I Falsely Accuse Fish

I got some new fish. I had gotten some for my birthday, but two of them died, leaving me with just one. I named him D.C. It's short for Destiny's Child, which isn't my favorite band, but my little fish is a Survivor. Drew calls him C.C.C.

We have some friends who are moving to California for med school, and they gave us their plecostomus (a big scary looking algae eater), who is named Dave. Since we already have a Dave, I call him Carl to alleviate any confusion. So I guess his initials are also D.C.
I wasn't sure how little D.C. would react to being in an aquarium with such a big scary fish, so I got him some buddies to back him up. I got a guppy who has a really flashy pink and black tail. I named him Siegfried. I got a little fluorescent red-orange fish, too(I forget what kind he is). I named him Roy, because one can't have a Siegfried without a Roy. I also purchased an African Dwarf frog, who is about an inch long and an inch wide.

I was so proud of my happy aquarium. Then, two days after I got everything set up, I realized I hadn't seen the frog for a while. I had heard a story about Carl allegedly eating a goldfish, so I was almost certain that he'd eaten my frog, but hoped maybe the frog was just hiding really well. I stuck my hand in the tank and moved some stuff around. No frog. I shook my fist at that big ol' Carl. "How dare you eat my frog?! You'd better not eat any of my other fish, or it'll be an earthy grave for you!" (I felt weird threatening a fish with a watery grave, since they live in the water already. Now that I think about it, it's probably weird that I talk to my fish like that in general...)

Today the boys and I went to get a new screen for our front door. Certain cat and toddlers in our house have ripped the bottom corner, making it possible for said cat and toddlers as well as the dog to escape quietly without being noticed. Our neighbor Bob brought Drew and Owen home the other day--said he found them playing across the street (they had nothing on but diapers). I didn't even know they were gone; I was cleaning the kitchen, and thought they were downstairs breaking the computer, which is their usual favorite activity.

So anyway, we got home from Lowes with our screen-fixing supplies, only to find the front door open, the screen flapping suspiciously in the breeze, and our dog missing. I was floored. This was the third time the dog has snuck through the screen, and I was so mad that he'd had the gall to do it again. So I was Miss Grumpy Pants all evening. I could hardly enjoy my Whopper-with-cheese, and when Owen threw his cheeseburger on the floor and asked for a bite of mine, I told him he'd be going to bed hungry.

I thought maybe watching fish would cheer me up, so I sat down in front of the aquarium and flicked on the light. And who should dart back into hiding, but that little African Dwarf frog! He'd been hiding the whole time and had come out while we were gone! Of course I had to apologize to Carl; he seemed to accept the apology. At that moment, Vito came slinking up and sat on the doorstep wanting to be let in. I let him in with a small scolding, but soon enough Miss Grumpy Pants disappeared, and I felt like everything had resolved itself. I gave Owen a little snack and got him and Drew off to bed, then went downstairs to "check my schedule."*

I saw some cute pictures of my new nephew on our family website, and that totally made my day. So on that good note, I'm going to wrap this up, go watch some TV, give myself a pedicure (it'll probably be the last one for a while; I'm getting to the point of not being able to reach my toes), and go to bed.

I hope my brother doesn't mind that I post these pictures. They're just too cute:

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Baby James, Proud Dad and Big Sisters

*This is my term for "piddle around on the computer." I call it this because David has to check his work schedule on the computer; he goes to the railroad website and looks at the train lineup so he has a general idea of when he'll be working. But he doesn't just check the railroad website. He has to check his email, the news, the sporting news, the stock market news, and a bunch of other stuff, and also play a few games of Free Cell. So now, whenever I check my email and do my blogging and read all my friends' blogs and read the gossip column to see what the celebs are up to, I call it "checking the schedule."

Adventures in Shipping

(A spin-off from the Adventures in Shopping series)

We bought a Nintendo Wii to sell on Ebay. It sold rather quickly, and we made a small profit. So my job yesterday was to get it shipped. No problem, right? Well, that all depends on how the boys decide to behave. And yesterday, they decided not to behave.

It all happened like this: We walk into the UPS store, and I tell the boys to stick close to me and not touch anything. Apparently, what they actually hear is something along the lines of "Run amok and pull everything you can off the shelves." So I'm trying to give the guy all the shipping information, and the boys are chasing each other around the store with cardboard mailing tubes. Not too big a deal, but then as we're about to leave, the UPS guy says, "Your kid pulled a bunch of cards off the shelf." So I apologize and start picking them up. I try to get them in some kind of order, but meanwhile Owen is on the next aisle pulling those cards off the shelf, and Drew is by the Xerox machine pushing buttons. So I grab Drew with one hand and put cards back as fast as I can with the other. When I finish, I grab Owen's hand and make for the exit. But Owen isn't finished and makes a grab toward the last row of cards. He succeeds in pulling them all down, at which point the UPS man actually says to me, "Just leave. I'll clean it up."

I have never been so embarrassed in my life (at least that I can recall; I probably have, but this embarrassment is currently crowding out any previous embarrassments). I can never go back to the UPS store again. Not that I go there all that often, but David's plan is to get a couple more Wiis and try to sell those, too.

The first thing I did when I got home was go online and order little backpack harnesses for the boys. They are really cute and come with a leash so the boys will have to stay fairly close to me, hopefully making it easier for me to do damage control or, better yet, damage prevention. But I may just have to resign as Designated Wii Shipper.

