The boys in all their big brother sweetness thought it would be nice to give Lucy a stuffed animal from their small stash. And because they are boys and their stuffed animal collection resembles more of a blood thirsty mob than a sweet colorful cottony parade of plushness, what they ended up picking out for Lu was a dinosaur.

And not just any dinosaur.  But an angry dinosaur. With teeth. And nostrils.

And she was so happy about it.

But not to worry. This T-Rex’s jaws got nothin’ on Lucy’s toothless chompers.

All of my real life friends who blog use Blogger. This post is for you guys. On a side note, why do we have a tendency to exclude  Internet friends when we use the word real?

Dear friends in real life who use Blogger,

Blogger hates me.   I think it might be because I am a die hard WordPress user. Maybe not but probably.  All I know is that Blogger has stopped letting me comment on your blogs and I’m sorry and I don’t know why this is happening to me because I try real hard to be non-confrontational because I need Internet enemies like I need a hole in my head (other than the holes that are supposed to be in my head obviously) but I asked Google and he was in agreement that this was dumb but he didn’t have an answer for me. 
Wait.
Aren’t Google and Blogger like BFF’s or something? If they are then dang.

And until blogger realizes that I’m kind of a big deal and lets me comment on your blogs again I can’t comment on your terrific posting skilz and that is a really crappy thing.

So, here are some comments I would be leaving if I could post comments on your blogs.

Mama Squirrel: I like your chickens.  And the way you made that lawn tractor coop is totally smart. And your sneaky veggie idea was way cool. You’re pretty much awesome.

Marty: Loved the flashback post.  That was just before we met you guys.  And that picture of the kiwi (kiwis?) made me want to eat kiwi.  And you’re pretty stellar at the whole photo taking thing.

Carrie: Yes. Children in tents in winter in Montana sounds insane. Why, in our welfare happy country is a family with children being forced into living in a tent? And my kids planted their potatoes in little black pots and they’re growing big and I prefer Coke to Pepsi anyway and girl you know I can stretch a grocery budget.

Becky:Your garden is something of an obsession of mine but not in a creepy stalker sort of way.  Keep blogging about it.  I’m learning a lot. And did you add the marigolds to keep the squirrels away and if yes, is it working? You’re my gardening hero.

Lori:Dang girl! (And I don’t use exclamation points frivolously)

Hopefully this comment restriction Blogger has subjected me to will not last forever and I can go back to telling you all how much I like your posts to your faces. I mean, to your blogs. I mean I don’t know what I mean because neither of those sound right. But hopefully you know what I mean.

P.S. Did you know that the word Internet is supposed to be capitalized?  I just don’t get how Internet is a proper noun.

Final consensus is that I’m not actually sick sick. I’m allergy sick.  And it’s not going to go away until we move away from here. So that’s awesome because we’re stationed here for another 3 years. I’m not sure how to feel about this except dang.

And the thick layer of smoke outside generated by the 118 wild fires in and around the Jacksonville area is making my cough really bad and there was this guy selling newspapers on the side of the road and he was smoking a cigarette and puffing all this second hand smoke into the air and I wanted to throw something brick-like at his head and holler to him that we don’t need anymore smoke in the air thankyouverymuch but it wouldn’t have done any good and it’s his right to stand on the side of the road and smoke and I’m not the brick throwing type anyway. 

And I’m telling the truth when I say our visibility is less than a quarter of a mile and ash is falling like sweet little snowflakes but not the kind you want to let land on your tongue because it’s actually burned up trees and stuff and not water vapor frozen into ice crystals.

And my voice may just stay scratchy and half gone forever.  The doctor didn’t say that, I’m just in a pessimistic mood.

However, I did get to read a pamphlet on testicular exams while I waited to be seen so there was that bright spot in my morning. Maybe a better reading selection is in order?

Yes.  I just said testicular on my blog.  I’m a blogger gone wild. Next thing you know I won’t even be putting a line through it.

1) I’m sick. I already mentioned this today. Just thought I should say it again. You know, in case you forgot. It’s not monkey-ebola though. Just a cold.  Stop flipping out about it already I’m going to be fine. But you can buy me something toffee if you want.

2) There is ash falling outside.  From inside it looks like snow flurries but when you step outside it’s 100 degrees. Definitely ash. Definitely. Probably from your own burning skin. Flipping out is called for in this situation. You’re on fire already. Good grief.

3) My friend texted me this today: Yes, I like legos in poop. It doesn’t make any noise. Yes, I took it out of context, obviously. But it’s okay because it’s way funnier read on it’s own.

4) Publix has started letting our grocery baggers use the registers. It’s really weird. We have some bizarre baggers. One of them has asked us to buy him beer in a very vague and joking but not really joking kind of way. He’s a nice kid. But definitely not as stealthy as he likes to think he is.  Another one of them always eyes me suspiciously with her head down and her eyes looking at me kind of sideways. I often wonder what she’s thinking but I’m afraid to ask her because she looks like she could be scary if she wanted to.

