Update on our visitor

I got home from work and slowly stepped through the door with my head hung down again and my hand covering Bean's eyes, too.  You can never be too careful when you're dealing with evil, scary birds.  I ease us into the living room and the next thing I hear is my knight in shining armor asking "what the hell are you doing?".  I explained I was protecting our eyes from flying foul.

The hubz said not to worry because the bird was gone.  Hooray!  Yippee!  Way to go!!

I asked "Did you have to shoot it?"

"Nope."

"Did you have to hit it with the broom?"

"Nope."

"Did you have to call Homeland Security?"

"Nope, I reached up and grabbed it."

"With your hands?!?!  Do we need to take you to the ER for rabies shots?"

"No, dear.  I just got it in my hand and took it outside.  It was really calm once I had it in my hand."

I think he must be in shock or something and not fully comprehending how close he came to serious injury.  Poor thing.

So this is what our little visitor looked like. 

But in my mind, this is what I saw: 

P.S.  Guess who did the clean up?  Ugh!

An unwelcome visitor

This morning, as I do every morning in the chilly weather, I went outside to warm up the car.  I didn't grab the door key, just my car key.  I have a history of locking myself out so I just left the door open.  As I am coming back in the house, I hear something moving around in the kitchen.  I freak out thinking someone was in my house.  It's just me and the baby there at this time and this sound is in between me and where the baby was sleeping.  So I sneak on in and peer around the corner into the kitchen.  Not someone, something.  A bird had flown in when I went outside.

There are 2 animals that I am VERY afraid of - snakes and birds.  Snakes to the point that I freeze.  I can't even move.  Birds do the opposite.  Birds turn me into a high-pitched screaming little girl.  I jump around, I scream, I hunker down and hide.  Everything that only makes the situation worse.  This bird is freaking out while I'm freaking out.  It was a joint freak out.  I run around and start shutting doors to other rooms and I try to figure out what to do.  My first thought was to sell the house but in this economy, even with a free bird thrown in, it's not likely to happen anytime soon.  So I start moving my way towards the bird, praying to God the whole way "please don't let this bird kill me", "please don't let this bird peck my eyes out", "please don't let this bird poop on anything of mine".  I also started wondering if it would make me a bad mom if I left the baby to fend for herself.

As I'm walking towards the bird, trying not to pee my pants, the bird starts fluttering all over.  The wings!  Oh God, the wings!!!  Then it takes off!  All I wanted to do was get by the bird so I could shut the door to the our bedroom where the baby was still sleeping.  I didn't want this thing anywhere near my beautiful, sweet, clean, free of bird poop baby.  Ugh!  But I was too slow cause right over my head it flew and straight into the bedroom.

So now the cursing starts.  I walk into the bedroom with my head hung down so I could protect my peepers.  I coudn't find the bird anywhere. Then I started thinking that maybe it was all a hallucination brought on by too many Claritin-Ds and Sudafeds.  So I start into my bathroom, and right in front of my eyes flies this freakin' bird.  So the screaming and the dancing and the cursing starts up again.  I jump out of the bathroom, having the wherewithall to pull the door shut behind me.

Trapped!  Aha!  Damned bird.  I got you!  I win.  The door I shut is a french door with glass panes so I walk back up to the door and peer in.  There sits the devil's spawn atop the door that goes into the potty room.  And there runs a stream of bird poop right down that same door.  Great!  Now we're gonna have to replace that one cause they haven't made enough Clorox to deal with that mess.

So the baby is awake now and laughing cause she thinks Mommy is playing and putting on a fun floor show.  I tried to explain to her that this was no laughing matter and then she looks at me and toots and breaks out this huge smile and I just think "Exactly".  There's no reasoning with a 13 month-old.

I try to figure out my next move.  By now the anger has set in due to the condition of the door.  Ugh again!  I wonder if there is a gun in the house that won't do very much damage if I go bird hunting.  I wonder if I can come up with a story good enough for the cops that will likely show up and the insurance adjuster that will be called in to fix the mess I'd create with said gun.  Then I think, well I could turn the gun around and swat the bird with it if it was a shotgun.  Then The Christmas Story flashed in my mind and I wondered where that trusty Red Rider was hiding.  I  came to my senses and realized that I would never be able to shoot a BB gun straight enough with the way I was shaking.  Then there was another mind flash, something about blood and guts, so I had to abandon all the Chuck Norris courses of action.  I thought that I might could throw a towel over the bird and run outside with it once I trapped it.  But that would require me to get closer to the bird and that was vetoed immediately.  What else?  A box, a cat, a man???  Sure, why didn't this happen during one of the many months my husband was unemployed????  Nice.

