So @#$%&^! Stupid

I always knew I was a ditz, but I proved to myself this week that I'm a lot stupider than I've been giving myself credit for.

Bree had a fever and was puking, so we were having some down time indoors. Good time to get going on preserving the tomatoes I'd been putting off.
I still haven't bought a canner, so I thought I would can them the same way I did my jam- in my deep pot. I figured it was the same thing, just longer boiling time, right? 40 minutes, great! Just enough time to get my laundry folded.

So half the people reading this already know what happened now, right?

40 minutes later I smell something burning. I tell the gal on the phone to hang on while I check the stove. There is NO water left. The stove is making it's freaky "click click-I'm getting-hotter-and-hotter" sound. I remember something similar to this happening to my mom growing up, but we were told to get out of the kitchen quick! Why didn't I inherit the common sense gene? So I'm not sure what went through my head at this point, for some reason I thought it wouldn't be safe to leave that on the stove. So I put it on the sink and thought I'd keep it from getting any hotter. I kind of remembered it wouldn't be safe to get it cool fast, so I got some hot water and poured it on the outside. But that was enough. A little stream leaked over the top as I went around the back of the pot, and the second it hit the bottom of the jars, two of them exploded.

I'll just pause here to tell you I'm fine, and it could have been way worse.

So I was pretty surprised at this point. I sat down hard and ripped my shirt off because it was burning me. After I got it off I noticed my hand was on a big chunk of jar. Zach was an hour away for his family practice rotation, and I didn't know how bad the cut and burns were so all I could think was 911.

Unfortunately, I'd left the caller waiting on the line, so I had to go upstairs to hang up. When I walked in the room, Mia screamed at my bleeding hand and my red face, and I tried to tell her I just needed a bandaid, but I needed to call to get one. She bought that for about five seconds, and then ran into my closet with the twins. Which was fine with me, because I wasn't able to keep my cool much longer. I blubbered to the person on the emergency line and asked them to come get me. She said to put a damp cloth on the burn, and I was like- "It's all over- can't I just splash water on myself? Is that bad?" Finally they hung up and I called my friend Maury and asked if she could come.

She arrived at the same time as the paramedics. I walked out with a towel for a shirt, telling poor Maury the kids hadn't eaten yet, and Bree's last Ibuprofin dose. Thank goodness her husband had just gotten home and she was able to come take care of them. She cleaned up the entire expolsion. I didn't see it, but from the looks of the one spot she missed about 10 feet away, it was really bad. Glass all over the floor, tomatoes everywhere. It's amazing I didn't get more than one cut.

In the ambulance they put wet cloths on me and got me an IV full of morphine. The morphine was worthless, the saline was bliss. ;) OSU emergency is a pretty crappy place- I don't recommend it. I was on my own most of the time- for a while with the water out of my reach, so I sat and burned and called until someone decided they'd condescend to enter my room and push it closer. Other than that, I had a very entertaining crazy nurse, a nice doctor who gave me eight stitches, and Zach got there an hour later and helped me change the sheets from hot to cool every two minutes. My sweet hometeacher brought me some clothes and picked up my pain prescription and aloe so I wouldn't burn in the car on the way home. (We ended up taking a wet sheet with us, though.. gotta get that back.)

This was Tuesday afternoon. Zach took Wednesday off. Luckily, that was the day Anya entered the vomiting phase of the virus. He was gone all day Thursday and Friday- Thursday was Mia's vomiting day. It was kind of okay, though, because we all just sat around and watched TV. No one had an appetite, really- so my hardest task was getting the dang child-proof caps off the Ibuprofin and Tylenol (or in my case, Vicodin- yeehaw!) every three hours.

The burning never hurt that bad after that first evening. I've got lots of blisters on my arm, and my face has been peeling. Could have been so much worse. Which is the part that keeps me cringing. How &*^%$#@!-ing stupid!

The girls seem to have taken it okay.

I'll put it small here for those of you like me who would rather not see it. For those of you like Zach, go ahead and double-click.

So That's what Friends are for..

Free stuff!




Okay- I'm just kidding, I'm not just friends with Ally because she gave me free stuff. She's also super smart and creative and nice. So this post is dedicated to her new Etsy shop! I'm not sure what Etsy means, but her shop has the cutest baby blankets for $30. If I ever crocheted a baby blanket, I would have to sell it for much more, because miracles don't come at prices that low these days. So it kind of seems to me that it's a miracle store. And maybe that's what Etsy stands for. Ets y miracle.

