The week started off with a bang when I found a dead mouse under my desk at work. I'm not sure how it died or when, but I know I discovered its corpse around midday. While I removed the body myself, it did wig me out enough to make me eat my lunches in my car. No need to make its living friends think something yummy might be in the office. The day after the mouse met its untimely demise, there was a dead baby bird just outside the office door. Good thing I don't believe in signs.

If you are in my circle of real life friends and have noticed varying levels of radio silence on my end, I have been trying to spend more relaxed time with the children. I don't want to have a phone hanging off one ear, typing on the computer, and only giving them my irritated look.

Aurelia has a foreign friend at her preschool. I was asking her about him while she was in the bathtub last night and she said they play puzzles and "stuff". I asked her what he says to her, because he speaks a different language, and she said "Stupid." Knowing that is her current favorite word, I asked what happened when he said that. She replied, "Then dey smack 'im." Um, I kinda doubt it. She finally admitted she was teasing, but I don't think Miss Polly would be pleased at her slanderous nonsense!

Happy Fourth of July

Things that make me happy:

1. Aurelia says "lasterday" for yesterday.
2. Daniel still hugs and kisses me.
3. Cory is a manbeast, but he is respectful and kind.
4. I don't have to empty the garbage or sweep the parking lot anymore. Thanks Dad!
5. Daniel can sing "You Lie and Yo Breath Stank" without any coaching when Ted walks up.
6. Our babysitter performs tasks of yucky natures without mention or complaint. (Thanks Kathleen).
7. Wendy's has blueberry muffins.
8. My husband scrubbed my kitchen floor on his hands and knees. I got the very best one, didn't I?
9. My bedroom is clean and the dreaded ceiling fan has been banished to the hellfires.
10. Cookies were on sale. And I luv cookies!

My heart breaks when I think of the wicked badness of some people

I go along my daily life with people coming into constant contact with my children. My own belief is that most people are mostly good, all people are a little bad, and some people are all bad. But stories like this make my stomach cramp and I just want to lock myself in my house with my children forever.

Muffins!!

A long, long time ago in a land far away Hardee's used to serve these humongous, delicious blueberry muffins that were filled with real blueberries and were the shiznit. But they somehow discovered that I liked them and immediately deleted them from the menu. So I have eaten the Jiffy mix muffins with their sad little pellets of blueberry flavored sugar for over a decade. SIGH....



BUT, now some Wendy's are serving breakfast and by golly there on the menu they have BLUEBERRY MUFFINS. They aren't as large as the old Hardee's ones, but they are still chock full of real blueberries and they taste good. No more butter biscuits with jelly, no more crappy sausage biscuits... it's me and the blueberry muffins from here on out. And if they take it off the menu, well something very bad is going to happen. YUP.

Camp Musings

According to Cory/Adam, the speaker that normally addresses sex education at the 4h camp he was at this past week was not available. The replacement seemed (from Cory's interpretation) to advocate voracious sex having and noted that engaging in the activity for twenty minutes, three times a week would be the equivalent of running 7,000 miles per year. Now, understand, we are realists, not prudes, but I did have to reiterate our parental position (try not to before you are married) and the backup position (if you are gonna, then be respectful of yourself and your partner, and be safe). Lordy, help me.
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Given the speech that he is now on the brink of manhood and this being his senior year, that all that will come with extra freedoms AND responsibilities, I gave Cory the chore of deciding what activities he had heretofore been denied that he would like to have considered for the coming year. This is his list:

1. Hang out with my friends who can drive.... (since he will be eligible for his license at the beginning of the school year, we compromised that he will drive his car and be the responsible driver)
2. That he be allowed to stay up past 9pm.... (hmm, perhaps I should have revised that a little earlier, he is almost 17).
3. That I not force him to cut his hair. (I will have to think about that, he is kind of lacking in the hair washing arena... but maybe I can be persuaded.)

Since none of these requests involved anything illegal, I should take this opportunity to feel fortunate. OK, enough of that.
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Conversation in the bunkhouse around time for lights out, as relayed by Cory:

"What if a field of marijuana caught fire and the smoke rolled into the forests where the deer live and they got high from the smoke and then a hunter shot them and ate the meat? What would it tasted like?"