And then the bad thoughts really set in.  I've always heard that having a bird fly in your house was bad luck.  REALLY BAD LUCK.  It's an omen of sorts.  So then I start the freak out all over.  By this time, the baby decided she wanted in on the action and had climbed off the bed and crawled between my legs.  I was already massively late to work and still had a 45 minute drive ahead of me after dropping the baby off.  I called my husband for advice and he said to just leave the door shut and he'd take care of it when he got home.  I had to explain to brain boy that that would mean a bird would be in our bathroom all day long, pooping on everything.  I was assured that he would clean it all up.  Uh huh.  Right.  I'm sure.  But I had no other options.  I was running behind on time.  I knew that my boss would never, ever believe this story.  I had to give up the fight.  I lost.  The bird won.  For now...

We survived Snow Jam '09!

It snowed!  It snowed!  It snowed!  Please, if you're reading this from a locale that is pummelled with snow on a regular basis, don't laugh at me too long.  Here in Georgia, or to be more exact, where we live in Georgia, we don't get much snow.  We aren't even guaranteed snow every winter.  But we got it yesterday and boy, was it pretty.  But it came on a dang Sunday, though, so that means no snow day for Mommy and Daddy.

This was the Bean's first snow experience.  Well, let me correct myself.  It snowed last year on the day that we brought her home from the hospital.  We came home to no heat, no water, and ruined food in the refrigerator due to no power.  That was Snow Jam '08 which was a much bigger deal than '09.  As usual, being the Southerner that I am with no snow experience, I could just see us getting snowed in and not having enough soy milk for the Bean.  So I yanked my husband up and made him risk life and limb to get to the grocery store to stock up.  I told him not to come back home until he had 2 half gallons of Silk or enough soy beans to milk himself.  About ten minutes after I shoved him out the door on this hazardous mission, I wondered if I had done the right thing or if I had just unnecessarily risked the life of the father of my sweet, sweet child.  Then I thought "well, he has a 4-wheel drive and a pair, so he'll be fine".

After her Daddy left, Bean waddled over to the front door and stood there looking out the side window.  Bean, of course, wouldn't remember her first snowfall.  She seemed to be confused at all this white stuff coming down.  I told her it was God's dandruff but then I remembered she doesn't know what dandruff is.  I'll have to save that one for a few years.  She kept pointing and jabbering at all the falling snow.  She was just so fascinated.  She made a circuit from the side window on the door to the window in her room, just pointing and jabbering all the way.  I think she was trying to point out every single snowflake cause you know no two are alike.

After her father made it back home safe and sound, we bundled up the Bean and headed out into the Artic cold to introduce her to the snow.  She objected to the long-sleeved shirt, zipped up sweater hoodie (hoodie pulled up), two pairs of socks, fleece beanie, lined blue jeans, boots, fleeced lined mittens and thick winter coat.  Mostly she was fine until the mittens.  This kid has a thing about her hands.  They can't get too dirty and you can't cover them up.  She has to be able to see them or she'll lose it on you.

I think I now have an inside look on my daughter's "communing with nature" outlook.  I think she's gonna take after her mom.  After about 5 minutes out in the frozen tundra, she was over the white stuff and wanted back inside.  Once we were back inside and warm again and her hands had been liberated, she never pointed to another snowflake the rest of the day.

That's my girl!

How dumb do you have to be???

Okay, I just have to share this post with you from one of my favorite blogs, CakeWrecks.  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this blog and have shared it with a gaggle of gals.  I have read other posts of her's showing the things people write on cakes and I normally just shake my head in amazement.  But today's post just sent me over the edge.  I think it really must be the fact that I'm getting sick AGAIN.  Post Nasal Drip is not my friend and frankly, if I could find Post Nasal Drip, I'd kick its ass.  Anyways, enough about my bodily functions...

Maybe I'm lucky that I've never encountered anyone in a bakery dumb enough to do this type of thing, or maybe I'm unfortunate since I've never experienced this personally, I don't have any pictures to contribute to her.  Either way, I just don't understand how someone could place an order for a cake, give the baker/decorator instructions on how they want the cake to look, and those very same instructions wind up on the cake as part of the decoration.  I mean, really people, if you work in a bakery, does it really make sense that someone would want "in place of 'love' put a heart" written on the top of a cake?  Does that make sense to you?  Wouldn't something in your batter-filled brain make you stop and verify this stuff???

