood stove.  He burned his arm because he was backing up to the wood stove and accidentally touched it.  He was backing up to the wood stove because he was cold and even though it is winter, he is wearing shorts and a t-shirt.

So I take him upstairs to put some cream on it and wrap it.  When we are done, I walk into the living room just in time to see Charlie the puppy throw up.  I examine the throw up and somehow she, too, has eaten the grain that the boys fed the calves.

I clean it up and do another load of laundry, for that is my life, and I decided to go and check on the cows again.

And more mucus-y discharge is coming out of Maisy.  And it looks like Mildred is also having some mucus-y discharge!

And if you are wondering if I am walking around the cow pasture, sneaking behind cows and staring at their womanly areas, you are correct.

Happy Valentine´s Day!

On Sunday afternoon, David and I took a nap.  I have no clue how I make it through any week days without naps, because if I am home on the weekend, I must take a nap in the afternoon.  So we take a nap and we accidentally sleep for over an hour and wake up all discombobulated.

David:  You look like you have been hit with a truck.

Me:  I feel like I have been hit with a truck.

David:  Should I make coffee?

Me:  I will have some if you have some.

David:  I don’t NEED a cup, but I will have some if you want some.

Me:  Fine.

David:  Huh?

Me:  Make coffee.

*both of us staring at the wall, trying to make sense of life*

Me:  Did the kids leave?

David (sighing):  The kids.

Me:  What?

David:  What is wrong with them?  Why are there matches all over the living room?

Me:  Was that the kids or the puppy?

*both of us staring at the wall, trying to make sense of life*

So, we drink our coffee and turn the TV on.  At 4 in the afternoon.  The TV is on the Home Shopping Network for reasons unbeknownst to us.  We do not watch HSN, but neither of us has the energy to change the channel.

There are two very lovely and chipper gals trying to sell us a vacuum.  And they are doing a fine job.

Me (coffee is kicking in):  David!  Look at how it is just VACUUMS up all the cereal!

David:  Yup.

Me:  David!  We have four dogs.  WE NEED THIS VACUUM.

David:  The kids will break it.  Maybe when the kids move out.

Me:  Ah.  True.

We continue to be mesmerized by the amazing vacuum.  THAT COMES IN EMERALD COLOR.

Me:  David!  What if we buy this vacuum and it is just for us.  No kids allowed.  The kids can use our cheap Walmart vacuum.

David:  Like that’s going to work.  They will use it.

Me:  What do they care?  It is a vacuum.

The gals on the TV inform us that if we want THE EMERALD COLOR instead of boring old gray, we must act quickly.

Me:  Please!  Please, David!  I live out in the middle of nowhere with you and have lots of cows.  CAN WE BUY THIS FOR OUR VALENTINES DAY PRESENT TO EACH OTHER?

David:  Fine.

So.  Be jealous of that.  It is coming it 7-10 business days.

I get a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

Me:  David!  What is up with my hair?

David:  I told you.  You look like you got hit by a truck.

***

Last weekend, we had quite the cow mystery.  There was a cow with the 2 week old bull calf that was just born standing by a dead heifer calf with bloody bits exiting her back end.

Taylor’s blog.  Where you come for pleasant bovine stories.

So we had this great debate about who birthed the cow and how was it possible for a cow to have twins two weeks apart and it was this great giant mystery.   We currently have three cows who look alike and have no tags or distinguishing markings so I am having a hard time keeping everyone straight.

So, yesterday I get home first AND while there is still daylight.  I take the dogs on a walk around the cow pasture.

And, oh!  Here’s a joke!

What did the farmer say to the cows?

Go to sleep.  It is PASTURE bed time!

But, I digress.

So, I am taking a walk and I see the two week old calf nursing off of the black cow who we THOUGHT was the one who also had the dead calf.

But then I continue on my journeys and see a black cow who has isolated herself and still has a bit of bloody bits and is hanging out around the dead calf.

Because we did not bury the calf or have a funeral for it.  We were busy buying vacuums.

So I get all excited because I solved the mystery and I try to call David from the pasture and tell him my findings.

