"Bouncy, Trouncy, Flouncy, Pouncy, Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun! FUN!"

"But the most wonderful thing about Tiggers is...."

Well? What is it? Do you remember?

Sorry, getting ahead of myself here.

First of all, note to self: Do not attempt to write a post at nearly midnight. Especially not while Blogger's spell check option is still down and you are too lazy to paste it into Word to use spell check. Otherwise, you will re-read said post the next day and find a zillion typos and cringe.

To all of you who read that post before I could get my editing hands on it, I sincerely apologize.

Alrighty now, peeps.

I promised pictures. And because I followed the leading of the Lord and unloaded my camera card the day before The Camera Incident, I actually have pictures with which to fulfill that promise.

Which is a Very Good Thing, because otherwise I would have lost this picture:

And I would have had to banish myself from stepping foot in the Happiest Place on Earth ever again as penance.

Because, DO YOU SEE THAT??? Troy got to meet Tigga-Tigga... er, uh, Tigger. This was at the beginning of D'land Day Two, and was certainly the highlight of both days put together. He was beside himself. He'd been talking all week about wanting to see "Mick Mouse," but his 23-month-old mind never dreamed he'd see Tigga-Tigga.

He was ready to bounce right out of that stroller seat.

Troy loves Tigger, mostly because he figured out the first time he watched The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh that Tigger lives for bouncing. Not unlike the little boy who lives in this house. So he frequently hops and jumps around the house, singing to himself, "Bounce! Bounce! Tigga-Tigga!"

When he saw his big orange-and-brown-striped buddy, he didn't even hesitate to go right up, adorned in the Tigger ears he'd already been wearing, and say, "HI! Tigga-Tigga!" and give him hugs, kisses and the whole nine yards.

It was slightly different than the pictures we have of me at his age with Cinderella, my then-favorite Disney character--so awe-struck that I clung to my parents in stunned silence.

Even Merritt showed more enthusiasm for the trip than Disney-crazed-me seemed to, judging from those Cinderella pictures.

Although it could just have something to do with the fact that he was all comfy in the stroller and was being held much of the time.

We love to stop and listen to the ragtime piano player on Main Street. When John and I were engaged and my family was at the Land of the Mouse, we talked to the piano player for a bit and he even asked me to play on that old piano. I'd love to say that I'd hopped right up and played "The Entertainer" with ease, but my nerves got the best of me and I sat there and drew an utter, complete blank. Also, the only version of "The Entertainer" I'd ever played was probably all of four lines long, consisted of about two "hand positions" and said "Alfred's Level 2" on the cover. But I did go home and learn Elite Syncopations after that day at D'land to play in my next recital.

This is Mom and I at the beginning of Day One, pre-ears.

This is Mom and Troy, partway through Day One, post-ears.

Then Troy and me, post-ears.

Dad and Zach are too cool for ears. But not us, nosirree. We are too cool to NOT wear ears. Mmhmm.

And if you want some hilarious back story to the ears and Disney hats, read it here. Goodness gracious, we are a crazy bunch.

At the beginning of Day Two, we stopped inside the entrance and took the Token Shot In Front of the Mickey Mouse Face... the boys, Zach and I.

Then we did the same shot with Mom and Dad and the boys--Grammie and Grandpa Dule with the grandbabies.

Ha. It looks like that's them with their own little family. That's what they get for letting their daughter get married at eighteen. How dare they??? AHEM.

We think Troy is going to love him some thrill-rides when he's older. Look close--see his hands in the air?

Although, to be quite honest, this is not something he only does when riding on the "Dudmo" ride with Grammie. He also raises his hands in his carseat and shouts, "Slow down!! Woohoo!!" any time we round a curve in the car or drive over 40mph. It has nothing, NOTHING, to do with my driving. Don't go thinking bad things about me, now.

Merritt, on the other hand, is quite content to simply sit in Grandpa's arms.

Well, most of the time, I guess. Somehow, Grandpa Dule always gets Merritt right before it's time for him to eat.

Time for the baby to eat, that is, not the Grandpa. Well, maybe the Grandpa too, but he's a little more self-sufficient when it comes to feeding himself.

After all his talk about wanting to see Mick Mouse and the great reception Tigger received earlier in the day, Troy and I waited in a ridiculously long line to see The Mouse Himself in his home in Toon Town. And as it would happen, Troy then decided he wasn't too sure about seeing the Mouse. Talking to him was fine, but sitting with him to take a picture wasn't so appealing.

Sorry Mickey, I guess Tigger won this time around.

But he did give Mickey a hi-five before we left the Mouse's humble abode.

