Alisha's Art (REALLY) on the Interwebs!

I'm pleased to announce (again) that Alisha's website is up and running (again). We kinda had to do it all over again (again), but live and learn, right? It should be a much better format now (again). There will still be changes for sure (again), as Alisha still hasn't seen or approved it. But I wanted to let everyone know that it's there (again), and shouldn't even cause your computer to crash or anything if you click on it. So that's nice.

www.alishabwhitman.com

Thanks for all of your support. It means a lot to us. Again.

Let's Build a Snowman!

Wahoo! It finally snowed! I've been wanting to go play with the girls in the snow (since we went and bought full snow gear from head to toe) and have been very disappointed each time the weathermen get my hopes up. So it's not like we got a big dump, but here in Oregon we make do with what we got. And Jenelle was quite insistent that we make "a big snowman!" So here we go, here is Meri's first snowman:









I love this, it looks like she's making a new friend, who by the way is not even as tall as her when she's sitting down:









And while this was her first snowman, her first snow was actually on Christmas day (although it sadly didn't stick), which I never got around to posting:








And of course, we had to play on the swing set. In the snow. "Undergoggy!"













And eventually we had had too much fun. "I so freezing!"













And yet, 20 minutes later, she wanted to go play in the snow again. We're sad daddy was at work, but hopefully these pictures will make his day.

Also, I wanted to thank all my fantastic friends for your supportive and encouraging comments about my artwork. I tend to get discouraged and stressed out about it as I paint because I really don't feel like I know what I'm doing or are prepared to put on a show but your comments help me feel a little bit more like I can do it. Thanks.

Alisha's Art on the Interwebs!

Well, it's something we've been working on for a while (my friend/computer guru Christer and I), and will continue to do so. But due to the great news Alisha shared with you last post and the countless requests to see her art, I've found I can't wait 'til it's done. So here it is: Alisha B Whitman (.com). (UPDATE: Read the post all the way through before clicking!)

Keep in mind, there are a heck of a lot of bugs, and more are sure to come as we try to fix the ones that are already there. That's how it works with these crazy internets. So don't worry about the fact that the home page doesn't really exist (and if anybody has an idea where it might be, please let me know 'cause I can't find it). You can still use the tabs at the top of the page to see Alisha's art. The slide shows aren't formatted the best but, again, they're functional enough to see the art. Enjoy! I do!

(UPDATE: Okay, so it's a lot more messed up than I thought. The home page exists even less now, so to see the art you have to go to the individual pages manually:
www.alishabwhitman.com/flowers;
www.alishabwhitman.com/cafes;
www.alishabwhitman.com/still-lifes;
www.alishabwhitman.com/water;
www.alishabwhitman.com/architecture.
Once you go to one, you can click on the tabs at the top just fine... just don't click on the "Home" tab! Then you're screwed.)

(And on more UPDATE: Because I'm still working on it a lot, it's possible that at the time that you choose to look at it that it doesn't work for you at all. Sorry. Just try again later.)

(Here's a taste:)

Some good news!

So some of you may know that about a year ago I was accepted into a really good art gallery in Oregon, called the Lawrence Gallery. Since then I've had paintings in their Salishan and Sheridan galleries, and I've actually even sold some, which was pretty exciting. I hadn't really planned on starting down this road quite yet, since I don't really have a ton of extra time on my hands these days to paint. No clue why. But I submitted a portfolio through a connection with my in-laws so that I could get some advice on what I needed to do in the meantime. And to my surprise, they accepted me. Anyway, that's old news. Here's the new news: This week they called me and asked me to be part of a two-man show that they'll have at their Salishan gallery in June! It's kind of a big deal, and really exciting! I have a crazy amount of work to do between now and then and no clue how I'll get it all done, but thanks to my incredibly supportive husband, if I don't it'll be just because of my own laziness. So I'll have to start posting my stuff as I get pieces done so I can have your opinions on how I'm doing. I'm so overwhelmed but my head is just full of ideas and plans. Hopefully I won't neglect my family too much these next few months!