Me:  David!  It was two cows.  Two cows have calved.  The two week old was just randomly by the other cow the other day and we thought it was the mother but we were wrong.

But David does not seem impressed, nor does he care.  He has just gotten home and has discovered that 8 calves are missing because someone did not properly close a gate in a different area of our property.

Me:  I did not open that gate!

David:  I did not say you did.

Me:  Well, ok.  Just so we are clear.  But did you hear that I solved the cow mystery.

David:  Taylor.  We have 8 calves out.

So, I go to be his help meet.  He is quite irritated and is probably seeing dollar bills flying out of his wallet.  I am quite sad and thinking of the fond memories I made with Dutch Bro and hope that at least HE comes home.

I would like to state for the record that I, yes, I, Taylor Maliblahblah, found all 8 calves all by myself and helped David lead them home.

And then I cooked dinner.

Bam!

Wife worth more than fine rubies.

Here’s a pic of some of the fugitive calves enjoying a snack after their troublesome day.

Happy Wednesday!

The other night, Hadley had a friend over.  From my room, I could hear one of my sons, who shall remain nameless, use the bathroom.

Without closing the door.

I summon the lad to my room.

Me:  Dude.  You need to close the door.

Dude:  Why?

Me:  Because, first of all, no one wants to see that.  And second of all Hadley has a friend here and she DEFINITELY does not want to see that.

The unnamed son became all giggly with embarrassment and dropped his head onto my bed.  And then when he pulled his head up, he had a bit of trouble because a blanket thread was stuck in his braces.

Middle School.  Not for the faint of heart.

***

Handsome Dude bought a cow about a month ago and the cow already had her calf.  We had a contest in my classroom for the kids to name the two new additions.  The students have named the cow “Grace” and the calf “Coco.”

One day, HD beat me home from school and called me in a panic.

HD:  Mom!  My calf is gone.  I can see the cow, but the calf is nowhere near her.

Me:  Ok.  Go and look for it.

I feel it was sage advice.

This is why he calls me.  I am the solver of problems.

I arrive home and he still has not found the calf.  So I don my work boots and coat and join him.  Also joining us was the cute, although mischievous puppy, Charlie.

We found the calf.  The calf is fine.  All is right with the world.

I would like to state for the record that HD called ME and not David.  Just thought I would mention that.

See Charlie in the picture?  Charlie enjoys throwing caution to the wind.  She enjoys biting cow tails and tugging on them and hanging off of them.  She is going to get kicked one day.

Speaking of Charlie-

Do you recall how I mentioned the puppy had eaten HD’s glasses?  His non-destructible glasses?  HD has not had broken glasses in EIGHT YEARS.

I digress.

David and I taped up the glasses, as good parents are wont to do, but HD was adamant that he would not be going to school with them.

HD:  Mom.  I will for sure get bullied.

And he had a point.

So, I took him to our favorite eye glass clinic first thing Monday morning.

We see Bob.

Bob has been a part of my life since Kate as in glasses at age two. Bob has worked tirelessly to help HD have working glasses.  We owe this man all the thanks in the world.  He will be the reason HD is a functioning adult.

We pass all other helpful workers. We head straight for Bob.  We ain’t messing around.

Bob confirms that they are goners and delivers the bad news.  The replacement glasses are ten days out.

HD will not wear the taped ones, and I do not find it reasonable to keep him out of school for ten days.  So I had the nerve to ask Bob if he could pop the lenses out and put them in different frames while we waited.

And he totally did.

He looks very seriously at HD and tells him he may not play sports., as these frames are not ours to keep.

HD feels like this might be a deal breaker, but I inform him it is either no sports or taped glasses.

He has agreed to the terms.

After school, he got in the car and said:

“Boy.  That Bob is a miracle worker.  Not one kid noticed I had different glasses on.  Phew.”

Oh, the stress of middle school.

Thanks, Bob!

Oh-fun fact.  Bob has no idea what my name is.  He knows HD’s name, of course.  Bob always calls me, “mom.”

Bob:  Hi, Bud.  Hi, Mom.  What’s up with the glasses today?

It is awesome.

