Last 4

I told Leina today was her last day of being 4 for…. EVER.  Never again would she be 4.  It was gone.  Gone baby.  Kiss it goodbye ’cause it’s half way out the door.  She looked at me a moment, and then started to cry.  Well, more like dramatic wail which she excels at really.

“I don’t want to turn 5!” she moaned, “I want to stay 4 forever!” And then she threw herself across my bed and proceeded to sob into my pillow.  Until Kevin yelled upstairs that her bacon was ready at which point she hopped of my bed, tucked her hair behind her ears, and pranced down the steps happy as can be.  And that, my friends, pretty much sums up Leina.  She is drama.  All day long.  All night.  Throw in a few fits and stops, and you’d have a pretty good idea of what 4 has been like for us.  So while I, too, will miss 4, I’m hoping 5 brings a bit more mellowness.   A bit more maturity.  Less crying tantrums please?  Alright, alright, I won’t over reach here.   But really, where does this drama queen behaviour come from?  I mean, Kevin and I are pretty mellow jello people.  We aren’t prone to random fits of despair or raptures of joy.  Neither of us can call for a cascade of tears on demand.  And yet, I have this little person walking through my house who can go from happy, to irate, to devastated, to overjoyed in the amount of time it takes to travel from the sofa to the fridge.  It’s unreal.  If this keeps up, I’m going to have to move to LA and enroll her in some acting classes ’cause the kid has some serious talent.

Tomorrow we have a mini celebration of the day of her birth with her girlfriends and then this weekend we’ll have a BBQ for the bigger folks.  When informed of the plan, Leina threw herself onto the ground and started to moan, “oh mooooooooom, I don’t waaaaaaant a birthday party…..Can’t you tell them not to come?”  This lasted until I reminded her that they would be bringing presents and which point she flicked some internal switch, jumped to her feet, and scurried off to make room on her bed for her new toys.   Some days, I feel like I have emotional whiplash people and she’s only 4!  Just the though of 12 makes my blood run cold……

Sunflowers and Presents

Kevin is still working crazy hours so I’ve been a little short handed around the house.  I’m afraid my posting here has suffered.  Sigh.  The girls and I have been enjoying our summer though.  They may just have their mama’s gardening gene because they love to help me weed and water and admire all the flowers in our backyard.  I decided to encourage this and bought them each their own sunflower plant.  They helped me dig the hole, plant, and water them and now every morning they can’t wait to run outside with their little watering cans and take care of their own flower.  It’s quite sweet.

We also received a surprise package in the mail from Nana Walls full of home knit love.  She made the girls their very own hooded ponchos!  When I opened the package, Leina declared she wanted the blue one and Kulia wanted the rainbow.  Which was perfect since the blue was larger.  Phew!  Don’t you just love it when it all works out?  So here are the girls modeling their ponchos.  They were quite confused by the lack of arm holes at first but quickly discovered how comfy they were and didn’t want to take them off.  Look out fall weather, we are armed and ready for you!  Thanks Nana Walls!

Smell? What smell? Oh, THAT smell!

Come on in!  Welcome!  Just take your shoes off and leave them by the door….

What?  That smell?  It smells like a cross between the Easter bunny and a Starbucks coffee shop?

Oh man, are you ok?  Right when Artie walked by you suddenly didn’t look so well.  Kind of greenish actually.

You smelled something?  Huh.  Now what…. oh yeah!  That smell?  That horrible musky-burned rubber-revolting smell?  Oh, that’s just skunk.

But seriously, come on in.  Are you hungry?

Yup.  That’s right people.  Our house currently smells like the Easter bunny if he decided to give up eggs and start slinging lattes and also splashed a generous amount of eau de skunk behind each fluffy ear.  Artie took on a skunk last night and lost.  Big time.

It was around 11pm when we let Artie out for a last potty break.  Suddenly we heard vicious barking from along the back fence and a few moments later the first faint whiff of skunk curled through the screen door.  We called Artie back and as he ran to us the faint whiff turned into a dense cloud of absolute stink.  Kevin, bless his big useless nose, couldn’t smell it but I could.  It made my eyes water it was so rank.  So we called him around to the side of the house and let him into the garage.  At this point we weren’t sure if he was hit indirectly or not.   Kevin still said he couldn’t smell it so we decided to let him inside.

