Wednesdays are for rambling.

It's cool and grey and yugly (yes, that's a real word) outside today. So, what to do?

For sure Kaia Stinkypantswhineyfacewaterhead Baby's coming over. But then...

Do I make cookies? Ok. Oatmeal for GrumpycrazyUncle? Pudding Choc.Chip for moi? Both?!

Should I go through my Christmas gift box and delegate what goes to who?

Should I clean my nasty bathroom?

Should I sew up some torn uniforms for Grumpy?

Sew up those sleep pants for Kaia's mommy I've been meaning to do since last MAY?

Should I just play on the computer all day? Ebay? Blogs? Here's my fav.

http://talefromthecoopkeeper.blogspot.com/

Maybe I could paint the wall in daughterunit's room to surprise her?

Should  put together my holiday recipe book as seen on 

http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/blog/?p=2317

Or should I finish that book I'm loving? The Long Walk Home. By Will North.

lhttp://www.goodreads.com/book/show/516026.The_Long_Walk_Home_A_Novel

Or should I finish poor Hank's much needed hair cut?

 

Or should I put out the word about darling niece, Faith's, Christmas Extraveganza?

http://www.towletheater.tix.com/Event.asp?Event=212467


                 I love love love being the Queen of the Known Universe.
                           I get to pick the Royal Agenda.

                                               

Krazy Kitten

• Presenting....Kitty!
• This is one strange "duck"

He likes baskets and washing machines.

• and dogs

and looking reeeeally scarey

Who invented Headaches?

I think that's a pretty valid question. Did God figure we needed a little one-two punch to slow us down so we'd appreciate our lives? Did he pick up Eve, give her a good solid shake, thus rattling her noodle when she ate that fruit? Then Eve, being the lovely sharing girl that she was, passed that noodle-rattle on to all us girls? She messed things up for us, ladies. Before she made that fateful faux pas we didn't have to bother with bra's that feel like giant rubber bands, no laundry, no ironing, no cooking, no housecleaning (gardens in paradise are notoriously self cleaning) and our Adam's weren't always mad at us for talking them into being stupid too. I think God musta given Adam a faulty backbone. Come to think of it, only way I can talk MY Adam into doing anything is to bribe him with biscuits. Hmmm.  I digress (enrich your wordpower).

I've had stinkin' Migrain's for 10+ years. Some are just nagging.  "Hello. I've come to worry you into thinking I'm gonna get out of hand. Does this bug you? Does this bug you? Does this bug you?". Others are Show Stoppers. "I'm gonna slap you silly and make you wish you were born a worm (no heads). Don't even THINK of enjoying anything ." Then there's the fateful Stompers. "You, my dear witless victim, are going to sleep for days. Fall off toilets. Throw up and smack your head on the toilet rim (bwaahaha, double whammy!) Live in a dark cave with sunglasses on and disappear from life for days on end."

This week I've been visited by the Show Stopper variety. Daytime is pretty slow. Gotta keep my movements to the turtle speed. But nights have been cooking up closer to the Stomper show. Sunglasses in the dark. TV on low. Ice packs. And my second best friend-Phenargen. I reserve the first best friend spot for, insert heavenly music here,  Percocet.

Even feeling crummy I'm thankful. I'm thankful it's not worse. I've had some doozies. But I'm also thankful for those doozies.! 5 years ago this month I was in the hospital cause one was being so hateful to me. The powers that be did an MRI to be sure I didn't have a bleed. No bleed but it showed a small anyrism. (spell check doesn't work here). Went to some specialist high mucky muck doc in Indy and voila! it had gotten bigger. Bigger ain't better in all circles. So a couple weeks later he warmed up his chainsaw and stapled that sucker. Done! Whew.

