Ewwwwwww!!!

OMG! OMG! OMG! I was sitting in the backyard yesterday watching the kids play when Dylan and one of the other boys disappeared on the side of the house. I didn't really think much of it because there is nothing over there except the gate, which was locked. Pretty soon, I hear them come back around the corner saying, "Awwww, Miss Sara (Mommy), look, isn't it cute?!?! It's sleeping!!!" and in the little boy's arms was a dead RAT!!!

OK, I thought, (after I nearly jumped on top of the patio table) stay calm, you're the adult!!! Ewwwwww!!! So, what did I do??? I said, "Oh My God! No, No! Put that down! It's not sleeping! EWWWWWW!!!" So, the little boy dropped it with a thud and looked at me with this scared look like he was going to cry. Crap! So, I quickly dragged them inside, scrubbed all of their hands, arms and faces (just in case) furiously all the while saying, "My goodness, that was interesting wasn't it?!?! Miss Sara will have to take him to see a doctor so he can get well!" and of course I'm thinking, "Yeah, the doctor in the garbage can." Gross!

So anyway, here's the picture I took after I managed to scoop up the little rodent carcass from my patio into a disposable tupperware container.





I'm not sure where this guys family is, but hopefully this is the last we will be seeing of any of them!

It also crossed my mind several times yesterday if there was a full moon or something. The rat made his appearance in the morning, then after nap time, I had some more fun with the kids. The infant was having a tough afternoon and just wanted to be held. The 20 month old has figured out that if she screams, she gets lots of attention from everyone. So, all day, I listened to this high pitched squeal every time she wanted something, didn't want something, or simply wanted people to pay attention to her. The 2 1/2 year old woke up from her nap and went potty, like a good girl. Then not 10 minutes later, pooped in her underwear! Geez, could you not do that a few minutes ago?!?! So, I get her all cleaned up, underwear washed out and all...by this time the baby is wailing because I have not been holding her for the last 10 minutes and she is dang sick of looking at the same toy dangling above her.

Just as I return poopy girl to play with the other kids, I look over at Dylan and he said, "Oh no Mommy" and proceeded to pee all over the tile at the front door! (At least he realized he needed to go before he went...do ya think you could give me more than half a second warning?!?!) So, I walk right by the wailing baby (who is soooo not happy at this point) and proceed to get a roll of paper towels from the kitchen to sop up the mess. I returned to Dylan only to find him "skating" through his puddle with his bare feet shouting "WEEEEE!!!"

So I get the puddle (and skate marks) cleaned up and take DJ to the bathroom to clean him up. Shew...now I can finally get to the baby. Or so I thought. For whatever reason, Dylan got mad at the 2 1/2 year old on his way out of the bathroom and slugged her (again). So off we went to his room for the 44th time-out that day (it seemed). OK, now I can get to the baby, whose face is beat red with snot running out of her nose. So I pick her up, wipe the gooey mess from her face and turn around to see Dylan standing there grabbing his you-know-what saying, "Uh Oh Mommy". OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!

OK, I can handle this...so I set the baby back down where she proceeded to make another gooey mess of her face. Dylan and I tromp back to the bathroom to deal with the poopy mess in his underwear. Just then, a parent walks in to see the baby screaming on her blanket (still lying below the infamous toy) so she goes over to pick her up. I have never heard a baby scream as loud and long as that baby did right then! Woo Wee, that kid has some lungs, and apparently hates strangers even more than the stupid toy dangling above her! So, I get DJ taken care of, re-integrated into the group, and take the baby and calm her down just as her mom walks in. "Why does she look like she's been crying?" Weeellllll, let me see.........

And so ends another day of daycare.

Lightning...Are you KIDDING ME?!?!

Have you ever met someone who was struck by lightning? Yeah, me neither...until now at least. Last night we had a thunderstorm (that really didn't seem that bad) but there was lots of lightning. Sure enough, around 10:30, we heard a really loud Crack! Crack! I had the windows open and it just about scared the pea right out of me! The first thing I did, was check to see if the kids were going to start screaming (they didn't even budge)! We are still not sure where it actually hit, but we're pretty sure that it didn't hit directly on our house as there is no outside damage. HOWEVER, we lost half the power in our house because the power surge blew some circuits. When we fixed the breakers, we realized that some of the GFCI outlets needed to be reset...OK, fine, that's easy enough. Well, then we realized that the security system was acting funny--when we went out in the garage to check it, the transformer was smoking at the outlet! Took care of that, went to check the actual motherboard and it smelled like someone had set fire to an outlet. Then as we checked further, we realized that the garage door opener was fried, our stereo receiver will not turn on, the outlet in the utility room did not work, one of the DVD players will not turn on, one of the phones would not work and the others had a terrible static on them, one of our lamps in the bedroom will not turn on, and best of all, our HVAC (heat/air conditioner) system is fried as well. CAN YOU EVEN BELIEVE THIS?!?!

Brad and I just kind of have to laugh...I mean, what else are we supposed to do? Getting mad won't help. So we thought that there may be some light at the end of the tunnel because our house is less than a year old and should be covered by warranty...unless you get struck by lightning! It should fall under our home owners insurance, but of course there is always the lovely deductible! Arrrrggggghh!!!

So, I just have to chuckle at this whole situation. Here we are, trying to save money for our upcoming changes that have us scared enough as it is, and now this! I guess you shouldn't plan on standing too close to us since we have officially been struck down! You know what they say though, lightning never strikes twice! Gee, I hope that's really true!