Why my kid is crying

       (A happy photo of me and the boys) 

#WhyMyKidIsCrying is one of the best hashtags out there on the internet right now. Looking up fellow parents posts, and seeing their kids are being just as rediculous as mine is comforting. 

So I though I would contribute a few I've recently captured. 

This is what happened when I offered Atticus some of my smoothie. 

Instead he tried to put his hand in my hot coffee and I took it away from him. It resulted in more tears. 

Another day I sneezed. Apparently it didn't go over well. 

This was the day after Atticus's first birthday party. He was upset there were too many balloons left over for him to play with.

This is the reaction I got from Xander when I told him to go play with toys. 

And finally, this is Atticus's big meltdown after I took a stink bug out of his mouth. He really wanted to eat it. 

Needless to say, being a toddler is very rough. And to anyone that says girls are the "dramatic ones", I'll let you spend a day with my boys. Toddlers in general, of both ages, are highly dramatic. 

Denial, somedays, is my BFF

I'm currently in denial about the 147 emails I need to sift through, or the fact I need to shower. The laundry is piling up, and the dishes seem to be multiplying on their own like rabbits at my sink. But it really doesn't bother me. The kids are fed, have clean diapers/underwear on, and that's the important thing. Somehow between now and Saturday morning I need to finish crocheting a baby blanket, and prepping food for my cousin's baby shower. I also need to go grocery shopping, and gather and set up everything for chicken killing on Sunday. 

It will happen....

Eventually........

I'm a huge fan of last minute. It's the only way things get done, or look presentable in this house. Clean to early, the kids and dogs will destroy it. Prep and cook food to soon, and it will get eaten. I mean the last time I made cupcakes for someone else's baby shower, I had to hide them in my car. 

My method of "waiting till it HAS to be taken care of" is abhored by my husband Nathan. He has OCD (obsessive, compulsive, disorder) I have IDC (I don't care). Which works out well when he's out for the week traveling. I let things go, and start the mass cleaning Thursday night, and Friday. It's a good method, that works for me, until he is home for a week.

Then we drive each other nuts, because he is insistent on getting a load of sorted and colored coded laundry in. (I innerly laugh at this, this is why I have shout color catcher sheets!) Meanwhile I'm trying to wrestle clothes on the boys and make it out the door and to our appointment on time. To him clean clothes > getting kids ready. But I love him just the same for it. Not many wives can complain that their husbands clean to much. 

If your house is a mess, it's ok. Houses are meant to be lived in, they are not museums. If they were, they would be built out of glass. Children destroy any room they enter, it's inevitable. So you might as well wait till they are unconscious to even attempt to clean up after them. 

A preview for Sunday Bloody Funday

http://youtu.be/RxZm1QLWdFY

Even stay at home moms have "bad days at the office"

It seems about once a week my children wake up, hell bent on being miserable. Or worse, they wake determined to make everyone else miserable. 

Xander woke this morning in a screaming crying fit. He was crying and whining that he needed to go potty. So I told him to go. The crying and whining continued,.....as he was going potty. Then of course, Xander's noisy tantrums woke his brother Atticus. Which of course made Atticus cry and scream and be clingy and upset since he wasn't truly ready to wake up. 

So at 8am, both children are screaming, the dogs are barking to be let out and of course my phone rings. I threaten Xander with going back to bed if he doesn't knock it off, while trying to wrestle a clean diaper on the "refuses to lay still EVER" Atticus. I need coffee, I need coffee with kahluha in it. 

Finally milk cups are distributed, the dogs are let outside, and I head out also to tend to the chickens. I feed and water the chickens, let them out to free range, mix up some more feed to ferment and go back inside. Mind you I've been gone less than 10 minutes. 

In that time Atticus has managed to empty all 3 dog bowls of food and has pulled every book, paper and item off my nightstand. (We call him "The Destroyer")

Can this kid just walk already!? I fully believe when that happens he will stop climbing cabinets and nightstands and other objects with handles and shelves in an effort to stand. So once he pulls himself up to stand he realizes, in whatever object he is leaning against, there are fun things to pull off and throw about the house. 

I make breakfast for the boys, let the dogs in and out again, shovel a bowl of cereal in my mouth, and finally realize I need to make myself coffee. But of course by that time, Mr Atticus is tired. Seeing he was woken prematurely, he needs an extra morning nap. So then I have to get him a bottle, change his diaper, and lay him down for a morning nap. 

Finally! Coffee time!

Oh wait, it's already 12......hell I'm still having my coffee. 

Knicknack Paddywhack

Give a dog a bone. And he will destroy your flower beds!!! 

