Hog Hunt From Hell

On this day in 2011 there was a series of unfortunate events.

Josh and my dad left with some friends to go on a hog hunting trip in Oklahoma. When we were kids, and my dad would go out of town, disaster would always strike (see Turkey Burrito). Apparently, it's a law of nature. When the man of the house is away, you're doomed.

In ONE day, I had to be rescued by two different uncles, my mom and a neighbor.

Uncle LeRoy and his big red truck had to come jump start the big blue truck when it left me stranded at my grandparents house.

Because we were all buried in a few feet of snow, my neighbor friend Chris brought his snow blower over to dig out my driveway.  I had already been shoveling for quite some time when he came to help. After he left, I stayed outside for a while longer working on the sidewalk. Completely frozen from a few hours of shoveling, I was shocked to discover that I was locked out of the house. It was 11 degrees...

I called my mom. She gathered up all the spare keys she could find. Surely one would belong to my house. But just in case none of them worked, she picked up Uncle Todd and his bucket of tools on the way.

They arrived, guns a blazing! Uncle Todd and his tool bucket went straight to work trying to break in through the basement door. Our plan was to Uncle Buck the door open. As he started pulling the frame off the wall my mom and I suddenly remembered the collection of keys. I managed to let myself in the front door and met Uncle Todd face to face before the whole door came off the hinges in the basement.

After I warmed up I started my big painting project. Since Josh hates to paint, I planned to get the living room, dining room and halls painted while he was away. Nothing like ending a long hard day with a spilled can of paint on the carpet. Because we all know that when the man of the house is gone, anything that can go wrong, will.

PS - I ended up doing that big painting project twice. Half the cans of paint were flat and the other were semi gloss. And I almost died once by falling off a makeshift scaffold that I created over the open staircase =)

Hover Girl

On the way home from Reno we pulled into a gas station in Fernley to fill up. The second the wheels stopped moving Jackson says he has to go potty. Suddenly, Silas does too. We have a parenting courtesy where we try not to leave the other person out numbered, if we don't have to. But, like an idiot, I volunteered to take them both inside to pee in an effort to save time.

The three of us entered the women's restroom and headed for an open stall. To my disgust, I found a toilet seat covered in pee. It wasn't just a little accidental dribble. Oh no! It was like a gully washer of a urine storm all over the toilet seat.

This was an otherwise well maintained public restroom. They even provided plenty of those handy paper toilet seat covers. In this situation, who needs to hover? Eww and ahh all you want about gas station bathrooms. But if you're too good to sit on the seat, maybe you don't deserve one. Pop a squat over a tumbleweed and take a leak. Because those who hover force other people to hover. It's a vicious cycle. Did you ever stop to think that maybe you're the one who always "pees on the seat" and makes public restrooms "so disgusting?"

We promptly stepped over to the next stall where Silas peed in the toilet, not on it. Since his work was done, I pulled up his pants and let him out of the stall because, well, three is a crowd and I'm not exactly petite. Jackson was up to bat and I stood there waiting for him to go. And waiting and waiting. He says, "It doesn't work" which is code for, just kidding, I don't have to go, sucker.

As I'm wrapping up my lecture to Jackson about lying and pretending to have to pee just to get out of the car, Silas reenters the stall with Jackson's hat and says, "here you go!" I tell him thank you and say good job for peeing and I take the hat. The wet hat. The wet hat...

Because unlike you, Hover Girl, I try to teach my kids to clean up their messes. Unfortunately, the mess was yours and he cleaned it up with his brother's hat. So for the love of God, the next time you have to pee, just use the damn paper protector and sit your ass down!

Going for a Saucer Sled Land Speed Record

Since we will soon be moving to the swamp, where a single snowflake could shut down the entire state, we decided to take advantage of some fun outdoor winter activities while we still can. 

We had a rough start. Silas was struggling with all of his snow gear. The snow was past his knees so just walking a few feet proved to be a challenge. I think his biggest concern was his thumb. With those huge mittens on he couldn't get to it. We couldn't even get his thumb to go into the thumb hole. I'm pretty sure he spent the first 20 minutes of this adventure falling over and worrying that his thumb was gone forever. 

Before I had kids I loved the thrill of speed, a rollercoaster or anything else. No fear. But something terrible has happened to me. Josh put the boys in the sled and sent them on their merry way down the hill. And I panicked. Apparently, they were sliding down the hill a little faster than my new mom speedometer would allow, so I grabbed the back of the sled to slow them down. Bad idea. It was like yanking the emergency brake on the interstate. The sled stopped. The boys did not. I had hit the toddler eject button. It was their first run down the hill and I ruined it.

After I caused the wipe out, it seemed there was no chance of getting Silas back in a sled. I assumed my punishment would be to sit in the car with Silas for the rest of the afternoon. But I wanted to sled too, dammit! So when we got to the top of the hill and nothing we could say or do would convince Silas to get back into the sled, I scooped him up, plopped him in front of Jackson and gave them a push.

I wish I could have seen the look on his face. I can only assume it started with sheer panic and terror. But by the time they came to a stop at the bottom of the hill they were both beaming with excitement. Over and over they climbed the hill and slid down again. 

Silas took one nasty spill that was rather impressive. The sled went a little off course, they hit a bump that sent Jackson and the sled in one direction and Silas went airborne in the opposite direction. I ran down the hill (ok, maybe I slid and fell down the hill) to his rescue. The snow had scraped his face and he had a bloody fat lip. His face must have been what stopped him from sliding any further because his nose was packed full of snow. I discovered the bloody nose when I squeezed the little snowballs out of his nostrils. He cried for just a minute and then asked if he could go again. Just like his mother...