Saturday Night

Last night we dusted off the video camera to catch Ava playing peek-a-boo.  At the moment it is her favorite form of entertainment.  Since we had the camera out, we captured a few more fun aspects of our Saturday night, I know it's kind of a cop out to post home movies and call it a blog post, but tough crap, that's as good as it's getting today, ha!

Thank God They're Girls

Deep down, I know some small  part of Jody will always be just a little bit sad that we never had a boy.  However, the flip side to this is that we have two of the rowdiest, burliest girls God ever saw fit to put on the planet.  Case in point, tonight I made the mistake of laying down in the floor.

One of these days I'll learn my lesson.......

Anyhoo, I wouldn't trade either of these little beasts for a dirty, scabby kneed boy any day of the week. Instead, I have dirty, scabby kneed girls that stink like dogs when you dunk them in the tub at the end of the day.  

Forced sweetness.  Notice how they'd both rather look at the TV than the camera.  Turds.

Mom, There's a Beaster in My Bed

Tonight when Ava started getting tired, she started looking longingly at Taylor's bed as opposed to her crib.  Just for funsies I stuck her up there, and she snuggled right in and made herself at home.

Needless to say, this went over like a lead balloon.

Once Taylor discovered her own beasterly version of Goldilocks in her bed, she immediately came to tattle.  "MOOOOOOOM, Ava's in my bed.  She doesn't want to sleep in my bed, she wants to sleep in her crib.  Let's take her to her crib."  The telepathic abilities of a three-year-old are obviously way more developed than I ever realized.  

Don't Feel Sorry For Him

I know it always looks like Jody is getting attacked by our little WWE hopefuls,

(case in point) 

but believe me, he totally brings it on himself.  And a good majority of the time, he starts it.  As for the kids, don't feel sorry for them either, because they are having as good a time as my 33 year old kid.

See?

No torture here!

If there's anyone to be sad for in this chaotic house, pick me.  Jody and the girls get all riled up and crazy, destroy everything in their path, and I get to be the grown up that puts it all back together.  

It doesn't stop until someone typically gets hurt.

But then again, I wouldn't trade the chaos that is nightly wrestlemania for anything.  At least I get left out of it enough to take pictures.

Someone call Vince McMahon, I think we have a couple of hopefuls on our hands.....

Halloween 2012

Oy, it's been a rough week.  Jody and I have been passing the cold from hell back and forth (as of now, my lymph nodes are so pissed off my whole neck hurts), Beaster had another case of possible strep (Doc-in-a-box, aka-urgent care, can never seem to get a positive swab.  From what I've witnessed, I don't think they're actually touching her throat when they go in for the kill, but I digress.), and work is keeping Jody and I overly busy.  

This is how I found Taylor sleeping one morning.  My sentiments exactly.

So, in a nutshell, sick and exhausted mom = lots of Happy Meals because I'd rather stab myself with a fork than even consider cooking.  For those of you unfamiliar with the "toy" McDonald's always offers every October, it's a cheap ass plastic bucket o'food that can double as a Trick-or-Treating pail if you're either broke or uncreative.  Frankly, I hate the damn things, and I think it's a total waste of plastic.  Last weekend however, I overheard Jody cackling madly in Taylor's room.  This is why:

Said plastic Crappy Meal pail becomes plastic Beaster helmet.  Why this is so riotous I'm still not sure, I'll go so far as to say funny, but not quite the side-splitter Jody thought.

Poor Taylor has her Mama's "Pumpkin Head,"and the pail looked like a organ grinder monkey's fez.  So she improvised with another headgear that would fit her melon.

Thankfully, Halloween was not only warmer than usual for our area, but Beaster got over her latest puny-ness in time to go Trick-or-Treating with her sister.  For thirty minutes anyway.  After that, Ava decided to throw a world-famous arched-back, kicking, screaming tantrum in one of our neighbors' yard.  

Still happy before the candy gathering.

