Tiny

I was going to write about being frugal today, but it's been bumped due to events of today which have left me too discombobulated to talk about something coherently. Today, Piglet woke up on the wrong side of the bed. My parents were here all weekend and seem to have wiped him out because he woke up with the devil in his pants.

The good news was that we had plans to go to the pumpkin farm this morning with one of our playgroups. (Not the one with the chick I don't like those kid is mean to Piglet.) There were four moms, eight boys, and one girl. I thought I was in good company until I realized that it was my kid's turn to be "that kid" today. You know, the one that causes everyone to roll their eyes inwardly, but smile empathetically at you in a way that you can tell they're relieved it's not their kid? Yeah, that was me. And Piglet.

So we head to the car to go to the farm amid much whining. Piglet did not want to go to the farm. He did not like pumpkins. He did not like orange. He did not want a hay ride. I humor him as I loaded him in the car because I was thrilled that we were actually on time. I gaily tied and double knotted his shoes and even whistled a little. There might have been a slight kick of the ankles. Of course, since we were on time, you will not be surprised to know that as I was buckling Piglet into his carseat, I discovered that his crotch was wet.

Me: Did you pee in your pants?!
P: No!
Me: You JUST went potty. Why did you pee now?
P: I didn't. I peed on my pants when I was going potty.
Me: ?????
P: I missed?

I ran into the house, ran up the stairs, got more pants, more underwear, and raced back to the car. Unbuckle Piglet, untie shoes, remove shoes, remove pants [yes, we're right there in the driveway] underwear is dry - his story checks out. Sigh heavily. Pigpen, alone in the car, begins to wail. Put on new pants, put on shoes, retie shoes, rebuckle into car seat. Wipe sweat off of own brow. Throw sullied clothes across garage. Piglet still does not want to go to the pumpkin farm. Why are we doing this again?

We're now late. Drive 20 minutes to pumpkin farm. Other 3 adults, 6 boys, and 1 girl are waiting on us. Am THAT mom. Go to picnic tables to eat lunch. Piglet does not want to eat lunch. He does not want applesauce, pretzels or peanut butter crackers. He wants Pigpen's granola bar. And a juice box. I don't have a juice box, I am the mean mommy who brings water in a cup. Bo-ring! There is whining.

We at last finish lunch and walk over to a barn-like structure to peruse pumpkins and take potty breaks. Piglet is too short to stand at this potty. He refuses to sit. I stand him up on the seat and he aims at the water. Then, deciding that isn't as interesting he turns his man part into a fire hose and begins twirling it around, making loop de loops on the wall, toilet, floor, etc. He is elated over his newfound prowess. I am trying to figure out how to smack him in a way that won't alarm the other two mommies with perfectly well-behaved children just outside the stall. Pigpen crawls under the stall door and disappears.

"You want me to hold Pigpen?" calls another mommy.

"Um, yes, please!" I frantically wipe urine from every available surface while giving Piglet my patented-usually-reserved-for-the-grocery-store fingernail squeeze on the skin between his fingers. I think I've got him under control when he begins to yell, "UNCLE! UNCLE! MOMMY LET GO!" I wither.

We wash up, retrieve the wandering Pigpen and leave the restroom so the other mommies can talk about us properly. I decide to put Pigpen in the Bjorn (yes, he still fits at 16 months and 21 pounds) to a) prevent him from wandering away and b) have two hands free to handle Piglet, the Wondergrouch. As I'm loading Pigpen into the Bjorn, I hear a squeal. It's a mommyfriend, getting her ankle soaked by a spray of water. Why in the world is water spraying when it's 50 degrees and windy out here? I look around in annoyance and find Piglet, soaked from the waist down as a direct result of HIM turning on a random spigot that he found.

