So, where to start in this epic catchup session? Chicks? Rabbits? Opening a nudist colony? Painting with poop?
Decisions, decisions.
Welllll, since it's fresh on my mind and still triggering my gag reflex, I'll start with my latest poop debacle. Suddenly, Trek has decided he hates diapers. Like, with a passion I've never seen out of a 23 month old. If his diaper has fewer than three strips of masking tape on it, it spends fewer than 30 seconds on his body. I'm baffled. He also wants to sit on the toilet approximately 50% of the day, so I decided maybe it was time to get some awesome undies and get this potty training show on the road. Some days have been better than others, but for the most part he gets it.
Until this morning.
I'd just made a rare, solo trip to the restroom and poured myself a large, hot cup of coffee afterwards. Just as I settled onto the couch in the living room, I heard a weird thump from the wall behind me, which is where the virtually unused 3rd bathroom is located. The tub drain needs work, the toilet is fun-sized, and the uncovered window faces out into the back yard. The kids occasionally use it, and it did make a great one night home for our new bunnies, but it's the kind of room we pretend doesn't exist for now. Ok, so with coffee in hand, I opened the door to that bathroom and I almost lost my breakfast. Poop errwhere. IN the cabinet, all over the toilet, on the edge of and in the tub...you get the picture. The kid had just relieved himself big time 30 minutes prior.
I. Just. Do. Not. Understand.
As I was swallowing my stomach, I set my coffee down on the vanity and attempted to concoct a game plan. #1, get the kid clean and out of the crime scene. I bent forward to retrieve him from the cabinet, and my rear just barely bumped my 16 oz. mug, which in turn tipped and bathed the backs of my legs with fresh, hot coffee. I peeled my socks off, which was totally futile because I still tracked coffee all the way across the house to the kid's bathroom. I scrubbed him, diapered him...yet another futile move, and grabbed cleaning supplies to tackle the oh-so disgusting poop-smeared, coffee splattered closet of a bathroom. A bleach headache and 63 paper towels later, I had the bathroom cleaner than before. I grabbed the mop to clean up my coffee trail to the other bathroom, and as I was progressing down the hall, a very nude toddler darted out of the bathroom. He yelled "Pee!Pee!" so I ditched the mop and tried to intercept him before yet another incident.
Too. Late.
I walked in to find a swirling pool of urine and Suave 2-in-1 kid's shampoo in the middle of the floor. I yelled. I put on his diaper. I cried. I mopped, and mopped....and mopped some more because it's really hard to mop up a shampoo/conditioner combo. I hope you don't have to do it any time soon. I also hope you don't have to clean up a poop/coffee combo any time soon. It comes right up with bleach, but it is so incredibly gross.
You may have already guessed, but this is also the reason we've apparently started a nudist colony in the back yard. It all started with Trek shucking his underwear, then Cade decided a t-shirt and undies were acceptable daytime attire, and we're smack dab in the middle of learning about Adam and Eve, so Eve is trying to live up to her name by being nude and shameless. Needless to say, I won't have many photos of my kids to share for a while because they're always running around with all their business out for the world to see. Luckily, the world is shielded from this display by our large lot and privacy fence. This is quite fortunate for me, because any nosy neighbors probably would've reported me to DHS two nights ago for bathing my kids and dog (in that order) in a cold kiddie pool full of sand and dead grass.
Country life sure has its perks.
Over the last month, I allowed, invited even, an occurrence I swore would never happen to me. Our animal to human ration exploded, and we are now outnumbered 16:5. Never say never, folks.
Meet the chicks...
We've been planning our chicken coop and flock since we went under contract on this house. We are some kind of excited about fresh eggs and bug control in our yard. Our original plan was to let them free range in the un-fenced yard and woods around the house, but I think a few of the dogs and who knows what other kind of critters living around here would likely feast on our feathered friends. So, for now, they're confined to their coop and fenced in run. Soon, we will let them roam the fenced yard. The photos above are actually about a month old. We started out with them in a large cardboard box, brooder lights, and their feeders. Once the temps rose a bit, they graduated to a kiddie pool. Now, they're in their coop-in-progress, which is a storage closet in the carport we decided we could live without. The back wall of the closet faced the back yard, so we just cut an opening to the yard and fenced in a small run for them. It saved us major $ since we went from plans to build an entire external structure to using an existing space with shelving and electricity already in place.
These are some of the more recent ones. Cade is definitely our chicken whisperer. I've found him out in the coop, lounging on the hay with a chicken or two lying on him a couple of times this week.
We have 4 Rhode Island Reds, 5 Golden Wyandottes, 2 Barred Rocks, and 2 Buffs. They all lay large-extra large brown eggs, and will hopefully start producing sometime this summer.
These are the other new additions. Meet...
Dottie
and Furball.
They are sisters from a litter of lion head bunnies my mom has. The goal is to allow them to roam the yard throughout the day and just put them in their cage at night or when we're not here. Pepper (our Schnauzer) is very, ummmmm, curious about the whole situation. He likes to chase them and play with them. Furball has learned to be still for a bit so he'll lost interest in her. Dottie, on the other hand, is a little bit of a firecracker, and she will straight up do an about face and attack Pepper when she's had enough. They're both sweet and cuddly, but Furball, who was the runt of the litter, is more laid back and affectionate.
We up cycled the dog house that was already here when we bought the house. It was massive, and we knew Pepper would never use it. Originally, we'd planned to use it for the chickens...when we planned to only have a half a dozen or so hens, but we kinda sorta doubled that number, which left the doghouse up for grabs. We started deconstructing it soon after we moved in, so I don't have any good "before" pics, but here's what it looks like now.
We could fit a few dozen bunnies in this mammoth cage, but luckily we won't have to. I got two gals for a reason. I'm NOT interested in the bunny makin' business.
So, that kinda sorta catches everyone up on the sort of shenanigans we've been up to. Here are a few extra gems I thought I'd squeeze into this already long, jacked up, all over the place post : )
I finally put on my big girl panties and used my machine to appliqué using a file. Eve was begging for an Elsa shirt, and I wasn't about to attempt to free hand that!
The older two took off to my mom's for Spring Break, so Trek was my helper while constructing the bunny cage and chicken run.
The first time we let the bunnies out, I spent a total of 45 minutes chasing, waiting, darting, and nearly falling trying to catch them. We finally resorted to the good ol' laundry basket trapping method.
At least once a day I find him in the bunny cage. This is a conservative outfit for him these days...he's mostly covered.
Guess who turns 2 next week? Sniff, sniff.
A little silliness on mommy and daddy's bed one lazy morning.
During this post, I had to walk away to clean up more poopage, put Trek back in the bed no less than 20 times (he woke up two hours early this morning and cut his nap short by over an hour...it ain't pretty), and I had to remove stickers from Eve's hair since she decided it was wise to sneak a sticker book into her bed tonight. I wish I had some profound revelation from all the craziness I've mentioned in this post, but it pretty much just boils down to these few things for me...
Parenting is hard, hard, tear jerking, sleep stealing, back-breaking, mind-blowing work.
Keeping my commitment level low keeps me from losing my evah-lovin' mind during this incredibly needy stage in my kid's lives...so, sorry if you feel like you're getting the shaft.
The knowledge that poop is anywhere other than in a toilet or diaper triggers my gag reflex and makes my skin crawl like pretty much nothing else.
During this stage of my life, I should never, ever be without a single morsel of chocolate or at least a few ounces of wine in the house. It's inhumane, and I don't know what on earth I was thinking when I neglected to re-stock.
