"Hi Mama, nice to meet you. I'm Elijah!"

"Elijah close the eyes!"

And he can count!! He can count! I'm so excited. He counted my fingers, and my lips. It was so awesome!

"Mama making eggs for Elijah!"

"Elijah try'n eat eggs."

My joints are so very swollen this morning, and there was no purring kitten to soften my morning (he was out in the living room). But there was a very happy little boy who wanted to play peekaboo and talk about trains and counting and lips and eyes and fingers :)

The house feels lighter after its surgery. I want to take the opportunity to have built-in shelves in the bathrooms, and I really, really want to put in frosted glass between the rooms and the stairwell, because it's really nice to have it so open and airy and bright. But that's probably not going to happen ;)

Good morning. Time to declutter now, before this afternoon's vet appointment of insanity. We're taking two dogs and two cats, all at once, to get checked over for ringworm. And Remmy needs shots. And I need to pick up new medicine for Beanie because the mold guys sealed up the closet that the medicine was in, and we can't unseal it until the industrial hygienist comes back to check things out.

Hello, world!

--Mama Coyote

Two Posts in One: Awesome Mother's Day & Containment Rooms

Sunday was a great day, even though I'd been up late the night before. I managed to sleep well, and get up early enough to get going and get out the door. Some friends of ours were headed to the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival, and let me ride along. Conversational topics on the drive were geared toward energy work, urban witchcraft, and creation. It was great.

We wandered, and played, and watched a sheepdog demonstration. Yet again, I had a reminder of why I should be working with my dogs every day; and yesterday and today, I have stuck to that. At least 5 minutes a day with each dog is not nearly enough, but it's certainly better than nothing.

I ended up bringing home some handfuls of roving, the knowledge of a drop spindle lesson and a wheel-spinning spindle, and a small frame loom. I've been trying to figure out and learn some techniques. And I need to grab my drop spindle and work with it, but right now I'm just longing for a wheel. It was so very much easier and more fun than using a drop spindle.

I also brought home a pin that says, "I spin therefore I am." I thought it entirely appropriate for this household, whether I'm spinning fiber or not ;)

When I got home, Daddy B had done 8 loads of laundry (and put them away!), played with Elijah a lot, and tidied things up. And Daddy C had made bacon before he had to go to work. It was a great thing to come home to. I was able to settle down and eat, and then play, and sleep.

Thank you to all my boys and to my mother and to my friends for my awesome mother's day :)


And as for the containment rooms... multiple parts of the house are sealed off with plastic because an industrial hygienist said, 'There is mold. Seal it off now.' There are very loud air-cleaning machines that are, well, loud. And they shake the floor. And it's very interesting and strange and I cannot wait for all the work to get done. We'll have two remodeled bathrooms by the end of it all, and hopefully the house-cancer that is mold will be eradicated from the house for good.


I also want to take this opportunity to rearrange Elijah's room and possibly take the bookshelf out of it. His room is so tiny that space is at a premium. I want to put up more of the IKEA Wall Pockets to get the books off the shelves but keep them on the walls. And I'm not sure what other methods to use to store things. But I want Elijah to have plenty of floor space to build with his trains. A small loft bed would help a lot. I really want to attach a slide to a small loft bed for him, too :)

I should make his closet usable again. Right now it's full of stuff he's not using, but if I clean it out I can use its shelves for books and school stuff.

Any other small-space storage ideas are welcome. I'm trying to figure out multiple ways to use shoe pocket things, too. Lots of toys, books, office supplies, and random other stuff in this house, and they all need places to live. Labeled boxes are extremely useful, too. These are things I need to remember.

Perhaps if Elijah's bookshelf comes into the dining room where we already have a short bookshelf, put the bookshelf fish tank on the middle shelf, and then labeled boxes full of office supplies, spices, whatever else we need to have right next to the table.

As strange as it may sound, getting a bigger TV (some day) will help us regain some space in the living room. Right now, our TV is an old CRT, and taking up a lot of space. A flatscreen hanging on the wall will free up a lot of space.

Hm. I'm just rambling now. Oh well. This will make sense to people who live here... and to people who don't, once things get done and I take new pictures :)

I have so many ideas. On days like today, when I feel good (thanks to plenty of sleep and a nice long walk with the dogs), I want to do everything. I want to make everything, and make our space happier and healthier. I need to slow down and do it a little bit at a time.

I love you all, my family. Thank you for my life.

Dear man with the rottweilers,

When your beautiful but massive rottweiler slips his collar and commences attempting to nibble on my eight pound white mop dog, it is polite to say, "Sorry." after you've regained control of your Goliath. It is not polite to simply walk away.