I turn off the spigot and take innumerable deep breaths. I seek my zen place. It's missing. Instead, I grit my teeth, squat down (Pigpen in Baby Bjorn! My thighs are solid! Who needs a gym when this is your day?) and yank his cold, wet pants down right there in the barn. Yes, I am white trash. I felt his underwear which was miraculously still dry again, again untied and removed the shoes and put on new, dry pants. Re-affixed and retied shoes, uttered many a threatening word regarding spigots under my breath at him and stood up. (Bjorn! 21 pounds!)

It was time for the hayride. Hooray. Piglet began to squeal and tried to run away.

P: I DON'T WANT TO GO ON THE HAYRIDE!
Me: Why?
P: NOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Me: It will be fun. You like tractors, you like trailers, you like farms. I paid two dollars. Let's go.
P: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Et cetera.

Everyone else was on the wagon praying we wouldn't get on. Ha ha ha....I just spent two bucks. We're SO going. I hefted Piglet up onto the wagon (Bjorn! 21 pounds! Pigpen!) and clamored aboard behind him. There was thrashing. There was wailing. Everyone awkwardly tried to make conversation about the farm as the other (7) kids stared at him. The tractor began to pull the wagon and he was fine. Suddenly, life's good. We survived the rest of the hayride, a trip to the pond to feed the fish, and a ride home. The rest of the day continued as can be expected, but I just had to share this one part. Just this one, tiny part of my day.

Tiny.

Meka leka hi meka hiney ho

Hiya. Where have you been? What's new? Please share.

I have so many thoughts swimming in my head that I can't focus. This must be how my students felt when I told them to write. Augh!! Okay. Head clearing. I'll work backwards from now. I just bought a new pair of glasses. These are necessary because upon going to the eye doctor I found out that my prescription had improved for the first time in, oh....my whole life. So my glasses are too strong. Before you get too excited (I feel all that excitement out there!) I'm still very, very blind. Oh, and I have cataracts. Have I mentioned that? Yeah, I'm 80. So anyway, since I am so very, very blind, my glass with the 40% discount were $457. FOR REAL! So with this fragile vision of mine, you can see that it's important for me to be frugal, as we all know I can be. It's necessary for me to have both glasses and a home to live in.

Today I hosted a playgroup. It's this playgroup that I joined about a year ago to meet new people and I haven't been to in quite a while, even though I met a lot of people I liked. Why haven't I been, you ask? Well, there's one woman there whose kids I truly can't stand. Every single time we're around them her kid is totally mean to Piglet. Not that I expect him to have everybody treat him perfectly and make him into a wimp, but this kid is MEAN. Like, knocking Piglet to the floor over a toy when he doesn't even know him mean.

Today, he took sidewalk chalk and starting drawing all over Piglet's car. Now, I'm the first to admit that Piglet is crazy OCD about cleanliness, but this was just rude and mean. The mom never says anything more than, "Alexander, no..." and then returns to conversation. [Her kid threw a huge shovelful of sand on HER and she said no. I would have carried him to the car, beaten some part of him, taken away his joy, and driven him home, but that's just me.] So....Piglet goes up to Alexander and says, "Chalk is for the sidewalk, don't write on my car!", which I thought was a relatively mature response for a 3 year old. Alexander drew on Piglet's face and shirt in purple chalk and then knocked the bottom of his cup up into his face so water went all over him. Piglet burst into tears and indiscernible words and ran to me. Alexander's mom gave me the "your kid is a weirdo" face. So there's my dilemma. And I haven't even mentioned her 6 year old that she homeschools without a college degree, or the fact that she's doing this homeschooling while her 2 and 3 year old boys who have the same birthday (you do the math) are running around the house every day.

So what do I do? Other than her (and her hellions) I like the other normal people that I meet. Oh, I forgot to mention that she runs the group and is at every single event. Yeah. That. Would appreciate your thoughts, please.

