Call the Cops, There's a Chicken on the Loose!

Now I know what you're thinking. Is it really an emergency worthy of the police when a chicken is running freely in the neighborhood? It is to somebody. On Sunday we were eating our Sunday dinner of pizza when someone knocked on the door. Everyone froze. We rarely have people over, and when someone does come to our door, unexpectedly, our first reaction is to get really quiet so that we can fake that we're not home, just in case whoever is at the door is someone who might want to come into our house (this especially the case when our house is messy, which is ALL THE TIME). K, now I know what you're thinking again. You're thinking, "Tiffaney, if you would just have your house clean at all times instead of never, you wouldn't have to worry about unexpected visitors." I know this. It's a work in progress. Slow progress, but at least I haven't given up. Anyway, JT peeked out the window, just as I was taking a bite of pizza, and lo and behold, it was a copper! Now, I might be embarrassed if someone that I know sees my house in it's usual messy disarray, but when I realized a cop was at our door, my stomach dropped, my mouth went dry, and I started to shake, just a bit, from adrenalin. Why do cops scare me? I don't know. I've never had any bad experiences yet involving the police. My brother, whom I dearly love, used to be a cop. But police are scary to me. Whenever I see one driving around, I'm careful to drop my speed so that I'm driving at least 5 miles under the speed limit and I constantly watch them, but I try to look like I'm not watching them. I try to appear like I'm just driving the way I would if a cop wasn't there, like I never speed, like I'm not doing anything suspicious. I'm pretty sure that I always look suspicious and like I'm hiding something as I drive. I once told Shane, my brother, that I always feel like cops are out to get me. He replied, "They are." Not a lot of reassurance. So when the cop came to our door, I immediately went into fight or flight mode. I decided for "fight" and went to answer the door. I still had that piece of pizza in my mouth and so I was frantically trying to chew it so that I could swallow it before I opened the door. Only I couldn't! My mouth was so dry that it was like chewing a mouthful of rubber bands. JT was hissing at me to answer the door. I was chewing. The cop was knocking again. I was chewing. JT was motioning with his hands that I should open the door. I was standing by the door and chewing. The cop was now ringing our doorbell. I was chewing. Finally I just swallowed the dry, massive, lump of pizza (why did I have to take such a big bite?!), and choking only a little, opened the door with Lilia on my hip. "Um, do you have any chickens?" the police officer inquired somewhat sheepishly. With a sigh of relief, I told him that we didn't. He then went onto say that someone complained about loose chickens and gave our address as the offenders!!!! He said that he didn't think that we had chickens and that he had called dispatch to make sure that he had the right address. He wanted to know if we had made the call. Naturally we didn't. If I was going to complain about something, it wouldn't be about chickens. It would be about the mean dog our next door neighbors own that gets free and poops in our yard and terrorizes the neighborhood. That's what I would complain about, and I would have the last time he got loose, except it was just before Christmas, and the Spirit of goodwill and forgiveness prompted me to not have the pound take away the neighbor's beloved family pet. Now somewhere down the road we have some neighbors who do have chickens. I've never seen this, but I hear them every morning, about the time our alarm goes off. Of course, I haven't heard the chickens the last few days, hmmmmm............

I haven't taken any new pictures this week, (the week is young, after all) but here are a couple pictures of when we went to the zoo with my sister-in-law Melody, and my niece, Kimmee. Or Kimbahlee, as she prefers to be called, at least for now. It was soooooo much fun! The weather was beautiful and the animals were very interactive. Melody rented a little jeep/wagon that seated two and had a little sun shade on the top. The jeep/wagon made things go so much more smoothly because it helped the girls (by girls I really mean "Carolyn" because Kimmee is always well-behaved at the zoo) go willingly from display to display instead of camping out at just one display and then pitching a fit when it was time to go on. The only problem with the jeep/wagon was that Kimmee would occasionally sit in Carolyn's "spot". Actually to be fair to Kimmee, Carolyn's "spot" was always changing, and usually tended to be where ever Kimmee wanted to sit. It was very embarrassing to me, but Kimmee was always gracious, if a little bewildered by Carolyn's random seating demands, and friction was at a minimum. I think it would have served Carolyn right if she had to walk.

