Milo is the pumpkin king

This year's bunch of pumpkin masterpieces. Milo supervised and I did the work. While I was carving the pumpkins, Milo cut up the scraps into 'potatoes' for the hungry pumpkins to eat once they had mouths. Not bad results for an afternoon' s worth of punkin' cuttin'!

The pumpkin on the lower left is the one from Grandma Carolynn, and we did the vampire, ghostie and spider.

Shhhh....they're both being still

I stumbled upon this rare moment of tranquility this morning. Milo was watching a movie intently, and Lily decided to curl up next to him and go to sleep. They stayed this way for over an hour! I just tiptoed about my business and was thankful for the quiet time. Believe it or not, neither one of them noticed when I got the camera and took this picture.

It's too early for this!

We thought it was a bit chilly out today! Not cold enough for SNOW, though! It snowed this morning while we were out doing errands, and then again this afternoon for a couple of hours. Wasn't it 70 degrees and sunny just two days ago?

the dog stinks

Lily is, shall we say, a fragrant sort of dog. As in, when she lets loose with a gas attack, sometimes we all have to leave the room. Today, Milo was eating his lunch in the living room and Lily was sitting right next to him, to guard for falling crumbs. I was walking by and heard this: "Gaaa, Lily, go stink somewhere else!" said in a tone of great frustration. The next time I looked in the living room, Milo was sitting in a different spot well away from the lovely Lily. I asked him what happened and Milo told me that she stunked him out so he had to move. The poor kid! Couldn't even eat his sandwich in peace.

Milo Uses A Chainsaw

Milo got a special treat this weekend at Grandma Carolynn's house. They carved a pumpkin together, and she let him use the "chainsaw" as he called it. Milo was most enthused!

Thinking about Christmas already

Jeez, Halloween is not even here yet, and Milo is already thinking about Christmas. This year's Toys R Us catalog came in Saturday's paper. Milo glommed onto it and pored over it for hours that morning. He tells us the long and elaborate backstory to each and every toy that he is adding to his list. What an imagination that kid has on him.

Not only is Milo making an extensive Christmas list, he's been asking us to take him to see Santa for at least two weeks now. When we finally do get around to visiting Santa, I hope the big guy has a couple hours blocked out of his schedule for us. Milo's list gets longer every day.

It's a PARTY!!!!

Milo had a Halloween party at our house today, with his friends Autumn and Brody. First they made "monster poop" cookies, and then painted their pumpkins, and then made cool masks to wear. And then they played and played and played together, while us grownups gossiped amongst ourselves.

The monster poop cookies were just chocolate chip cookies, that I had mixed up last night. Making regular ol' choco chip cookies doesn't sound very Halloweenish, though, does it? The kids each had their own baking sheets and their own bowl of dough, and they made their own cookies, by dropping blobs of monster poop on their baking sheet. When they were all done, I popped the cookies in the oven, so they could cook while we were busy with the pumpkins.

Then kids trooped into the dining room and made their pumpkin masterpieces. While the pumpkins were drying, they made their masks. All three of them did really great jobs at all the activities, and they all had a good time. We (me, Michelle (Brody's mom) and Amy & Brian (Autumn's parents) had fun just watching the kids work together. Milo's first Halloween party was a success!

Pumpkin masterpieces! For some reason, all three kids made their big pumpkins be vampires with the emphasis on the fangs. Autumns' is on the left, Milo's is in the middle, and Brody's is on the right. I'm not sure what the smaller pumpkins are supposed to be. I know that the one with the white stem is Autumn's pirate pumpkin.

Eek! A witch!

Oh no! A wizard!

Autumn and Milo showing off their masks.

Brody was having technical difficulties with his mask in this picture, that's why he doesn't look so happy. Other than that, he was in a good mood all day, honest!

Autumn wanted me to take a picture of the purple mask that she made, also.

Who is that masked man?