Does it really show that much??

So yesterday was a Monday. Man, we miss daddy on Mondays! But all things considered, I thought I was doing alright. I mean-no shower, no makeup, but we'd swept (Jell is so helpful when I do that - she likes to push the pile into the dustpan, scatter half the contents across the floor, and miraculously miss the garbage can, dumping the rest in front of it on the floor. Don't worry, she doesn't get too choked up about it. She always says, "Oops! I made a big mess. Dat's otay, we'll clean it later.") and vacuumed, plus everybody was fed and dressed. Before 10:30 even! We were having fun. Then I went to help Jenelle in the bathroom. She looks up at me and says, "Mom, you look old." There's no way she said that. So I said, "What? What did you say?" And nonchalantly, she looked at me again and said, "You look old." "I look old?" "Yes." Okay, my question is ... who taught her that??

So I give up. It's happened. But even if I have to get old this early, it's worth it if at least I get to have this much fun, with these adorable faces that I just can't get enough of. Even when they call me old.






























And by the way, if I do look old, perhaps it is treatment like this that has done me in!

Sometimes we all need a little help!

Before I begin this post, I must warn that it is at least a PG rating, due to partial toddler nudity.

Anyway, Jenelle has lately started going to the bathroom all by herself, which is wonderful. This may have started with us leaving the potty chair in her room overnight so that she'd stop coming out of her room every five minutes claiming to need to go poopies. How do they learn how to stall so early? Anyway, we had to start locking her in and would put the potty chair in with her, just in case (The first night she used it, in the morning there was a potty chair full of poopies. Ew). Anyway, she does have a little trouble pulling her panties and pants back up though. As you can see here, from the front, it all looks good (although she was a little sad):












But the back appears to be just a bit breezy:












In all fairness, the girl has rather large cheeks. And with such short little arms, it's just tough to pull 'em up. Oh man, is she gonna kill me when she's older.

Here's a cute picture just for fun:

Obligatory Blazers Post

C'mon, you had to know it was coming. You had to know, that is, if you know me and follow sports at all. My beloved Portland Trailblazers are perhaps the best story in all of professional sports right now. The youngest team in the NBA and third-youngest team in NBA history(!!!) is playing the best basketball in franchise history. After starting the season 5-12, appearing to fulfill all of the "experts'" pre-season predictions, they are now 22-13--good enough for first place in their division and 3 games out of first place in the entire Western Conference. Even if you don't care about sports, you've got to appreciate a bunch of kiddies (with good attitudes, mind you) winning 17 of 18 games.

However, I do understand the makeup of the readership of this blog. So I will refrain from going into detail about the franchise turnaround of recent years. But seeing as we've been delinquent bloggers as of late (Alisha so rarely gets to use the internet, but when she does she'll blog like crazy--she's got lots of good stuff to share), thought I'd take this opportunity to let everyone know how happy I am about my team.

Plus, everyone should know that for my birthday, Alisha got me what is turning out to be one of my best birthday presents ever: cable. I can now watch every single Blazer game. We'll probably stop the cable once the season (and playoffs!!!) is over, but until then I'm in heaven. And the fact that this turnaround happened to begin right around the time I started being able to watch every game--coincidence? I think not!

Merry Christmas from the Whitmans (and others)!

Two words: Jib Jab.

Don't send a lame Holiday eCard. Try JibJab Sendables!

For those of you Portland-sports challenged, that's Brandon Roy. He's a Blazer. We're tight.

Don't send a lame Holiday eCard. Try JibJab Sendables!

And to all a Good Night!

If you're wondering why you haven't got a Christmas card from us yet, this would be why:






















































Is anybody having fun yet? Honestly, I just want to know why everybody's pictures don't like as nice as ours?

Happy Birfday Toooooooooo U!

