OmegaMom

When we went looking at properties here in AK, OmegaDad wanted to find a place with more than one acre that was a horse property (i.e., zoned or HOA’d into allowing horses).

Lo and behold, we now have a greater-than-one-acre horse property.

Of course, a horse is far (may I reiterate that?  FAAAARRRR.) into the future.

However, OmegaDad Has A Plan.

The plan includes goats.

Ahem.

It goes:  We get two goats, cheap.  We feed them, we take care of them, we milk one of them, they have baby goats, we sell baby goats, we stash the $$ in an account, lather, rinse, repeat.  His plan has two prongs:  first, get the kiddo into the habit of tending to helpless animals; second, build up the $$ for a horse.

Now, me, personally?  I’d be more than happy to buy a horse and board it somewhere else.  Wandering around the back forty of our lot has reminded me that horses produce vast amounts of horse poop.  Vast.  We have large heaps back there of nicely decaying horse poop that will no doubt have a good future as mulch for gardens.  But it has driven into me the question:  What exactly does one do with all the horse poop?

Not to mention the thought of any poor critters being dependent upon the dotter for care.  Not to mention the corollary to that, which would be Someone Else Will End Up Tending The Goats.

All of that aside, OmegaDad and dotter are thinking goats.

OmegaDad purchased a magazine at the local pet store all about goats.

Yes, there is a goat magazine.

Cute little buggers, actually.

Anyway, the milking question came up.  The dotter refused to believe you could milk goats.  OmegaMom, ever the computer junkie, located a bunch of videos on YouTube about milking goats.  The dotter was fascinated and grossed out.  Her succinct comment:  “EWWWWWWW!”

So OmegaDad had her practicing on his hand.  That wasn’t really working, so he got out the hand condoms.

(What, you ask, are “hand condoms”??  Latex gloves, used in various areas in the house, such as when painting, when washing lots of things, etc.)

He blew one up.  It was a hit.  We are all sitting in my office, the dotter practicing “milking” the balloon-like latex gloves.  We are slightly giggling.  At some point, the dotter decides to be a goat, and positions the blown-up glove beneath her so OmegaDad can “milk” her.  Some Twister-like confusion occurs, in which the balloon-glove goes whirling around the room, emitting a fart-like sound.

“Daddy!  You pulled my udder off!”

All of which made us giggle even more.

So then OmegaDad decided the dotter needed a somewhat more lifelike imitation of udders.  He and she vanished into the hinterlands of the house.  Then a snickering dotter returned to the office to demand my presence in the downstairs bathroom.

The latest latex glove had been filled with water.  But not filled enough.  It drooped.  It stretched.  It wiggled.  It pointed udders in wildly varying directions.

It made me and OmegaDad howl with laughter.  So much so that my stomach hurt; I haven’t laughed that hard in a long, long time.

OmegaDotter was not as amused, and thought we were very silly.  Which, of course, made us howl more.

Alas, the water-filled pseudo-udder popped sometime overnight.

We are such sophisticates.

(Aunt Jean says that L’s issues were due to a series of strokes, not Alzheimer’s, but that it was horrible nonetheless.  Noreen mentions that I should investigate drug side-effects–I think, however, that the memory issues are merely the mental fog of early menopause.  Johnny asks why no pics on the “Wah!” post about the painting job; I tried, Johnny, I really tried, but every picture came out looking blue.  That aside, the paint, when dry, looked better, we have done a second coat, and I think we are content.)

(Gah.  Forgot.  Two more things:

1.  Do please check out my DonorsChoose challenge, and donate $10 to my selected teachers’ projects.  They’re nothing major, just small potatoes.  Can you help?

2.  Is anyone else having problems with the side columns on my blog?  If you resize the browser widthwise, the side columns appear and disappear for me.  Does it do the same for you?  Does anyone have any clue what might cause that?)

If you ever get upset or embarrassed by something your toddler has done while in a store or in public, take heart.