Starting to get a little peeved in the wagon.......

Ready to get this show on the road, and attempt to run out into the street as many times as possible.

Thankfully, this one is finally old enough to have the required stamina for the holiday.  After Ava's hell-fit, she waited patiently while I got Ava in bed, then went back out for another round with me.

All in all, we had a really good time.  My cold has unfortunately come back with a vengeance as a result of running around outside most of the night, but it was worth it to have so much fun with Taylor.  

October From Hell

This month has undoubtedly sucked mega at our house.  For starters, work is kicking my ass.  October is breast cancer awareness month, so needless to say, we've been busy as hell.  Add to that the fact that there is a discrepancy between my state and national licenses that I was unaware of, which gained me the lovely surprise of needing 18 continuing education hours before December.  Lovely.  Throw in a sick Beaster, Jody and I working alternating and sometimes the same Saturdays, and my hetero life mate Stacy deciding to suddenly move across the state.  Yeah, we're pretty damn tired, and any time I've spent on the computer as of late has had to do with trying to cram in CEU's.  

Jody's sentiments match my own exactly.  Notice the kids taking the opportunity to run amok while Dad's down.

Anyhoo, we are alive, albeit exhausted.  

See?  I'm still here and Beasterly!

And me too!

So today after Jody got off work (yes, he even worked Sunday this weekend), I decided that it was finally time to try and get a little festive for the upcoming candy-fest next week.  Since carved pumpkins rot and get all mushtastic within 24 hours, I decided that painting was a much better option for us.  Plus it didn't require either of my little psycho spawn handling a sharp object.  I should have known, paintbrushes could almost be equally tragic in a brand new house.  Oh well, it's gotta get broken in somehow, right?

Ava wasn't so sure about this whole situation.  I tried to give her a paintbrush, and she immediately tried sticking it in her mouth.

So we opted for "finger painting" instead.

Um, Mom, what the hell is this stuff?

And why doesn't it taste very good?

Despite my best efforts, the paint still wound up in the mouth.  Repeatedly. I blame Jody's DNA.

Taylor had a blast and is thankfully smart enough not to eat the paint.  I credit my DNA for that one ;)

The artists.

The pumpkin and the beast.

Look!  I was there too!

A failed attempt to get a good picture of both kids with the pumpkins.

...and another failure.

Ta-da!

Happy October everyone, and we'll be back next week with Trick or Treating photos fo sho.  

Sick Beaster

Thursday night I noticed that Ava was sounding a little on the wheezy side.  Since she wasn't running a fever, I chalked it up to allergies aggravated by the recent weather change, gave her a breathing treatment and didn't think much else of it.  Friday morning she seemed fine, but by the time I got home from work Friday afternoon, it was apparent that she needed a trip to "Doc-in-a-box," better known to some as urgent care.

Long story short, we were there for two and a half hours, during which she started running a fever, declined into major puny-ness, and barfed all over the exam room.  Is it sad that my one "victory" in all this was that I was just happy she didn't puke in my car?  Anyhoo, Beaster swabbed negative for strep, RSV, and flu.  But after the vomit-comet I was pretty adamant that she had some sort of strep-monger lurking around on top of whatever respiratory issues were going on and finally talked the nurse practitioner into treating her for strep.  Just for safety.  Once we were finally released, both of us exhausted, soaked from Piglet's spot bath (He was a casualty of the vomit comet, but she was hysterical without him in her arms.  I relented and washed him off in the sink, but he remained sandwiched between us, and by the time we were ready to go, all three of us were reeking of soured dairy.), we got an appointment to come back Sunday morning, in case I hadn't had enough torture for one weekend.  

That is one sick kid my friends.

Thankfully, the aggressive medical onslaught worked, and by Sunday Beaster was looking and feeling a lot more like her usual self.

Case in point.

So, here's to the official beginning of "sick-season," or fall as people without kids in daycare call it.