Speaking of friction, there seems to be a little bit of if between Carolyn and Lilia. Lilia will be playing contentedly on the floor, and that is when Carolyn makes her move. She gets right in Lilia's face and pretty much invades her space and harasses her. I try not to get after Carolyn too much because I think she's just trying to love and play with Lilia. That doesn't make it less vexing to Lilia though, so I try to separate them, just a bit. Lately Carolyn has been stealing Lilia's toys. Most of the time Lilia is pretty easy going about this, but not so yesterday. Lilia was playing with a pair of socks (clean, just so you know--yes, I'm a little defensive about the cleanliness of my house, but our clothes are always clean--well, at least they start out that way at the beginning of the day) and I was in the kitchen. All of a sudden I hear Lilia shriek with outrage and when I came back into the living room, Carolyn had the socks on her hands, like puppets. With the wisdom of Solomon (ha!) I have Carolyn one sock and Lilia the other. Lilia thought this was a fair solution, but Carolyn didn't think it was a very fun solution and gave the sock back to Lilia. I shudder to think what their little tiffs will be like when Lilia is old enough to defend herself. Hopefully it will be good for Carolyn and help her to not be a little tyrant and it will teach Lilia to stand up for herself. I'm actually hoping that there won't be any fights, but I grew up with sisters and I know how it is, so it's an empty hope. What I can't believe is how quickly they're growing up. Lilia is already eating solid foods. When Carolyn was a baby it seemed to take forever for her to start eating solids. She clung to me and was happy to be my baby for a long time. Lilia can't wait to be big, like her sister, and is impatient when she can't do the things that Carolyn can. It's amazing to me how happy it makes Lilia to sit at the table with the family and eat food, just like her sister and the rest of the family. (Especially since she's sitting in the booster chair that she's seen Carolyn sit in, many times--Carolyn's now delighted to sit in an adult chair, like me and JT). It's as if she's swallowed the sun and happiness just shines from her. It's very bittersweet to me, because I her happiness becomes my own and I want her to be independent and strong, but she's not going to be my baby for very much longer.

Picky, Picky

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Sometimes when I get the camera out, Carolyn flees and refuses to let me take her picture. I blame myself for this because I probably did too many "photo moments" as she's been growing up. She's tired of the camera now and views me as a member of the paparazzi. I feared that my days of photographing my children were over, and then Lilia came along, too small to get away from me when I want to take pictures (which is ALL the time) and suddenly Carolyn doesn't mind getting her picture taken anymore. In fact, there are some days she feels that she looks so cute that she insists on getting her picture taken. That was how Carolyn was feeling on Monday, so I got out the camera and we decided to go outside to do our photography. I was pretty excited about this because our tulips (planted by the previous owners of our home, who apparently loved yard work, bless their little hearts) are blooming, and tulips happen to be my very favorite flower. I thought it would be pretty if Carolyn sniffed at the flowers and posed around them. I explained this to Carolyn who seemed to agree with me, but once she got close to the tulip, she started to pick it. Don't pick it, don't pick it, don't pick it!! I begged. But no. It wasn't even that she was being defiant. She was just so entranced with the flower that I don't think she even heard me. She certainly didn't stop until she had the tulip gripped triumphantly in her little fist. I had forgotten that Carolyn thinks that flowers need to be picked, sort of the way people who garden think that weeds just have to go. Unbelievable. I tried to emphasize 'need' and I couldn't get the italics off. Anyway, I should have remembered this because we had daffodils pop up last month, and as soon as they would show their cheery, buttery petals, they were plucked by Carolyn. Every time we go outside Carolyn races to the side of the house where the tulips are slowly blossoming to see what she needs to pick. Yesterday she had picked a couple of tulip buds that were barely showing what color they'd like to be someday before I could stop her. She's relentless. Oh well. I guess flowers are meant to be enjoyed, and it's not like they could make a big difference in our yard at this point. (We are not really good at yard work yet)

