Woolbert.

Today when I was pulling weeds I came across a very, very tiny woolly worm.

Do you know what I'm talking about? Those hairy, fuzzy caterpillars that are brown and black? The amount of brown and black on their bodies is supposed to predict how mild or harsh the winter will be...at least that's what old people here say.

This woolly worm I found is the smallest one I have ever seen. I've never found one in the spring before, usually you see them when they are full grown and out in masses during the fall months.

When I saw it I immediately called Rosie over to look. She was enthralled, but didn't want it to crawl on her and screamed when it tried to. When she screamed the woolly worm rolled into a little ball to play dead. It had her tricked for a second, instinctive little creature.

We took it inside and put it in a jar with some weeds. Rosie carried it around for several hours. She noted that clover was its favorite food, we could see its tiny mouth eating holes in the leaves!

Eventually we looked up how to care for them. The care sheet suggested planting dandelions in a container then covering the dirt with old leaves. I think we might try that tomorrow.

It seems that the caterpillar will eat tons and grow all summer until it makes a cocoon this fall, then it will hatch out as an Isabella Tiger Moth in the spring. I wonder if we can keep it alive that long...

Might be exciting.

Did you know Isabella Tiger Moths have no mouth or way to eat food?

The woolly worm spends its entire life growing big enough to make a cocoon and transform into this stunning moth, and then it hatches out, stretches its wings, mates, and dies.

At first I thought, how sad! Then I realized that maybe I'm looking at it from the wrong perspective. Maybe the entire point of its life isn't the end goal of becoming a beautiful moth. Instead it lives each day in bliss--wandering around, eating, growing as fat as possible, making the most of the period of life when it actually can eat.

I don't know. It's strange to think about--that nature would work this way. The woolly worm's metamorphosis is so intricate and mysterious, yet it doesn't include something as basic as a mouth to eat with.

We had a better day today--Rosie, Ada, and I. Ada was a bit happier, which was wonderful.

First thing this morning...this is what I wake up to everyday!

Rosie loves to help me with Ada in the morning. They lay in bed together while I get dressed, put on make-up, and sometimes I can get as far as filling up the buckets of chicken feed before Ada starts crying.

But other times Rosie is...too helpful...and Ada morphs in to Captain Angry pants.

Rosie had a good day today, I think. I took a suggestion from a blog I enjoy and transformed her binder of worksheets for "school" into a dry erase binder. I put all of the papers in page protectors so that she can do them, erase, and try again later. This will save so much paper and ink! I can't believe this never occurred to me sooner, what a great idea!!

Rosie absolutely loved it too. She worked on different pages on and off all day long. She's learning her letters, the sounds they make, and how to write them. I put a lot of different tracing pages in the binder for her to try out. and some printed out lined paper to practice writing her own letters. I mixed in some fun things too, like mazes and connect the dots.

The only downside is that the dry erase markers stain clothing. They never wash out, trust me. Learned that the hard way when she got a dry erase board for Christmas. Aside from that the dry erase busy binder is perfect.

We also spent some time reading in the Little House on the Prairie book. Reading this book is going slowly because I only read it when she wants to...she'll be interested for a few days, then not interested for a month or more. Today she was really into it. It was so fun watching her enthralled in the book, using her imagination instead of looking at pictures. When Jack the dog went missing in the rushing water she was so upset. When Laura thought she saw a wolf in the night Rosie was on the edge of her seat gripping my arm!

Love it.

Yada Yada...

I feel like I'm still struggling to find a balance between what needs to get done around here, baby care, and giving Rosie attention. It's difficult to be spread in so many directions!

I think it's getting better though..well kind of. I've managed to keep up with the dishes and the constant onslaught of Rosie's toys. Yet at the same time I've gotten behind on the laundry and I STILL have not deep cleaned the bathroom. The bathroom, holy crap, it's getting scarier by the second.

Sometimes I think I should just give up, but living in a messy dirty house makes me psycho.

Even though people make fun of it, lists really help me...tomorrow I'm going to print out my revised chore lists and hang them on the fridge!

Baby Ada is so sweet, and yet so angry.