Hippo News

Daniel and Cory both have one camp under their belt, are currently in another, and Cory has one more in July. Aurelia has summer fun and their new babysitter started this week. Daniel thinks she's purdy. He has also sworn that he "isn't interested" in the Baby Shark song from camp this year (sorry, dude, but Jenny says otherwise.)

We have squirrels in our attic (not our mental attics, thank you) and Ted is humanely trapping them and setting them free before repairing the entrance they found. He has convinced Aurelia that the cage is a "chicken cage, for baby chickens of course." It's insanely hilarious to listen to her explain it.

The Princess Supremo also has her version of the lullaby she wants me to sing to her each night.

"Hush little baby, don't say a word, mama's gonna buy you a muffin-bird/punkin-bird, monkeyin-burd"

Over the weekend my dad had a birthday and celebrated Father's Day. My gift to him? A gallon of nutty coconut ice cream from Baskin Robbins. 'Cause that's how I roll!!

Hope everyone is having a great summer!! I know it's summer because the "baby crack" that is the pop-ice popsicles are flying off the shelves of my freezer.

Keeping me humble

Recently I have encountered some life changes. Branching out into the work force and employing a nanny have been strange and oddly freeing. I enjoy the solitude of being the sole employee in a small office and perhaps it could make me a little dizzy with power. EXCEPT... that this job carries the responsibility of a small amount of grounds maintenance. I knocked myself silly with a half full/half empty bag of garbage the first week I was here, but this morning was the real eye opener. It was clear that all six garbage cans along the shopping complex needed to be emptied and I set about the task. All six were crawling with maggots and I daresay that I have not regurgitated so much in my life. I sincerely doubt that all three of my pregnancies involved that kind of racking misery. I don't have an exceptionally weak stomach, but I wasn't prepared. It just never occurred to me. So if you are sitting at home, thinking to yourself, that Heather sure is getting above her station in life, I wholeheartedly must disagree. :0)

Danger Danger Everywhere

Today my parents came to town. There was a car show in the park so Ted, Aurelia, and I walked down with them. Along the way, I happened to be looking down as I was walking and made a horrifying discovery. There was a needle laying by the sidewalk. I am not sure what it's original purpose was, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it didn't end up on the street for anything legal. I had Ted pick it up (for fear that a child would step on it or pick it up). The sharp fell off immediately and he placed the cylinder part in the alley garbage.

These are the reasons I am nervous when the children want to play in the park. You just never know what went on there before you came along.

Here's prayin'.....

My bizarro son is at overnight camp this week. He'll only be seen by us for a single day before he goes to another next week. The pictures below are the sunburn he received after a day at my mom's pool last week. He had applied SPF 50 before going in, but we were outside for far too long and he was almost exclusively in the pool. I know that despite my frequent orders that he apply his Bug and Sun and that he MUST wear a shirt in the pool, he will return home a crisp bacon bit. Let us all pray that he doesn't develop sun poisoning, heat stroke, or skin cancer.

Bless his little heart.

Long overdue visit from Mom and Dad Porterfield

My tiny sweet potatoes

I Love My Lips Silly Song

I couldn't find Endangered Love featuring Barbara Manatee, so enjoy my other favorite. :0)

Calling all cars....

Fellow bloggers,

I need your help. If you know me outside of this blog, then I am talking to you. I have been offered an opportunity to work outside of the home. The only thing blocking my acceptance of that offer is the lack of child care. Aurelia is signed up for both sessions of the preschool summer fun and Cory will be home, but I don't want my teenager caring for his siblings. It's a recipe for disaster. So what I am shopping for is someone who may know someone who may be willing to work for me this summer. I am not asking my fellow mothers for this. That is nonsense. Ideally, I would like to hire a college student or VERY reliable and mature high school student who would be willing to keep my kids alive while I am not here. I love them alot and sort of care that they are intact when I get them back. So consider the feelers out there. Thank you, good people.