Carolyn is going through a stage (please let it just be a stage!!) of being picky with her food too. It is so hard to get her to eat anything besides bread, toasted bread, waffles, pancakes, grilled cheese sandwiches, cookies, candy, cake, brownies, chocolate, chicken nuggets and butter. Oh, and ice cream too. Other food that we can get her to try, she'll chew and spit it out on her plate. In fact, she'll do that with some of her favorites. It is very frustrating. I try being strict, but I just can't make her eat something if she has determined that she won't. She'd rather go hungry. We've tried to force her to try a bite, but she only spits it out on her plate and cries angry tears. I'm not sure at this point what to do. We need to somehow get her to eat a better variety or else she's not going to grow and develop properly and she's going to develop an allergy to those foods. Gah!!!!!!!!

On a happier note, I'm going to get Lilia's 6 month pictures taken today. I am very excited. We're going to try a new photography studio that is fairly close to us. One of my friends from church recommended it to me, with the qualifying advice that I need to be strong when I go there. She said that they are offering a big, one pose package for $9.95, but that they will try to get me to buy more sheets or even...gasp.....a real portrait package. When I made the appointment today, the helpful sales lady that I spoke with told me about a spring value package for only $200. I think JT would kill me dead. But I'm not worried about that because I am strong. I am strong. I am strong. Yes, I shall be power chanting all day and I'll walk out of there with only their one pose portrait package, costing me $9.95 + tax. Wish me luck.

p.s. I think blogger hates me because not only did I struggle with the italics button, but I just tried to paste Lilia's picture at the bottom and it piled it on the top again. :p

"Fun" at the Zoo

K, so when I started working on this post on Thursday, I only had time to think of the title for it and then I had to solve a crisis. I don't remember what crisis interupted me, because Carolyn has had so many, but on to that in a bit......if I have time that is........

But first, let's talk about the zoo. We met some friends at the zoo last Wednesday. Can I just tell you, I love the zoo. It's free to us (sort of because we have a family pass--so I guess it's not really 'free') it's small enough that we can go through the entire zoo in about 1 and 1/2 hours and they are constantly improving it. When I was young, all they had were birds and monkeys (or so it seemed). Now they have Siberian tigers, and leopards, and bobcats, and yeah....I'm all about the big cats. They are cool. They also have penguins (Carolyn's favorite) and they still have monkeys and birds. They also have a bunch of other intersting animals and they are always working on getting even more. I really do like the zoo. But I have found that I like it best when it is warm outside. When we went Wednesday, it was a less than balmy 47 degrees with a brisk and chilly wind blowing my hair all around, raising gooseflesh on all exposed skin and making my nose cold and runny. You see, I don't have a jacket. All I have are winter coats and I didn't want to cart around a parka along with all the other stuff I have to take with me for Lilia (okay, I probably don't have to carry all that I do around with me, but I like to be prepared....for anything) so I just wore a Tshirt and jeans. I should have at least worn a sweater, but it had been so warm lately and it was supposed to be up on the 60's that day. Hah! But at least the girls were warm. Carolyn had an undershirt, a sweater and her winter coat on. I had dressed her in a light jacket, but luckily we had her winter coat in the car. Well, we actually have a lot of stuff in the car because I have yet to clean it out since out last trip, but at least the coat came in handy. Lilia was dressed in a very warm sweater and wrapped in many blankets.....most of which were in the car already. I'm totally rethinking cleaning out the car since it's so handy to have stuff ready for us when we need it. It's so much more convenient to just store it in the car.....but I digress.......We had to wait for about 2o minutes for our friends to get there and since it was so cold we plastered ourselves up against the stucco wall of the gift shop. It was lovely. The wall retained all of the heat that the sun had been sending (I think the wall got ALL of it since I didn't feel the sun again once we left to go exploring) and it also blocked the wind. I would have been content to stay there longer, but Carolyn was anxious to see the animals. Carolyn had so much fun. Lilia didn't. The last time we went to the zoo I forgot to bring my camera and so Carolyn would pose and I would pretend to take pictures of her. She would insist on seeing the "picture" I took and usually pronounce it "soooooo cute!!!". Other camera-toting parents would watch us with a mixture of amusement and pity. It was sort of sad. So I made sure that I brought my camera this time. Here are a couple of the many pictures that I took. This is the only on of Lilia, however, and this was as happy as she got on this outing. Poor Lilia! By the way, Reader (yes Mimi, that would be you) you'll have to share with me your secret of attaching pictures throughout your post instead of piling them all at the top of your post. And upon further searching, I have found another picture taken of Lilia at the and this is truly when she was at her happiest, asleep in the stroller and oblivious.