5) In our house we have two Xbox’s and a Wii.  However, the Rabbit’s game of choice is Might and Magic that he plays on the computer. It’s 15 years old. And pixely. And one of the characters was definitely modeled after Chuck Norris. It’s old school but not old school enough to be cool.  Or maybe it is. I don’t know. Is 15 years ago cool yet? I guess the Churck Norris thing makes it at least a little bit awesome.

6) There is a baby gecko living in my bathroom and closet.  He’s tiny and quick and has a secret hiding place that I can’t find. But I think he eats spiders so we can be best friends maybe.  I guess I should name him. And start checking my shoes before I slip them on.

I don’t know what else to say so pretend I ended this post with something awesomely hilarious. Feel free to spit milk out your nose.

I’m sick. As I mentioned yesterday I have laryngitis brought on by some cough, congestion, my head is trying to eat itself type of cold. The laryngitis I can handle. The cough that is keeping me from sleeping… That’s not so easy for me to handle. And my head feels chewed on.

So, at my wits end I called to make a doctor’s appointment this morning at the Navy clinic but the lady on the phone said there are no appointments available at the clinic today but I could go to the urgent care place if I couldn’t wait to see a doctor like I really want to sit at an urgent care facility for 3 hours just to find that I contracted some new form of monkey-aids in the waiting room. Cause that would just be my luck.
So I’ve opted to go ahead and sit here and be sick and wait it out and probably my head will explode and then the Navy will be sorry.

Plus, we’re out of sugar.

I’m sick. As I mentioned yesterday I have laryngitis brought on by some cough, congestion, my head is trying to eat itself type of cold. The laryngitis I can handle.  The cough that is keeping me from sleeping… That’s not so easy for me to handle. And my head feels chewed on.  

So, at my wits end I called to make a doctor’s appointment this morning at the Navy clinic but the lady on the phone said there are no appointments available at the clinic today but I could go to the urgent care place if I couldn’t wait to see a doctor like I really want to sit at an urgent care facility for 3 hours just to find that I contracted some new form of monkey-aids in the waiting room. Cause that would just be my luck.
So I’ve opted to go ahead and sit here and be sick and wait it out and probably my head will explode and then the Navy will be sorry.

Plus, we’re out of sugar.

I have laryngitis. I’m going to write about it because, as a committed blogger, it’s the right thing to do and since all of you are sitting on the edge of your seats waiting for my next post this is definitely a win-win situation for all of us.  I get to do the right thing and you get to switch from sitting on the edge of your seat to sitting in a more normal position. You looked ridiculous sitting on the edge of your seat like that anyway. 

Losing my voice isn’t a small deal around here.  You may wonder how this could possibly make a monumental difference in my day so I’m going to explain this to you.  Having laryngitis when you have 8 kids, 2 dogs, and a broken water dispenser is funny in a herding feral cats with a water gun kind of way. And if you’ve ever tried herding feral cats with a water gun you know what I’m talking about. Also, if you’ve ever herded feral cats with anything please email me. I have some questions.

All day long the kids call me from other rooms in the house.  I am answering them with a whispered, You can’t hear me.And they holler to me again and I reply in more of a hissy and less of a whispery sort of tone, Good grief. You are going to have to come in here because you can’t hear me. But they can’t hear me so they don’t come in here and they just keep asking the same question but only louder and louder and louder and it never ends.

I’ve texted Kait. A lot.  Even when she’s just in the next room. Or in the same room. I ask her to do things for me that I can’t do because my voice is on sabbatical, like, ask one of her brothers a question. Or go get me something out of the attic.  Not that bringing me something from the attic has anything to do with my laryngitis but a gals gotta milk it for all it’s worth, ya know. However, dear daughter does have a breaking point.
Like when our awesome failure of a water cooler busted. The Primo company left a message that all they needed to replace it was for me to call them with our shipping address but I can’t give them our address because I can’t talk and they can’t hear me and Kait has an aversion to talking to strangers on the phone and she starts to sweat and begins speaking in sponge-lish which I’m not even sure is an actual language but she appears to be quite fluent at it so maybe it is.  It involves whining the words but moooommm a lot in as respectful a tone as possible. Lucky for Kait I managed to wrangle an email address for the gal so I could send her our address electronically.

