Disturbing announcements made by my children

Timothy came to me in a state of great excitement today to say that he now knows that "peanut butter does NOT have the pee in it like when you go to the bathroom, it's a different kind of pea". I am now left to ponder the disturbing thought that he's believed that it does contain pee like when you go to the bathroom all this time, and yet he still ate it.

Another list of things I never thought I'd have to say before I had kids...

1. No, I'm NOT going on The Biggest Loser because I am NOT obese, I'm pregnant!

2. You're right that it was never a rule before, but from here on out, please consider "do not put the cat in a crate and push him down the slide" to be one of our house rules!

3. Do I even want to know why this week's laundry contained 13 pairs of your socks, but only 4 pairs of your underpants?

4. It takes months and months, and the right conditions, to make wine! You are NOT making wine in my kitchen! Now be quiet and eat your grapes!!

5. No one is allowed to wear the toilet plunger as a hat. I don't care if your brother did it last week.

6. Are you sitting on my orange? (In the kids' defense, this was directed at the cat, and yes she was. I washed it and ate it anyway. I was hungry.)

It is a disturbing fact that numbers 2-6 were all uttered by me today.

A post about poop...

Just thought I'd share this disturbing story from yesterday. Timothy came out around bedtime holding a large sponge and looking sheepish. He announced to his father that he was done cleaning his shelf and could he please have dessert now. I looked up from my knitting and asked the seemingly innocent question, "What was wrong with your shelf?"

Timothy grinned rather wickedly and stated, "It was covered in poop! Daddy said I had to clean it up before I could have dessert."

My mouth dropped open and I turned to Chris. "You had him cleaning up poop? He's not old enough to do that by himself? What was it, cat poop?"

Chris said, "Nope, not cat poop."

This gave me pause. I finally worked up the nerve to ask, "Was it human poop?" I wasn't sure I wanted the answer to that one, really.

"Not exactly," was Chris' reply.

It took me a while to get the full story, but the long and short of it is that Chris had gone into the boys' room for something and discovered that Timothy had written the word "poop" no less than 20 times all over his white bookshelves in various shades of crayon. As Timothy later explained, "There was red poop and blue poop and orange poop...all the colors of poop."

It would be better if Timothy never knows how hard we laughed when he was safely in bed.

A difficult age...

Mother confession of the day: five is not my favorite age. Timothy suddenly knows everything. It's all black and white, and surprise! He's always right. His favorite way to pass time is to ask questions to which he already knows the answers. This past week, we were over at Mom's house so I could do some sewing. He was coming into the sewing room about every 30 seconds or so to require that I choose the next color for his craft project. Finally, in complete exasperation at being asked for the 4,000th time what color of paper should come next I responded, "I would like the color of paper that means you won't come back into the sewing room for a long time."

He looked at me coldly and then said in his iciest tones, "Well, that would be pink!" before stomping off.

Spring...ish

Spring has come to Oklahoma! Or...we thought it had. These pictures were taken the day before yesterday. Blue skies, happy birds, flowers blooming...well, we'll ignore for the moment what happened yesterday (snow!) and just enjoy these, shall we?

Here's a pair of finches on one of my feeders. It's hard to tell from the back-lit pictures, but they're purple finches. I've got lots of purple and red ones this year. It's really funny to see the males fighting over the feeders!

It's hard to get a good picture through the front window, but I tried.

My daffodils are in full bloom.

I just love these cheerful little flowers!

Point of interest: a female downy woodpecker has been visiting our feeder. Some woodpeckers do eat berries and such...but more perplexing still is the mockingbird! I haven't managed to photograph the mocker, but it's pretty funny to watch because he's HUGE. Much too big for the feeders!

Now, please stay tuned for today's pictures of Timothy building a snowman. ::sigh::

I have great friends...

I also have a lot of cats. Please excuse the fact that the cats insisted on being part of my pictures!

Yesterday I got a mysterious box in the mail. It was a familiar address...I've ordered spindles from Jesh in the past and if you're in need of a spindle, she's who I'd recommend! But in this case, I hadn't ordered a spindle. I explained this to Chris as I opened the package. I explained it repeatedly. For some reason, he didn't seem to believe me...

When I opened the box, a marvelous sight met my eyes. The mysterious package contained a blanket. Not just any blanket, either. A blanket made by my friends from Ravelry, friends from all around the world, many of whom I've never had the pleasure of meeting! Here it is, the Love Blanket:

The pictures don't do it justice. Each and every block is amazing and unique and beautifully knitted or crocheted by people who care about me. As you can see, Boris approves.

Miss Mouse also approves. So do Moses and Jack. I'm having to fight for the use of my new blanket, but the upside of this is that every time I sit down, I immediately have a kitty or three on my lap!

Now, for the mushy part...to all of you who had a part in making me this lovely gift, THANK YOU!!! I can't even begin to put into words how much it warms my heart to have so many good friends scattered throughout the world. I will treasure this gift, and the thought behind it.

(Timothy, not unlike the cats, has to make his way into as many pictures as possible.)

Introducing...

The Dread Bump Wesley! Yes, as most of you probably already know, we're having another boy. And yes, his first name is Wesley, my paternal grandmother's maiden name. Middle name is yet undecided, but the Princess Bride jokes already abound. These ultrasound pictures are from today, at 21 weeks and 2 days. He's around 14 oz and looks healthy. He also looks an awful lot like Timothy, but maybe that's just me. Chris is pretty sure you can't see family resemblance in ultrasound pictures.

I've hesitated to post, but I'm going to go ahead and address the elephant in the room. Yes, because he's a boy, he has a 50% chance of having the same genetic disorder that affects Timothy's vision. We had a few hard days after we found out we're having another boy (we've known for about three weeks now) but I'm choosing not to worry about what I can't control. I hope that doesn't sound flippant. To put it in perspective, sometimes I have to choose this 8 or 10 times an hour. The good news is that the baseline vision for boys with ocular albinism tends to run in families. We have one high-functioning boy with the disorder. If Wesley has it, he'll probably have about the same amount of vision that Timothy has. For those of you who know Timothy, you'll realize this is great news. For those who haven't met him...well, let's just say that you probably wouldn't know he has a vision issue if we hadn't told you. And we also have another son with perfectly normal vision. That could happen, too. For today, I'm choosing to be happy about how much fun I had watching our healthy 3rd son wiggle around and give the ultrasound tech fits as she tried to get a clear picture of him. I'm choosing to giggle over Timothy telling her that it's a brother and that he gets to boss the baby around because he's the BIG brother. I'm choosing to stick to my firm belief that he looks like Timothy.

I'm also choosing to be absolutely in love with these little feet. Aren't baby feet the very best? I've already completed a pair of booties and a pair of tiny socks for this pair, and now I'm off to dig for yarn to start another pair. Every baby needs a pair of hand-knit socks for every month of the year, right?