Frankly, playing in this little stationary car proved to be more fun. And there wasn't a forty-five minute line to play in the car.

Some friends of Zach's--two sisters, Jessie and Lindsey, who he knows from Camp Ironwood and who also like bluegrass music--met us there for the day to celebrate Jessie's birthday.

They all got hats, too, in case you missed that fact.

While they stood in line for Indiana Jones and the two moms talked and held Merritt, Dad and I took Troy on a few more little-person-type rides. We went on Dumbo again and the Teacups twice. The Three Musketeers we were.

At the end of it all, we had two tired out little boys. Not to mention the mom, grandparents and uncle.

But it was oh-so-worth-it. Because after all, this is the Happiest Place on Earth.

In which she learns the value of buying the warranty

It's been an interesting day here in the home of this little family.

Not exactly 18-month-old-locking-his-pregnant-mother-out-of-the-house type of interesting--but still along those lines.

Setting the scene...

(cue dreamy theme music)

I was sitting on the couch playing with Merritt after a relaxing morning. We were taking it easy today and just hanging out, taking advantage of not having to go anywhere at all today. Troy had taken a good nap in the early afternoon and was now coloring quietly on the floor beside me, using his little drawing tray.

Ah... the sun shone and the birds sang!

(Not really. At that moment, in real life--not dreamy life--it was pouring rain outside.)

Then, Troy got up. Supposedly to go get a toy.

Oh, how I wish!

Instead, he walked back over to me, where I was cooing and goo-goo-gah-gah-ing over the baby, and said, "Wah-er? Wah-er?"

Which I knew to mean, "Water," and thought to be a request for a drink, and thus didn't think it necessary to immediately look up. Until, that is, I felt a trickle of that particular substance on my arm.

I jerked my head up, half a smile still lingering on my face, and saw Troy holding the camera. The digital camera. The very, very new digital camera. The one we just bought to replace the dinosaur digi camera so I could take half a zillion pictures to send to John while he's gone.

After I regained conciousness and the inital feeling of nausea passed, I snatched that dripping piece of expensive machinery from his hands and yanked it out of its case, hoping against hope that its visit to the only water source at Troy's level in that part of the house--the dog's water dish--had been merely a dip rather than a soak.

The tiny steady stream of water coming from inside the camera itself told me it had probably been a nice, long bath.

It would seem all nice and sweet to tell you that I held it together calmly and simply took it all in stride. But you wouldn't like me too much if I lied to you, now, would you? And you'd already know that's what I was doing if I told you such a thing.

Troy got a nice stern and slightly panicked reminder of how many times he'd been told not to play in the water dish, and was asked--since he'd of course be able to answer--WHY he'd pulled the camera off the entryway table and put it in there. His tears upon hearing my decibel level were enough to remind me that using such a tone would accomplish nothing. I knelt down, right, looked into his eyes, and told him, through slightly clenched teeth (but no, AHEM, green chin, Certain Nameless Peeps?) that he can never, ever, ever put an.y.thing. in the water dish. And he may never, ever play with Mommy's camera. And that he needs to obey Mommy. And that Mommy was now thinking she was really going to be sick as she realized that she was going to have to tell Daddy about this lovely tidbit.

The camera was really and truly dead. If the case could be so swollen and water-logged that it felt like a sponge, the camera couldn't be doing so great. I leaned on the kitchen counter and breathed in as deeply as I could, thinking not only of the camera, but of my laptop that I had taken back to Best Buy yesterday and ended up having to pay extra on top of the warranty to save my hard drive.

But then. Then. THEN! The good things started popping into my head all at once.

I had put all my pictures on the computer on Wednesday. Yay! The only ones I could lose were the ones from the past two days. And I thought I remembered John buying a warranty for the camera.

I put Merritt in his bouncy seat and Troy in roomtime and found the warranty paperwork, thanks to John's organizing before he left. Called my mom and my mother-in-love and got some sanity talked back into me--It'll be OKAY. Life will keep going. Thankfully it IS just a camera. And, hey, it looked like we did have a warranty.

Then... I just loaded up those boys and went to the gym. I worked my legs till they were like jello. And the world was suddenly a brighter place.

It turns out that I'll find out in about ten days whether or not the camera can be fixed, and if not, they'll set us up with a new one. And God was gracious to me and gave me a seasoned mom in line behind me in Best Buy, who kindly offered to keep Troy from running off while Merritt cried in his car seat and I tried to sign paperwork and listen to the customer service guy.

Oh, AND and I saw Tony Hawk in Best Buy. I was, like, totally freaking out, man. I mean, it was really sweet, dude.

(My brother will crack up and roll his eyes if he ever reads those pathetic sentences.)