See, told you Brody was in a good mood!

He already knows how to treat the ladies

Only three years old, and Milo is already a ladies' man. Not only does the kid have a girlfriend at every place he visits frequently, he also knows how to keep them from complaining! Last week we went to dinner at a fancy restaurant (TGI Fridays) with friends of ours and their kids. Milo was sitting next to Autumn (who is an older woman by the way, by two whole years) for most of the time. At one point Autumn had a breakdown about something and started crying. Milo reached over and gave her a big hug, and said "Don't cry. I will buy you some shoes!"

Check this out!

This photo was in the Trenton Times today. It's a street in Bordentown that apparently goes gaga for Halloween. I was fascinated by the witch hats, so Milo and I took a drive over there to see what else was going on. Unfortunately, it's a crowded one way street, so I couldn't find a place to park and take photos. Lots of houses on the street really do a lot of spooky-ooky Halloween decorating. The house on the corner has hundreds of pumpkins in its yard, and one of the library ladies told me earlier in the month that the guy carves all of those punkins every year, for a most awesome display on Halloween night. I'm definitely going to make a point to get over there after trick or treating is done, now that I know where the house is. When I lived in Allentown, there was a house like that, that always had tons of carved pumpkins out on Halloween, and it was totally cool.

I am the new Mommie-Dearest

This is what Milo told Corey on the phone tonight, when Corey called from work to say nighty-night to Milo.

"Dad, I had the worst day. Mom tried to make me eat my supper and she wouldn't let me have my biscuit. I really really wanted my biscuit, but I couldn't eat it because I didn't eat my supper. She wanted me to eat two bites of dinner. Can you believe it? Dad, it was awful."

Don't it just break your heart? I know, I'm the worst mother ever, trying to get my kid to eat normal food!! Milo did eat a banana this evening, so he wouldn't starve to death before morning, but I still wouldn't let him have a biscuit or anything for dessert.

What makes it even funnier is that as Milo was helping me make dinner (we made chicken stew, with noodles instead of potatoes, though) he was going on and on about how yummy it was going to be. Then, when it landed on a plate in front of him, Milo clapped his hands over his mouth and said "I'm never going to eat that, never." I did get two spoonfuls in him in exchange for two bites of biscuit, but it was a lost cause after that. Milo spent at least 45 minutes screaming about it and asking me to hold him. He really lost it when I had the nerve to wrap his supper up, including the biscuit, and put it in the fridge. Milo got even more angry with me when I told him that big boys sit still and eat their suppers, without stopping to play every 20 seconds. That has been a problem lately, getting the kid to sit on his butt for the 10 minutes it takes to eat a meal. I sense many nights of disruptive behavior ahead, until Milo finally gets that we mean what we say about not eating unless you're sitting in your seat at the table.

Transformers...Robots in Disguise

Okay, what combines the two things Milo loves most, which are cars and robots? TRANSFORMERS!! Holy crap. The other day, Corey gave Milo some of the Transformers that he had when he was a kid, and Milo fell in love with them. Today the two of them bonded and watched the new live-action Transformers movie, and Milo is smitten. The list that he's writing for Santa just got a whole lot longer. Tonight over dinner, Milo asked if he could visit Santa as soon as possible to ask for Bumblebee, Starstream, Optimus Prime and Megatron cuz those are his favorite Transformers from the movie. When we told Milo that he has to wait until after Thanksgiving to see Santa, he was crestfallen. However, we're sure Santa will bring at least one of the ones he wants.

I have to say that not even Speed Racer got the reaction from Milo that Transformers did. We thought for sure that we would have to watch Speed Racer a zillion times after seeing it once, but Milo didn't ask for it at all after the first viewing. Transformers, now, he wants to watch that constantly.

Aside from the robot obsession, the other show he's been watching nonstop is "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." We watched it at least four times today, and it never failed to make both Milo and I laugh every time Charlie Brown gets a rock in his trick or treat bag. We've also been watching Frankenpooh and Spookable Pooh over and over again. Milo loves those because Pooh bear is just so darn silly!

