My So Called Life

Boy, we had a crazy day. Yes, it involved one of these,

seven of these,

Two of these

One of these,

And one employee from here.

Let me start at the beginning. I knew from the moment my alarm sounded at 6:45 that it would be a busy day. We had a lot to do and no time to waste.

I got up, exercised, got breakfast ready, showered, dressed, cleaned up dishes, got the kids dressed, put dinner in the crock pot, made some sandwiches and snacks to bring with us as I knew we would not make it home for a noon time meal and left the house at 10am.

We had a fun morning at the library where we read stories, sang songs, played with bubbles and glued tiny bits of tissue paper onto ourselves.

After the library we headed over to Baby Cake's 15 month check up. It turns out he is still really little. He weighs 18 pounds and 12 ounces, that means he gained 2 ounces in the last three months. That makes his growth line flat, and puts him in the less than 5% of all babies his age. The pediatrician ordered some routine blood tests to see if there is really something wrong, like thyroid, or if he's just a small boy. We'll get those results some time next week.

After the doctors appointment the kids had a primary activity at church. I pulled up to the chapel and and sent the kids in. I had a small thought that maybe I should stay and be an extra set of hands in case they needed back up.

Then all the kazillion things I could get done with just one kid instead of 4 came to my mind and I made a bee line for the nearest farm supply store, where I bought 7 of the cutest, fluffiest baby chicks I have ever seen. I only went to get feed for our existing 13 hens, but as soon as I opened the door I heard them. I heard the cutest little chirps coming from the cages in the middle of the store and I knew they had gotten the first batch of spring chickens.

I could not help myself.

Since Mr Bird won't let me have another baby, I took out my mothering instinct on a box full of baby birds. And they are the cutest things you've ever seen. Don't worry, we will not have 20 birds for long, we have several hens that are no longer laying and so they will make their way into the crock pot soon enough!

So back to the church I drove with my SUV all a chirp with baby birds. As I enter the cultural hall to gather my own flock I was greeted by the primary president. She very gracefully came over to me and says, "I need to tell you what happened during the activity."

That is never a good thing to hear.

My first thought was who did Dubs hit?

She goes on to tell me that during the course of the activity Dubs came up missing. After a quick and thorough search of the church it was discovered that he was not there.

Panic bells were going off in my head as she is telling me this.

The search grew to out doors, where my nearly 4 year old son was found wondering toward our home, which by the way is not on the safest of roads.

Luckily some people in the neighborhood saw him and somehow a police officer was there with the crowd of strangers who had gathered to watch after my small lost boy.

When the primary presidency counselor tried to take Dubs back to the church he said,

"But how will I get home?"

She replied, "Your mom will come back and get you."

"Oh, OK!" was his reply.

I should have listened to that voice that told me to stay and be an extra set of hands.

We finally made it home around 3:45pm with a car loaded with 200 pounds of animal feed, some groceries, 4 tired kids, and 7 new baby chicks. I was ready to go into the nice warm house filled with the aroma of slow cooked soup just waiting to be tasted and salted and stirred.

Guess what I found instead?

I found 2 carbon monoxide alarms blaring, one upstairs and one down stairs.

It's funny how when things like this happen I panic and can't for the life of me think like a sane human being. I could not figure out what to do. I knew I should keep everyone out of the house. Good thing it was in the 40's today, or we could have frozen to death. It did not occur to me to go straight to the source and call the gas company. Instead I freaked out and called 911. They sent yet another police officer, who assured me he was not the officer that had found my lost child less than an hour before. Along with him came a real live fire truck. The fire men made sure none of us were sick and took some gadget into the house to test the air. They came back and assured us they did find gas and to stay out of the house until the gas company could come and find the source of the gas.

Long story short, nothing is wrong with our house, there is no leak. The gas company thinks it was from me running the car in the garage before we left and the fumes got stuck in the garage when I shut the garage door and leached into the house during the course of the day.

By the time it was all sorted out it was nearly 5:30 and I have never been so glad to have dinner in the crock pot. I threw some frozen rolls in the oven and we sat down to a very nice, warm dinner.

So while it was a crazy day like no other, I am more than thankful to be safe in a nice warm home with my kids.

The only thing that would make it better was if Mr Bird were not hundreds of miles away in southern California walking on the beach all in the name of 'work' without me.

*sigh*

Why do these things always happen when he's away?

I miss my lover.

*sad, cry*

In Loving Memory of a Dear Friend

I have to whine for a minute.

But just for a minute and then I promise I am done...Maybe

My world as I knew it is over.

My blogosphere will never be the same.

I have had countless people tell me how much they love my posts and all the fun pictures of all the fun things we do.

Mr Bird hates it when I put all the pictures in a slide show because he likes them in the post and he likes reading the commentary about each one.

Well I hoped you enjoyed them too while you could.

Because they are all gone.

There will be no more.

I can't even bring myself to say what I did.

My stomach has a sick knot in it.

I will not sleep a wink tonight.

