It’s because we use cloth.  Oh how I wish they were as simple as disposables, but saving money is rarely the most convenient route. 

Much to my husband’s chagrin, we spend an unusual amount of time on diaper conversation.  Which ones are best. What and when to buy. How much to spend. How to wash them.  What’s that smell? Can we please just buy a pack of disposables?

And now, why is Jesse’s poor bum looking all torn up?

Potty training a 19 month old usually isn’t easy, though we started training Jesse a few months ago after a bad blueberry episode - to air out his behind and see how he would do in undies.  He did well, but never figured out to tell us when he had to go.  He just held it until he couldn’t hold it anymore. This means we had to remember to take him at regular intervals throughout the day or he’d just pee wherever he was.

Potty training at any age almost always means accidents, and they were super easy to clean up in our tiled house. But this new house has wall to wall carpet so you probably imagine my concern. I’ve been a little hesitant to continue potty training since we got here.
And then there were all the crazy happenings at our house in that first week after we moved in. I ended up deciding to go back to diapers; it was either that or lose my sanity.

But his little bum…

Usually something like this is either a PH issue or a detergent residue problem.  I have tried all the recommended cures, and run the diapers on the sanitary setting with no soap 3 times to no avail. I am thinking it may have something to do with our weird water.  You know, the stuff that lets off a gasoline odor when it rains too much? 

It’s why we have a water dispenser now.

Whatever the issue is with the diapers it is a given that we can’t use the cloth right now, and I certainly don’t want to go back to buying disposables all the time.
Time to return to potty training I guess.  And really, when I think about it, I’ve got to potty train Jesse someday.

I wonder if my droid has an app for this.

My husband came inside from working in the yard and asked if I had an axe he could use.

?

Yeah honey! And I’ll trade it to you for your eyelash curler. 

Around each of those big trees were the most unruly looking wild bushes you could imagine.  I wanted Joe(12) and Gabe(9) to yank them out but Joe said that Dad had already tried and hadn’t been able to yank one out yet. 

I said, as more of a joke (Dad’s a pretty strong dude), “So you’re saying you can’t do it?”  He just looked at me, not telling me no, but not saying anything else either.  I told him that if he and Gabe could get one of those bushes out it would be worth an entire box of Little Debbie snack cakes.  Hey, I’m not above bribing payment for a job well done.  They were gung-ho about that and got to work.

They not only got one out, but three.  Talk about a little motivation.

And with the help of Dad they whipped those gazillion saw palmettos into shape.  They actually look awesome now, whereas when we moved in I wanted them all gone, gone, gone.  They were seriously all over our lawn and really ugly, wish I would have gotten better before pictures so you could see what I mean.  With all the trimming and manicuring the guys did today I am really pleased to have them in the yard! (the guys and the palmettos – I’ll get better pics tomorrow when it’s not raining.)

Yes, the fence is really leaning over, that isn’t the camera angle, and it appears to be held up only by the row of bushes on the other side of it.  And that’s working just fine so we’ll leave it that way for the time being.

I don’t know what they’re planning on tackling tomorrow, but Ryan said they were planning on starting pretty early.

Glad it’s not me.  I’m just the decorator.

And where can a girl like me find a pink axe?

This is our new backyard.  About a 1/2 of it, actually. 

It has amazing potential but there will be a lot of manual labor involved in turning it into the yard of our dreams. This is good.  With 6 boys we are always looking for guy-work for them.  There are a ton of unruly saw palmettos, some scraggly bushes, piles of sticks and branches, and leaves that, in some places, are a foot or more deep.  We’ve learned in the last year that our two oldest boys can handle, and really need much bigger jobs than we’ve been giving them.  And we’re going to put their young, energetic selves to the test and see what they can really do.

So, as part of the first 9 weeks of school my boys are going to spend a lot of time in the yard learning a skill, burning off energy, and discovering the value of hard work. 
We have the entire yard planned out, and we have a ballpark estimate of how much it will cost.  And the boys, while I wouldn’t call them excited, do seem pleased with the idea of getting out there and working with dad and accomplishing more manly tasks.

They just finished working for today – with the rain now pouring – and I’ll post a picture or two of their accomplishments later on, and throughout the week as they progress.

I thought I wouldn’t ever want carpet again.  The last two houses didn’t have carpet except in the bedrooms and, after a little getting used to the less-than-plush flooring, I came to love how easy it was to keep clean and decided we would search for houses without carpet in the future.

When we were looking out houses here I didn’t want carpet again, but quickly realized that the lack of housing selection meant I couldn’t be that picky. What we ended up doing was compromising on a house with a giant naked statue mural, and wall-to-wall carpet.

And I’ve come to realize that I’ve really missed having it. 
Not naked statues, the carpet.

Jesse’s big mega block truck, the one he drives around all day long…
All. Day. Long.
Is so much more quiet.  The floor is comfortable to sit on. And then there are the vacuum lines.

Oh, how I heart vacuum lines.

Our new house came with an alarm system already installed.  My curious husband is messing with it right now.

I’m waiting for it.
Knowing.
Ever so sure.

It’s going to start doing its alarm thing and we won’t be able to shut it off.

And there it goes.

Well, let me tell you then.