There's A First Time For Everything

I never saw myself as the type of mom who would be willing to roll out cookie dough for cutting and decorating. Then this morning I got the bright idea of making Halloween cookie ornaments with Milo, and hanging them on an ornament tree. This afternoon, we were up to our elbows in flour and dough and cookie cutters. At first Milo wanted to taste the cookies, but then I explained that they were made from home-made playdough. Thank goodness he said "YUCK. Pooey!" I assume that means he's eaten some play dough along the way. Anyway, after the cookes were cooked and cooled, we had fun decorating them with paint and hanging them on his ornament tree. Now we have a fabulous centerpiece for the dining room table!

The ornament tree is just a couple of branches jammed into a flower pot (that Milo painted) filled with rocks. I put some floral foam around the top of the pot to keep Milo from picking the rocks out of it. I got this idea from something similar that my mom made for me when I was little, except the base she made was out of concrete that was spray painted yellow! I only remember using my ornament tree as a jewelry holder, but Ma says that I used to decorate it for the holidays too.

Milo and I made do-it-yourself masks (or as Milo says, maskes) today too. Yet another fun foam kit from Michael's craft store! We had to wear the masks all afternoon and pretend to be spacemen, even when we were outside playing, and later when we were painting the ornaments. I made myself a lovely princess alien mask, and Milo did a black and green one, as shown in the pictures.


Rolling and cutting the dough. Milo used a popsicle stick for his cutter, until he figured out how to use the cookie cutters. At first he was just throwing blobs of dough on the baking tray and telling me to cook his butter. I finally talked him into rolling the blobs back into the "meat" as he called the dough, and using the cookie cutters. I mean, honestly, who wants to paint butter?








Notice that Lily is under the table taking full advantage of falling scraps of dough!



After baking and before painting.

And at the bottom, the final product. My personal favorite ornament is the Frankenstein head and the skull and crossbones. Milo painted them, and then I added the details. The red blobby one is supposed to be a spider on fire, according to Milo.

Oh, by the way...

At three years old, our kid has decided that we are no longer Mommy and Daddy. Nope, we are now much more sophisticated than that. Milo has been calling us Mom and Dad for the past week or so. I guess since he decided that he's a big boy now, who doesn't want to take a nap anymore, that's what he should call us. I'm not sure if I like it, because I really, really liked being called Mommy!

Halloween fun

Today Corey had to run out to Lowe's to get something or other for the garage. I asked him to drop me off at Michael's while he and Milo were at Lowe's, so I could browse through the 50% off Halloween stuff. I didn't find much of anything good, except for some crafty things to do with Milo. I showed them to Milo on the way home, and he didn't seem too enthusiastic. Later he surprised me and asked if we could build the spooky things. Milo and I spent most of the afternoon putting together a haunted house and a cemetery. I did all the detailed work, Milo did most of the gluing. Milo also managed to glue his shirt to himself, and get glue in his hair, but whatever....at least we had fun!

I have to say I'm amazed at what a person can make out of foam these days. These little kits turned out much better than I thought they would.

The spooky ooky haunted cemetery.

Larger view of spooky ooky cemetery. I thought the pom pom punkins in the kit were especially clever. Trying to pry them out of Milo's sweaty hands was difficult though. Even after they were glued to the cemetery scene, Milo still wanted to play with them.

The creeeeepy haunted house. It was Milo's idea to have the fluffy cobwebby stuff all over the place, like fog, instead of just poofing out of the chimney. I thought that was a nifty touch.

For some reason, Milo insisted that the candy corns were lights, so he stuck them on the roof of the house. Okey dokey...whatever works!