Let's see, that's all been today. I re-started tennis on Tuesday night. A lady called me on Monday about a league that started on Tuesday. A very casual league....good to get back into the swing of things. (Heh.) The courts are ranked and you get moved up or down based on how well you do on your court after playing three sets of doubles, one with each of the people on your court. Well. You start at the bottom. On my court, there was one normal woman, Grandma Bessie, and Jimmy. Jimmy was mentally retarded and didn't actually speak aloud or call scores, but did play tennis, if somewhat erratically. He was silent - I swear, I thought he was mute - until the third set when he was my partner and he turned to me and said, "Are you 26?" I was about to receive a serve and was a bit off guard. I thought for a fraction of a second before responding firmly, "Yes, I am!" If he wants me to be 26, or thinks I look 26, I'll be 26! "I'm 22," he said at the next serve. I'm not sure if he was hitting on me or just getting his facts in order. At any rate, I won my court, so maybe next week I'll get to move up. I wasn't nearly as terrible after a two year break as I thought I would be.

Gus has only had one food incident since the Five Fiber Bars Incident. On Tuesday, he snagged a bag of coffee grounds out of the pantry (I swear, this dog must be hiding his secret opposable thumbs), ripped it open, and sampled it. Judging by the stripes of coffee on the carpet, I'm going to guess that he didn't care for it. The vet [who, by the way, looks at the caller ID and answers, "What did he eat today?"] told me to watch for signs of agitation or fidgety-ness, lest his heart be affected by the caffeine. Since he flopped down for a nap, I decided he was okay.

Piglet is having a good year in preschool. Everyday, he tells me that he played and ate lunch, though he brings home all kinds of artwork, letters, colors, and numbers. He also sings long songs in his room during "quiet" time that I know I haven't taught him. Alas, he must be learning by osmosis, since he's just there to play and eat. Behold, his school pictures:

That should just about catch us up on the week. I made some pretty stellar meatballs from ground turkey for dinner last night. Aside from a Thursday night trip to buy glasses, that may have been the highlight of the week. Coming soon: Ways to Live Frugally, by Pigs. Will accept suggestions.

Chop, chop

Have you ever tried to give a wiggly 16 month old with fine, thin bird hair a haircut? Really? Did you cut your kid's finger with the scissors too? Hmm. Thought that was just me. Vote in the comments for me for Mother of the Year. I have to say, though, finger or not, his hair looks markedly better. I was considering having him wear a tie and go as Donald Trump for Halloween it was so bad.

Also today, I racked up at the grocery store, buying $64.78 of products for $2.88. My rightful total should have been $1.88, but SOMEONE who shall remain nameless (Piglet) practiced with his scissors on my Coffeemate $1/2 coupon. What is it with scissors today? They are a central theme in my life today.

Something entertaining not related to scissors was when I came downstairs with the expectation that Mr. Pigs would have appropriately dressed Piglet for church in one of the two outfits I brought down. I had complete confidence that he could a) choose the best outfit and b) put it on him correctly being that Mr. Pigs is both a dude and a dude who dresses himself successfully every day for work. Alas. I arrived on the scene minutes before we had to leave for church to find Piglet dressed in both the red polo shirt AND the blue checked button up that I had laid out. I could have used some scissors at that moment, let me tell you.

Tomorrow is Monday, our catch up day. Piglet doesn't have school and for the first time in weeks, we have nothing to do. It's kind of a relief. We might make a little Target trip or hang in the yard. Maybe run with scissors?

Up On the Housetop, Swimming Pools!

Whoo-boy, I am some kind of tired! Today was the Clemson extravaganza as they played Wake Forest. Piglet has been dying to go to a game and is dressing as a Clemson football player for Halloween. He could spell Clemson before he could spell his own name and might possibly bleed orange. You can imagine the excitement when his moment had come at last.

Piglet popped up from bed like jack in the box and grabbed his football helmet, all business. He twitched and bounced for most of the ride to Clemson, his excitement was so apparent.