Her car screaming is insane and heartbreaking. Today I took the girls to Michael's (the craft store) so that Rosie could use her $20 from my Grandma to pick out some summer crafts and things. We ended up spending more than $20, shhh. The baby screamed in the car on the way there, then when we were stuck in 5 o'clock traffic on the way home, hitting every stoplight down the street, she screamed even louder. I can't stand it! It's so sad to not be able to pick her up and snuggle her. I talk to her, but it doesn't seem to help at all.

At the store Rosie picked out this wooden bird house that came with a stuffed bird. As soon as we got home she painted the bird house and she's been playing with the bird ever since. She's sleeping with the bird tonight. I have to take a picture of its house she painted, it's cute.

We had to stop at the grocery on the way home from the craft store. When we came out it was blazing hot outside. I put the girls in their seats and then sat down to start the car. The key wouldn't turn in the ignition. We were all sweaty and hungry, and THE KEY WOULD NOT TURN.

Cue frustration with screaming baby sound effects and blinding afternoon sun streaming in the windows.

This isn't the first time I've had that problem. For some reason if the wheels are at a certain angle the key doesn't turn in the ignition and if you wiggle the steering wheel just right it will unlock and the key will turn. It's not a problem with my car, it's happened in other cars too. Usually turning the wheel fixes it.

Except...for some reason it wasn't working and the baby was screaming louder and louder, and Rosie wouldn't stop telling me how hot it was. (I think it was around 90 degrees out, hotter in the car.)

Finally after 10 or 15 minutes, just when I was getting ready to go sit in the air conditioned store and cry, I got the idea to actually move the steering wheel up and down...like reposition it...and the key turned and the car started.

Shew.

I hate when things like that happen!!

This afternoon we had our very last visit with the midwife. Baby A has gained about 4 pounds in the past 6 weeks since her birth. Not too shabby! I must be making some kind of crazy high fat milk this time around.

I can't get over how fat her face is. I kiss it and squish it all the day long.

I'm pretty sure she'll be less grumpy here in the next couple of months when she can occupy herself more with a rattle or rolling over. Right now she just wants to be glued to my body, and if it weren't for the touched out feeling I get from never having a second of space I really wouldn't mind. I do enjoy her squishy rolls snuggled up against me.

I love how she's starting to get a distinct personality. She will cry hysterically if I've laid her down and tried to accomplish some small task, and then when I pick her up she stops and grins up at me. Melts my heart!

I think my load of laundry finally stopped drying. That means I have to go check on the girls in bed and then fold some clothes...the baby wakes up every 45 minutes when she's sleeping without me at night, kind of like she's on some sort of timer.

Chipmunk cheeks and various other photos.

For those who like to know these things, all of the pictures were taken with the Canon 35mm 2.0 lens.

Yesterday, Memorial Day:

The horrible, terrible, no good seat...

Happy Ada!

Rosie holding Silver, the Spitzahauben chicken.

Tyler's early birthday and Father's Day gift...a new grill!

We put our old dilapidated rusty grill on the curb and someone took it away in less than 10 minutes.

Sweet taste of summer.

For some reason the blackberries on these bushes, the thornless domesticated blackberries, are ripening early this year. They usually look like that in July, not at the beginning of June.

The wild blackberry bushes I have are just now growing the white flowers that will turn into berries. I wonder why the domesticated bushes are early this year, how odd.

I love this plant. Every Memorial Day weekend it blooms. It grows in a crack on my driveway among some crazy weeds.

Photos from today:

Fattest cheeks ever!

Nom, nom, nom....

The midwife has her final visit with us tomorrow afternoon. I'm sad.

But I can't wait to find out how much Baby Ada weighs now! My mom couldn't believe how big her fat belly was today when she was visiting.

I love her goofy baby face and her sticky-uppy nose!

Sorry, I was bored earlier...

Lavender and the driveway crack flowers, so pretty!

My Rosie is growing so big. She loves to read, especially these Garfield comics. (Even though she can't actually read just yet...)

Rosie and Daddy dancing in the living room. (Cell phone picture...)

Captain Angry Pants.

This morning has been a fail, of sorts.