Happy Wednesday!

Love, Mom.

Around 8:30pm last night, I decided it was time for bed.  I am old now, and this is what has become of my life.

Me:  I have to go to sleep now.

David:  Go for it.

Me (turning into the insane person that I do every evening after 8pm):  David!  Will you make sure you put the dogs to bed?

David:  Yup.

And I believed him.  Like a fool.

Around 12:30am, I woke up to the new baby puppy, Charlie, sniffing my face.

Me (being rude and waking David up):  You said you would put the dogs to bed!

David (now being the insane person):  I DID.

Me:  Then why is Charlie licking my face?

David does a dramatic sigh and flings blankets all around and goes about putting ALL the dogs to bed.

And I type ALL with much drama and fanfare because WE HAVE FOUR DOGS.  And we have endured many a rough night with lots of dog poo and pee about to discover the trick to successfully putting ALL the dogs to bed to make sure that we make up to a clean house.

It involved three dog kennels in our bedroom and a baby gate across the doorway to a room that has been declared a favorite of our canine friends for pee and poo.

David comes back to bed, and of course, I now must get up to go to the bathroom.

You might exclaim, ¨Taylor!  Why did you wake David up if you were about to get up anyways?¨

Not the point, my friends.

As I am making my way to the bathroom, I see the puppy zip by.  She is quite pleased with herself and definitely not sleeping in her kennel.

Me (putting on my rude pants again):  David!

David:  WHAT?

Me:  I thought you just got up to put the dogs to bed?!

David:  I DID.

Me:  Then why is the puppy-

And at that moment my friends, our crazy puppy, Charlie, jumped up onto our bed and landed right with her hiney on David´s face.

It was awesome.

And then he pushed her off the bed and she peed on the floor.

Married life.  We are living the dream out here.

The next morning, Handsome Dude informed us that Charlie had eaten his glasses.  And he was correct.  And they are goners.

It was like a flashback to the days or yore when David used to try and weld them back together.

This time, David found some amazing flex and seal tape and we wrapped up those bad boys like a boss.  But herein lies the problem:  Handsome Dude is no longer a carefree four year old who does not care if his glasses are duct taped and crooked.  He is a 12 year old boy who is definitely not cool with wearing taped up glasses to middle school on Monday.  And if he doesn´t wear his glasses, he cannot see and his eye turns in.  And his glasses usually take about 10 days to come in when ordered.

So, stayed tuned.

***

Student:  Mrs. M!  Did you know that my dad is doing ¨Dry January?¨  That means he cannot drink any alcohol for the WHOLE month.

Two days later-

We are reading Farmer Boy and the family is going to make cider.

Me:  Does anyone know what cider is?

Dry January Student:  It is a drink. Another drink adults like is called a ¨Hot Toddy.¨

Hmmmm

***

I got sick shortly after I wrote my last blog post.  Like way bad sick.  I had a fever of 104.8 and ended up on two antibiotics.  I was so sick I could barely take care of my sub plans.  Luckily, my two amazing first grade teammates covered for me.

Holla, Kim and Sandy!

But, anyways.

Being out for multiple days in a row is never good.  These were some of the things that happened while I was out:

*One boy demanded to talk to me when I returned.  He said he could not keep quiet because what two kids had done was AGAINST THE LAW.  They had peed outside.

*One student stole some items from friends.

*One student fell and had a serious injury

*Another student stole something

*Everyone lost important winter clothing items

Update: The students did not mean to pee outside.  They had just waited too long and did not want to pee their pants.  They regret their actions.

***

Me, teaching math and feeling something weird on my head:  Friends?

Yes, I call my students Friends.  I do not know why.

Students:  Yes?

Me:  Is something weird going on with my head?

Students:  No?

Me:  Ok.  My head felt funny.

Student:  Mrs. M, you look just as beautiful as you always do.  You are always beautiful.

Me:  Oh, well, thank you, but back to math-

All Students:  You are so pretty!

Me:  We are still doing math, Friends.

Happy Saturday!

*Snow Day!*

I cannot tell a lie.  Snow days are a big perk to being a teacher.  We have gotten hit with a ton of snow the past few days.

