Differences

It seems that each day that passes shows me again just how different my kids are. Each of my children have their own idiosyncrasies that amazes me. Just how all three kids can be so different and come from the same parents? Even though Bryce and Belle both have brown hair and brown eyes, each have completely different shades of color. Brady's hair is blond that is getting darker each and every day and he has bluish colored eyes. The only thing that all of them consistently have are freckles and seeing how both Hubby and I have them I could only assume they were destined to have them.

Besides their physical differences, they each have their own completely different personalities. Bryce is a crier. Someone can look at him wrong and he'll bawl. I can't tell you how long I waited for him to outgrow the whiny stage for him to never outgrow it. Belle is my tattle-tell. If someone is doing something wrong, she's the one to share it with someone in charge. And Brady is the baby. I'm not saying that he acts like a baby but he is definitely the baby in the family. If you know a family or are a member of one with more than one child then you know exactly what I'm talking about. He almost always expects to get his way, even though he doesn't always get it. He is the one that has been trying to keep up with Bryce and Belle since he was born. Walked fast, talked fast, never seemed to walk but ran every where he went just trying to keep up with them.

School is different. It doesn't matter which teacher I talk to, the responses from them are almost always the same. They're great kids. They listen well, participate in class, great students. Know the saying that your children are better for other people than they are for you? Their teachers show this to me every time I go to a parent-teacher conference. Yesterday I got a letter that I've never received from school before, one that changes things.

Brady got off the bus yesterday talking about how he had to read and he had a letter. He never said the letter was for me so I didn't think anything of it when he said it over and over again. Until he handed it to me. Sealed with the school logo and addressed to the parents of Brady. Apparently Brady has impressed his teachers in class and with testing so much, that he has been placed in what they call the Primary Talent Pool at his school. Basically it says the teachers want to challenge him more in class and prepare him for formal testing for Gifted/Talented in 4th grade (he's in second now). I was never eligible for G/T when I was in school. I never realized that the school had that club until I looked up one day and certain students were leaving class to go to another. (Hubby didn't attend the local elementary schools here). Brady is the only of all three kids to be placed in this pool. He finally is no longer following Bryce and Belle. He's starting a path of his own. We couldn't be more proud.

Conspiracies

Someone is enjoying a laugh today at my expense. The last few days have been trying my patience to no end. First of all, Sophie has come into heat. And Cheech is not fixed either. Nor is the neighbors dog (Hi MA!). So for the last few days, I have been checking my yard before letting her outside to potty while keeping Cheech completely away from her as much as I can. If I haven't realized that he's wandered off, she lets me know it with the growl and snap that follows. The bad thing is while they are separated, Cheech will whine, cry and howl. Wait it out and he'll move on? Not this dog. She is like a mother to him, since she was here and set in her ways when we brought him home. Had to leave her at the vet last summer for a couple of nights and he whined the entire time she was gone. Liked to have drove me nuts! Have two dogs of the opposite sex who aren't fixed? Run to the nearest reputable vet and have one or both of them fixed! It will save your sanity!

Last night was a rough night. I went to bed about 10:30 and the pets made it difficult for me to get completely down. Cheech was whining from his crate. It took five times with "Hush!!!" before he finally stopped and went to sleep. Zeus decided that he needed to join Cheech in making the night a long one by going nuts. Whenever I went to adjust my comforter around my head, he would let out this long evil meow/growl. So I kept moving him back to the foot of the bed, where was actually supposed to be! After the third time, I went after my spray bottle. Three more of those meow/growls and three squirts at him to match, he finally went to the foot of the bed and stayed there for the night. By then it was 11.

So around two this morning I awoke from a nice nightmare. Have you ever noticed that as an adult, your nightmares are more intense? Instead of running from a huge dinosaur that wants to eat you - a dinosaur that you know is not real and cannot possible chase you to eat you - you are staring into the face of a man with a knife that wants to order you to drive your car to places he wants to go. Anyway. I'm sure that dream had nothing to do with the fact that I watched Medium last night and a carjacking was discussed. The scenario on tv was absolutely nothing like what happened in my head. The show had just mentioned a carjacking. My dream actually had me hijacked. That left me trying to go back to sleep without the joys of being able to curl up next to Hubby for security. So I called him and he didn't hear the phone in the truck. I finally dozed off about 4:30 and less than an hour later he called. And I was up. I did what should've been the next logical thing. I put the kids on the bus and laid back down about a half hour later. Unfortunately I was proven wrong on this because I had to separate the dogs so that I didn't have to worry about what they were doing. I put Cheech in the front bathroom and let Sophie run the house. He whined and I told him to hush. And he whined some more. And more. Then the howling started. If I'm lucky, I may have gotten an hour worth of sleep during the three hours that I laid there.

I knew that my yard needed mowing and that I had really wanted to do it yesterday but I was so tired from the night before that I didn't bother. I got up from my "nap" this morning and changed clothes to get started. I filled up the push mower, pulled it out from it's resting place to my starting point and...

The darn thing refused to start. I tried four different times and it just would not start.

So I figured that I'd get the riding mower out and just mow as closely as I could to the trimming areas. It took me a couple of minutes to find the key to unlock the shed (since Hubby loves to hide things from the children on top of the fridge and forgets that us short people can't see up there without a chair). I unlocked the shed, moved the kids bikes out of the way, sat down on the seat and noticed that I was sitting funny. The mower wasn't level. Yep. The back tire is flat. No big deal. I'll air it back up. But Hubby has taken the cord off of his compressor and I can't find it. Thirty minutes after I stepped outside to mow, I walked back inside defeated. I gave up. Apparently, I was not supposed to mow today after all.