When I have laryngitis taking care of a toddler gets takes more effort. Like I have to get up off of my duff more often.  The bigger kids were all outside playing.  I was feeding Lucy.  Suddenly I realised that Jesse was not with me in the room anymore.  So I hollered for him.  Nothing.  I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t call him. He couldn’t hear me. So I had to stop feeding Lucy and walk back to the playroom to check on him.  He was fine, playing with cars, but Lucy had begun protesting her meal interruption. She most definitely does not have laryngitis.  And I can’t even sooth her with sweet mommy words because I can’t talk and she can’t hear me. But then later she did hear me as I was trying to get Jesse’s attention. I opened up my mouth to whisper as loud as I could but apparently my voice felt rested and ready and what came out was a shockingly loud, yet broken and squeaky holler that startled both Jesse and me and left Lucy with a huge frown on her face.  Have you ever seen a 4 month old frown?  It is a perfect mix of adorable and painfully sad. 

I just asked Google about herding feral cats.  Apparently it’s not a very popular past time.

I don’t rightly know for sure what my husband does for a living. I mean, I know it involves flying helicopters and the occasional feeding of a 9 foot python but for the most part I haven’t any clue about his daily business. It isn’t that I’m not interested, it’s just that I don’t get what he’s telling me. Everything is an acronym and he talks like I know what every acronym means but I don’t so I just stare at him and think to myself that PT means potty training and what on earth are they doing over there that would involve training somebody to use the potty anyway?  Then I remember that the government runs this crap and yeah that sounds about par.

Conversations with people curious about Rabbit’s job usually go something like this.

Them: So what does your husband do for a living?
Me: He flies helicopters.
Them: Like he flies, flies them?
Me: I guess so. He’s a pilot.
Them: Does he fly a black hawk or something?
Me: Um… He wears a green flight suit.

NATOPS has been such a huge part of our life for the last 3 years and I don’t even know what the heck it is!  I’m pretty sure the N stands for Navy and the A stands for Absurd but whatever the rest of it stands for…
Lets just say I’m somewhat less-than-good at remembering stuff. 
Seriously, I can’t even recall which squadron the man’s in without looking at the green Christmas ornament sitting on the counter. It’s got a serpent on it and you all know how much I love serpents. Not. At. All. Plus, it’s wearing a flight jacket and that’s just creepy.

And yesterday I got a voice mail from the wives club and had no idea what the gal was talking about at first because for some reason I wasn’t relating it to my husband’s job.  I thought some random person was calling me to welcome me into some club that I didn’t join and I was sure it was a conspiracy put on by the government to infiltrate my family and ruin us. 

It was weird. Or I’m weird.  Yeah.  It was probably that.

P.S. Rabbit is Ryan’s call sign – a nickname every one of these guys get after they become a pilot. It started out as Big Love but they changed it and that was probably a good thing because as it turns out Big Love is a HBO show about Mormon polygamy and some guys thought that would be humorous but it wasn’t really because we’re not Mormon nor polygamists. At least not that I’m aware of. You can probably guess why they though Rabbit was more fitting.  I hated it at first.  Like really hated it.  Like almost called up the command and made a fool of myself hated it.  But I’ve decided to embrace it because rabbits mate for life and that’s pretty okay with me. So, if I’m talking about Rabbit or Bugs just assume I’m talking about my husband.  Just so you don’t get confused.

I’m not sleeping again. No surprise there. I’ve got a baby and as cute and adorable and coated in unicorn dust as she is, she just isn’t the most cooperative sleeper. But it’s no matter as I’d probably be awake if I were lying in bed anyway because I’m a pseudo-insomniac which is pretty much becoming a full time thing for me.
I’m practicing being a zombie for when the apocalypse happens and besides the whole gore part I still need to work on, I think I’m really making some headway with my current habit of sleeping 3 hours or less night after night after night.
5 hours of rest broken by a hungry baby or a sleep walking toddler or a meowing cat or a phantom smell is what I consider a really good night’s sleep and even then I’m still zombie-ish most of my awake hours. Still generally unlikable, just less scary and without all the flesh eating.

Maybe I really am turning into a vampire. A really tired vampire who craves cheese and spinach and doesn’t care much for the sight of blood and doesn’t sleep during the day. Man, I hope not. I’d really give vampires everywhere a bad name, I think.

I sleep well when I wear earplugs but only tried it once before I realised that I am the only person in the house who can be counted on to wake up in an emergency situation like fire, or the dog needs to go outside RIGHTNOW, or the end of the world happened and real zombies are attacking.

I can sleep when I’m dead though. And believe you me, I will sleep like the dead when I’m dead but for right now I’ll just have to settle for being a cantankerous not-quite zombie.

Good thing my husband likes zombies.

Dear Mama Squirrel,
I made this post just for you.

Thursday: Crockpot roast with potatoes, green beans, onions

Friday: Burgers and hotdogs with homemade buns and fries

Saturday: Crockpot beef stew made with left over roast with potatoes, carrots, onions, corn, celery and homemade bread rolls

Sunday: Spaghetti

Monday: Wrapped tacos on homemade tortillas and fried in veggie oil oh my goodness this is so good.

Tuesday: Taco pizza with homemade pizza crust using leftover stuff from taco night

Wednesday: Leftovers

Great. Now I’m hungry.