I know decorating cakes is hard work.  That's why I don't do it.  That's why I use bakeries.  I'm no dummy, I know when to call in a professional.  Duh...my name ain't Betty Freaking Crocker or Martha Freaking Stewart!    But come on!!!  People really never cease to amaze me.

Croup, croup, croup

What?  Did the circus come to town?  Did the seals escape?  Did the dogs let them in?

Just when I thought things were gonna settle down around our house, Bean goes and gets croup!  Croup, you say?!?  Yep, if you've ever been woken up at 1am to the sound of a barking seal in your house, then you've met Croup.

I had never met Croup before so I was sure that Bean had either become possessed or eaten a squeaky toy.  Either one is not high up on my list of things I ever wanted to deal with.  I didn't even know my child could make those kind of noises.  So off to the pediatrician we go for another visit.  Bean must have thought they had been missing her at the doctor's office, I guess.  After another visit and another few notes on her medical chart, she was diagnosed with croup AND another ear infection!

For those of you that have never dealt with croup, here's a quick overview of what it is exactly (nope, I didn't know either) and what advice I was given to help Bean through it.  I'd also like to apologize to my sister-in-law because I had no idea it was contagious!  Oops...

Croup is a viral infection of the vocal chords, voice box, and windpipe.  It is usually part of a cold and can cause hoarseness (check) due to swelling of the vocal cords.  There is a distinctive cough (check) that occurs with infections of the voice box.  The cough is tight (check), low-pitched (check) and barky (check) like a barking seal.  [Checklist is complete, Doctor.]  (Information taken from Your Child's Health by Dr. Barton D. Schmitt.)  The peds told me they could either give me a prescription for some steroids or I could wait it out for about 72 hours.  I decided to forego the steroids because I just am tired of trying to force medicine down this poor baby and if there are other alternatives, I'd much rather try those first.  The other advice I was given was once the coughing started to stand with Bean in front of the open freezer door and let her breathe in the cold air or I could wrap her up warmly and take her outside for a few minutes to breathe in the cold winter air.  Thankfully, I only had to try the freezer option once for just a few minutes and that helped alot.  No medicine!  Yay says Bean!

I think the Beanster is on her way back to good health, and I hope the barking seal won't be heard around our house again.  I never was a huge fan of the circus anyhow.

The Bean vs. the Cupcake!

This past weekend, we celebrated Bean's 1st Birthday! It was a fun time shared by all the family.

I learned 2 things from this party experience. One, don't get between a group of ankle biters and a display of cupcakes. You will lose everytime!!! Two, I have no clue about giving a party. LOL Mainly my problem is that I don't have any idea how much food to buy. I had so much food left over that we will be eating quesadillas and english muffin pizzas until the next birthday. Ughh.

See, I grew up with just me and my mom and dad. Sure we had big old family gatherings at my Granny's but I wasn't in charge of anything. I just ate! So now, my feeble brain can't figure out the food equations. If you invite 30 people, then you should have, what, 6 dozen english muffins for the pizzas??? I couldn't wrap my brain around it. So next year...I will enlist the help of more seasoned party professionals, my in-laws! They have parties and friends and food and all that junk so they should be able to help me figure it out.

But nonetheless, we had a great time! Bean got her very own cupcake, the Colossal Cupcake from Kroger. She dug right into it and loved it UNTIL...she realized she could no longer see her own fingers. She has a "thing" about her hands. Don't try to hold them and don't let them get messy or...YOU WILL HEAR ABOUT IT!!!

Here are some pictures from the Battle of the Cupcake. The Bean went in swinging, took down her competitor and came out the victor!!!

The battle begins!!!





THIS. IS. THE. BEAN!!!"

And now we have...thrush!

Well, had to take the Beaner back to the doctor one more time.  They should just build a drivethrough for us, I think.  First it was an ear infection, then it was a horrible rash, then ear infection again, now we have thrush.  Do you know what thrush is????  I didn't.

Basically, it's a yeast infection of the mouth.   One way you can get it is from taking antibiotics.  It is pretty gross to look in her mouth and see all this white gunk all over her tongue and cheeks.  And she hasn't wanted to eat or drink much.  She's just been pitiful.

So now's she's on another drug and fights me every time I try to give it to her.  I dread it.  She has to be tired of taking medicine and feeling puny.  I hope that she is better by her birthday next week.