Thus the best headache story ever....After surgery I'm still fairly wobbly, using a walker and I had a Stomper. I toddled off the the bathroom to kneel before the porcelain alter. I'm in there yacking up from deep down in the toe area and whacked my "dent" on the edge of the alter, hard enough to throw me backwards into the wall, thumped the BACK of my head against the wall, thumped my behind to the floor and promptly wet myself. All I could think was Moe, Larry and Curly got nothin' on me. I'm laughing so hard my poor, worried Mom comes flyin in. She finds me, Frankenstein face, sitting on the floor, in a puddle, the walker on top of me (knocked it over in the melee) laughing like the village idiot. Oh, sweet dignity, forever lost.

Like Ian says, "Everything's fun!".

Sample of life w/Ian

We had a lovely, but too short, visit w/Ian Erich last night. Thought you'd like to see how he likes to dress on his day off. All he did was get out of his car and I started giggling. GrumpyUnk did the same.

And this is what he did to Hank. Doesn't he look embarrassed???

Note the diabolical eyeball behind him...

Ian Erich

These handsome men are our little boys. Ian Erich is the blonde and Clinton Joel is the handsome older

on the right (he'd lost his hair in a bet).

Ian and Joel share an apartment in Indy w/their sister, Rachel Brie. Poor Brie, she's the neat one and suffers now from nasty-brothers-who-can't-throw-garbage-out-or pick-up-or-wash-dishes syndrome.

Ian is coming home for a visit sometime today! I realize he's only an hour away but he leads a full and busy life so we don't see him as often as would be MOMoptimal. I have to book him far in advance. You see, he's one of the funniest men I've ever known. He just opens his mouth and great lines spill out. He's not working at it, or thinking ahead to try to crack me up. It just happens. He doesn't even really care if I laugh or not, HE knows it's funny.

 This is Ian's Rabbit Helmut(size 4T sweatapnts) His 4 y/o cousin gave it to him. He wore it w/pride.

When he was about 7 I gave him a can of Comet and sent him to scrub the bathtub. About an hour later I realized I hadn't seen him since. I went in to the bathroom. He had emptied half the can into the tub, was on all fours in there with rags in his hands and on his knees swishing from front of tub to back, grinning like a monkey. "Are you having fun?", I asked? "EVERYTHING'S fun", he sweetly replied. Duhhh.

This is the same kid who at age 2 was sitting on the front porch with his Dad and Dad's Army buddy. The water sprinkler was going. Dad would throw a can onto the lawn under the water spray and when the shower was pointed the opposite direction he'd say, "Ian, go get that for me". Off the boy would run to help his Pop. Of course, by the time he'd get to it the sprinkler had oscillated back to where the can and now Ian were. Face full of cold water-freak out-grab the can and run to Dad. The "grown ups" would laugh hillariously and repeat. I came out on the porch to check things out and put the Kabosh on the plan (after I watched a couple of times). GrumpyUnk then asked me "Why is it we thought 2 kids was enough??"

It wasn't.

All the babies I've loved....

Alyssa and I were sitting at the computer, reading all the blogs this morning and having our girl-chat. Alyssa is 4 months old but holds a good solid intellectual conversation. She does her best analytical thinking after a change of undies and a slurp of formula or pureed mystery fruit. She's quite advanced for her age. We took a break from reading to have just a little more slurp. I was telling her how much I enjoyed her company and her smile and her LOUD conversations (had to turn up the radio yesterday as she was drowning out CCR). Then I got to thinking about all the babies God's put in my life over the years. There's been lots. Not only my 3 biological blessings. Cute, ain't?

When GrumpyCrazyUnk and I were starting out, a long long time ago in a world far far away, he was a carpenter. And in that universe, circa 1983, nobody had money to build or remodel or build add-on, thus the work was slim pickens and in turn, so was the money. I started adding children to the mix to be able to eat. My first additions were a pair of brothers, Adam and Mark aged 2 and 6 months. They were alot of work as I also had my oldest two biological babies aged 2 and 3 to chase. "Chase" being the operative word. I then added my darling bestest friend's 2 girls, Amy and Corey, aged 2 and 2 months. Now we're talkin CHASE.That makes 6 kids under the age of 4. I've never slept so good as I did at the end of those days. But we ate! Amy and Corey are beeeuuutiful women now living in NYC and Chicago and setting the world on fire.