I bought the 3 dogs raw frozen marrow bones today. It's been awhile since they had them. In fact, I don't think Delilah our newest rescue has ever had one. She was so happy she walked around with it in her mouth for a half hour. But it seems Sampson was very worried about the security of the bones. I caught him through the window burying one in my front flower bed. So after I dug that one up, he took it and buried it in my composting hay pile in a section of my garden. I'm assuming the other two are in the pile somewhere.......

Also my other fur child Sweet Pea decided to roll in something that STUNK like something dead. 

            (Her body should be all white) 

So of course she required a bath today. Just another thing to add to my list. It seems some days the fur children are just as bad or worse than the real ones! 

My first born, Xander Cash

Alexander Cash Stambaugh aka Xander Cash, Cash Monkey or Xander Bander. 

(We gave him Cash as a middle name after Johnny Cash.) 

Xander will be 4 in October. He is my first born, and a hell of a birth it was. 13 hours of induced labor with two failed epidurals and an emergency C-section where the spinal block stopped working halfway through the surgery. But on October 18th we became parents for the first time. One of the most amazing moments in my life that I will never ever regret. 

Xander is my funny guy. He never wears pants when we are home, and likes to strip in public any chance he gets. He's all into "guy stuff" right now with daily doses of Spiderman, Transformers and Jake The Pirate. He loves his doggies, and next to his little brother they are his bestest friends. I will say he's little bit of an observer instead of jumping right in to new things. He is LOUD though. There is a whole lot of squealing, and screaming and yelling that goes on in this house. Xander is an awesome big brother and is just waiting for the day his little brother Atticus can walk and run with him. (Mommy is too)

Xander also has a special bond with his Aunt Rachel who he calls "Rwha Rwha". Next to his brother "Rwha Rwha" is probably his most favorite person. With Xander there is no early bedtime or sleeping in. This kid rarely naps, and just seems to go, go, go constantly. I can't wait to see how much more awesome this little dude will become.

Crazy Chicken Lady

(Me and #RuppertTheRooster)

We have chickens. And by we, I mean everyone else puts up with me having chickens. Which is hilarious because I don't even eat eggs plain. (something about the smell/taste makes me nauseous) The rest of the family on the other hand, inhales them! But I've had them now for about 3 years, when my former neighbor asked me if I wanted a few from his flock. That's when it all started. They really aren't that much work. You fill a feeder and waterer a few times a week, collect some eggs, and move a coop around the yard. My guys free range, so that adds some extra obstacles. Like chicken proofing your garden, and flower beds, and making sure they have a predator proof coop to go into at night. (Something which is still a work in progress.)

I started out with 5 hens. It was exciting and fun, and Xander (my oldest currently age 3.5) was amazed with them. I ended up getting a few more over the past 2.5 years from neighbors who bought younger birds, and gave me their older ones. At one point I had 25 birds, 2 being roosters and the rest hens. Eventually either natures other animals, weather, or old age claimed all but 4 of my flock. I was only getting an egg or 2 a day So this winter I decided to get some chicks for the first time. I needed fresh young birds, some that would lay eggs every day.... That's where the chicken math started.

I ordered 26 chicks online. 10 meat birds, and 8 Delaware's and 8 Dominques.... Well while I was waiting for my online order to come in (4-6 weeks) I ended up acquiring some chicks from local feed stores. 6 Amerucana's, 6 Black Sex Links, and 3 Golden Comets. So when it was all said and done I ended up with 43 chicks, since I got a few extra in the mail as warmer chicks. (It's really hard to walk into a place that has live chicks just there peeping away and not get any, when you have a brooder ready to go at home!)

I won't start getting eggs from my new gals till about June/July, but I plan on harvesting my meat birds this Sunday. They are so fat and plump they don't walk or run anymore they just kinda waddle everywhere. So next week we should have a few new carcasses in the fridge and freezer, and a buttload of eggs mid summer.

Why am I doing this?

I used to do food writing before I had children. And to be honest I miss it. So since I really can't take toddlers into fine dining restaurants, I've decided to start back up again but in a different direction. This isn't a "mommy blog"  or a "chicken blog" or "doggy blog". This page won't be going in any one direction, much like this house hold. I try my best to be grammatically correct, but of course I'm human, so I err. (Also not to mention most of these posts will be from my phone and put together in less than 5 minutes.) So if you see something wrong, how about be a nice person and just simply inform me. (Because when you go and insult someone's grammar, that typically means you have nothing else to do.) I guess to sum it up, I want something to be able to look back on. To let the family see down the road how things were, and to share our little bit of insanity along the way. So be prepared to see lots of dog pictures, and rants about misbehaving boys. There will most likely be also crazy chicken lady talk, and garden chit chat.