Redomesticated

I caught Frank Wednesday afternoon and brought him back in the house to be reassimilated to indoor living.  He spent most of the first 24 hours hiding under the spare bed, refusing to eat, drink, or go to the bathroom until I started to wonder, even though I wasn't really worried, if he would starve or blow up.  Night time is a different story.  He's lonely and expresses his displeasure too loudly, which is partly why he got tossed outside in the first place.  You think he'd learn, or maybe he has?

Mayhem is way too excited about his one animal friend being more available more often for playdates and likes to get right down in Frank's face and yell his happiness in indistinguishable jabbers.  Lots of petting and "awwww's" and one occasion of thinking cats were pets that liked plastic balls thrown at their heads.

Last night before bed and after Frank decided to quit pouting, Mayhem force fed him his supper, one piece of kitty food at a time, reassuring Frank with lip smacking and "numnumnum" that it really is good.  First hand knowledge?  I hope not. 

Frank is still bored at night so I've been up since 4 keeping him company.  Good thing I like the early morning.

Doctor, Doctor!

We took Mayhem for his 18 month well baby checkup this morning, complete with TDAP and flu vaccines made better by a sucker. 

Our little turkey weighs 28 pounds, 10 ounces and is 33 inches long now. 

The doctor thinks we're doing a fine job with him and after our answer of, "Everything!" to his question, "What's fun about Mayhem?" he said he guessed we didn't want to return him.

There is still fluid on his ears three months after an ear infection so we have to go back in a month for a recheck.  He may have to have his hearing tested if it's not better and he's not saying two-word phrases by then.

He also said after Mayhem is consistently sleeping all night every night we could convert his bed to a toddler bed, but I don't know if I'm down with that.  What if he gets loose?!

After Mayhem's appointment we dropped Boots off at the chiropractor and the two of us drove over to the new pet store to kill some time while we waited.  We saw a cat and two kittens and about a million fish.  Mayhem liked the birds (of course!), but the gerbils running on the wheel and fat rabbits really captured his attention.  I wanted to get him one of each of everything in there despite knowing I'd be the one doing all the caretaking, except for the ferrets- those critters can't be trusted.

A little shoe shopping at Target for a boy with feet that literally grow overnight and then home for a nap. 

18 Months of Mayhem

If I had to describe an 18 month old in one word it would be "busy."  This kid never stops moving!  (You'll see-- I took these pictures in about two minutes time.)  

He is investigator número uno, y'all.  Seriously, if it's closed it must be opened, if it's contained it must be dumped out, and if it's water...  

He loves water.  He likes splashing in the buckets when I'm watering my very near-to-death flowers, he climbs on the toilet to lean onto the sink and turn the faucet on so he can stick his fingers in the stream, he will break his neck to push up a chair to stand on to "help" wash dishes.  And I'm seriously regretting that we did not turn our bathroom into a wet room with a floor drain when we remodeled the house a few years ago due to the copious amounts of water splashed outside the tub during bath time.

But, I can't help myself.  He's just so darn cute.  And funny.  I am so in love with this kid it ain't even funny.

I try to think of ways to keep him entertained throughout the day so he's not constantly getting into mischief.  Sometimes it works, sometimes not.  He follows me around everywhere watching me and wanting to do whatever it is I'm doing so I try to let him participate and "help" me if it's not too dangerous (knives in the kitchen) or too time sensitive.  

He helps me carry the laundry baskets down the hall to the kitchen and then back so that job goes from about 12 seconds to 3 minutes.  He likes wiping up spills with a rag, and he loves hanging hangers on the rods in the closet.  This one is pretty intense on the arm muscles: imagine lifting this chunk over and over so he can pick up the hangers and then hang them all one. at. a. time.

When he's not doing "grown up" things he has a few toys he likes to play with like the jack-in-the-box and laptop he got for Christmas.  Occasionally we play blocks, but they tend to bring out destructive aggression that results in them being hurled around the room and lots of angry babbles.  

The laptop has ABC 123 buttons and I'll hear A A A A A pressed repeatedly ad nauseum, but he has learned say it!  He will say A and sometimes B, sometimes he gets a little screechy, "abee, abee, ABEEEEE!"

One day we were leaving the house to go somewhere and he actually selected a toy (helicopter) to bring with him in the car rather than just play with something I pack for him.  I thought that was pretty neat.

He says "shooozzzz" and "toezzzz!", "bee bee" (not sure what that one means yet), "moh" for more, bowl and ball are both pretty clear, "bubba" for bubbles, but the cutest one is when he sees Boots-- "Daddee!"  He gets so excited and happy.  I just love it!