I'm not sure how it is that we keep seeing Things Atop Trailers, but sure enough, we saw another one today....sadly, not fast enough to take a picture. Whizzing by on my right, I spotted a plastic kids' swimming pool on top of a dilapidated single wide. This sparked a stimulating conversation that rivaled our ponderance of the computer on a table atop the last tenement on wheels in South Carolina. Interestingly (or perhaps not), this one was also in the great state which bore my husband.

Refocus on our guesses: There was a leak and they thought it would be simpler to catch the water in the pool than to fix it? They were going for a luxury rooftop swimming experience? Just ran out of storage room and popped it up there? Feeling green and captured their own rainwater for irrigation purposes? The possibilities are endless and I'm relatively confident we could have gone on wondering for a good twenty minutes if we hadn't been distracted by THE GUY PEEING BEHIND HIS TRUCK.

Now, I'm all for being a dude and stopping for a convenience tinkle, but come on! This guy was standing behind his truck for all the world to witness his urination into the wild and not even trying to be discreet. We could see the stream! Right there, side of the road. Klassy.

We managed to put that behind us and have a good time - though coldish and rainish - without losing either kid or having major injury. I hogged out on sausage balls, pigs in blankets, boiled peanuts, and cake. I'm considering submitting myself to Health magazine as an example of a nutrition "don't". I'm not ashamed to tell you that I ate them again for dinner and am considering topping it off with some nachos or popcorn.

Clemson stomped Wake Forest, Pigpen fell asleep in his stroller, and ye happy family made it back to car to head home. That was all fine and good until we passed ANOTHER GUY PEEING BEHIND HIS TRUCK. Seriously! This guy had just finished up as we passed and didn't even take the courtesy to pretend he was checking a tire of something, instead he zipped up with a flourish and made eye contact as we drove by. Are we cave people?

In conclusion, very little about this post is really about Clemson, but actually is mostly focused out rogue outdoor urinators and things atop trailers. I'm sure a lot of very interesting, meaninful and possibly entertaining events transpired today, but in my exhaustion all I've got is pee and trailers. Sorry about that.

Garbage.

Hello, friends! Buddies! Pals! Imaginary blog friends? I come to you with a glass of Pinot Noir and a tired brain. Gus is staring at me with big brown puppy eyes that say, "Feed me? Please?" as though he's starving to death. I'm staring right back at him with my big brown unfeeling eyes that say, "Suck it, dog. You ate a whole box of Fiber One bars this morning. You'll be lucky if I feed you before Monday." He'd better be glad I got those for free or I'd really be hoppin' mad.

Piglet has lost his mind. I mean, truly, really absolutely lost it. He was perfectly angelic at school this morning, and relatively good during "quiet time" with the exception of the yelling, singing, and stomping about business. But as soon as he was released from QT, Lordhavemercy he turned into a lunatic. Not the fun kind, either. More of the temper tantrum, thrashy, disagreeable type. There was a great deal of patience (on my part), time out attempts (on my part) and being sent to his room to thrash about in private (on his part). Thank goodness we're the type of parents who turn the doorknob around backwards to keep the kid in place. (Please don't report me.)

Pigpen, on the other hand, is thus far unlikely to require this sort of barbarian treatment. Generally, if I just give him a mean face he will burst into tears and come to me for a hug. This is the kind of kid I can work with. Of course, he's only 16 months, so let's give him time before we make that statement too loosely. His high-maintenance behavior currently is climbing. As in, I helped Piglet get some blocks out and turned around to find Pigpen on top of a table, pointing to a train on the wall picture saying, "Dis? Dis?" Because it's normal just to climb up there and ask, I suppose. I've had to break out the seat belt in the high chair, which is brand-spanking clean on account of my arrogant response to it when Piglet was in the high chair of - "What kind of kid needs a harness in a high chair? Come on!" Ah, my friend karma. We meet again.