Hey-O-Bah

...I don't know what hey-o-bah means, but Owen says it a lot, and I think it's very cute. Drew and Owen have been talking a lot lately, most of it not really in English, but still fun.

Last night, Owen snatched Andy's cordless mouse from the computer desk and was using it as a telephone. It was so funny. He was sitting in a little kid-size rocking chair saying all these "words" that only he can understand, and laughing like a maniac. I guess this is a favorite activity of his, because he's been doing it lots lately.

I have fun trying to get the boys to pronounce different words. My favorite to watch them say is "juice" because they pucker up their little lips just so, and it cracks me up. The other day, I was going through all the girl names I like, trying to see if Drew and Owen can pronounce them. I want them to be able to at least kind of be able to say their little sister's name, so we don't end up with any horrible nicknames. Here is what they came up with:

Name: Torah

D. says: Ta-tas

O. says: Tee-ta

Name: Sophie

D. says: Buffy

O. says: Bubba

Name: Keira

D. says: Feefa

O. says: Eesheesh

Name: Meira

D. says: Nananee

O. says: Oh-my

Name: Mikelle

Both say: Moooo!

(I guess they thought I asked them to say "moo cow")

So I really want to name the baby Torah Mikelle, but David still needs a lot of convincing. He likes the name Mikelle, but for some reason I want to keep it as a middle name; the reason being, I suppose, that I really, really like the name Torah.

The First Anniversary of My 25th Birthday

Friday was my birthday. I had a really good day; I don't know what all this superstitious Friday the 13th stuff is about--every time the 13th falls on a Friday, it's a good day for me no matter what month it is. But especially in July.

My brother and his wife surprised me with a cake and some presents. They gave me three little fish (unfortunately one died that night), and some books.

David was on a camping trip with the church youth, but he snuck away early and met me in Idaho Falls to go to a Chukars game, and we ate at Garcia's, which is probably my favorite Mexican restaurant, because they have a scrumptious spinach cheese sauce that they put on their chimichangas (you can also buy just the sauce, as an appetizer, and dip chips and stuff in it).

Saturday, unfortunately, wasn't my birthday anymore, but we had a lot of fun anyway. We went to Wake on the Snake, which is a wakeboarding competition held in Burley, Idaho, every year. We didn't compete, but our little friends Zach (age 5) and his sister Ashley (age 8) competed in the Beginners class, and they did really well. Zach told his mom the night before the competition, "Mom, I'm not going to throw any flips tomorrow." His mom said, "Well, that's good, because you don't know how." To which Zach replied, "I just wanted you to know; don't expect any flips."

We went with a couple friends from church and their two kids. I didn't know either of them very well, so it was nice to get to know them better. Basically, we just sat on the river bank all day (seriously, for like, six-and-a-half hours) under the shade of a tree and chatted, and watched the wakeboarders throw their stunts. At least, that's all I did. David and the boys played in the water quite a bit, and our friends and their kids played a little. I think everyone had a lot of fun. It was nice to be out of the house. Our friends hadn't really planned on going, but decided to go at the last minute. In the end, they were really glad they did, because their alternate plans for the day were to do housework and install a garbage disposal.

Some pictures of the weekend:

My birthday cake. It heated up
the house when we lit all the candles.



My two surviving goldfish.

Drew and me at the baseball game, David and Owen at the ball game

Owen and Drew trying on my sunglasses; it's the cool thing to do.

Owen and David jumping into the water. Owen cried the first time David jumped in with him, but when we pulled him back onto the dock he said, "Again?"

A wakeboarder doing a flip.

'Bye-bye, Play!

I took the boys to the play place at the mall again today. They didn't have as much fun as they usually do. There were some "big kids" there (those rowdy three- and four-year-olds), and Drew got a little nervous and clingy. It didn't help that one little girl kept following Drew around and bumping him with her belly. I suppose I should have said something, but she wasn't hurting him, and I kind of wanted to see how he would handle it. He handled it by giving her a very dirty look and walking away. But she kept following. Finally, she did it when her mom was looking, so her mom gave her a good scolding.

At last, all the big kids left, and Drew and Owen had the place to themselves. They had a little more fun then, but they still didn't get into romping like they usually do. I guessed it was about lunch time, so we geared up to head over to the food court. The boys seemed very glad to leave. Drew even waved and said, "'Bye-bye, play! See ya!"

We had corn dogs and fries from Orange Julius. We also had a strawberry banana Julius. The boys each got one, but they had to share with me (that way, I could drink most of it, sparing them the sugar high; I'm so thoughtful). Drew had his first experience with throat-freeze. He put his little hand on his throat and said, "Ow" and gave me that same dirty look he'd given the girl at the play place.

Lunch ended about the time Owen started throwing his fries on the floor and Drew started flicking his straw, thus getting Julius all over everyone. On the way back to the car, I stopped to rinse out one of the cups and fill it with water from the drinking fountain. Suddenly, I heard this strange voice, like someone had a very hoarse throat. The voice came closer, and started talking to the boys. I turned around, and there was this nice older lady, a mall maintenence lady, doing her very best Donald Duck impersonation. The boys didn't know what to think. The lady said goodbye (in her Donald Duck voice) so I told the boys to respond, which they did, but they both had this look on their face like, "What in the world?!" It was so funny.

The mall is a great place to spend our mid-morning: nice and air conditioned. And by the time we got home, the boys were ready to nap and sleep away the hottest part of the day! If only I could do the same, but it's too hot in my room for me to sleep, and I've got to get stuff done while there aren't four little hands around undoing everything.