Buffoon central

The last several days I have been filling in at a mini storage facility as the office manager. Some of the tasks that I have performed have made me wonder if I might wind up falling to my untimely demise with no one around to help me (i.e. climbing a ladder, unsavory mini storage persons carting off my carcass). But it didn't occur to me that taking out the garbage might do me in. There are several public trash cans that need to be emptied and the contents placed in the rear dumpster. And I wish I could say it was a gigantic bag that did it, but I was placing a smallish (15-20 gallon) white bag of trash that was about half full into the dumpster. I held the lid up with one arm (the dumpster is about my height) and swung the bag up with the other hand. I'll be doggone if that bag didn't fall straight down on my head and about brought me to my knees. I think there was a bottle of some sort in there. So if you see me and wonder why I have a gigantic goose egg, you'll know. :0)

Award

TEAM for WV Children recognized Gayle Manchin yesterday evening. Not only is TEAM for WV Children the reason I can volunteer with CASA, but there is even a quote from fellow blogger and advocate for child abuse prevention, Wabi Sabi.

Hippo Health Care

Today was the day of the long awaited (over eight months) visit with the rheumatologist. I arrived several minutes early for my afternoon appointment and was taken back to a room approximately an hour after my designated time. In the room, I waited for another thirty minutes while I perused an outdated women's magazine and read the charts on the walls. Outside the door, I could hear the staff playing with a remote fart machine. I was impressed.

When the doctor came in, we went down the same path most other doctors in his field have taken me down. It seems that I have several characteristics that make doctors wonder if I could have Marfan's Syndrome. But I don't have hyperflexible joints, a caved in chest, or the super wide wing span. I just have long fingers and I'm tall. So he measured me to be sure. Still, I'm just tall.

The overall thought at the end of the visit was this:

1) Secondary osteoarthritis as a result of joint damage from the childhood arthritis
2) X-rays and bloodwork to determine a baseline
3) calcium supplements (500mg 3x a day)
4) Motrin based prescriptions to start (there are 12 to try) for the pain
5) determing whether I have JIA, apparently something that occurs in 1 out of 900, 000 people, rather than Marfan's. The upside to determing that is that it is treatable and detectable from bloodwork.

So that is how today went. I go back in six weeks to review all the labwork. And like I told the doctor today, I am by no means the worst case he will see any time soon. I can remember the pain I had as a child when the arthritis would flare up and cause my skin to be hot and my joints to ache so badly I couldn't sit. This pain is annoying, it disrupts my sleep, it makes tasks harder, but it isn't debilitating. There is no whining in this house. At least not out loud. :0)

Hippo Happenin's

Today was the last day of preschool. And believe you me, I am counting the days until summer fun begins. Not the fun of summer, but the program at the preschool that is duly named Summer Fun. In that week, my oldest will be away at 4-h camp, the youngest boy will be at cub scout day camp, and the wee little girl child will be at summer fun. Oh happy day!

Because lately, I have found myself lacking in the patience department. While I don't hold a conventional job, I do juggle several things that include the kids, volunteer work that I find supremely rewarding, and finding time to aggravate my husband. A normal day will find me with a cell phone in one hand, the home phone in the other, typing on the computer keyboard with my toes, and giving visual commands with my eyes to any child unfortunate enough to pass through the breakfast nook.

This Friday, I get to attend my daughter's first music program and I am stoked! She has been singing her parts around the house and occasionally I will be included. For instance, sometimes I must be the naughty, mittenless kittens so that she can say "You naughty kittens, you lost your mittens, now you cain't have no PIIIE!" Fun stuff.

Later that morning I finally get to see the rheumatologist that I have had an appointment with for at least eight months. I have done research, written notes to myself on things to bring up, and basically tried to prepare for my brief visit. But as I told neighbor Jenny (sorry, too tired to link, she's over there --->) I am prepared to be told that I must suck it up and deal. Which really isn't all that bad. I mean, I'm not broken down, mostly. I will hold out a teeny bit of hope that he will tell me something that will be helpful though. Like how to reach my own feet when no one else is home to help. That would be great!

Prom Night '08

Leon Redbone

This is the speed of my internet connection right now. It is also the speed I would like to be operating at as summer approaches and lazy evenings on the porch with the kids beckon. I'll be back, I swear!

Happy Mother's Day

From my boys (please not that Daniel says I am good at watching TV and getting mad, while Cory says he appreciates all I do for him "even though we fight most of the time." Ahh, the cockels of my heart are all warm and fuzzy! At least Aurelia gave me a plastic cup full of silk flowers. :0)