On Cooper's birthday, I'm afraid I have to write a cheesy, mushy post. So that I don't just ramble on and on, I'll make a list. Here are 10 reasons why I love my husband:
1) He is the best daddy a girl could ask for. He changes diapers and everything! He has even learned to discipline despite the fact that the girls bat their little eyes at him, and pretend to be angels. I'm sorry girls, he cannot be bought.
2) He lets me take naps on the weekends!!! Despite the fact that he needs them too, he takes the girls and lets me cuddle up in our warm, down comforter. Can't ask for more.
3) And speaking of weekends, he wakes up Saturday morning and asks me what I want to get done that day. And although he would rather do big manly chores like clean the garage, he'll sweep and mop if that's what I want done.
4) Last Saturday he spent an hour in JoAnn's. By himself. We sent him there with a list of stuff to get while we (my mom, grandma, and I) worked on a service project. And he went. He even returned with the list. Really, I could just stop there, but I'll keep going.
5) He has always treated me SO well. After decades of being just friends, I finally realized that I tended to end relationships because other guys never treated me as well as Coop did. Not sure what took me so long to figure out what to do about it.
6) He looks really nice in a suit. I like it.
7) He wears the pants. Even though he would rather just go with the flow and let me decide because I usually care more, he knows I like him to take charge. So that kinda sounds like he wears the pants because I tell him to, but you know ... I like the end result regardless.
8) He likes chocolate even more than I do, so I never have to eat it alone.
9) He's always up for my crazy ideas like, hey, it's 20 degrees - let's go to Zoolights!
10) He would rather stay home and hang out with me than play basketball or even go golfing. That says a lot, and I sure love how much he likes spending time with me.
11) He puts up with me. Enough said.
12) We never fight, and he's probably at least 99% of the reason why. I can't express how grateful I am for that.

Oops, that's 12, but I couldn't stop. Happy Birthday Coop. I love you. So much. Forever.

Just Keep Swimming ... and Tagged.

Cooper let me out of the house (wahoo) and so I went really wild and snuck over to my parents' house to use their internet and blog to my heart's content. Meri is really sick and Jenelle has fever envy so let's just say today was a little bit nuts. I called Coop at one point just so he could hear the lovely harmonizing our girls were doing as they cried. Jenelle stopped when I put the phone close to her, but I poked her and she started up again. Oh oh, and my favorite quote of the day happened while we were still on the phone. Jenelle pointed at Meredith and yelled, "No! Top crying! Is my turn [to cry]!" That was funny. A few hours later, not so much, but I did get to watch Finding Nemo, which was exciting. Of course they were both insisting on being held at the same time, which would work fine (my lap is plenty large), if Meri didn't keep stealing Jell's binky and pulling her hair. I'm gonna give her the benefit of the doubt and say she was doing it out of curiosity. Yeah, I am that naive, by choice.

Anyway, like a week ago now, I was tagged. Don't totally know what that means, nor does the person who tagged me, but we figure I should answer all the questions she did (although I've seen some people list 7 interesting things about themselves when they were tagged, I don't think I have that many so I'll answer the questions instead). Here goes:


1) Where did you meet your husband?

The better question is when. Let's just say, we looked like this:

2)What was the first thing you said?
Ha, um, probably something like "don't cut in line," or "I'm in love with your friend, Laura Blake." We do have a letter I wrote him in 3rd grade, but if you're thinking it was mushy, you should know, it was a class assignment.

3)Where was your first date?
That would totally depend on your definition of a date. Was it in any of the hundreds of times we hung out in high school? Any of the double dates we went on in high school - oh wait, we were never each other's date. Pre-mission when he wanted to date and I didn't want to deal with sending off another missionary so we just hung out awkwardly wanting to be more than friends? Or three days after I got home from my mission when he held my hand while we watched Pirates of the Caribbean? Three days! Totally freaked me out! Oh, and if he comes out with some story of me giving him all the signs that I wanted him to, don't believe a word of it. I didn't know what signs were . I was just trying to speak English and sleep in a room by myself.

4)Where was your first kiss?
In front of my apartment door a couple of weeks later. After he kissed me, he laughed out loud and said, "I can't believe I finally did that!"