So, back to the ongoing drama......Carolyn is getting a molar. She has been grouchy and ultra sensitive all week. It was the worst Friday and Saturday when she had a fever. I know that it's the molar causing her grief because she told me she had a "spike" in her mouth, and when she let me feel around in her mouth (she never lets me feel in her mouth) the back of her jaw felt swollen and angry. Meanwhile, everything is a tragedy. I was talking to my sister-in-law on the phone and Carolyn was crying and wailing because I wouldn't let her have a sweet (we have sweets all the time, to my shame, but this was really early in the morning, and even I know one shouldn't eat cookies and candy before 8am). I tried walking away from Carolyn so that I could hear what Melody was saying, but wherever I went, Carolyn trailed behind like a sad, angry, noisy, persistant little rain cloud. I finally put the phone aside and hissed, "Stop that!". At that point Carolyn went into her room and was miserable there. When I got off the phone she came back out and told me, "Mommy, be nice nice with me". This is pretty much how the things have been going. I'll get after her and she'll tell me that I need to be nice with her. I have told her that of course I will be nice with her, and that she needs to be nice with me too. She's very silent when I say this. Her little lips purse together and she'll get a mutinous look in her eyes and sometimes she'll even shake her little head in a quick negation. Aparantly only mommys need to be nice, or perhaps it's beyond her right now. That tooth can't come in fast enough.........

I had great plans for today. We were going to make cookies to enjoy after family home evening and we were going to go to the park and play and be rowdy and have fun. So they weren't really grand plans, but I was really excited about doing them. Carolyn was also really excited about doing them. Lilia is game for anything. We did make the cookies, as you can see. Carolyn picked the shape for the cookies (bears, if you can't tell) and the color of the frosting and she put the sprinkles on (if you can't tell ). We did it while Lilia was napping in the morning and it was a lot of fun. Carolyn cut the cookies and as soon as I would turn my back to put the cookies on the baking sheet, she would say, "Can I have a little taste?" and she would start gobbling up the dough. She probably had an entire cookie's worth of raw dough, and I don't know why!! It's not even good cookie dough to eat (though it does make delicious cookies), and I would know this as I have eaten a lot of cookie dough throughout my life. Naturally, as soon as they were finished she was wanting to have one. I had promised myself that we would not eat any cookies until JT came home from work and we had our FHE, but she was persistent in her nagging and begging and I was weak (frosted sugar cookies are my favorite cookie) and we snacked on them and ate all but three, which we virtuously saved for FHE. I'm being totally generous when I say "we" because Carolyn would have been happy to have eaten them all long before JT came home from work. Now to be fair, the recipe only makes 12, and since Carolyn ate a cookie's worth of dough, we only had 11 total. In the picture with Lilia in her swing, you can see Carolyn holding a cookie. Lilia is actually smiling at the cookie. Whenever she sees food, particularly if it's tasty, she gets very cheerful and will try to charm you into giving her your food, even as she's determinedly trying to take away whatever food she can reach. Now this cookie looks like it's the size of a hamburger, but rest assured, that's just the camera angle. The cookies were actually modest in size. Just so you know. Not that I'm being defensive or anything. Did I mention that one of my goals is to lose, weight, get in shape and stay on the band-wagon-of-health??? Hahahahahahahah!! But speaking of goals.......