Anything else that I need to do today that someone doesn't want me to? Please warn me in advanced so I don't waste time trying to prepare for it. Thanks.

Update - I received a text message on my phone earlier asking me what I was doing from a number that I did not recognize. After sending back a message asking if I knew the person, they assured me I did but never offered their name. I let them know that I didn't have their number in my address book they said they must have a wrong number. Shortly after that, I received a call from a local business about a payment that I had due in their computer. A payment that I made at the beginning of the month. Almost as soon as I answered the phone, the lady on the other end realized that the payment was in their system and she had "overlooked" it. The check had cleared. How do you overlook that?

Obviously

This weekend Hubby got to come home early. He was home on Friday afternoon instead of Saturday or Sunday as he usually is. I requested that we go out to dinner on Friday night since I have cooked the last two weeks solid and could use the break. We chose to go to O'Charley's and eat something different than the fast food persuasion. After we ate, we drove by Dairy Queen and Bryce asked if we could have ice cream. Hubby gave our automatic "No!" that follows most questions that involve junk when I mumbled under my breath "Thought about it myself." We drove down to see the Ohio River and how much the water level had receded over the last few weeks when Hubby made the kids a deal. If they would behave on our trip home, he would go to DQ and get them ice cream. Of course they all agreed that they could behave while on the trip home. Instead of ordering my usual vanilla ice cream cone (not a fan of dipped cones), I ordered a blizzard. A chocolate extreme blizzard. It had chocolate brownie chunks, chocolate chunks and chocolate fudge. Need a chocolate fix? This blizzard can do that with the first couple of bites, the chocolate lovers dream.

Tonight Hubby decided that he wanted some ice cream after the kids went to bed. I had considered getting some when I was at the store but decided against it, so naturally we had none in the house. He offered to run and pick some up and I didn't decline. Then he asked what kind would I like. Chocolate, duh! And I thought he knew me.

Dreams

I did not realize, until early this morning, how much I was looking forward to Grey's Anatomy coming back this week with new shows. I had a dream this morning, and while it's not odd that I had one, it is odd that I actually remembered it when I woke up, but I was talking to my brother about something. If you know my brother, you know how odd it was to see him in a suit in my dream when he lives in mostly t-shirts and jeans but I'll move on. I happened to mentioned something being "enchanted" and the next thing I know he's telling me he can get me a ticket to see Patrick Dempsey speaking somewhere local here. I remember being all excited, getting the ticket, finding my seat around a bunch of people I didn't know and sitting down. They were announcing him to come out when....

My cat woke me up.

Zeus has decided for the last three mornings, at about 5:30 that he needs to look out my window and meow at the birds in the yard. In order to get to my window, he's got to get past me since the window is at the head of my bed. This morning, I was determined to teach him that he can't get up early and try to get in my window. It took me more than a half hour but he finally quit trying.

And I didn't even get to see Patrick Dempsey. This is a cruel, cruel cat.

Six or Twelve Pack

This has been an interesting week and it just keeps getting better. I mowed a neighbors yard and our backyard for the first time this season on Thursday (Hubby mowed our front yard a week ago today). The tops of my forearms and hands and the back of my neck are sunburned. Seriously sunburned. So much so that I put lotion on them earlier tonight just trying to ease the itch that came with it. It hasn't helped much.

Hubby got to come home early this week and was home early, early Saturday morning. Early as in 1:30am. And I was still awake. I am a sucker for chick flicks and sat up watching Mona Lisa Smile just because I paid $5 for it over a week before and still hadn't opened it yet. Once I put it in, I couldn't turn it off to go to bed, so I sat up and watched it. It went off literally ten minutes before he walked through our bedroom door. And then Dad called at 7:30. So much for sleep. Brady has been sick this weekend as well. He spent most of yesterday changing positions from sitting in front of the toilet to sitting on it. Yeah. Well today he is doing somewhat better. He is no longer sitting in front of the toilet but we had to get him medication to help ease his sitting on it. Unfortunately that meant I had to miss out on meeting my cousin's baby for the first time (she's here from Florida visiting), but I'd rather miss out than pass the bug along to one of them.

The kids begin their yearly school testing tomorrow and have been in bed for an hour now so that they can have their "good nights sleep." Yeah, right. Everyone one of them have been out of bed at least once twice since they've been in it. But I don't know anyone who could've honestly kept a straight face as Brady came up to me tonight to ask me if he has a six pack or a twelve pack while sucking in his stomach. I had the hardest time trying to keep a straight face and order him back to bed instead of stalling. I failed miserably. I snickered. Let me tell ya though, while I did not tell him that he has a six or a twelve pack, part of me envies that stomach, as it does have some serious muscle tone. Maybe I should start working on my "packs" so that I can ask him what I have. Maybe?

Earthquake

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24195650

It's not often that we have earthquakes in this area. Even though we were roughly 150 miles from the epicenter, we still felt the quake here at my home. Something stirred me just before it hit and at first I thought someone was in my home when I heard something fall. I could hear the rumbling and then noticed my bed was shaking. I immediately thought that the cat was shaking the bed because he sleeps at my feet, but after realizing that he was just as stunned as I was, I figured it out. It woke Bryce, who sleeps in the top bunk, but Brady and Belle slept through it. It has been the thing to talk about and top news story. I honestly can't remember the last time I felt an earthquake. The last few we had were so small that I had no idea that it happened. I only hope that's the last one for quite some time.