5)Did you have a long or short courtship/engagement?
How do you mean that? I know that when we started talking about getting married and I was freaking out about how quickly it was all happening, Coop, Mr. Smooth Talker, pointed out that our "relationship" was 20 years in the making. Now he likes to tell people we dated for 2 weeks, just to embarrass me with his lies. The truth would be somewhere in the middle.

6)Where did you get engaged?
Up a mountain hike in Utah, past the rattlesnake, a few feet from the edge of a huge rock cliff. (I've been trying to upload a picture, with no success. If you want to look though, his friends were hiding nearby, snapping shots, which are in an old album that you can connect to through the link at the right.) I knew it was coming because, bless his heart, he can't lie worth a darn - whatever that means.

7)Where did you get married?
Portland, Oregon temple

8)How did the reception go?
Thanks to lots of hard work from my mom, it was fantastic. Really beautiful. Although, I have no clue why I spent so much time stressing over things like making sure the silverware looked good with the plates - as if I saw any of it or got to eat anything anyway! We tried to ditch the line idea (since we were standing directly in the sun and my dress had been laced up WAY too tight), but they just followed us. Oh, and the bellhop at our hotel stole the food we'd snagged from the reception, but you know, who really cares about any of that on their wedding day???

9)The honeymoon?
We spent it in a little Oregon coast town - Manzanita, in the vacation home owned by my in-law's boss. Coop's parents went to the beach too and brought us out to dinner one night, which was a little weird to me, but other than that it rained the whole week, and we didn't care.

10)Whose turn is it next?
Lyndsey, have you been tagged yet?

Cut the Hair, Not the Ears

So Friday was a normal work day, nothing particularly special. Just sitting at my desk either dialing or typing away trying to do my job. Then I got a fantastic an unexpected e-mail from my wife containing these pictures!

That's right, Jenelle got her first professional haircut! We've cut her bangs a tiny bit before, but with all the squirming and screaming we were lucky to have not cut anything else. Alisha decided to go a different route. Jenelle called me on the phone later quite excitedly to tell me about her haircut that she got whilst sitting atop a horsie. She does love horsies.

Of course not to be outdone, Meri was looking her cutest even though she doesn't have enough hair to cut. (Be sure to click on that one to get the full cuteness effect.) Good times.

Of the Mischief there is no End

So Meredith is our stealthy little criminal. She is so quiet that we often don't notice what is going on until she's climbed all the way up my parents' stairs. And when we find her, she honestly claps for herself.

Here are a few pictures of the mischief she, and her big sister, have been up to this week.We were pretty impressed when she learned to climb onto the rocking chair here, although in this particular instance it was so she could get in position to pull out Jell's piggy tails.





But then I turned away and found her doing this, in order to look out the window at the massive rain storm we've been surviving. She has since tried to stand on the back of the chair. Good luck with that one sweetie.








Thanks to Meri, "my Christmas!" as Jenelle calls our tree, has to be imprisoned. It's for it's own good really. Yet somehow, mysteriously, I still find piles of ornaments that have been removed by some bit of magic. (Jenelle has learned to get inside, where she likes to sit and taunt her sister. Oh and on a different note - when we were trying to decorate the tree, Jenelle would bring an ornament over, hand it to the tree, watch it fall to the ground, say "oops" and go back for more. She continued until there was quite a pile of oopses.)




And here, Meri got her diaper off. Just pulled that strap right off and left the diaper behind. I've heard lots of stories of kids doing this but Jell never did so this was hillarious to us. That and Jenelle tattling as she yells to us, while pointing at her sister, "nakie bum, nakie bum!"




Just thought she'd sit down for a rest at Nana and Bopa's house. She loves this corner. By the time she's done, there is not a sheet of paper left in the basket. She may be little, but she's amazingly capable of tearing apart a room in seconds. When she wants you to read her a book, she quietly goes over to the bookshelf and proceeds to pull out every book she can reach. But we still think she's cute! She has started saying "Mama" and "Dada" and using them correctly, which gets her out of any trouble she might have been in. Although don't get too close, she has her first two teeth now! and she knows how to use them, and does, quite frequently. Believe me, I would know.


