Caterpilar Buddy

This is Lil'Bug's cabbage worm. She's holding it hostage. Normally I'd have a big problem with this, but cabbage worms are a pest and we usually kill them.


She has managed to feed it, water it, and keep its home clean. Now it is a cocoon. Soon it will be a pretty white cabbage moth.


Ah, the first taste of sunshine. Our raspberries are ripening! PS, I LOVE my camera. I love that I can take food pictures like this by simply pointing and clicking.


Oh, and pictures like this. See her eye? Not my imagination. It started as a huge welt, but light pink. Not tender. She never even noticed it and has NO idea where it came from. As it ripened, it turned lots of berry purple shades of horror, then it has been determined that it is a spider bite. Eh. I guess that is a natural consequence of playing with bugs. No harm done.

Blueberry has been sleeping, eating, and pooping. She weighs over 9 lbs now. Also, her hair is in a natural spiked mohawk thing. It is hilarious. Pictures to come.

That's been our week. That and more rain. MORE RAIN. Gah.

Flushed Away

No, not a movie review. :)

My toilet (our only toilet), after years (yes, years) of being in various stages of usable disrepair is finally fixed.

Things that were wrong with it:
Lid to tank broken in three pieces (my fault, I dropped it, or something)
Floor bolts missing or not covered
Wooden seat splintered
and....drumroll.....the darn thing wouldn't stop flushing/running with out reaching hand into tank and fiddling with stuff. Yes, way beyond jiggling the handle. Reason why lid was on the floor behind the sink. Reason why I opted not to have unschooler craft day at my house post February- My heavily pregnant self did not want to run up and down the stairs after every single kid used the toilet, just to fix the flush. Gah.

Oh, and Method brand organic super safe lactic acid based toilet cleaner does not work very well. Let's just leave it at that.

What led up to fixing:

A couple days ago Lil'Bug woke up and declared her intentions not to use the toilet anymore. Why? Not a new baby regression thing, no. Simply because she was sick and tired of using a "broken" toilet. She was not going to pee or poop until Daddy got her a new one.

Um. Yeah. Crap.

I emailed Dearest.

Daddy came home from work with an armload of supplies and fixed the toilet. When I asked him, why, if he was able to fix the darn thing, it had gone for so many years broken.

"I wasn't in the mood."

?????

Also, he says that Lil'Bug's list was the most detailed inventory of the brokenness of said toilet whereas I just nagged at him to fix the vague things wrong with the toilet. That's fair. It is also fair to say that I wasn't in the mood to fix it either. I know how, I have the tools. I just didn't want to do it either and that takes a bit of steam from my nagging him to do it.

You have to have a sense of humor to restore and live in an old house like ours. Without such, one might go mad- though you have to be a bit loopy to do what we've been doing anyway so no one will notice. If anyone is interested, I could post story bits about our ten year battle with the haunted mansion.....

BTW:
I attacked the toilet with CLR this morning, and while the toilet is not quite sparking yet, it will be very soon.

Super Hero Mama

We just rescued a baby robin.

Lil'Bug started yelling that she caught a bird with her swing.

????

Indeed she had. It was twisted up in twine and the chain of her swing. It was an immature robin. I untied it but ultimately had to just cut the twine. I couldn't get it off the bird's leg myself (if Dearest had been here one of us could have hold the bird while the other untied) but I got it mostly off. The bird then flew up to the hackberry tree. Seems ok. Lil'Bug says I am her super hero bird saving mama. :)

That's our adventure for the morning. I considered getting my camera out, but the split second I considered it, I also considered the bird's suffering. Three minutes would be an eternity to the poor thing.

****
Lil'Bug also says that a "tomato" is going to take our house tonight so we better pack up the dishes and extra clothes. Upon which she emptied her drawers and closet into various bags in her room.

****
We also took Blueberry for a weigh in. It was supposed to be her well baby check but the Doc is in Cedar Rapids doing disaster relief work, so it was just a weigh in. She is now 8 lbs 13 oz! She was 8 lbs 1 oz last week. :) She is thriving.

Some Pictures

This is a "cuddle nest" for those of you wondering how we could safely co-sleep while I was on pain killers. It fits nicely between us in our bed. It was actually recommended to us while I recovered from the C/S with Lil'Bug; Dearest had to go out of town when she was two weeks old and I was still not very mobile. This solved the problem of midnight feedings and diaper changes.


Lil'Bug feels much better with pigtails, she tells me.


Proof that Blueberry is in fact awake sometimes! Every single outing we have gone on she has slept through entirely. :)


Clean baby! Clean big sister. It is Lil'Bug's job to fill the bath water in the baby tub, check the temperature, and empty it when we are done. She looks so grown up here!


And that's our week so far. I have more posts and less time. :)