An October post

Tonight Emma hopped (literally) into bed and as I was turning her lava lamp on and her ceiling fan light off she suddenly freaked out, punted her comforter across the room and began hyperventilating, flying around the room and shrieking that there was a SPIDER!  A SPIDER!  IT HAD SHINY LEGS AND AN EVIL GLINT IN ITS EYES AND IT JUMPED ON ME FROM MY WALL AND AAAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!

I tried to recruit Army Man for the Great Spider Hunt of 2011 but he was not amused by the waves of female hysteria in there and quickly left after a quick once-over with the flashlight.  Instead Supermommy spent the next 45 minutes searching for any evidence of a man-eater in her room.  Not a small task since the child is a SLOB and there was crap everywhere. (I now understand why my mom made sure all of the kids' rooms were upstairs so that she could keep the downstairs clean and pretend that the upstairs didn't exist.)  I somehow got suckered into cleaning her whole damn room for her, moving her bed out of the way (there were entire bags of candy wrappers under there! no wonder the kid never eats dinner!) and vacuuming every inch of floor and along the baseboards just to make SURE that we Dysoned any eight-legged crawlies.  The whole time I was doing this she was perched on top of her desk and howling.  Missy was barking insanely outside the closed door because the vacuum is EVIL.  (I'm sure the neighbors loved that this late at night.)  And did I see a spider? 

No.

Being a parent is so fun sometimes.

I finally convinced her to get back into her bed because there was no way that Mr. Leggy survived all of that suckage.  I lay down beside her and was rubbing her back as she described it's EVIL legs, and how it was SNEAKING toward her just before it jumped on her when she got suddenly quiet. 

"What Emma?"

She began to laugh sheepishly. 

"Um, Mom?  I think it was a trick of the light.  I don't think it was a spider.  I just realized that the spider I imagined was exactly like one I saw on TV.  Oops!"

Let's just say that Mama wasn't laughing and we are now selling all of the TVs.

Now she's snoozing away peacefully in her room, which is free of imaginary spiders, and I'm all wired up from a ten o'clock overhaul of pre-teen slobsville.

These are the things that the parenting books can't prepare you for.
 
Since I am now so very PERKY here are some pictures of the crap we've been up to lately:

An updated picture of my lunch buddy Harrison.  My nephew is now almost nine months old and he is SO CUTE.

I tried to teach Bailey the sulcata to fetch.  FAIL.  He tried to eat the ball.  How these guys have survived for so long is beyond me.

Military Man built Bailey some new outdoor digs.

I started to document the building process for Bailey's posterity. 

 

Then I got bored.  Bailey and I got booted out of the Man Cave for being obnoxious.

Hey, it wasn't MY fault.  Bailey's the one who peed in there.

You can actually see the indignation in Chad's arms here.

So here is the finished result.  All it needs are window boxes and rain gutters!  And tiny Christmas lights for the holidays.  And maybe a mailbox for when Bailey's family sends correspondence.

A good friend had her kidney removed.  So that she wouldn't miss her kidney so much I made her another one to schnuggle with.  I called my friend Jessica, the scrap/craft queen and she helped me.  I'm sure this project is not one that will end up on one of her famous project blogs.  I don't understand WHY because this project was AWESOME.  Meet Dudley the kidney.  He has Fineas and Ferb hair and he is FILLED WITH LOVE.  Looks like all those years of Homemaking lessons at church finally paid off.  I can sew organs!

I finally replanted the garden since I'm mostly mobile after this summer's tendon debacle.  (A topic for another time.  Le sigh.)

I only planted ONE tomato plant, since tomato plants tend to be overachievers anyway.  The rest of the place is mostly flowers and herbs and some lettuce.  I've never done a winter garden so it's kind of an experiment.  I'll keep you posted!  Ok, I've promised that before and not followed through.  So I'll THINK about keeping you posted.