Ah, never mind

So much for the food breakthrough. The trend of trying stuff eagerly lasted all of three or four days. Now we are back to "I don't like it" and many refusals of dinner. Oh well. Although I must say tonight Milo did eat his ham without complaining too much. We had to convince him to sit at the table and get off the floor first, though. Where does this kid get his stubborn streak? she asks sarcastically.....

A food breakthrough

Milo is a notoriously picky eater. Until now, that kid ate pretty much only things that are white: chicken nuggets, pasta, potatoes, and the occasional fish cracker. Instead of the no-carb diet, Milo believes in the all carb diet.

Then he started watching a video about green eggs and ham. He is entranced that Sam-I-am gets the reluctant guy to taste the green eggs and ham, and when the guy tastes it, he finds it delicious. This apparently touched some nerve in Milo's brain, because now instead of saying "No, I don't like that" to practically everything, Milo actually says "May I try that?" He doesn't like all of what he tries, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

This morning Milo helped me put our supper together in the crock pot. He handled the stirring and the seasoning, and I put the turkey thighs in. He really liked helping me cook, and I was hoping it would pique Milo's interest in eating the finished product. At suppertime, I dished out his usual portion of noodles, and offered him some of the turkey from my plate. To my absolute amazement, after tasting it, Milo said "I like that turkey!" I gave him some more, and he ate it all, along with his noodles. Very exciting! We'll see what new thing we can get him to eat tomorrow....perhaps brussels sprouts?

The last thing you want to hear....

What are the last words you want to hear when your kid has been proudly pooping on the potty all by himself? I would say it would have to be this phrase:

"Don't worry, Daddy, I got all the poop off my hands!"

Corey and Milo were home last night while I went off to book club. Milo announced to Corey that he had to poop. Corey said okay, and waited for him in the living room. Corey said 10 minutes later, the door to the bathroom opened, and Milo announced that all the poop was off his hands. Corey had to get up and go see what was going on in the bathroom. It wasn't nearly as bad as Corey feared, only a small amount of smearage here and there, and that was easy to clean up. When Corey told me this story, I was hysterically laughing. I still am, just thinking about it.

By the way, Milo was just so proud of himself for finding the buttwipes on his own and wiping his own butt, and then washing his hands like he's supposed to. When I asked Milo about it today, he said "Yeah, I did it all by MYSELF! I even washed all the poop off my finger." Gag!! But what a good boy!

It's Pumpkin Time

Milo is really digging learning about fall and Halloween, and especially jack-o-lanterns. He has a special attachment to his pumpkin, and says hello to it every time we go in and out of the house. Today he asked me to take a picture of him with it. That kid is just too adorable, sometimes.



Milo also really likes the ceramic jack o lantern that comes around this time every year. Last week he discovered it downstairs when he was with Corey and brought it upstairs to show me. He was soooo excited to light it up, that I couldn't deny him. So we set Jack up on the steps, and waited till dark to light the candle. Milo sat out there for at least 20 minutes talking to the jack o lantern, and telling me that "It's PUMPKIN TIME, Mommy!!"

Pimp My Ride!

Let me tell you this: Wind + bike trailer with windshield on = sucky impossible bike ride that almost gave me an embolism. Holy cow. It wasn't even all that windy today, but that bike trailer is not air-stream efficient. The slightest breeze hits it and practically stops us. When the windshield is not on, it's better, but Milo had to have the windshield up so he didn't catch a chill, today. Of course, Milo promptly nodded off while I toiled my way around the block, and when we got home an hour later, he said "Are we here already?" My tongue was practically hanging out and my knees were jellified, but yes, we were here already. Milo was gracious enough to let me go inside and have a drink of water before we commenced to a hearty game of hide and seek with the dogs, in the backyard.

This is Milo's chariot of fire. Somewhere, we have a picture of him when he was just six months old, sitting in this thing. He was a speck then, and now he fills it up completely! Note the handy pockets on the sides for drinks and snacks, and the occasional toy.