We didn’t make it to the new church this morning.  Ryan and I were up half the night searching for the source of the gasoline smell that was permeating our kitchen, living room, and bedroom.

I was THISCLOSE to packing up the kids and taking ourselves to a hotel.  After a while Ryan said he didn’t think it was anything to be concerned about, and while we continued our search for the source, I was more at ease with him being relaxed about it.

It’s good to be married to somebody who I can trust with decisions like these.

We didn’t discover where the smell was coming from, but it was making me nauseous (but doesn’t everything right now?) and it was impossible for me to fall asleep.  I spent hours wide awake, wondering if the smell was harming the baby, but eventually after a long hot shower I was able to get some shut eye.

Some research, and the further investigation has led us to believe that it is likely our water.  Some people say that sulfur in the water can sometimes smell like gasoline, though most people say it has more of a rotten egg odor.  Right now with the dishwasher running I smell it.  And I could still smell it in the shower in the wee hours of the morning, too.
Maybe the flooding our area received yesterday evening had something to do with it.  I really have no idea though.

We’re not sure what the proper course of action is here.  With the fridge, the washer machine, the flood, and the sink, all in a 9 day period of time, I’m hesitant to call about the water, especially since we drink from a water dispenser anyway.  Our landlord, bless her hard worked heart, has been completely awesome and I really don’t want to burden her with yet another issue unless we have to.
Plus, I read that sulfur in your water, while stinky, is not harmful.  Right now we’re going to run with this knowledge and not worry about it.

Which is good cause I’m too tired to be concerned about anything right now.

I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.
Again.

A quote from a gal named Cindy who I don’t have a link for.  I found it on an old post of Amy’s and just had to pass it along.

Say that you rail and your rail with your children about all kinds of things: drugs and rock music and Christian music and weak Christianity and sugar and white bread and recycling and ‘those’ people and bad literature and mud on their boots and dirty houses and vaccinations and feeding babies and chocolate and vitamins and natural childbirth, how will your children know which of these things is really important? Maybe one day they find out that some Christians eat sugar and they are nice lovely people who truly love the Lord but from hearing you day in and day out he thought that anyone who ate sugar had a free ticket to hell. Now every single thing you have tried to teach your child ever has been undermined by your passionate intensity.

Written so well, Cindy. Gives me something to think about.

The guy to fix the sink arrived while my husband was on the phone with a refrigerator repair company, while I was brushing my teeth and noticing a little pool of water forming behind one of the bathroom faucets.

And then the sink fixing guy said he can’t fix the kitchen sink.

Have you ever seen the movie The Money Pit where the Fieldings buy a beautiful old house that starts to fall apart around them as soon as the purchase is final?

I’m currently living in a scaled down version of this movie.

Friendship hurts.

I’ve learned this in the last two years, these last two years where I’ve stepped outside my little comfort bubble and really been myself with all my quirkiness in the real world for the first time in a very long time, maybe ever.

There is no delete button in the real world.

I’ve hurt people, been shown forgiveness; been hurt, shown forgiveness.

I’ve stayed angry for too long.
And I’ve felt what it’s like to not be forgiven.

And it’s almost enough to make me shy away from meeting new people here.

I’m a closed off person.  Without trying to sound too psycobabbly, I think it stems from being bullied as a child.  I know every public school kid is bullied, but when it makes some people stronger, other’s get weaker, and some just hide.

I am a hider.

One of the best friends I’ve ever had only became a good friend after she pressured me in the sweetest way to join a woman’s book study group she was hosting.  I was fully prepared to say no, and did say no at first, but she is a true seeker and she found me. 

And that’s how it goes.  All my best woman friends have had to seek me out. 

We’re trying a new church tomorrow.  This is always the hardest part of moving to a new place for me. 
Finding a new community.  Fitting in.  Knowing our unusual family will not just be noticed, but will be watched.  Finding women who will love me even in my quirkiness, even when what I meant to say isn’t exactly how my words came out, even when I am very different from them.

I pull out my standard answers to make things easier, to keep my mouth from fouling up.  It’s like a stack of index cards I carry around in my brain.  I want to burn them…
I’m trying to be more genuine. 

No backspace, no delete, no spell check.

I shudder.

… We’ve delt with a giant headless naked statue mural.
-Our refrigerator killed our food.
-Our washer, the one that came with the rental, is quite the work horse.  It will not stop washing our clothes.  It just keeps cycling through until we remember we have a load going and stop it.
-Our washer drain hose removed itself from its housing and dumped about 6 million gallons of water onto our floor.
-Our landlord’s emergency number wasn’t the correct number.
-Our refrigerator stopped working again.
-Our sink fell out.  It’s the kind that fits under the counter, not on top of it.  After a little inspection Ryan deduced that it was installed using silicone sealant. That’s all.

None of this is tragic.  Nobody has been hurt.  It’s all just inconvenience, really.

But this sort of stuff doesn’t usually happen to us.  It happens to my BFTKC, Mama Squirrel, but not to us.  We mostly live a somewhat uneventful existence, even with all our kids. 

Now I’m sitting here waiting for the next thing to happen.  Like the fan flying out of the ceiling.  Or the door to fall off its hinges.  Or the cabinets to crash to the kitchen floor.

While I am a bit concerned that we may have signed a year lease on a Bluth company model home, it’s feels almost exciting.

Almost.