Hey, here's some fun news: Piglet has been peeing in the potty like a big man (read: standing up and peeing all over the floor) for a month or two now, but still stands firm in his opposition to pooping on the potty. Later, he says, soon! But not now. I've resorted to bribes. He gets to open a small (Target Dollar Spot) present when he poops in the potty. Three of them. Then, when it continues appropriately and I declare him Trained, he gets to do something special. What would you like to do, I ask?

A train ride? The bounce house? Pizza? Maybe a new toy? These ideas instantly flow into my very dense, adult brain.

He thinks. He ponders. There's even some mulling. After about five minutes, he has it. He wants me to take him to the landfill.

Pause.

I'm sorry, what? The landfill? You achieve something monumental and you want me to take you to the place where the garbage trucks deposit REFUSE? Seriously? He's serious. He's going to the landfill when he's Trained.

I told him I wasn't exactly sure where the landfill was, but he assured me that I could find out "on the computer." I didn't know if it was a place you could, um....visit, exactly. "You can do it, Mommy," he says.

Fantastic. Anyone want to join me on a fieldtrip?

Tour de Carolina

Spending quality time in the car with two little people makes you desperately search out the window for something to laugh about. Lucky for us, driving through rural SC and NC kept us entertained for a while.

Being superfans of Christmas Vacation, we were of course excited to spot Griswold's Family Produce. Thought I craned my neck, I was unable to spot Cousin Eddie lurking about.



Some construction outside of Charlotte sparked a fascinating conversation about the meaning of this sign. What was Bobbie's deal? Was he so confused by the construction that the DOT had to create a special sign for him to find his way home?



No tour is complete without a homemade waterslide, right? We did a double take on this monstrosity. An up close view is really worth it.



My personal favorite was spotted by Mr. Pigs while he was driving, something I found to be quite impressive. Eagle Eyes spotted what appears to be a desk and computer perched atop a mobile home of sorts. Your thoughts?



When we arrived at our beach rental, we were intrigued by their "Let's Hang Anything Nautical" style. Starting with the handmade Shells N' Glue craft in the bathroom -



The wall paper was so busy in the kitchen that this fish switchplate actually blended right in:



And this? I'm just really not sure. I'll leave it to you to create a comment.



Finally, I've always believed that every bathroom needs a statement piece. You know, one that really gives you something to think about while you take care of business. I think these folks must have felt the same way, as this beaut was hanging over the toilet.



Anyone care to interpret?

A picture tour...

I'm going to throw some pictures out here and give a summary of my last couple of weeks. Following, will be a Tour de Carolinas in which I will show some special things you don't want to miss if you're driving through the great states.

We start at the beach. As a rule, I can't stand Myrtle Beach, but it turns out that in September? When all the people are gone? It's really quite nice! We had weather in the mid-80s and the resort had a great kids' waterpark on site. We begin here on the beach with Piglet's Very Serious Construction Project:

Pigpen was a little apprehensive about the sand on his feet at first and quite perferred to stay in his chair and check out the scenery. It wasn't long before he was neck deep in messy sand and water with Piglet.



The next day, we tried the water park. Below is Piglet cruising down the slide one of his 834 times with his Pop B. This park had a rule that you had to stay with kids under 4. Sigh. Guess how many times I rode the slide?

Pigpen thinks every body of water is a giant bathtub put there for his enjoyment (read: splashing excessively) and engaged in lots of swimming and water play.



Of course, we can't let Piglet turn 3 without some form of cake:

And again at his other grandparents' house:



Mommy simply HAD to hit the outlets on the way home, so Piglet found something to amuse himself. This is his classic "FINE. TAKE IT." pose.

I'm sure you all haven't recovered from reading about Pigpen's incident at Wendy's in which he was stripped of his clothes and dignity right there in the parking lot? Well, this was him five minutes later as we drove the rest of the way home. Not a care in the world, this kid.



And finally, on the way back to Georgia....

Too much vacation!