This is my sweet ride, with Milo all buttoned up and ready to go. Can I get any more nerdy? Every time we're going out of the driveway on the bike, Milo says "And awaaaay we go!" I said it to him one time, and now it's a ritual.

Another note to the story: Flat tire on bike + kid in bike trailer = long tedious walk home. We had a blowout on Wednesday afternoon. Thank goodness I was only a mile or two away from the house. That was no farther than I normally walked with the dogs, but walking a bike with a flat, plus a snoozing kid in a trailer made it feel like 20 miles!

PS: Milo's helmet is not fastened and he wasn't strapped in to his seat because we weren't actually going anywhere. We had just gotten home this afternoon, and I wanted to take the pictures before I forgot. So don't think I let my kid go adventuring with me all willy nilly like!!

The Super-Bat-Robot-Spider Milo

I've bought a couple of different dress-up costumes for Milo, and he likes to to mix them together, along with some of his Superman stuff and assorted Batman paraphenalia. The other day he was running around with his Batman cape on, and his robot mask, and his spiderwebs hanging out of his sleeves. When I asked Milo what he was doing, he said "I'm NOT Milo. I am a SUPERHERO. Uh, what superhero am I?" So he became Super-Bat-Robot-Spider guy who likes the chicken nuggets and french fries. What will Milo be for Halloween? Who the heck knows?? Apparently, whatever he wants to be....

CAKE!!

We had leftover cake in the fridge, and we were going to toss it anyway, so we let Milo have his way with it. Needless to say, the rest of the afternoon, the kid was cracked out on his sugar rush. (Note to self: next time after kid has massive intake of sugar, make plans to go somewhere and leave Milo and Corey home together.) OY VEY!! It was crazy!

I like chocolate cake, I like it a lot!

To heck with the fork and the table manners. Mommy said it's okay to eat like a moose just this once!

The torch has been passed

I was feeling nostalgic today, and since it was a raining, didn't have anything better to do this afternoon than veg out in front of the tv. Earlier today Milo picked out two Batman action figures at a treasure hunt. I asked him if he would like to watch the Batman show. He said "Oh yes!!" with much enthusiasm, so I dug around in our piles of vcr tapes and came up with one called Yvonne's Batman Tape. I remember asking my sister to tape episodes of Batman off TV Land for me years ago, but couldn't remember which ones were on it.

So we popped it in and watched half of it. All these years later and my heart still skips a beat when Adam West shows up on screen. I tried to explain to Milo that Batman is my first true love and that he's the greatest superhero ever. Milo was just like "Whatever Mommy, be quiet so I can watch this." He was fascinated by Robin, and the fact that Robin wears his underpants, but Batman wears underpants and pants. The Joker has green hair, and Milo found that to be quite amusing, but Milo didn't like that the Joker is mean sometimes. We watched a couple of King Tut episodes too, and they were kinda goofy (even I thought so, and I'm a diehard fan). All I could think about the whole time is that King Tut's beard looked pretty much like my grandfather's did. I remember thinking about that when I was little girl too, and it's stuck with me all this time. Milo has yet to see any Catwoman episodes, at which point I will be shushing him because I think Julie Newmar is just da bomb!!

The point of the whole story is that here it is 30 years later, since I first saw Batman, and I still love it. It seems that Milo has caught the batbug also!

hubba hubba!

Another superhero that we have in common is Spiderman. Milo watches the new adventures of Spidey on Saturday mornings. Man, that takes me right back to being six years old again also. The show he watches isn't quite the same as what I watched, but the basic idea is the same. Milo loves Spidey even more than I do; he has quite a collection of Spidey stuff. Milo thinks the fact that Spidey shoots webs is absolutely awesome, and spends lots of time pretending to do it himself.

Random Spidey cover

Apple Picking!!

