Sisters and babies!

Happy birthday to my cute nephew, Jonah, who is one today, which I totally cannot believe. He's my younger sister's son, their first baby, and he has Amy's red hair. He's a handsome little man, and I can't wait to see him again!

Jonah

And something I can't believe even more is that today Corgan is eleven months old! I feel like I was in the hospital with him last week! He is just about ready to pull up to stand, but he's so stubborn and he gets so frustrated that he gives up. It's pretty cute! All of my boys kind of waited until the very last minute for every milestone, so I know he'll get there. I CAN'T BELIEVE he'll be one year old next month! Time is stealing my boys away from me!

Corgan

On that note, because I was behind on my blog earlier this month, I didn't document the birth of another nephew, making me an aunt for the 24th time. Camden McKay Myers was born to Ashley and Jon, their fifth child, on Septemeber 10, and we are so excited he's here! Belated congratulations to Ashley and family! I can't wait to get to know him!

Camden

This is for Suzanne...

... since she's not on Facebook, and she so loved my earlier story about the gerbil. Today, you know, the same exact day as the one I cleaned up gerbil carcass, I heard a frantic squeaking coming from the mouse cage. Ruby was on top of it, and when I yelled, she ran off. I noticed the mouse was limping. Upon further inspection, her front leg was gone. G-O-N-E. Ruby somehow got it through the cage bars, and I'm assuming she ate it. At first the mouse was trembling so hard I could actually see it from far away, but now she's just hobbling around like nothing is wrong, using one paw to eat, and running on her wheel. She's a resilient little fuzzball.

The Perilous Life of a Rodent

Um, I think I jinxed the gerbil. Remember last week? I mentioned I wished it would escape the cage? Well, I'm really all talk, I don't want any animal to get hurt. But I do admit I really disliked this particular gerbil. I liked her in the beginning - she's technically Fynn's, a birthday present from Sarah. But she bites HARD. I kid you not, I still have a lump in my finger from where she bit me three months ago. Really, she's a harmless little rodent, but it has become kind of a joke that I have a vendetta against her. I even tried to see once if she'd leave her cage and start exploring the backyard. But she was terrified, and when I actually saw her trembling, I felt major remorse and repented. I've protected her from Ruby the cat vigorously.

UNTIL...

Last night I noticed her cage topper was very slightly askew. Not enough for a cat to get in there, but certainly enough for a gerbil to escape. And sure enough, she wasn't in there. I wanted to find her before the cat did, so I did a thorough search and found nothing. This morning, I sat down at the computer, glanced around as I waited for it to load, and spotted a stub tail on the floor. Attached to a rear and two hind legs. And - that's all. Oh, besides the organs spilling out. Yeah, I hope you aren't eating lunch right now. So I had to clean that up, and I feel bad for the little gal. Thank goodness the boys weren't up, yet. I haven't disassembled or cleaned out her cage, yet, and today I found Oliver inspecting the crime scene.

Happy 70th Birthday to Dad!

Happy birthday, Dad! I'm sorry Lucy isn't here to share it with you!

Flowers Gone Wild

My sisters and I used to walk to my grandmother's house and visit with her. We'd often go sit on her back porch when the weather was nice and just talk. I would talk to her a lot about all of her flowers - she had many. Wild and cultivated roses, irises in every color of the rainbow, tiger lilies, honeysuckle, wisteria, sweet peas, and many more that I've forgotten over time. She instilled in me a love of flowers and gardening that was nourished by the books I read. Anne of Green Gables, The Secret Garden, Little House on the Prairie, etc. Although I'm not necessarily a perfectly green thumb, I think I've developed a lovely light yellow, spring green thumb. At least I had, up until I got pregnant with Fynn.

Pregnancy kicks us all in the butt in different ways, and one of the things to suffer with Fynn and Corgan was my gardening. I just gave up. Weeding was too hard, I was hormonal and one failure of one plant would upset me and I just lost the desire. But I still love flowers so much. I love the wild look, and while right now the weeds have taken over a bit too wildly, there have been some other lovely results of my lazy sowing the last couple of years. It's still not quite what I would like it to be, but I'll take what I can get in these busy days.

This is the low brick wall by our porch, covered in black-eyed Susan vine, and purple hyacinth vine. They are all mingled and twirled together, and I love it.

Close-up of black-eyed Susan vine. I've loved them from the moment I saw them in a magazine, and tried for a couple of years to grow them without success. But last year, it worked, and this year, they came back with a lovely vengeance.

Both of them together. Mary Ann gave me a handful of the purple hyacinth vine a few years ago, and they came back in spectacular bunches all over the place. They are a little crazy, but beautiful - and they smell divine.

This popped up in the middle of my lantana. It looks a bit familiar, but I can't place it. Does anyone know? The find of this one inspired this post this morning, and I'm thinking it might inspire a little more of the fey spirit of gardening.

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

... start writing again. Really. I think I can. I WILL do it. It may take me a while to get back into the writing groove, but I will try. Since I don't have anything spectacular to report right now, I think I'll just give some wee updates on different topics and post a few pictures. Then we'll see what I can come up with tomorrow. Or the next day. Or, you know, sometime.