At least your toddler didn’t dance all over some Tibetan monks’ sand mandala…

This evening the dotter was busy building a house/restaurant/castle in the living room.  She insisted I lie down on the futon and be served by “Melissa”.  Melissa (the dotter) is possibly the owner of the establishment; I was told she was “kind of a waitress, but also kind of a doctor.”  After which, the dotter gave a very French style of shrug.  I have no idea where this shrug has come from, but she’s using it fairly often these days, and it lends a certain je ne sais quoi to our interactions.

OmegaDad came over to peer at us in curiosity, and the dotter informed me that he was “The Officer of the Bakery”.  Then she told OmegaDad that I was “the staying customer”.  I had to stay there forever, she told me, and when I objected, she said, “Oh, you can take my car!”

But this morning, in the car, was even better.  There was some grand flight of imagination that made me laugh, that I thought I should share with people.  The problem is:  I don’t remember it.  Oh, I remember noting it in my head, and saying to myself, “I need to remember this one!”  But less than 12 hours later, it’s a blank.

Some people are veritable recording devices when it comes to their kids’ utterances.  I am in awe.  I tend to have episodes like the above all the time, and it frustrates me.  The dotter is a font of cuteness, strange collections of pseudo-stream-of-consciousness all stitched together by her imagination.  I would like to share it with people.

I read blogs where the parental units recite, word-for-word, utterly cute things their kids said that day, and I seethe with envy.

My memory is a patchwork, a thing of lace and tatters.  Half of the reason for this blog is so that I can lay out this piece of the lacery, and that piece–kind of like those photographs of what archeologists do with old papyrus documents when they’re piecing them together.

I find myself grasping at the memories, and putting them down on paper (or computer) whenever I can, because they flit out of my head so quickly.  I would like to say that this is a recent development, an outgrowth of my dalliance with menopause, but, alas, it is not so; the faulty memory is a constant in my life.

My Unka Bill has a phenomenal memory; at the age of 70-something, he can chit-chat with my mother and recite specific things that people did or said when they were two and four.  My husband has an interesting take on memory abilities:  he can remember complete lyrics to obscure ’60s rock-and-roll songs and entire scenes from movies (though he can’t remember, for instance, that the dotter was to visit Miss Louise, our OT, yesterday).

We went to China only four years ago to meet the dotter and bring her home.  An amazingly emotional journey.  Something that you would think would live on in one’s memory for years, indelible, movie-like in its clarity.  My memories?  A few snapshots, a vignette or two.  I cannot remember holding OmegaDotter for the first time–so I rely on the photos from the trip, and I feel dreadfully guilty about this.

Anyway, I thought the “Officer of the Bakery” was cute enough to put down on paper, so when the dotter is 25, I can open up this blog entry and remember it.

Technorati: Memory

At ten to noon, I get a phone call at the office from OmegaDad.  OmegaDotter’s teacher had called him, saying OD didn’t feel well and was running a low fever.

The dotter was sick yesterday, in that horrid, cranky, whiny way that kids who are somewhat sick are, as compared to the deep, quiet misery of kids who are really sick.  We stayed home yesterday.  This morning, though, no fever, no cranky whinies, pretty much normal kiddo, so I took her in.

So I pack it in and head off to preschool–no big surprise that her fever is back.

When I arrive there’s the dotter sitting at the table, bouncing and smiling.  My mommy radar goes off.  Miss M., her teacher, says in a dubious voice, “Well, she was sick yesterday, and she hasn’t been feeling good, and she does have a low fever…”

How low is low?  99-something.  Hmmm. 

On the way home, she’s smiling and singing and dancing and giggling and happy.

Let me tell you, this child is not sick.

Half of me is laughing, the other half is going, “Grrrr.”  I have made it quite clear that this is not to happen again (you can tell she knows I know she isn’t sick).  I lectured her about what Mean Mommies do in this situation, about how next time this happens, she will be put to bed pronto, since she’s so sick.  I made her take ibuprofen (ewww!).

OmegaDad, like me, was halfway laughing, halfway not, when I called him to tell him we had all been played.  “That little shit!” were his exact words.

That little shit, indeed.

Technorati: Parenting