It would be silly of me to think that he might be ready for potty training anytime soon, but there is definitely some "awareness" going on.  He started poking the front of his diaper one night so I asked him if he needed a new diaper and he ran to the changing table in his room.  I try to ask him more now so that he's thinking about the cause and effect of all this bathroom business stuff.  His interest in the toilet amounts to raising the lid to look at the "wahh" and then slamming it back down.  

We're trying to teach him to cover his mouth when he coughs, but that is usually interpreted as "cover my mouth and fake cough after they say to."   He'll even cover your mouth and want you to cough if he thinks about it and has a blanket handy to use as a tissue!

He cries when we tell him it's time for bed as we walk to his room even though we go through the same process every night.  Sometimes after he's in bed and the door is shut Boots and I can hear him talking and laughing to himself and his animals before he goes to sleep.  

For a few days he would lean over to the floor and gently bump his head, then rub his head somewhere that made absolutely no contact with the floor, and whine that it hurt.  Thankfully that didn't last long.

There is lots of head shaking and sometimes he says "no" but I'm not sure he gets what he's saying.

After a particularly stern talking to in the doctor's office about not taking the emergency flashlight off the wall he repeatedly pointed at it and told me "don't" over and over again.

He says Mama a little more, but still not as much as Daddy.  FYI: "Mama" is a great word to use for making spit bubbles between your lips if you want to try it.

He gets silly sometimes and spins around and around until he's drunk and falls down.  We have to make him stop or he'll just keep spinning until he can't walk at all and crashes into the piano and tv stand.

One day I was in the kitchen cooking and he pulled the crock pot over to him (not hot, I'd just switched it on), lifted the lid, and took a deep inhale of a bunch of RAW CHICKEN in water and declared, "Mmmm!"  

Never a dull moment around here.  Never.

Phony

Sometime back, at the encouragement of Emily P. Freeman, I begin to think of myself as a writer.  Think.  I have yet to say those words out loud to anyone.  I don't even like to tell people that I write much less am a writer because, funny thing, when you tell people you write they...expect you to write?  And we all know I'm currently experiencing some serious problems in that department.

It looks like my writer's block has also turned into reader's block which is possibly even more upsetting.  Writers are readers and now I am neither. 

On Sunday nights, I'm in a women's Bible study class at church.  The past few months we've done the Ever After study by Vicki Courtney and watched a few of Beth Moore's videos from her "Sound Mind" series.  Now we're doing the '90s version of Anne Graham Lotz The Vision of His Glory complete with now discontinued workbooks and VHS tapes.  (Age has nothing to do with this, I'm just throwing that out there because VHS tapes, yall!  We're having to remember how to work them!  Ha!)

Ever After was kinda sugary, sweet, and easy.  I liked it, but didn't really feel challenged.  Beth Moore is my woman.  She gets it and is hilarious.  Anne Graham Lotz...I wanted challenging and I got it. 

She has a little method you might call it, a 5 step "this is how you read your Bible" plan.  You start by reading the passage (duh), you write out the facts of what you read in the passage (easy enough), then you look for a lesson to learn from each fact (getting a little tougher), and (this is where it gets hairy for me) you use the lessons you learned from the facts and figure out how they apply to you before moving on to step 5 and, you know, applying what you learned to your life.

All this is good and fine with this "new" way of reading to comprehend, but did I mention that The Vision of His Glory is about the book of Revelation?  Yeah.  And have I ever told you (this is the worst part!) that I do not get symbolism???!!

How can you call yourself a writer when you don't get symbolism????  How can you even read?? 

It's bad, yall. 

Even in high school, reading all those books in Lit about dead trees and black birds (1984 really got me) I was like, "I don't have a clue." 

They're trees!  And birds!  Don't get me started on poetry, it makes me cross-eyed.

I have learned some symbolism though and occasionally it is humorous in real life situations, such as my stepbrother's wedding.  I can even watch TV and yell out, "Foreshadowing!" at the appropriate moments.

Anne Graham Lotz says there are two extremes: some people stick to the "happy" parts of the Bible like the Psalms (I don't always get those either) and whatnot because they're easy to understand while others get all into the prophecy of Revelation and hung up in the symbolism and counting all the numbers.  (I don't think I'm either of these, by the way.)

I believe that you can learn something from every one and every situation so I'm trying to get the symbolism and apply what I'm reading to my own life and not get all freaked out by how much my little mind is boggled, but today's passage (Revelation 4:3b-8a) has really thrown me for a loop.  I'm just not with it.  I think I might need to take another day and try it all over again tomorrow.

Do you have any experience studying Revelation or care to share anything you've learned?  No conspiracy theories, please, I'm confused enough already!