‘

David and the boys have all the calves in pig pens currently and they are basically swimming in snow.  The other day, Little Dude neglected to close the gate to the pen after feeding them.

Rookie mistake.

So, we found three of them huddled together and riding out the storm in the wood shed.

Hadley’s new puppy, Charlie, is loving the snow.  Our dog, Abbie, has become a great “big sister” to her and takes her outside to play in the snow and check on the cows.  Charlie has a lot of energy.

And a lot of issues controlling her urges to toilet in the house.

***

You might recall a few weeks back that Handsome Dude requested I purchase him supplies for his non-existent acne issues.  He has been using them religiously.  And now, I will let you in on a convo between the two boys.

HD:  I need to show you how to take care of acne.

LD:  Nah.  I don’t care.

HD:  Mom!  Mom!  Mom!  Can you make him listen to me?  Please?  Please?  Mom!  Mom!

Me to LD:  Just go.

LD (giant preteen angst sigh)

So they head to my bathroom where I also happen to be getting ready and I got a front row seat to this AMAZING conversation.

To set the scene, you must understand that even though LD is the younger brother, he is now much bigger in both weight and stature than his older brother.

Also, for the acne tutorial, HD must take his glasses off, which always makes his weak eye wander about.

HD:  First you open the container. (Oxi-pads)

LD (surprisingly into it)  Got it.

HD:  Then you wipe it around your face like this.  Be careful!  Do not get it in your eyes!

LD:  Shoot!  It touched my hair!  What will happen?

HD:  Nothing.  It should be ok!

LD is quite relieved that his hair is not destroyed.

HD:  Now THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT.  You need to CLOSE THE LID TIGHTLY when you are done.  Or the pads will be RUINED.

HD makes LD watch him demonstrate how to properly close a container of oxi-pads.

HD is now ready to move on to the moisturizing stage of his acne regimen.

HD:  Next!  You take this lotion and you put it on your face.

LD:  Nah.  I don’t want to.

HD:  TRUST ME.  If you don’t you face will be dry and flake off.

LD:  Oh, Ok.

HD:  When I first started doing this, I had problems.  I used way too much and had white cream all over my face.  You need to watch me do this and see exactly how much you should put in your hands.

LD:  Got it.

The boys moisturize, clean up after themselves, and HD puts his glasses back on.

LD: Am I allowed to drink water now?

HD: Yes! That should be fine!

LD:  I liked that.  It was refreshing.

So that was that.

***

Speaking of LD’s current weight and stature, he is now quite similar in size to his big sister, Kate.

Kate had a basketball game on Saturday, which was day two of our snow storm.  She planned to wear socks to her car because:

1.  She cannot wear her basketball shoes outside (True story.  It is frowned upon)
2. She would prefer to not wear her Vans and get them possibly stained.
3. She would prefer to not wear her Timb’s.

It took me awhile, but I figured out her “Timb’s” were in fact, Timberland boots.  Which sounded like an excellent option to me in a snow storm.  But what do I know.

Me:  You cannot walk around in socks.

Kate:  But, Mom!

Me:  FINE!  Ask LD to carry you.

And carry her he did.  And look!  I made the boys wear pants.  They were quite furious with me and feel as if I am the most unfair mother of all the mothers.

***

I have this student.  She is precious to my heart, as they all are.  This one was acting out at the beginning of the year, but after learning about some of her personal life, I realized she was just needing some attention.

Before I had this all figured out though, she would tell my reading aide that she could not see any letters and thought she needed glasses.

I was a bit confused, because she always seemed fine and also passed the vision screener we ran.

Finally, one day I referred her to the nurse.

And the child told the nurse that she was born blind.

So, nurse had to call home, and dad confirmed that she sees just fine.

So me and Little Miss had a nice chat and she stopped seeking attention in that way.

Fast forward to last week-

I was out for a training and had a brand new reading aide.  I had asked the new aide to do a few reading tests on some of the kids, Little Miss being one of them.

When I returned to school, I read my aide’s notes:

“Could not get Little Miss to read at first.  She said the lights hurt her eyes and she needs to wear sunglasses when she reads.

