…And Bells on Her Toes

a)  You know you spend too much time on your computer, and not enough with your family, when your toddler climbs on your lap to get between you and your laptop. 

Seriously.  Caity did this the other day.  I was working on a Presentation for work, at home and Caity was sitting beside me, babbling away, munching on her crackers.  I had the laptop on my lap, legs up on the coffee table.  Suddenly Caity stood up, swung her leg over my lap and sat down on my arms.  My hands were still on my keyboard.  Facing me, Caity grabs my face and starts babbling.  I can only imagine she was saying “Mommy, it’s my time now”.  Alex was sitting on the other side of the couch and the two of us were laughing so hard.  “OK, Caity, I get the hint.”

*Update* As if the guilt from the kids isn’t enough, now my female cat, Charlie, is trying to crawl in my lap while I’m typing this.  She’s currently sitting on my mouse, purring, every now and again looking up at me, hopefully.  I have to use the mouse on the keyboard because her fat ass is on the regular mouse.  She meows angrily at me and swats at my hand if I stop paying attention to her … sheesh, critic.

b) I thought carpet cleaners were supposed to remove smells, not make them worse.

Caity’s had a tummy bug this past week.  It’s been heartbreaking when she points to her stomach and says in a plaintive cry, “Tumm-mmeee”.  “Does your tummy hurt, Caity?”.  Caity nods her head.  She’s had really bad runs all week.

On the weekend, she threw up after her morning bottle.  Anyone who has cleaned up milk-vomit before knows it’s particularly nasty.  Luckily I was still in bed so Alex got that pleasure.  He didn’t get it all out of the carpet unfortunately and … well … it was pretty stinky.  He picked up some spot cleaner and managed to get the vomit smell out of the carpet, but it ended up making our house smell like stinky feet.  Seriously, it was bad.  Yesterday we borrowed the steam cleaner from my brother and got some of that powder stuff that you sprinkle on the carpet.  After two applications and vacuuming, it doesn’t smell like feet anymore.  We’re still planning on steam cleaning the carpets though.  Who knows what it will end up smelling like after that…

c) Cats, despite what they think, are not supposed to eat crackers.

Caity was getting her bum changed this morning before going to Terri’s.  Caity was munching on crackers again - I think they’re her favourite snack.  She put the bowl containing the crackers down beside her and Charlie immediately ran over to it.  Caity didn’t think that she should share her food with the cat and immediately tried to shoo her away.  This is particularly annoying when trying to change her bum at the same time. 

Charlie is nuts about crackers.  Anytime one of us takes the cracker package out of the cupboard, she comes running from where ever she is in the house.   If Alex sits at the kitchen table, eating soup with crackers, Charlie can be found sitting on the end of the couch, staring him down until he relents and gives her some.  We cannot leave any crackers on any surface the cat can get to.  She has been caught, with her head in the bowl, happily munching away on the ill gotten crackers.   If we’ve gone out and one of the kids left her snack out, we have to throw it away when we return, because it’s probably been licked  and partially nommed by the cat.

Sometimes I’ll hear Lexy in the other room “Nooooo Charlie, that’s my snack!”.  She makes a good little hoover.

d) You know it’s cold in the house when …

I think I live in the most energy inefficient house there is.  I loved this house when we were first looking for a home.  I was about 6 months pregnant with Lexy at the time and was really starting to Nest.  It was driving me crazy, I needed a home for my baby.  It is a nice house, about 17 years old.  It was built during the time when they actually left some room between houses – not putting them as close together as possible.  It’s not a big house, but it has a nice sized backyard for the kids and a decent front.  The original owners upgraded the windows in the front of the house, but they’re still drafty.  The front has those windows that have two panes of glass and crank open.  I’m not sure what they’re called.  The windows in the back and sides, however, are another story.  They are single paned and slide.  We have plastic over them year round so we don’t throw as much heat or air conditioning out the window as we would otherwise.  In the Winter, you can feel the wind coming through the sliding door.  It gets cold.

Yesterday it was a little chilly in the house even though it was so nice outside.  Caity was playing in the Family room beside me on the couch.  She got up.  She walked into the hallway and came back with a pile of clothes.  She proceeded to put on her winter mittens, Lexy’s hat and scarf.  Her scarf was thrown on the couch.

“You cold, Caity?” I asked her, smiling.

“Uh huh,” she said, nodding.

I guess it’s time to save up for some new windows …