Coyote

PS. When I said, "Sorry!" as you made your escape, I didn't really mean it.
PPS. It took ten minutes for me to stop shaking.

---

Remmy is in the playpen with Elijah, because there are Cheerios. Elijah is mostly ignoring him, because there is Baby Sign on the DVD player.

Elijah smells of miso. He has a belly full of miso and rice.

I had the best idea ever, at dinner: Miso in the sippy cup. He drank a bowl and a half that way.

I wish I had a video of him tasting wasabi. It went something like this:

"... >.< ! . ....... :D Hahahahahaha! :D More!"

Vet bills and vet bills, oh my -.-

At the end of this week, we're headed to KY for a wedding and to take Remmy to the vet. He needs dental work and shots, and, well, we'll be there, and I trust my vet out there, and it'll be a LOT cheaper.

So of course tonight, Remmy went and got himself bitten or stung on his left front paw by something, and was lying out in the yard looking forlorn and not wanting to put enough pressure on the paw to walk into the house.

So one emergency vet visit later, I've found a decent vet in the area to stay with, and Remmy's been to the vet twice as many times this month as he was supposed to be.

A poem on the wall of the exam room I was in made me want to be a vet tech. For about five minutes. Until I remembered that I cry if I have to make a phone call, get migraines from fluorescent lights and cleaners and bleach and other strange chemically things, and shake if forced to meet and deal with new people.

Elijah enjoyed the vet waiting room. Until he got bored and started screaming.

I need some sleep.

G'night.

Midnight Snack Fail

Yeah, that didn't work out so well. Lots of panicked screaming the first two times he woke up, and some whimpering the other few times. So no alone time for mama and daddy.

But today is happy and there's playing with the puppy! See?

Bathtime for Mama

I know I won't post every day. I know I will flake out. But maybe if I allow myself to post as randomly as I feel like posting--even if that's multiple times in one day--maybe I'll stay interested.

So here I am, sitting in the bath while Brian takes care of the boy and Kacy makes dinner. My puppy, my only boy for eight years before Elijah came along, is lying on the floor, staring at me through his matted fringe, and begging to not have a bath. He's not getting one, but he apparently doesn't understand that right now.

The poor dog hasn't been groomed in over eight months. The fact of baby has driven all other priorities away, and I cannot get anything done reliably except nursing and diapering. And so my mop of a dog is lying there looking miserable. But! Kacy to the rescue again; he'll be going home with her on Sunday, to go to her vet and get shaved... and he'll come back to me a whole new dog. So here's a before picture:



And now it's time for me to stare blankly at the mindless trashy teen novel I'm reading now, because that is all I have the brainpower for.

There may or may not be pictures of dinner later (baked spaghetti, salad and bread... the babyface will love every bit of it, I'm sure).

Dogs!

The dogs met a baby for the first time yesterday. It was interesting, and went better than I expected. Remmy curled up on the blanket near her and didn't pay her much attention at all. In his world, it seemed to be just another human who may or may not cuddle him... Beanie, on the other hand, was extremely confused. She stood back at a short distance, fussing and looking from me to the little girl (8 months old, sitting up). If the girl made a quick move, Beanie would growl a little. She got tapped for that. Eventually Beanie crawled forward, very slowly, to sniff the girl and poke at her with her nose. Everything was good until the little girl started waving her arms and her brightly coloured plushie cell phone thing around; then Beanie got freaked out, backed up and started growling and whining. I grabbed her collar and hauled her back, and made her sit with me. She kept fussing and fixated on the toy. She doesn't like when toys are out of place (i.e. not in her bed or the toy basket). Since we were in Harrisburg at a bonfire, I'm not sure where she would have actually taken the toy had she gotten it, but she wanted it anyway.

I was really very surprised that Remmy was so tolerant. Although, really, the baby didn't do anything to aggravate him. Her existance didn't bother him enough to even really acknowledge her, even when I was holding her. So that's good. Beanie, however... this is going to be interesting. I need baby gates. Possibly a playpen, which I'd never really thought about using before because I'd always thought "Why bother?", but now it seems like it might be a practical solution to letting the dogs and the kid be face to face, but with a barrier. Come to think of it, I would like the baby gates to have mesh... that wouldn't survive for long, though, I suppose. And I would like the baby gates to last beyond the use of the baby, because they're good for my business. Separating dogs is often necessary.


Still feeling heavy and done and sore and such. No change there. I would really like to be able to lie comfortably on my back again. Or on my belly. Sigh.

Soon.