I sense the need to check in on my clever Little Miss again, no?

These kids.  And I love them.

***

The other day, we fancied taking a drive to check on our river property we purchased with several family members for camping.  We were hoping to see the power was hooked up.

We are basically more like “glampers.”

No power yet, but look at how pretty it looked.

Me:  David!  We must figure out a way to be here!  In the winter!  Look how pretty!

So, hopefully he will get right on that.

Update:  his shingles situation is basically healed up.

He only took three pain pills for the entire ordeal and did not once take any time off from work.

Happy Snow Day!

David has been sick for days and days and days.  Of course, I could not get him to go to the doctor.  He had been feverish and had flu like symptoms, but then he started to have this pain on one side of his torso.  On Christmas Eve, I was forced to completely throw him under the bus and tell his parents on him.

Me:  Attention.  David is very ill and I cannot get him to go to the doctor.  Help.

And then I walked away while his kinfolk took over.  I do not think he was too pleased with me, but I am ok with that.  The dude does not take one minute off from work and he was getting worse and worse.

Finally, after about two weeks, I was able to take him to a walk in clinic.

His diagnosis?

Shingles.

Apparently SHINGLES is like bad news.  How is he still functioning?  Nobody knows.

Doctor:  I am going to prescribe you with some pain pills on top of the anti-viral medication.

David (barely able to sit normally in a chair.  Due to pain.):  No.  I am fine.  I do not need pain pills.

Me (ROLLING MY EYES for all the world to see and being the supportive wife that I so obviously am):  Maybe we should just take the pills home in case you do need them.

Over the course of the exam the doctor went from 7 pain pills to 14 based on how uncomfortable he looked, and then also approved a refill if he needed one.

David is acting like they are worth more than fine rubies and prides himself on the fact that he has hardly taken any, even though he admits he feels so much better after he takes one.

Me:  But why?  She said you can have a refill!

David:  But what if it runs out and then I have to GO BACK TO THE DOCTOR.

Me:  Don’t you think that if you are still in this much pain after a few weeks you should probably follow up?

Bleeding hearts of the world.

Oh.  And his medication cost a total of $4.72.  Which is far less than the amount of money we was spending at The Walmarts on Tylenol cold and flu.

Apparently his shingles was highly contagious.  And since I am the one who discovered the rash, and touched the rash, and went in the hot tub with rash boy, I am probably the most likely to also get shingles.

Me:  If you give this to me, be prepared to take care of me.  I will not be a hero.  I will be babied and I will take pain pills and you will feel badly for me.

Also.  I got my wisdom teeth removed during this.  And ouch!

The morning leading up to the surgery, I was panicked that I was going to say embarrassing things as a result of the anesthesia.  The minute I came to, I asked the nurse gal if I said anything embarrassing.  She told me no, but that I snored the entire time.

So, David and I have been quite the pair these days.  Which left the children in charge of some of the basic household duties.  And I have no idea how, but every single dish they run through the dishwasher comes out dirtier than before.

Me:  David, why is every dish grimey?

David:  The kids.

Me:  Ohhhh.  I see.

These are trying times, my friends.

The boys fight about everything and they have the most ridiculous fights.

Boy One:  You’re so dumb.

Boy Two:  Well, at least I am not ugly.

Boy One:  Well, you are being rude to God because he made me and I am not ugly.

Boy Two:  Nuh-uh

Boy One:  Uh-huh.

Boy Two:  Bet!

Boy One:  Bet!

Boy Two:  Bet!

Boy One:  Bet!

Does anyone else have kids who shout “bet”?  Like all the time?  I have actually banned the word “bet” from their vocabulary.  I mean, they did not listen, but I tried.  And can we not all agree that their fights are extremely mature in nature?

Oh!  And we surprised Hadley, the child formerly known as Daisy Mae, with her own puppy for Christmas!

Because why not have four dogs?  Seems normal.

Kate, the child formerly known as Sweet Pea, turned SEVENTEEN today.

I cannot load pictures today.  Perhaps some other time.

Later, Dudes.