And although this post is full of Meredith, don't think for a second that Jenelle isn't deserving of making the list. This is her at a restaurant with Grammy, enjoying the spinach and artichoke dip. Putting it on the bread was just taking too long. Why not go at it directly? Clever girl really, it's what her daddy has always wanted to do.






And I know this has nothing to do with the girls' mischief making, but we are loving decorating for Christmas! This is our first year in a house. We have room for a tree and that's about all we have so I've been trying to make some decorations. I finished painting these yesterday and am excited because I think they look cute! Later we're going to see how Jenelle is at gluing glitter to a bunch of snowflakes we cut out. Somehow I see a lot of vaccuuming in my future.

Thanksgiving in Bend

Way, way too early Thursday morning we got up and drove to my parents' house in Bend. It is really nice, which means we have to constantly watch the girls to keep them from damaging anything, but it is fun to go there, relax, and just be away from all the little busy things that always seem to need doing.

And since I hadn't mentioned yet what I am thankful for, here is my list:


^^^^^ #1. My husband is the best daddy, and our girls just love him.


^^^^^ Here's my #2 - Jenelle is potty trained!!!! Honestly I need a Hallelujah chorus for that. I never thought I would have a potty trained child, but voila! dreams do come true!


^^^^^ Here's my #3 - early Christmas presents (from wonderfully loving parents and grandparents) of bikes and a bike trailer/stroller for the girls to ride in. We can be a little biking family. Very cold and possibly very wet at the moment, but the girls would stay dry, and when they're this bundled up, they can't even move (bonus- means no pushing).


^^^^^ My #4. Family time! I love going and doing stuff like this together, giving the girls new experiences, and getting lots of pictures for me to look at over and over and over again. The exciting thing about this adventure was that apparently Jenelle now likes the snow. She hated it last year, wouldn't touch it, play with it, even walk in it. In fact, she would shut the door whenever I would even open it to look outside at the snow. But we're over that now, and with the girls dressed as pink and purple Pillsbury Dough boys, we had a blast (apart from the two face plants Meri did in the snow, of course). Jell surprised us all and even loved sledding. Meri was marginally amused. And the remaining pictures are just cute!

Pics Pics Pics

In case you are legally blind, I'll tell you that there is a new slideshow feature on our blog! It's through slide.com, which is very cool for this little dealie (by the way, thanks, Raina!) We're still hosting our photos through the same Kodak site, so if that slideshow thing ever asks you to put in your e-mail address to receive notification when we post new pics, don't. Besides, you'll see new ones scrolling across your screen, right?

The real reason for this post is to notify family members who only use this site to see our digital photo albums over there on the sidebar. There will now be only two links, one to the newest pictures and one to all other pictures. The link to the older albums will lead to this post, no matter how old it is, which is about to have links to all of the albums. That list will grow over time as we add pictures, but the list in the sidebar will not. It's a cosmetic thing.

New pictures from our Thanksgiving trip to Bend will be posted soon, so stay tuned.

Family Fun Thru 10/13

It's Meri's world--we're all just living in it.

A.J. (Anno Jenelli)

A.J. 2

Blissful Engagement Pics

Happy holidays, all!

Thanksgiving

Yesterday, I was asked to give a speech at work to kickoff the annual employee fund-raising event. It was a grand time with a lot of red and a lot of cookies. But if you cared about that, you'd be reading my other blog (redcrosspdx.blogspot.com). For the most part, however, the speech was entirely appropriate for this blog, because it had to do for what I am most grateful for. Given the season, I would be ungrateful for not posting this.

Eliminating the job-related stuff, this is more or less the speech I gave. (I know it's long. Sorry. Brevity is something I struggle with when talking about Alisha.)
*****
On February 13 of this year, my second daughter, Meredith, was born. She is now 9 months old, and is perfectly healthy—always has been. My wife, Alisha, is now 26 and is as healthy as a woman who chases around two little girls (and a 27-year-old little boy) all day can be. Shortly after Meri's birth, however, that wasn't the case.