Ada woke up an hour earlier than usual and I guess that pissed her off because she spent almost the entire morning fidgeting, fussing, and crying. Crying in my arms, over my shoulder, at the breast, laying on the couch, laying on the bed, and in her bouncy seat.

She fell asleep in the ring sling, then she peed on us both and woke up and screamed. That's the first time she's ever peed in the sling. She's all out of sorts today.

She just now fell asleep in my lap, meaning I am trapped...but that's alright as long as she isn't screaming. I'm just going to pretend I don't see my messy house.

Crap, Rosie just woke her up by banging a princess figurine on the floor making it walk. I give up. On everything.

I haven't let the dogs out of their crates yet today and it's 1:15. I haven't let the chickens out and fed them, or let the ducks out. I've done no chores at all--I need to do laundry and clean the bathroom and vacuum today or I will totally lose my mind. Dirty house makes me want to crawl out of my skin.

Rosie is begging me to play with her. Earlier she cried for half an hour because I wouldn't play tea party in her (destroyed) room. I feel like the worst mom ever, but I just have no reserves left. Tea party is more than I can handle at the moment.

This is what my living room looks like right this second:

It's a toy explosion. The box is from the tiller we got the other day. Rosie has incorporated the box into her living room play area, and it's staying there until trash day on...wait Monday is a holiday. Ok it's staying until whenever the make up trash day is. Probably Wednesday.

We ran out of cat food and the cats are destroying the house, stalking everything looking for something to eat. I was supposed to go buy more today but...yeah. That's not happening at the moment. I would rather let them starve and crawl back in bed. Hopefully tonight when Tyler gets home...the store that sells their food is all the way down a busy road and the road has 400 stop lights. I do not feel like fighting traffic and stopping every 100 feet while Ada screams herself hoarse in the car and Rosie asks me thirty million questions.

Last night we dropped Rosie off at my parents' house and went to a wedding. The wedding was at a vineyard.

Ada was so happy to be out of the house. I think she's going to be an extrovert like Rosie. This is difficult for me because I am very introverted. Rosie is not happy unless she has plenty of interaction with others. I would rather sit in a hole and read a book for hours.

Anyway, Ada was very happy to look at all of the people and be in a different place. Part of the reason she cries so much at home is because she is bored, I'm fairly certain. She's happy if I'm walking around constantly and holding her so that she can see, or if we're out somewhere doing something she's very content. (Except in the car, she's a car screamer which makes it torture to actually get out to do something.) We have spent hours lately walking up and down the street, which also makes Rosie happy.

Ada also enjoys our backyard, which is good because so do Rosie and I! She will fall asleep while being worn out there, or she'll actually sit in her bouncy seat in the shade for like 15 minutes at a time. Amazing.

Yesterday I was able to leave her in the bouncy seat on the back porch, shaded by the house, while I hacked down all of the overgrown branches in my garden area. It's taking me a week to get the garden ready to plant. I'm finally able to do it now that it stopped raining for a few days and my body is mostly healed. All I have left to do is till up one small corner, rake out the debris, and then PLANT. Aaah.

I wish I'd taken a before picture. Here is a picture of all the chopped down branches...

I gathered up all of the branches and re-purposed them as chicken entertainment.

(Oh the baby just drifted back to sleep. YAY!)

As if I don't already have enough to do, I have saved a few more than a dozen duck eggs because...

Clearly these two need to have babies, right?

They will be so so so cute. Baby ducks will make everything better on a bad day. I just have to dig out the incubator and be sure it still works...

Don't tell my husband.

Aside from frustrations with a messy house, insane cats, attention deprived preschooler, and lack of sleep...happy moments still shine through the majority of the time.

Ada is starting to smile more. Her face is so ridiculously fat!!

This morning I plopped her screaming self down on the couch with the ring sling and told her that I give up trying to make her stop crying.

Then she grinned at me. Fat baby grins...what could be better on a frustrating, rainy morning?

The camera was on the couch next to her so I snapped a picture of the tail end of her grin.

These pictures are all from yesterday...

She has heat rash all over her face from being hot outside, even though she was in the shade most of the time.