As for going to the park, I didn't get out of my pajamas until 4:30pm, when changed into sweats after finally showering. By that time it was very windy and definitely not park-fun-friendly weather. And that's too bad because we've had a really long winter and it's finally getting warm enough outside for us to play outside and we had been talking about going to the park all day long. We have plans to go to the zoo on Wednesday with some friends and it's supposed to get up to 59 degrees, so that should be fun.

Carolyn loves her hair. She'll tell me that she has beautiful, blonde, yellow hair that is shiny. Last night she was comparing our hair and saying that mine was brown and dark. Hers was light and blonde and beautiful and yellow and Daddy's hair was.......she though about this for a moment and then said, "Gray!" as she affectionately ruffled his hair. This is really funny because JT has been conscious of his hair graying and he doesn't like it and I have been telling him that it doesn't look that gray and that men look distinguished as their hair goes gray. (I color mine because I'd rather look young than distinguished, also being a woman, I don't think it would look as nice on me as it does on JT.) When she pronounced his hair gray, JT gave me this "told you so" look. He swears he didn't coach her.

Beginings

A lot of people choose to begin new resolutions January 1st, but my new resolutions begin around spring time. In the winter time I have no or little motivation. When it's cold I tend to be very stationary. Now, however, it's warming up and I have all sorts of exciting plans for the upcoming spring and summer. Most of my exciting plans involve getting my girls out into the sunshine and playing with them. My mother-in-law was kind enough to procure a gently used tandem stroller for me and my goal is to go on walks with Carolyn and Lilia a couple times a week, either to the park or library near our house, each about 20 minutes away. Actually, that was my goal last spring as well, but I didn't do so well because I was pregnant with Lilia at the time and I couldn't tolerate the sun much. To be fair, I never tolerate the sun very well, but it's important to me that my children don't grow up as mushrooms, never venturing out into the great outdoors. In addition to the park and library, we'll also be going to the zoo. Since the zoo is a good 30-45 minute drive away, we'll be taking the car, but I'm sure the tandem stroller will come in handy there as well, since I usually have to forcibly remove Carolyn from the zoo. We're never there long enough for her liking.

Speaking of Carolyn, we made brownies yesterday. Whenever I am cooking something in the kitchen, she is always willing to help. Sometimes this is a good thing, sometimes not so much, but mostly it's a lot of fun for both of us. This was my first time ever making brownies (for some reason I thought they were hard to make) and so I wasn't sure they'd turn out well. The entire time we were mixing them together, Carolyn was begging me to let her have a taste. (She has a sweet tooth, and I don't know where she gets it from....okay maybe I do.) After I spooned the batter into the pan to bake, I finally let her have the beater. Carolyn is never more happy than when she's eating some tasty, sweet treat. As soon as the batter touched her tongue, she screamed in shocked delight, "It's chocolate!!!!" I don't know why that was such a surprise to her, maybe because I hardly ever make anything that is chocolate? I can't wait until Lilia is big enough to help too, and then all three of us can cook together.

But back to goals....one of my other goals is to do this blog. For some reason I thought I would have time to post a complete blog everyday, and I would if I didn't mind listening to my children squawk. Apparently they think I have better things to do than to be at the computer.... I think what I'll do is try to work on the blog daily, but post weekly. I guess I should have named this blog "Tiffaney's Week", but when I say that in my mind I hear "Tiffaney's Weak" and really, who needs that? Not I. Actually, I had to recruit my friend Mimi and my sister Rachelle to help me come up with "Tiffaney's Day" lol! Maybe doing this blog will help to stir my creative juices? (obviously they are in need of help!) Of course, as soon as I finalized the name for this blog, I came up with a bunch of other names that were more witty, creative, or fun. Isn't that always the way? I can always think of things that would have sounded cool to say after the situation has passed. But I'm going to stick with "Tiffaney's Day". It's easy to find for the chosen few that will actually know about this blog and, on rare occasion, read it. (The people that I'm telling about this blog don't usually spend a lot of time on the computer and I don't really expect them to check it out more than once a month or so.) But this blog is mostly for me, so that's okay.