Mouse 1, David 0

We came back from the holidays to a strange funk in the kitchen that came and went in noxious waves. We literally could not figure it out, because you'd try to find it and you couldn't. We wondered if one of the kitties had had an accident, or what. Then Sunday night of our being back, we opened a drawer to use an oven mitt, and it had been almost chewed through, stuffing all over the place.

Uh-oh, live mouse in the house.

Time for David to suit up and go on the hunt.



















Of course, all the while, Farley and Simon, totally responsible for this, lounge on the couch like a pair of Teamsters on their lunch break. Simon here is using his horded doughnuts as a pillow in this picture:













First David pulled out the fridge to get a mop back there. Mr. Mouse had made quite a cozy home for himself in the back of the refrigerator, and had clearly been there for a while. Through the closed kitchen door I heard various "Oooooooh! Uuuuugggghhh. Aaaaawwwww." sounds as he had to vacuum out the back of the fridge. The scent was not exactly L'Air du Temps.



















Anyway, with the kitchen cleaner than it's ever been, though totally torn apart,



















David sees the mouse run into the back room where the clothes washer is. He of course bangs his head on something trying to get the mouse, because isn't that a requirement when you're searching for a mouse? He only managed to kick it as it scurried out of the kitchen.

David takes a saw and starts taking swipes under the washing machine and the hot water heater. After one swipe, he spies the mouse run from behind the hot water heater to behind the washer. So then it's time to tear apart the back room, tipping the washing machine nearly on its side. The mouse cannot be seen anywhere, so maybe he ran out in all of the commotion?

But what if he's up in the machine?

David goes out at 11pm (this is 3 hours of mouse hunting later, mind you) to buy mousetraps at Home Depot, closing the door between the room and the kitchen, using a damp sponge to block the small gap towards the bottom. I am forbidden to use this door for any reason, and must only enter and leave the house through the front.

Point being, David's convinced he's back there. I'm not so sure. Especially since said back door manged to open itself during the night.

Three nights, no mouse in trap, prisoners in our own house, we think maybe he's gone. Every night we berate and lecture the lazy kitties that they should both be fired for incompetence. Well, I try to berate and lecture them, but they sleep through it.

Then the next morning, Danny and I are about to make his breakfast Moomie, and go to peel the halved banana sitting on the counter, when I think either David has become totally weird, or we are in trouble. I take this picture to send to David at work, to confirm this wasn't his handiwork.















Danny's face says it all - EW! Seems our mouse friend likes bananas, but more than that, he is back in the kitchen.

And sure enough, there is that lovely scent again...

Time to go back on the hunt.

(Kitties!!!!!! Shakes fist!!!!!!!)

Whereas, Craigslist, You Rock

Look at this train table! Pottery Barn Kids, thankyouverymuch, and bought on the cheap. We brought Danny and she couldn't say no to my hard-nosed bargaining. (Note to self: bring Danny to all negotiations.)

As you can see, we purchased both a BRIO train tunnel and a road crossing on ebay, which are pretty rad. In the upper left corner, you can see the construction site, and towards the camera, next to the small airport, you can just barely see the two-car pileup due to text messaging (everybody was OK, just a little shaken) and the third car which had to swerve, knocking over a young pine tree.

Train tables are fun. And even fun for Danny!

USPS, You Stink

Well, the insanely huge package (20"x20"x20" and over 50 pounds) of essentially everything we got for Christmas (with a healthy dose of things we already owned) was lost by the USPS, and we have no recourse. Let's recap what we've lost, shall we? This way, when you never see that adorable raincoat on Danny, or the shirt, or the wonderful Christmas gift at our house, you won't wonder why, you'll just weep quietly with us in spirit.

All of the 2T and 3T Carters clothes from Dianna
All the 2T clothes from Martha
The Danny shirts/clothes from both Mom and John
The "big guy" and "little guy" hats from Mom
Our baby monitor
The books we got for Christmas
Danny's blue pair of 6 1/2 sneakers from Martha
Mary's black boots
Mary's New Balance sneakers
Mary's nice Juicy Couture maternity dress
Various maternity clothes I cannot specifically recall
Various shirts and clothes David cannot specifically recall
Three packages of diapers
The pillow and throw my mom gave us for Christmas
The framed photo of Danny holding Raggedy Ann (SOB!)
David's nice brown pants
David's nice blue shirt
David's Kangol hat
David's Cole Haan favorite brown suede shoes
David's new argyle socks from Dianna
The program from our wedding that I found in Mom's house (SOB!)
David's cashmere argyle sweater
Two ceramic bowls we got in the Pollyanna
The charger for David's PSP
Probably more that we cannot remember

So that's pretty sad.

Well, Whaddya Know

Dear readers of our blog, something amazing has happened.

I think it's fair to say that for the past year, perhaps 15 months, I have been exhausted. Now, everybody's exhausted, it's our modern condition. So I didn't think much of it. And then I got pregnant, and Danny started walking, and I just chalked it up to the way it is.

But I had a particularly nasty type of exhaustion that involved a combination of unreal insomnia and mind-numbing fatigue; i.e., where it hurts to stay awake during the day, and then you can't sleep at night between 2-6am. It was pretty bad. David pitched in pretty dramatically, coming home at 5:30 to relieve me, plus cooking and grocery shopping and taking Danny to every child-friendly attraction in Southern California on the weekends, but there were times I'm sure when we both wondered how in the world I was going to handle a new guy in the mix.