I really know nothing about Tony Hawk, other than that he's a skateboarder (right? Or is it something else? Not bike riding, is it? Or does he do several things?) and has a game for the Wii that my mom gets pretty wild and crazy about when she plays.

(Bet you never would have thought THAT, eh, bloggie peeps? But, oh, how true it is. Just ask her.)

Then I came home, ate dinner, put the kids to bed early, got to talk to John for a little bit, and then cleaned my little heart out. Because nothing makes a dose of crazy all better than the therapy of cleaning bathroom tile with a toothbrush.

And now things are sparkly. The house, as well as life. Even without a laptop or a camera.

It's really too bad because I had so much to say

I figured it was the Lord speaking semi-audibly this morning when my lap top told me that it was no longer connected to the internet.

Bummer.

But I guess I didn't hear clearly, because a bit later I went back to it and attempted to check my email, at which point I realized that my laptop had completely shut down... and wouldn't turn back on.

"IS THAT CLEAR ENOUGH FOR YOU??"

I guess I wasn't supposed to be on the computer today. Which, ya know, is really okay, considering that I had about a zillion and one things to do today and several places to go and I also happened to make a self-imposed vow (which I am currently breaking, by the way) to my mama last night that I wasn't going to do anything blog-related this week because I had WAY too much to do.

And this blogging thing, it tends to suck a person in, in case you hadn't noticed.

I was already kinda-sorta thinking I might break my vow when I remembered that I had yet to post any of the five million adorable Disneyland pictures from last week, and oh my goodness gracious, we are going AGAIN tomorrow, which means I'd better post the first batch before the second batch comes rolling in. (Dontcha just love a good mixed metaphor? Me too.)

But, alas, all of those pictures, as well as all the oodles of pictures I've been taking of life here for John to see, are on the Computer That Won't Turn On. So I couldn't even post pictures if I wanted to.

I mean, I COULD post pictures, but they would be rather old, being that I haven't used this old dinosaur of a regular ol' desktop computer since the night I got my purty laptop. And I don't think y'all care to see random pictures from, say, last summer.

But, hey, my mama has pictures! And we are in them! Her computer works, that lucky duck.

(In all seriousness, I really and truly hope my computer decides to up and fix itself, being that it would seem utterly pathetic to take it to a computer technician to be fixed when, you know, that is my husband's job and all. But, he's not home at the moment. In case you missed that news bulletin.)

So instead, I've broken my vow with a post about nothing, filled with nada but talk of zillions, millions and oodles, and lots and lots of links.

But, we are going to see the Mouse again tomorrow, thanks to our super-special tickets courtesy of my firefighter hero of a daddy, and after that my brother is coming to stay for a few days, and I got a whole ton crossed off my to-do list today due to being virtually computer-less, so things are looking brighter already.

I think he wuvs me

Yes, we went to The Happiest Place on Earth on Tuesday, and yes, peeps, we had a wonderful time.

So wonderful, in fact, that we are planning to take advantage of the other two days our tickets bought us and go back in the next couple weeks. So the Mouse-related pictures, they will be forthcoming.

But first I must show you this:

Isn't he just the sweetest?

Even though John's in the Sandy Spot, even though we tend to not make a big deal out of Valentine's Day, and even though I'm not even at home today, he called the florist in my home town and had flowers and soft Valentine bear sent to me at my parents' house today.

And, yes--do you even need to ask??--of COURSE I bawled my li'l eyeballs out.

And thanks to all of you who sent me Happy Valentine's Day emails since my Valentine is gone... and regular sweet emails... and snail-mail notes... and Facebook notes... and videos to watch of special trips and wedding days (you know who you are)... and so many of you are people I don't even know in "real life".

I certainly feel loved this Valentine's Day.

My child is a walking Disney advertisment

This was Troy in the morning a few days ago:


I think it's safe to say he loves Nemo.

Then, this was him that afternoon:


So I think it's appropriate that he woke up this morning yelling, "See Mick Mouse! See Mick Mouse!"

Because that, my peeps, is exactly what we are going to do.

Off to make my two little guys' first visit to the Land of the Mouse...

Love You Forever

But at night time, when he was quiet, she opened the door to his room, crawled across the floor, looked up over the side of his bed; and if he was really asleep she picked him up and rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

While she rocked him she sang:

I'll love you forever,

I'll like you for always,

As long as I'm living

My baby you'll be...

--Robert N. Munsch

Sometimes, late at night, this mama will crawl across the floor, peer up over the side of the bed; and if that boy is really asleep, she'll stroke the soft cheek, hold the little dimpled hand, and even pull the little one into her arms.