Okay, sorry for the very corny post, Ally. I did my best.

Our Biggest Kid- up to date

We've been pretty entertained watching Mia soak up literacy with relative speed for her age. Now that reading isn't quite such a hurdle we're working on handwriting. In our efforts to keep from overwhelming her and having to backtrack again, we are taking smaller steps. When it looked like writing actual letters was frustrating for her, we switched to dot-to-dots. So. As promised, here is the picture of Mia and her first finished workbook with her long awaited award sticker carefully placed on her favorite shirt.

But I have to admit, observing her academic progress isn't nearly as entertaining as hearing her unique brand of "cleverness" that make us grateful her IQ is still as underdeveloped as she is.

Mia sits down to her snack: "Mmm! Bananas with peanut butter! That'll keep me busy for awhile!"

"Mim, that's not going to taste the same as when you put it in your V8."
She takes a drink after demanding to put salt in her juice, "Actually, that's delicious, blink, blink buuuuut, uh, I'm not thirsty anymore."

Wraps the measuring tape over one arm, around her torso and under her leg, looks very closely at the numbers and declares, "I am 25 degrees, exactly."

Stands next to our computer chair, "I'm so big mom. Look, I'm as tall as this chair! This is a big chair! I'm really big!"

"Please eat your meat too, Mim."
She takes a bite, realizes it's kind of hard to chew, and spits it back out. "I don't like it, Mom."
"Well, what if you hide it under your potatoes and carrots?" I say almost rhetorically- there's no way she'd ever go for th-
"Okay!"
Piles some potatoes on top and eats it.


Usually tricks like that only work once. But I had to try it again the next day when she announced she wouldn't eat her zucchini.
"Hey, Mim- why don't you close your eyes so you can't see it? I'll feed it to you, k?"
"Okay!"
Closes her eyes, opens wide, and eats every bite.

I'd always been a little cautious while adding water to her juice cup (doin' that half water, half juice thing.) My friend does the 50-50, too and was pouring juice for the kids- but started with the juice. Her daughter reached for it and she said "Wait, I still need to add the water." My ears perked up to hear what Mia would think. Did she know I always put water in her cup? Was this the end of our juice/water?
"It's okay Abby!" she piped up as her little friend grew impatient, "That way you get more!"

Everytime she sees landscapers on the job: "Look Mom! They're lawning today!"

Playing with the twins: "It sure is nice to have two sisters named Anya and one named Bree."

The best things in life

We have really lucked out this summer finding awesome things for the kids to do that don't cost anything! Today was a free kids concert at the Village Green park in Powell, right next to the coolest splash pad. Maybe we'll go back when it's not so crowded and I can get some photos. There's a man-made beach about 40 minutes away that we didn't know about until this year. The art museum decided (right after we bought our membership) to open free to the public for the summer. There are incredibly cute parties and storytimes at the libraries (the government is currently deciding how much funding to pull from them-grrrr.) And- I have to mention it again- our yard! (I thought I was grateful for it LAST summer- ha!)

And, when we got to the zoo last Wednesday, they told us to wait 15 minutes and they were going to start admitting for free. Their director just passed away suddenly, and we think that might have had something to do with it. So instead of spending 20+ bucks on admission, we did some fun things we have been passing up!











Also- rocks are free. Anya's fascination with rocks became apparent again while we were there. She can find rocks anywhere she goes and wants to carry them with her, sit on them, put them in her purse, or at the zoo- pat them reverently.





They have some fun inflatables on family nights over by the aquarium- a bounce house, a huge slide, and an obstacle course.

Mia waiting excitedly to freak herself out on the slide.

Check out the face! And she kept going again and again with the same happy anticipation in line and inevitable look of horror on the slide.

I had no idea Mia was so competitive. Her expression as she waits for the obstacle course volunteer to say "Ready, Set, Go!"

In the Zone


But all the free activities really don't do justice to that saying "The best things in life are free." I think MasterCard has coined the right term. The best things in life are priceless.

Sharing the stroller


All three giggling as they humor mommy who said "Give your sister a kiss!"