Now that I'm working less hours, Wednesday has become "Discovery Day" at our house. On Wednesdays, Milo and I go on a learning adventure of some sort. He doesn't realize he's learning anything, but afterward, when I quiz him about stuff, Milo comes out with all sorts of new answers.




Anyway, today's adventure was apple picking at Russo's farm in Chesterfield. Aunt Heather went with us too. Milo was very excited about going apple picking because several of the shows he watches have had episodes about doing just that. He had a blast, being in charge of the apple bucket and choosing the "perfect apples" as opposed to the yucky ones. Milo kept picking apples, examining them, and then pronouncing them either perfect or yucky. The yucky ones went on the ground, and the perfect ones went in the basket. I had to stop him when the basket was about half full. Otherwise we would have been eating apple-everything for the next three years.


After we were done with the apples, we stopped by the punkin patch and picked out some pumpkins. Of course Milo had to get one of the most ginormous ones. To be fair, he also got two other smaller ones, so we each have one to turn into a jack o lantern later.


When all that was done, then Milo spent some time fooling around on the giant sand mountain out in front of the farm stand. The woman that runs the shop says that people just drop toys off at the sand pit, and the collection grows every day. That's pretty neat! Milo sure took advantage of all of them. There were a couple of other kids there too, for a little bit, so Milo got to show them how to do some of the toys, also.

When we were all done, and back in the truck, Milo turned around and waved goodbye to the trees. "Goodbye, apple orchard!! Goodbye!! You say it too, guys!" So us guys, me and Heather, said goodbye to the trees until next year.

Pulling the wagon and bucket on the way into the orchard.

The apples are so high up, guys.

This one has been pronounced perfect.

Dang, this bucket of apples is heavy.

Milo and Aunt Heather looking at apples.

Riding the hay bale horsies.

Playing on the sand mountain with Aunt Heather.

Fun With Words

It's not my great, it's your great!!

Milo is learning about the seasons, especially autumn, and tonight we read a book about animals and how they do different things depending on the seasons. We read a sentence about how birds migrate for the winter. Milo cracked up laughing and said "Those birds aren't your great, they're my great. I like them the best, you don't."

I did my dang best to explain to him what migrate really means, but he kept insisting that I was wrong. Maybe tomorrow night we'll try again....

In the meantime, every time I think about my great, it makes me giggle.

A Sweet, Sweet Score

We went treasure hunting yesterday, as usual. We hadn't found much of anything good at all lately, until we stumbled upon this. It's from some Fisher Price cult called Rescue Heroes. We got the aircraft carrier, 18 rescue heroes and all their nifty accessories, a boat, one big jet and some smaller vehicles, all in one box of stuff.

It was really funny too, because I saw the tower of the aircraft carrier sticking up in the person's yard when we were still a good block away from it. (We were at a community wide yard sale somewhere in Florence.) I thought, "Oh man, Milo's going to be drawn to that like a moth to a flame." Yep. He spotted it, and it was like he had found the holy grail. All Milo wanted out of the whole shebang was the blue jet, because he thought it was a spaceship like Caillou plays with. The woman would not break up the set, so I figured oh well, too bad, and started to leave. Then she hollered after me "Take the whole thing for $10. PLEASE." Sold!! I had no idea how much stuff was in the box until we got it home and started cleaning it up. I thought for sure that there were some missing pieces, after we put everything together, so I went online last night and looked up the Rescue Heroes. I couldn't believe that almost everything is complete, except for one or two small items. I also couldn't believe how much the stuff originally cost. They're even expensive on ebay, so woo hoo! This turned out to be a sweet, sweet score!

Yes, Milo is one of the most spoiled kids on the planet. He played with this stuff all day yesterday, and didn't even want to go outside. By the way the big orange robot guy standing on the deck of the aircraft carrier has been christened as Ranish. I asked "Are you saying Danish?" and Milo said, "No, Ranish," like I was a total stooge. He is too much, sometimes!