And while she rocks him, her heart cries:

Love Him forever.
He'll love you for always.
And, as long as I'm living,
My baby you'll be...

In which she takes a deep breath

Whew.

There are some days when life just wears me out.

I seem to be having more of those than usual these days, but then, you all knew that was coming, didn't you?

But right now I am taking a nice, deep--super-duper-deep--breath.

This is pretty easy to do, though, from where I sit at the moment. I'm curled up in a comfy chair at my parents' house, a fire crackling beside me, both my babies are gloriously asleep at the same time, my brother is doing schoolwork at the table, my daddy is taking a little snooze after a long night at work, and my mama is across the room blog-hopping along with me.

(We're not addicted, oh no we're not. Why would you think that?)

I drove out here on Tuesday. I was originally going to come out for a couple days, beginning Monday, but my brother woke up sick Sunday morning and the LAST thing I wanted was two sick kids. I know, I'm weird like that. So, I told myself, we'll be okay. We'll just find other things to fill these couple days. We'll be JUST FINE.

Ha.

Let me tell ya a little about our day Sunday. Indulge me for a minute. Or twenty.

The day started the night before, as they always do when you're a mom, with getting clothes and diaper bags and the purse and Bible and music for the offertory ready, etc. etc. etc. I was feeling pretty good, well-prepared, and looking forward to a week full of great activities to keep us going. (I shoulda known right then.) I stayed up ridiculously late for a Sunday night, instant messaging a friend and crocheting the never-ending-afghan I was supposed to send John last week.

Then I went to bed.

Mistake Numero Uno.

Just as I began to doze, I heard that sound we all just relish. A toddler crying in the night. No biggie, I thought. I'll just cover him up and rub his back for a minute. He'll go right back to sleep.

But it was not to be.

Troy didn't want to go back to sleep. He was crying for his daddy and didn't want Mama to be the one to comfort him. In his half-asleep state, he thought Daddy should be holding him.

Sorry kiddo! He's only on the Other Side of Planet Earth. Mama will have to suffice for tonight. So please go. to. sleep.

That wasn't working, so brilliant Mama took the toddler into her bed, hoping that maybe half her brain could sleep while the other half cuddled with and sung to the toddler. Provided, of course, that the toddler would allow himself to be quietly snuggled with and sung to. Ha. Fat chance.

Thus began the cascade of events: Toddler didn't want to cuddle, or be sang to, or be quiet, or lay down. He preferred sitting up and crying for Daddy. Which, of course, woke up 3 month old Infant-in-Bassinet. Which meant that we spent the next several hours with a baby in each arm, one nursing half the time and then falling asleep, only to be awakened by his crying older brother, which made the now-frightened infant scream his head off in terror.

Welcome to Cry Fest '08.

A little before 3am, Troy finally fell asleep for a bit, waking again for a minute around 3:30, after which I put him back in his bed, hoping to catch a wink now myself.

A few minutes before 6am, I groaned at the sound of more crying coming from Troy's room and I stumbled in there to hopefully just pat his little back and make him think it was still the middle of the night. After all, it was still completely pitch black outside.

I reached down to rub his back and realized that I was touching skin... he must have taken his pajama shirt off. Then I remembered that he'd been in a sleeper. Wondering if he'd taken that off too, I felt his legs... and realized that not only had he taken off his sleeper, but his diaper too. And he'd peed. In his crib. And was laying in his wet bed.

The only thing that went through my head was the fact that he was now going to need a bath before church that morning. Since it's already a MAD DASH to get the three of us ready in the morning, without John around to help, I wasn't too thrilled about this fun little tidbit.

But, I must seriously do some condensing here, being that this story has already taken approximately ten years and thus far relates nothing but the fact that I had a typical night as a mom. And has demonstrated the fact that I could have probably called any number of you with small children and would have found you doing the same thing.

So, to stuff it all into a nutshell and the world's longest run-on sentence--

Troy ended up getting cleaned up, it was POURING rain that morning, our doggie decided this was a perfect morning to need to go outside about five million times (which, due to the black mud caused by the rain, meant a five-to-ten-minute clean up session each time she finished doing her business--a term which, by the way and completely off-topic, I hate), John called and we talked to him for a little bit, then his mom called with a question, then my mom called to tell me Zach was sick and asked if we still wanted to come--to which I said, sadly, no, then I realized the only disposable diapers we had were the ones in Troy's diaper bag (there are days now and then when I just can't tackle cloth diapers, as much as I adore them), things calmed down temporarily when I realized there was no way we were making it to Sunday School and could thus slow down a tad, we went to the later service at church and headed home, planning to go over to our neighbors' to watch the Super Bowl and have lunch between services at church, went over to their house to tell them that we were going to change clothes and would be right over, only to find out that their daughter was sick, too, so they didn't think we would want to come over either, which meant we had a whole afternoon by ourselves, which isn't exactly what the three of us call fun these days, then Troy decided this day was as good a day as any to toss a dish on the ground for the first time in months and months, the dish happened to be glass, Merritt woke up from a long nap just as Troy was going down for one, I put Troy in his crib, went back downstairs and picked up Merritt, the dog was barking to go outside again (thankfully it wasn't pouring at that moment, so I thought she could stay out there while I fed the baby), and then I heard a THUD!