It started out a really good day. I did my workout, got the kids breakfast, we all got dressed and started school as usual. When school was over I made lunch and we left for a field trip to Salt Lake City and a tour of Mrs. Cavanaugh's Chocolate Factory.

My post is not about the candy factory today.

It was delightful. We had yummy samples and everyone was on a nice sugar high as we headed for home.

On the way home I thought, hey since we're here and don't have to be home for a while why don't we stop at the State Capital and have a look see there too.

Nothing like 2 tours in 1 day.

So we pulled up and parked. I threw baby cakes in the baby backpack and Dubs in the stroller and we were off.

As we come up the steps on the East side of the building there are these two huge Lions made of marble. I told the kids to stand next to them so I could get a picture.

I reached down into my purse to grab my trusty Cannon.

My nice, very expensive Cannon.

My sweet Cannon of love.

My Cannon that takes beautiful pictures of my babies.

My memory holder.

My photo documentor of my life and the lives of my very offspring.

My most trusted tool for my own small endeavor at family history.

I grabbed it and then the rest is a blur. I don't know what my hand caught on, but it caught.

I fumbled for the camera. Then slow motion took over.

I knew it was going to hit that marble slab what felt like a full minute before it did. I watched in vain as it hit and (*GASP*) bounced. It pains me to even write it. My heart just might break.

I did that.

It was not the three year old digging around in my purse getting into trouble.

It was not the six year old always begging to take a picture.

It was not the five year old being careless.

It was not even baby cakes.

It was all me.

So I picked it up as carefully as I could.

I tried in vain to turn it on.

The top is totally split open and I can see it's guts.

Oh, the horror!

And now it rattles. I don't think it's supposed to do that.

I took it home to Mr Bird and he handled it very well. But he did take the memory card out and put it in the garbage.

All hope is gone.

It's gone, as good as buried. I'm in mourning.

What a dark, dark day.

What is worse is that we have zero, count em, zero dollars for a new camera right now.

Say good by to birthday photos of Baby Cake's 1st (which is in 2 week, by the way) birthday and of Christmas 2008.

So the next time you see a photo of baby cakes he might be 12.

Or 60

Keys

Have you ever just sat and thought about keys?

OK, Maybe I'm the only one, maybe I'm just really weird. They really are thought provoking little buggers.

When you have your keys everything goes well. You hop in your car and just go about doing what you want to do, without really thinking about those little things hanging from the ignition. Alas, if it were not for those little things you would not be going anywhere!

You'd be stuck, marooned, stranded, possibly in a very desperate situation.

You'd be kicking yourself, racking your little brain trying to figure out where on earth you left them.

When you have them you unlock your door and just go in the house.

Without them you bang on the door to no avail, it will not budge without those tiny magic keys.

You feel so close, if only you could just get past that pesky door, you feel trapped outside.

FRUSTRATION SETS IN!

When you have them you take them for granted.

When you don't you could go insane thinking about where they are and where you need to be in 10 minutes and how you could be there by now if it were not for those pesky lost keys!

What, am I the only one that has ever lost her keys?

Well, then you'll just have to trust me because heaven knows I have lost my keys enough in my ever so short lifetime to make up for all of my loyal readers!

Ask anyone who knows me, I am just a tad bit absent minded. Just today I got in the car all ready to go to church but left the baby snoozing away in the house. The rest of the family was in the car waiting for me. I hopped in and Mr Bird just looked at me. I said, "What are you waiting for, let's go."

He said, "What about Baby Cakes?"

Oh ya, minor detail!

I could give you countless examples of times I have lost my keys and put myself in very desperate situations indeed!
The first year Mr Bird and I were married I must have done it about 100 times. It got to the point that I became worried he'd leave me if I couldn't keep tract of those things so he did not have to keep rescuing me.

I thought how on earth can I have babies and be expected to keep track of them and all the "stuff" that goes with them if I can't even keep track of my keys. It was a really big problem.
With a lot of practice I became more disciplined about keeping a tight rein on my keys. They found a home in my purse where I put them everyday so I would not have to hunt them down.

For the most part I have done well over the past few years keeping track of them. I have been proud of myself.

You can imagine my delight when one day about a year and a half ago Mr Bird comes to me and says, "Have you seen my keys, I've looked everywhere and I cannot find them."

Finally the tables were turned, it was his turn to go insane looking for his keys, to be frustrated not knowing where they were. Maybe now he'd understand the pain I had every time I lost my keys.

Time passed and his keys never turned up. We finally bit the bullet and had another set made and we all lived happily ever after.

Until last week that is. I was going through all my pre-pregnancy clothes trying to determine what still fits and what I need to get rid of. I came across a pair of carpi's that I only wore a handful of times, I just never really liked the way they fit.

As I was trying them on I felt something in the pocket, something heavy-ish. My first thought is Quarters! I love finding missing money.

But alas, It was Mr Birds keys that were lost so very long ago!

It's no wonder he could not find them, he left them in my pants, DUH!