It's All A Conspiracy

Some people think the government is a web of conspiracy. ha! They should come live in my house. I seriously think that our animals, and occasionally Milo, sit around and plot ways to drive me insane. Today was a classic example!

After the events of today, I think that somewhere, there is a hidden camera in the house, and that I am the star victim of a reality show called Who Can Be More Disgusting and / or Annoying? Is it Lily, the crap-eating dog? Quinn the incessant foot licker? Monet the barfer? Milo the pee machine? Tune in to find out!

It started last night when Milo and I came home to discover that Lily had snatched Milo's wonderful train picture and destroyed it. He (and Grandmom) had worked really hard to make that picture, too. He was upset and I was irritated, even more so because Lily also ate a note that I had left for Corey. The note didn't say anything really important, but what if it had? Lily took one look at my face when she saw me come in the door and went outside to give herself time out. If there's one thing Lily has learned, it's time out. She goes outside and sits on her time out mat on the deck until we call her back in, every time she's been bad.

We got over that hurdle, and off to bed for a good night's sleep. First thing this morning, when I went into Milo's room, I could smell that he had wet the bed. He did have more to drink last night than usual, so it was no big whoop to me. I cleaned him up, changed his clothes and the sheets, and threw everything in the wash. Milo doesn't even care if he's soaking wet with pee. I reminded him to wake us up in the night if he has to go to the bathroom, so we can help him, and Milo said "Oh, I forgot to do that." When I asked him if he was uncomfortable, he said "not really." Oooookay.

I had my two cups of coffee and toodled into our bedroom to make the bed and get ready for the day. That is when I discovered that Monet had barfed on our bed. Not only did she do it on the good bedspread, that witch had the presence of mind to cover up the evidence with the crud blanket that we keep on the bed for controlling animal hairs. If she had barfed on the crud blanket, that would have been easy to clean up. Just throw it in the wash. Oh no! She had to vom on the big puffy bedspread that has to go to the laundrymat to be washed in the commercial machine. As if I had time for that today. It's not like I didn't have a million other things to do. At any rate, to find the silver lining, Milo had a blast watching the bedspread get washed in the giant washing machine. And we went to the dollar store and got some more playdough. There is a new house rule, also: NO animals allowed in my bedroom unless a person is in there with them.

Later in the day, Milo and I went for a bike ride. I swear, we were only gone about 45 minutes, and in that time, Lily managed to find something to destroy. It's like she craves attention so badly, she'll be rotten just to get looked at. This time she ate one of Milo's cardboard pieces. Milo collects cardboard and uses the pieces for building stuff and for surfboards or whatever. Now he has one less to work with. Lily didn't have a chance to get outside for time out before I started yelling, because I have just had it up to my eardrums with her nonsense. Milo joined in with "What did you do, Lily? You're a BAD GIRL." which made her skulk around with her ears down even worse. I had to laugh at that.

Quinnie spent much of the day fooling around and being his usual playful self. I think I only had to yell at him to stop eating his feet two or three times. The poor thing has awful allergies in the spring and fall, and even though I dose him up with Benadryl, once he gets in the habit of licking and chewing at his feet, he can't seem to stop. Of all the kids, he was the least of my worries today.

I exacted revenge upon Monet by giving her a dose of her hairball goop. Man, does she ever hate that stuff, but it's good for her, and it will help her with the tummy upsets. Then I realized that maybe the bed barf was revenge for what I did to her the other day. Monet has been having terrible mats in her fur, and she's always all gross from rolling around outside, so when Milo was napping on Thursday afternoon, I took the clippers to the cat and shaved her back half as close as I could to the skin. She looks awful, but she'll be healthier for it. We've shaved her in the past, so it's nothing new, but it's the first time I ever did it without express permission from Corey.

I love our animals, but there are days (like today) that I wouldn't mind if they all ran away. It seems like whenever Corey is gone for a long time (yesterday and today he had to work double shifts) they go wacko!