So last night, after C was asleep and I had bunked down with her for the night, I heard Jon yell out some choice obscenities, obviously very surprised by something. I hopped out of bed and went scurrying down the hall to see what in the world was going on. I found him and M, my kids’ stepmother who had stopped by to pick up some baby furniture she has very sweetly offered to paint for us, staring at our guinea pigs’ cage.

We have two MALE guinea pigs – Pablo and Piggie. They are very sweet, laid back critters and the kids love them (well, except for J, who objects on principle to the idea of rodents as pets). So I looked down at Pablo and Piggie and immediately noticed that there were now FIVE guinea pigs scampering about the large cage – the two adults and three impossibly cute miniature guinea pigs who looked like wee, adorable versions of their parents.

Parents? But we were ASSURED by the pet shop staff when Piggie and Pablo came home with us about 4 months ago that they were both males. Well, apparently these “experts” at PetWorld were about as competent as the experts who advised BP on safety planning for deep water drilling. In other words, they didn’t know what the hell they were talking about.

So now we have three teensy little guinea pigs, along with Pablo and Piggie.

We have determined that Piggie (light gray adult pig) is the mama and Pablo is the daddy. So on the advice of my friend Janet, who has had baby guinea pigs before, we’ve separated Pablo into a separate cage for now so he doesn’t hurt the babies. This gives Piggie and her little ones plenty of room to nurse and cuddle and run around and be adorable for the 3-6 weeks the babies need to stay with their mama. Then, of course, we will have to find homes for the babies. (Anyone? Anyone?)

As for Pablo, he is one seriously annoyed Papa Pig. He does NOT like being separated from his beloved Piggie, and he mostly just sits in his new, separate cage and sulks and makes angry pig noises. He will likely be even more irritated when he discovers that next week some time he will be making a little trip to the vet for minor surgery to ensure he never again fathers a litter of piglets…

So yea, anybody want an adorable baby guinea pig?

(Henry would have LOVED the baby guinea pigs. He loved animals – especially cute baby animals who are prankish enough to arrive with absolutely NO warning)

C to me this morning: “I need to find my shoes and put them on so I don’t lose my feet.”

From my inbox today (name of actual person who signed off on the email redacted because I don’t wanna be mean).

I especially love all the cheery exclamation points!

———————————–
Hi Katie,

Name of Person
Email Person’s email address

———————————————————

So I’m wondering what she thinks my “aha” moment would be? Maybe, “Aha! My child just died!” or “Aha! I haven’t stopped crying for two weeks!”

(This is a good reminder to PR folks to READ BLOGS BEFORE YOU PITCH THEM. Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?)

Two year old C to me this morning: “My favorite things are reading books and washing my hands.”

C to Jon: “Daddy, your tummy is getting as big as mama’s!”

(As Jon’s belly is flat as a washboard and mine is as large as a small Latvian village, this is obviously not the case, but I can’t say I didn’t chortle when she said it…;-)

My very kind sister in law has loaned me a fetal doppler monitor that I can use at home for the last half of my pregnancy to listen in on G’s little heartbeat whenever I get anxious. And between my previous pregnancy losses and the fact that I feel a lot less movement in this pregnancy due to the position of my placenta, I get anxious a lot.

It’s a nifty little machine, and this morning I tried it out for the first time. After a little trial and error, I was able to pick up the swoosh, swoosh, swoosh of G’s heartbeat. Very reassuring.

Of course C wanted to “help” by holding the boxy part of the machine while I moved the doppler wand around my belly. As she held it, she offered this rather bizarre observation, apropos of nothing: “If you push the emergency button, a cowboy will come.”

She repeated this several times.

I didn’t know she even knew what a cowboy is. Or an emergency button. But maybe I’ll try it sometime. You know, if I ever find myself in emergency need of a cowboy.

….MSNBC, for this winner today:

“Is Nature Out of Control?”

(ANSWER: why yes, MSNBC, yes she is…)

EDIT: Post removed after someone (not sure who yet. We’ll discuss it later if child feels like it) actively upset my child regarding the contents of the post. Thus, my child called me from school just now and asked me to delete it.

Now that my children are old enough to read what I write (and have friends and friends’ parents who read what I write) they always get the final say on what gets blogged about and what doesn’t. So whatever the reasons or circumstances, if one of the children is uncomfortable for any reason with something I’ve written on my blog, it goes away with no further discussion. They’re the boss(es) in that regard.

And that’s what’s happened here.

(But I’m still laughing about our conversation this morning.)

Katie

This is what NC looks like when her mama tells her “no.”

Check out this cute video from my friend John Cave Osborne. He made it a week or two ago to chronicle an evening he spent solo parenting his toddler TRIPLETS while his wife had a much-needed “I need to get out of this house and away from three babies before I stick my head in the oven” night out.

The video is very funny (and he’s an awesome, attached, hands-on, sweet, wonderful father), but perhaps the best part of the story is that after John uploaded it to his You Tube channel, Ashton Kutcher somehow found it – John still has no idea how – and posted it to his own @aplusk Twitter feed (read: several million followers), after which Alyssa Milano picked it up and tweeted it.

So today the video is going viral online, including here at my blog, where I hope you will find it as entertaining as Ashton and Alyssa did.