Well, dear readers, I went to the doctor on Thursday, and had blood taken to "re-check my iron." "Re-check?" I asked.

Turns out my original doctor had taken the first iron test 24 weeks ago, and it showed significant anemia THEN. Lord only knows what it is NOW. My new doctor thought my old doctor told me, since she hadn't taken the test, so she would ask me at every visit as a reminder, "Are you taking your iron?" But I had no idea I was anemic. And my prenatal vitamin has iron added to it, so I would answer, "Yes." Funny, right? Well, OK, not so funny. Actually, totally, horribly, not funny at all.

Well, I started taking liquid iron and B vitamins Thursday night, and there literally aren't words to describe how much better I feel. The weirdest thing is that I woke up this morning at 7:30am, having had 9 hours of glorious uninterrupted sleep for the SECOND NIGHT in a row, and promptly googled "insomnia and anemia." It is so striking how much better I've slept in the past two nights, and what an unbelievable difference it has made in my well-being and outlook on life, from TWO DOSES of this iron stuff, that I immediately sensed there was a connection. And I was right! First symptom of anemia: insomnia. Second, and more known: fatigue.

Anyway, on the road to recovery here. Thank heavens.

Throwing Rocks

Our friend Nicole's 40th was this Sunday and they rented out a bowling alley. Pretty cool. Somebody was all about bowling and "playing" video games. And that person was Mary.

Monkey!

Due to the rain, David had to bring in the drying rack.  Somebody decided to play monkey in the zoo.

(NB:  he's in his diaper because he's BEGINNING - just beginning - to use the potty.  When we were in NYC, he saw Maxim use the potty and now, when we're lucky, we hear "Maxim!  Potty like Maxim!")

Before the Flood

We have had torrential -  I'm talking tornados and hail - rain here for the past few days, and it's supposed to continue through this weekend!  

Fortunately, on the very last dry day, Danny and I planted our winter veggies.  What a help he was!  We planted lettuce and broccoli...

Watered the veggies (totally unnecessary, it turns out)...

Then we had a very special treat of a juice box to quench our thirst...

Then Danny cleaned up a little...

Then he kissed the gnome, of course.

NO GESTATIONAL DIABETES!

The results are in, and just like last time, I passed every part.

I have no idea why I keep having to take the bloody thing when there seems to be no issue, but I guess it is kind of fun to drink the world's nastiest liquid, get your blood taken 4x in 4 hours, and then look like a (pregnant) heroin junkie...

Nonetheless, what a relief. WHAT A RELIEF. Phew.

In Other News...

Well, we've had better days here at 1414 Main.

I had to take the miserable 3-hour glucose test again to test for gestational diabetes today. Should know tomorrow, so please say a little prayer that I pass it again.

And our new landlords said no to our plans to remodel the garage. That's a huge bummer. David and I are now looking into JUST HOW ILLEGAL it would be to keep the baby in a tent in the yard.

On the upside, I have some good news about the Levon project that I can formally announce in about a week, so stay tuned for that.

And Then David's Dream Came True

I'm in the other room and all I can hear is "Hi Kitty, Hi Simon."

(Now, this is Farley, but does it really matter?...)

And what's important to understand is that neither kitty has let Danny within 100 yards of him until today.

Eagles Mere

Belatedly, here is the Finan clan, gathered for Thanksgiving '09

(David took the picture)

And It's Definitely Time For One of These

28 weeks, holy cow, how time is flying.

Nothing's Tastier Than Juice and Milk Combined

Right?

Back with a Bang!

We're back from our East Coast trip, and finally settled again. We'll put some pictures from that trip up before too long, but I wanted to give you all a little Friday comic relief.

So many of you know that today was the deadline for the proposal to PBS asking them to give us gobs of money to finish this Baltimore documentary, and both Emily and I have been working our butts off getting everything ready. Wednesday was particularly insane, and I paid about a grand total of 15 minutes of attention to Danny. But he was doing pretty well, until about 4pm, when he started yelling repeatedly "HUMMUS CRACKERS HUMMUS CRACKERS!"

Now, 4pm is a little too close to dinner for a big old snack, but I plopped the poor neglected child in his high chair and presented him with an entire new fresh tub of hummus and a bowl full of crackers. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Maybe fifteen minutes in, I hear "More please!" and refill his bowl with pita puffs.

So I'm working furiously on the budget, completely focused, and realize that nearly an hour has passed with nary a peep from Master Daniel beyond a relatively low-intensity "Messy." "Wow!" I think to myself, "he's being great!" I look around to see if he's still moving, and see something kind of strange...

which causes me to walk over...

and find...






































My jaw literally dropped open, and I just stared for about five minutes. I recommend clicking on the photos to see the extent of the damage. There was hummus from the windows in front to the bookcase behind, all the way into his diaper.

The thing was, he was so proud, that I couldn't even get mad. And, he did let me get my work done. Ha! So I just threw him in the tub, clothes and all, and tried to get the overwhelming reek of garlic out of his hair (!) - and then from the rug, his high chair, the floor, etc...