Ewan is incredible. He is loving kindergarten, and announced yesterday he has a girlfriend named Sarah. For the past two days, all he has talked about are the superhero team he has formed with Sarah, Natalie, each of us, and the cats. For Halloween, he wants to be AntMan, a hero he made up after an ant bit him (mimicking what he'd seen on Spiderman when Peter Parker is bitten by the spider.) Ewan is incredibly smart, and excessively sensitive. I love him madly and am so glad to be his mommy. I'm afraid he's more like me than I would like to admit, and that equates to being a major challenge. He requires more patience and care than the other two put together, but I know through prayer and faith, it'll all be worth it.
Fynn is hilarious and fun and stubborn and frustrating, and acts like a turd much of the time. He's in his testing phase, which means he ignores nine out of ten words that come out of my mouth just so he can see how I'll react. Unfortunately, I haven't been strict enough on him - not like I was on Ewan. Being pregnant and having Corgan when Fynn was so young really threw a wrench in my parenting philosophies and one year later, we are still recovering. But I'm trying to get the reins back, and hope to be raising a polite, kind, obedient little boy soon. I mean, within reason. He is a little boy, after all. And a very cute one at that. His face is so angelic, it belies the growling attitude he has most of the time. But he's still my little cherub who loves to play ball and cars, be a superhero, and copies everything his big brother does. Everything.

Corgan is quite a big boy. His height and weight are in the 95th percentile. He actually only began to army crawl about one month ago; the doctor said when they are tall and big like that it is harder for them to get their heft around. Today for the first time, he can go from crawling to sitting up all on his own. And he's ready to start pulling up to stand. It's possible he'll be a slightly late walker, but I'm not concerned. He loves the kitties and meows back at them. He actually had a two minute long conversation with momma kitty Ruby today. It was very cute. He says "dada" and is working on "mama" which usually comes out "nana." He's still more blond than his brothers, and I kiss his feet and squeeze his thighs regularly. I can't believe he'll be one year old in a month. I mean, didn't I just have him last month?

The animal kingdom is alive and thriving in my home. Well, maybe not thriving. Two months ago, a hamster escaped its cage and was found the next day - rather, a piece of her was found the next day. I guess Ruby was hungry. In addition, Ruby has severed the tails of two, count them, TWO different gerbils, as well as murdering another. The survivors, short stub tails notwithstanding, are doing well. One of them has become my friend, squeaking at me and letting me pet her. The other gerbil... Well, I just can't help wishing SHE had escaped her cage instead of the hamster. I actually have a pretty funny story about that, but I'll save it. I went a little crazy after the deaths of the gerbil and hamster, and replaced them rapidly. So the current (and final) tally is two gerbils, two mice, and two hamsters. I can't help it; I like the furry little buggers.

We have kept two of the kittens from Ruby's litter, two little boys we named Oliver and Mudflap (Ewan named him after a Transformer.) They are sweet little guys, and I love them so!


Lucy, a cat I bought with babysitting money when I was 16 years old, had to be put to sleep last week. She had a tumor behind her tongue that couldn't be removed without removing her tongue. So she was basically going to starve to death either way. I went to the veterinarian with my dad, who has been her constant companion since I left and got married, and I was with her until the end, which wasn't easy. I tell you, that cat has absorbed more of my tears in years past as she gave me love and comfort - during an awful heartbreak, through getting over it, moving away from home, coming back with my tail between my legs, through meeting Bryce and watching him leave on a mission, through the two years waiting for him to come home...
I feel badly for my parents, who had gotten quite attached to her, more attached than I've ever seen them to any other animal. But I'm sure she's happy, and I feel confident she's somewhere with my little Flex, playing and being friends.

Me, I'm still fat and trying to motivate myself to work out and lose the stinkin' weight. I had a setback in the middle of July when I injured my knee and had to have surgery. It's still not back at 100%, but I'm doing physical therapy, and hope to be back to normal very soon. Then I won't have any more excuses. Ewan said to me the other day, "Mommy, you need to lose weight. Every day you look like you have a baby in your belly. I call you 'needing to lose weight' mommy." It didn't hurt my feelings, it made me laugh. But when my five year old can tell I'm unhealthy, it's very convincing. For too long I've thought, "Hey, I'm young, I have time, I don't have to worry about disease or diabetes, yet." I realized finally that I am working my way through my 30s, and I don't have time anymore.

Bryce and I had our garage converted into a bedroom for us. Our home is very small - 850 sq. ft. give or take, only two bedrooms, and we were sharing a room with Corgan. There were days Bryce would come home and I'd be laying on my bed having a claustrophobic fit. There was just room for nothing, and often when I needed a moment to myself, Corgan would be napping and I couldn't go in there. I'm grateful for our house, and we have a nice, huge backyard, but we really needed our own space. So now we do, and it's lovely. Thanks to *you know who you are* for this wonderful room, and thanks to Shannon for helping me put it together.

This is already too long - the perils of not keeping up. I hope you stuck through to this point. Hopefully I will be up and running more often, humor intact. And now I need to catch up on all of your blogs! Now - good night!