After Army life came and went Unk went on to nursing school. Again, no moola and now 3 offspring. I needed me some babies. There came, duhn duhn duhnnnnn, MEGAN. Afraid of everyone and everything. Cried at everyone and everything. Dared not look at her, speak to her or heaven forbid! touch her! oyy.
In there somewhere was Kyle a 2 y/o crrraaazy boy. I found him on top of the fridge one day if that tells you anything. Only time I've ever told the mom that I just can't watch him anymore.

That's about when we got our Sam arama Ding dong. This darling little 1 y/o with black, black curly hair, big blue eyes, with his beloved blanket in tow. He stayed ours for 3 years, even though I fed him pepper on his doughnuts and kept him in a closet "for no apparent reason", so he told his Daddy. When we moved to beautiful south central Indiana he went on to stay at my sister's house and is still our family.

Then came Alicia. Our darling friend's 2 y/o daughter. Mommy worked at the hospital w/Unk and needed me. Needed me, that's all I needed to hear. She joined our family and blended like nobody's buisness. Unk taught her good wholesome words like moron and numbskull. She's all grown up and taller than me and durn it, lives in far away Canada.

Our neighbor had a beautiful little 4 y/o redhead ,Ralphie (our name), Rachel (real) who needed someone to play with her before and after school. How fun was she?!! She'd lip sync and gyrate around on the back porch to Spice Girls tapes and just couldn't figure out what we were laughing at. She's a senior now. sigh...

We moved to the country. The biobabies grew up and moved out. I needed me some babies. Daughterunit's best friend was kind enough to have one for me. Aren't friend's the best? Our darling dearest sweetie pie, insert ahhh-music here, Kaia. Sadly her Unk named her Poopypantswhineyfacewaterhead girl. Don't ask.

Kaia joined our life when she was just 8 weeks old. Unk bought me the Happy Chair so I could rock her properly. And nothings been the same...for Hank either. From day one they've been best of pals. He'd gently take her socks off, share his food, his crate, toys and has spent countless smiling hours chasing her and vice

versa.
Mama isn't working right now which is good news for Kaia and Mommy. Baaad news for Unk and the Queen. She comes to play as often as possible now. I talk to her on the phone, she knows speed dial. I can see years and years of Kaia blogs ahead.

When Kaia had to go home we got Beanie Boy aka Corban. I dunno why they all have regular names. Mom and Dad should just wait to fill out the birth certificate till Unk or I dub them w/something much more fun. Poor lil Beaniboy was a preemie. He had some tummy issues and spent most of his days hurting and crying. Never held it against him. He'd smile when he felt good. Mommy got to quit her job she hated anyway and now they are sooo happy together.

Baby George moved in for a short while this summer. Mommy and Dad thought we lived too far to treck. Even though we buy only the best baby equipment for them to play in. hmmm?..

Now we have our sweet lil Tator. Her family calls her Alyssa but, what can ya do? She is one of the easiest and happiest babies since my own 3 happy campers. Just a pleasure. She's rarely unhappy and when she is it's a blowout fit. Gonna do, do it right!  She loves her some Unk and he feels the same way. She's darling, darling.

 Our lives have been enriched beyond measure by these little souls. The money was a bonus, not the goal. I can't wait to see if God has more for me!

Moments of Grace

When a day starts off looking like this!

When a baby laughs AT you.

When your kids like each other.

When your little sister is still your bestest friend.
When even making bacon is an adventure.

 When hangin w/the boys is the best thing ever!

When you get a new "do".

 

When babies and dog's collide. 

When the nephew gets a new "do".

When they make you laugh more than anybody you've ever met.

ditto

When you remember, again, that he's the best.

Ain't???