It was 90 degrees yesterday!

Yesterday after I finished getting all of that brush out of the garden:

Rosie looks so...something!? Old? I don't know what it is exactly.

Her eyes are so bold in this picture, but I didn't do anything to them. I just quickly made it in black and white while the baby screamed at me this morning.

See poor Baby Ada's screamy face? This is why I have renamed her Captain Angry Pants...

Khoomii.

Tyler spoke to the code enforcer guy on the phone yesterday. The guy was still as rude as ever. I'm so glad I didn't answer the door the other day when he knocked!

I understand that they are just trying to do their jobs. That would be fine with me if only they knew how to DO that job correctly.

Why do they not know their own laws and limitations? Why is there no better system for dealing with repeated (false) complaints other than to waste the city's time and our time by showing up at my house over and over and over?

You'd think if they actually intended to accurately investigate and deal with these complaints then they would at least train their officers to know the difference between ducks and swans and game birds. They should also know how to be polite...

Anyway, on the phone the guy told Tyler that there was a complaint saying our chickens were out.

Tyler told him we had pens set up which were covered on all four sides and also the top. He told him that he wasn't supposed to come to our property without calling first, as we had agreed with the supervisor last year, because it's stressful to have them knocking on the door ALL the time when we haven't done anything.

Then the guy told Tyler he went in our backyard and there were birds out in our yard. (Yes, I let out my ducks and three chickens that can't get over the fence because they have clipped wings and no toes...remember the frost bite incident? And we had been out there with them, until I ran in to nurse the baby and saw that officer pull up.) There's nothing wrong with having chickens out in my own yard.

This is my favorite part though--it is against the law for them to come into your yard without your permission! Further confirmed by the no trespassing signs the police told us to hang up.

Tyler informed him that it was against the law for him to go back there and Tyler was really angry. The officer tried to argue with him! He didn't even know his own rules. They can't come onto your property, at least not past the front door, without your permission or a search warrant. Asshat had neither, but seems to be on a constant power trip.

This was the same problem we had last year--we would be in the yard playing and they would just come in the gate without warning, sending the dogs into a scary frenzy and catching me off guard, scaring Rosie, etc.

Tyler told him that next time it happened he would call the real police. (HAHAHA too bad we couldn't see his face over the phone!) So Asshat responded that he would instead just fine us the $25 instead of investigating the complaint.

Sure...I guess he can fine us...but we won't pay it unless he provides actual evidence. That would require him to either get permission to go in our yard, or for the anonymous complainer to take a picture of the invisible chickens on their property therefore revealing who they are. (Either that or someone else has chickens that I don't know of and they are getting out and someone is blaming it on me. That would be hilarious wouldn't it?)

The thing is, they are welcome to see our chicken set up. They have seen it before and photographed it without my permission. Asshat even went in the neighbor's yard without permission and photographed it from there one day last year, narrowly missing a run-in with their 130 pound basset hound/st. bernard mix. But they are so rude about it, and they refuse to do anything about the false complaints or even follow basic laws.

Just...ugh. I wish there was someone to file a formal complaint with beyond their supervisor. (We already talked to him at length.)

Enough of that, though.

Have you ever heard of Mongolian throat singing? I was watching PBS last night and Globe Trekker was about Mongolia.

These throat singers blew my mind.

Maybe this is proof that we are really descended from aliens? (Just kidding.)

You have to watch it, it's so strange and kind of amazing. The different sounds they have for each geographical region, that's really cool.

Oh great, the baby just pooped on the bed. Oops!

Yesterday I went to the health department to show proof of my pregnancy and live birth in order to get Ada's birth certificate. The woman who approves your proof is apparently very strict, so I was nervous I wouldn't have enough proof. I took that picture with the blurred out lady bits, the one that kept getting deleted from Facebook. I also took ultrasound photos. Apparently the lady was in a good mood yesterday because that was enough proof! I just have to get Tyler to go in and sign the papers, he has trouble getting there because of his work hours. He's not allowed to take any time off or he'll be fired no matter what he needs the time off for. (If he's sick he has to be dismissed by the health clinic at the Toyota plant, and even that isn't good...it still counts against him and can lead to him being laid off first if they do lay offs again, or not hired on as permanent.)

