Seven Quick Takes: The First Edition

Since I have several random stories buzzing around in my head, and one of them involves a dangerous and seriously creepy critter, I thought I would join in on the fun and make an effort at my very first seven quick takes post.  Well, here goes.....she begins lamely........

-1-

Jen has regaled us all with her hilarious scorpion wrangling adventures and I admit that I (along with many others I'm sure) laughed aloud on more than one occasion.  Well, this week I realized that scorpion infestations are only funny when they are happening in someone else's house.

No mom wants to hear her children delightedly shrieking, "Mom! Mom!  We found a scorpion in our room!" first thing in the morning....or ever really......

At least it was already dead when they discovered it.....but it must have been alive at some point to crawl inside.......and thanks to Mrs. Fulwiler I'm now having nightmares about the potential of awakening to scorpions in the bed stinging me repeatedly.

On the upside I think I can settle the age-old alligator/scorpion debate and say that the answer is both, it is worse to have both the threat of alligators outside and scorpions inside and apparently here in Florida that is a distinct possibility.  I'm imagining telling the children to RUN! run outside to save yourselves from the scorpions! only to find a giant alligator staring you down, daring you to try to pass him.......

-2-

In other not sleeping news, I lost John Michael's last paci this week at the vet--the other one disappearing the week before at the zoo.  Smug mother that I am I decided that in lieu of purchasing pacis (as these first two came as free gifts from Motherhood Maternity and also--I am cheap) I would just end the paci use now.  After all he's six months and that's when I took the pacifiers from Henry--albeit not cold turkey.....

John Michael was not amused.

The first night was fine.  The second night he refused sleep and screamed as if he has a scorpion in his footie pajamas.  The third night.....he slept like a baby.....a baby with a brand new store-bought paci in his mouth.....

-3-

Speaking of overtired children, this is what we walked in to when checking on a certain little boy who was sent to our room for throwing a fit about how dinner wasn't "good to" him and also "not nutritious" for him.  Apparently he thinks a diet consisting solely of PB&J sandwiches with an occasional side of cheese is the most nutritious one for cranky four year olds.....

He pulled down daddy's (stinky) PT shirt and made a sort of calm down cocoon in order to--I'm not sure--show us who's boss?  He promptly fell asleep.  I promptly had Chris remove him from the shirt partly because I was afraid he couldn't breathe, but mostly because he looked really creepy......

-4-

Creepy cocoon children drove me to the pantry, but instead of eating secret handfuls of chocolate chips as per usual, I decided to make these homemade peanut butter cups but I used dark chocolate because dark chocolate is what I love.  Mine ended up looking slightly deformed--but I can assure you they were delicious and I can also assure you that I did not share them with the children.

-5-

I'm sorry, here I am blathering on and you probably just wanted some more baby cuteness.  

Here's John Michael emptying his toy basket....clearly he is learning from the best.......

Undecorated

Decorated

-6-

I'm thinking this weekend will be the weekend of baby-proofing--cabinet locks to keep him out of the chemicals and a baby gate to keep him out of the big boys' room and consequently the legos/marbles?  Chris is a little upset that we got rid of our gates when we moved here and (he claims) I said we didn't need them anymore since we no longer had stairs.  I maintain that he threw them out in a fit of garage decluttering.  I think we'll just have to agree to disagree.  And also buy a new gate.

-7-

My mom gave me several boxes of slides from my grandparents' house to go through and convert into digital files using this bad boy that we bought for the job.  Here are a few favorites so far:

A twenty-something mom with an unknown dog and glorious hair.

A very handsome grandpa wearing a spiffy suit in the formal living room.

A young aunt also in the formal living room with the sweetest outfit....and apparently my grandparents used to have a piano?

And this is one of my most favorites--for as long as I can remember my grandpa fed the squirrels outside his house.  He constructed a whole system of ramps that they could run down to different feeding platforms where piles of corn were waiting and we could also feed them pecans off of straightened out wire hangers.   Apparently the squirrel feeding wasn't just for the benefit of the grandchildren, because this picture is old and I'm pretty sure by the time we arrived on the scene, slides weren't exactly the fashion anymore :)

I'm sure I'll keep you posted on any more gems I uncover along the way...and by "I," I mean of course Chris because he's the one who always ends up carrying out all of my best ideas.

And if I were you I'd pop over to Jen's to see many, many, many more quick takes!