Stupid.  Stupid.  Stupid.  He immediately ran to the living room carpet and started rolling and scooching all over it.  That smell went from lingering to smothering to overpowering.  We tried convincing ourselves otherwise but the truth was staring us in our face – er – nose.  Artie got hit by a skunk right in the face.  So we shoo’d him back into the garage and booted up the computer.  Thank goodness for the computer!  In minutes we learned that tomato juice didn’t really work but a bath of hydrogen peroxide, baking powder and dish soap does.  Unfortunately we didn’t have any hydrogen peroxide so I sent Kevin off to find a 24 hr store open.  Oddly enough, as he left the house he saw our neighbors were outside washing their truck by flashlight…on a random Wed….at midnight.  Small talk revealed that their dog had been sprayed by a skunk a week earlier and they had all the necessary ingredients for the hydro dog bath.  Yes!  So we washed him outside over and over and over until most of the skunk smell was masked.  The dog smelled ok. Our house?  No.

Again, Internet to the rescue!  A bit more surfing and I was back in the kitchen boiling a giant pot of apple cider vinegar and burning ground coffee on the stove.  I ended up leaving small bowls of burnt coffee grounds in every room and then walked around the house with a steaming pot of apple cider vinegar.  I’m sure I looked like I was preforming some sort of bizarre exorcism but it mostly works.  The downstairs still stinks right were he rubbed himself all over the carpet and Artie has a vague lingering skunk smell about him. I just hope he’s learned his lesson because if I never smell ‘kunk again it will be too soon!

A Quick Review

Somehow I forgot to blog about our 4th of July adventures.  So under the guise of better late than never, here’s a delayed re-cap of our holiday weekend.

We are slowly developing a tradition of going up to the Rosenbaums for BBQ and fireworks.  Leina remembered last year’s party so she was very much excited to head back for the second annual 4th of July celebration.  They got to run around Kat’s house and gorge themselves on potato chips and candy.  Then Uncle Joshie brought out the Costco box of fireworks and things got loud!  Kulia was still a little gun shy of the fireworks, but Leina couldn’t get enough.  I never really know how much Leina sees and understands but one way I can peek into her inner psyche is through her drawings.  Just the other day, she emerged from her room bearing this pictures:

You see before you (in correct height order) Kulia, Leina, Mom, Dad and Joshie.  The big blue pillar is the bucket of water and the red box is the unlit firework.  Up in the sky are the exploding fireworks, the moon and some clouds.  Ok, the fireworks were not larger than Joshie but I guess to a 4 yr old they seemed rather huge.  Leina was particularly fascinated by the bucket of water they kept on hand just in case.  The fact that she put it in the pictures just kills me.  Anyway, I think she did a pretty good job to summing out the great evening we had at Kat & Josh’s house.

Unfortunately, while we were out having fun, Artie was home freaking out.  Last year we left him home alone and he was ok.  This year?  Um, no.  Definitely not ok.  In fact, while we were out enjoying himself, Artie was trying to eat apart our house.  This is what remain of our bathroom mat.

And this is what remains of our door frame.

The raw hide chew bone I left him?  Totally untouched.  Oh yes, he also gnawed through a couple door knobs as well.  I’m thinking next year we are getting him some serious drugs.

Finally, my mom requested I post some of the pictures Kulia drew while Tutu was here.  Kulia isn’t interested in trying to drawing things yet.  Mostly, she just goes for whatever color she fancies all mixed together.  Personally, I think the results are gorgeous.  My own little Monet.  How luck am I?

Getting Closer

I got my garden started late this year. The weather was truely horrible all through June and I just couldn’t bring myself to get out in the mud. So I’m paying for it with a very very late harvest this year. My zucchs have just started flowering and there is one sad little green tomato hanging on right now. Looks like my summer bounty should arrive right about the time I board the airplane for Hawaii. Ah well. Guess that’s just the sacrifice I’ll have to make. Of course this doesn’t stop me from picking up more starts and thumbing through gardening books. I’ve decided to give brussel sprouts a try. Supposedly, they are a fall/winter plant but hey, why not plant ’em in the middle of summer and what happens, right? Yeah, I know. I’m a gardening dork but doesn’t seem to stop me from trying!

Gumming It

As I type this, my two little teeth lie beside me. I would put a picture up of them but Liza has threathened me with death if I even think of it so instead I will let them gaze upon the screen with me. It has only been two days but already I’m sick of yogurt and cottage cheese for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But I am healing nicely and should be back to chomping carrots and nuts in no time. And just for the record, your back molar have really, really long roots. Wanna see?