I have to get up and go do something while struggling with a squirmy baby. My dishes are out of control, I've got two loads of laundry to fold plus one in the wash and one in the dryer and the last load to go in. My bathroom needs to be scrubbed in the worst way.I also promised Rosie we'd clean up the yard today (dog poop and Tyler's tools) so that she could have her friend from down the street over to play. We got a tiller yesterday, finally, so I have got to till up my garden area, rake it, and get stuff planted before it's absolutely too late in the season.

I feel like I go in circles--by the time I get a chance to clean up something, then some other area of the house is destroyed by pets or Rosie and Tyler. It's so frustrating!

I keep trying to remind myself that in just a few months it will get much easier, as Ada is able to play and entertain herself more and won't need so much constant attention. Just have to survive until then!

Ada didn't sleep well last night at all. I didn't fall asleep until 6 this morning and Rosie got up at 8:30. I could really use a very long nap. :-(

Fowl At Large: Anonymous Chicken Hater Strikes Again..

I can't believe the county building inspector (the code enforcer guy) was at my house today.

Seriously, I want to know who this anonymous chicken hater is and why they feel the need to keep filing these complaints.

I don't know exactly what the complaint was since I didn't answer the door, but the enforcer left a copy of the city ordinance about fowl running at large in my door along with his card. It's probably the same false complaints about my rooster chasing small children or something.

The business card said to call, so Tyler called and left a voicemail.

The enforcer guy who came was the asshat one. The one who told me to have my husband call him, the one who thought my ducks were swans and told me they weren't allowed.

Yeah.

That's why I couldn't answer the door. I did not want to deal with Asshat today, with my angry baby and non-stop talking three year old.

The best part is they have written on our file to call Tyler if there is a complaint before stepping onto our property. Obviously they didn't bother calling him first.

If they come back again I plan on answering the door and informing them that legally they aren't allowed on my property without a search warrant, and if they don't leave I will call the police. (Thanks to an online lawyer friend for that information!)

Oh I would love to see the look on Asshat's face when I tell him that.

I was nice to them the first 340 times they visited me last year, but I have had enough. I've got better things to do, like enjoy my new baby and my Rosie.

He'll probably call Tyler back tomorrow, responding to his message. I wonder what he'll have to say.

If the complaint is that my fowl are going at large and leaving my yard, well...I don't know what else I can possibly do to keep my invisible escaping chickens inside my yard. Those invisible birds are tricky, tricky, tricky.

This is my chicken set-up. The green fencing needs to be taken down, and I'm going to plant flowers around the outside edges of the chicken pens. I'd really like to line it with lavender, but it takes several years to grow the plants nice and large.

From directly behind the yellow coop over to the back of the brown coop, that's the only space where anyone can see into my yard at all. Those neighbors are the ones who also own a farm and give me chicken advice.

To the right of the picture is the back of my big garage and a thick line of trees. To the left of the picture is the back of the neighbors big garage and an overgrown rotting wood pile of theirs. Behind you is Rosie's swing set and then the fence line, which is lined with large trees. Neighbors at the corners on both sides have privacy fences.

This is an up close of the brown coop...both chicken runs have tarps over the top to prevent any escape, but mostly they are there to keep hawks out.

The only fowl loose in my yard (which is allowed, because it's MY yard) are the two ducks. They can't fly. Pekins are bred for meat and don't have the ability to fly anywhere because they're too heavy. They can barely hop up on something a foot high.

The birds need fresh straw down on the ground in there because the mud has been so terrible, it sucked up the straw! But they don't stink or anything...

So there is your photographic evidence of my fowl going at large.

Humph.

My Grandfather Name

My youngest daughter recently asked me what I would like the fuure Grandchildren to call me and I would like to point out here that at 16 I hope she won't be presenting me with any anytime soon.

My Dad's Dad was Pa, my Mum's Dad was Grandad and my Dad was Grandad, so I thought I would go for something different.  I will be Obi Wan much to the disgust of my daughters who have revoked the right for me to name myself.