My heart stopped for the split second between said THUD! and the commencement of screaming, at which point it started racing.

I ran up the stairs, fairly confident of what had happened, and found Troy curled in a ball on the ground, NEXT TO his crib.

Oh, wait, sorry--details--now back to nut-shell mode.

Merritt was placed in the cradle in Troy's room, both boys screamed, I checked Troy out and was oh-so-thankful to find that other than a fat lip, he was unharmed from climbing out and falling over the side of his crib, calmed him down, gave him a firm talking-to regarding NOT climbing out again, put him back down to sleep, looked outside and realized it was pouring rain again and the dog was still outside, no doubt drenched in our shelter-less backyard, cleaned her up, fed Merritt, our sweet neighbors came by with a plate of food for me (which I still never had time to eat), rushed like a crazy person to get to church on time, realized that since I hadn't played an offertory at this church since we moved here, I hadn't really payed attention to the order of the Sunday evening service and had no idea when to go up to play, found out the answer to that question, sat in the appropriate place until it was time... and then the craziest thing of the day happened.

I went up to play the piano (which, in fact, I HAVE been doing for ten years and did at nearly every service for several years at my home church), wasn't even feeling too nervous to play someplace new at that moment, got halfway through the song... and my fingers curled up.

They actually curled up into my palm and I had absolutely no control over them. In a panic, I figured out where to end the song very quickly, not even glancing out to see if the ushers were done taking the offering. I literally played the last several measures with my knuckles. After I was done, and safely secluded in the side room, my friend had to actually straighten my fingers herself, and as soon as she let go, they curled back up. I could hardly feel them, save for the strange tingling sensation. After about twenty minutes and wrapping them in a warm cloth, I could finally start moving my fingers again.

Weird.

That's all I have to say.

After church, a family friend was kind enough to go with me on a quick trip to Walmart to get some diapers, because if ever I needed some 'sposies, it was now.

Then we went home. And WENT TO BED.

Monday dawned a bright new day, no rain in sight, and we loaded up to make an impromptu trip to the Wild Animal Park with my friend Nicole and her little boy. A good, fun day. A loooong day, too.

Then came Tuesday. Ah, Tuesday. We were doing pretty good. Just kinda laying low, planning a trip to the grocery store after nap time. Until I walked down stairs around lunch time and found Troy standing at the bottom of the steps, hands on his knees, saying, "Eew-y! Eew-y! Yuck!"

And I saw the trail of ants that were making their way from... somewhere, though who knows where that is... into my hall closet and were feasting on something that was apparently in the canister of our vacuum cleaner.

I had no bug spray. So I grabbed the can of Lysol, put Troy (who, by the way, was hungry for lunch and in need of a nap) on the couch, turned on Sesame Street, put Merritt (who, by the way, was also hungry and in need of a nap), grabbed the phone... and called my mama.

Zach answered the phone, told me to breathe--it would all be okay, and then handed the phone carrying the voice of his overwhelmed, tired and dramatic emotional sister over to his mother. She told me to go ahead and use the Lysol, to breathe (do I seem to have a problem with that?)and to remember that it was a good thing the ants were loving the food in the VACUUM and not the food in the KITCHEN.

A couple hours later, after cleaning all that up, I got an email from a friend with whom I was supposed to be going to the gym the next day and watching her children the day after that, saying that her little ones were sick and neither would be happening now.

So I called my mama back.

And here I am now. Everything is all better.

Oh, wait, no--not quite. Troy had a bit of an accident yesterday. But, whew, I just don't have the energy to tell that story. And this is already probably the longest post I've already written... for no reason other than that I've written it in so many little snippets that I've forgotten what I've already said. Imagine that. Me? Wordy?

When we talked to John yesterday, he asked if I was sure I wasn't going to move back home while he's gone.

I said... Nope.

This is the life

A fort made from an old sheet, Crocs on the wrong feet, reading favorite books, a cup of water stashed behind the pillow... just chillin'.