About 6 hours after the picture-perfect delivery of my daughter, my wife began to feel intense pressure in her abdomen. The nurses didn't know what was wrong but weren't too worried, as random aches, pains and pressures are fairly common after childbirth. When she fainted on her way to the bathroom, though, she piqued their interest. We would later know that she fainted because she had been losing blood—lots of it, for a long time—it just hadn't exited her body yet.

Then it did.

The next few hours were the most frightening of my life. I watched as 7–10 nurses rushed in and out of our tiny little "recovery" room, none of which knew what was going on. It wasn't particularly reassuring to me that the nurses knew nothing beyond what I, in my limited medical knowledge, knew for myself: that my wife was losing an inordinate amount of blood, and that she was in a great deal of pain—and both were getting worse. There was no color left in Alisha's normally bright face, and the only energy she still had left was being focused on breathing slowly so as not to faint from the pain and, sweetly enough, reassuring her husband (who was a complete mess).

Finally a doctor was able to come take a look. After examining my wife and gathering other information, she didn't know what was going on either. But she had a theory and she was confident enough to act on it even though her theory couldn't be confirmed or disproved without emergency surgery. Hopefully without going into too much detail, her theory was the following: upon exiting my wife, Meredith somehow burst a blood vessel inside my wife's lower abdominal wall. Because of normal childbirth swelling, the blood vessel contracted and didn't drain for a few hours—just long enough for the doctor to be completely sure that everything went perfectly. When the swelling went down, however, the vessel began to drain, and did so inside the abdominal wall creating what is called a hematoma. That hematoma kept filling, explaining both the pressure my wife had been feeling and how she had fainted from blood loss without anyone knowing she was bleeding. They needed to get in and tie off the vessel.

There was nothing left for me to do but steer the bed as they rushed her down the hall and through a few doors to surgery. Before she went in she reassured me one last time, and gave my hand the weakest of squeezes. [Not included in speech: Alisha had received a priesthood blessing before going to the hospital that reassured everyone, and the end result of the surgery was never completely in doubt. Regardless, in the next couple of hours I went through the widest spectrum of feelings related to spirituality and faith that I ever had or have since.] I will spare you the details of my next two hours or hers. Needless to say, they weren't pretty on either side. They had a happy ending though, as the doctor's theory was proven correct and the problem was fixed. Alisha would live.

As the details of the ordeal became clearer over the next 24 hours, we found out how much blood she really had lost. There was no way to tell exactly how much for a variety of reasons, but the bottom line was she had lost well over half her blood—more than enough for her to go into shock, which she did not. The doctors had no idea why she didn't go into shock, but were glad she didn't. Had she done so, she probably would not have made it.

Alisha had lost so much blood that her body wasn't manufacturing any on its own to make up for what was lost. She was going to need a transfusion. Now, understand that I had never given blood. Some of my reasons were valid, and some weren't. But never have I been more grateful that there are people more caring than myself.

It was amazing to see the transformation that Alisha underwent over the next day as they slowly replenished her body with 3 units of the Red Cross's finest blood. Before the transfusion, her energy was focused on trying to keep her eyelids open when someone was talking to her. After one unit, she was smiling and there was a little bit of color back in her lips. After two, she was twirling her hair in her fingers. And after the third, she was able to sit up for short periods of time, and even hold her new baby for the first time in well over a day. She would still on bed rest for the next month or so, and not 100% for another 4 or 5. But she did recover.

After I had been back at work for a couple months, I got wind of the employee blood drive. There was no question in my mind that I was about to make my first blood donation to the Red Cross. About 3 units. It was only fair.
*****
This Thanksgiving I will be grateful that I have a job, grateful for vacation in a beautiful place, grateful for my parents and in-laws, siblings and siblings-in-law and, even more importantly, two beautiful daughters who seem to right all the wrongs in the world. However, what I have to be thankful for the most is the fact that after more than 3 years of marriage and well over 5 times that long of knowing me, Alisha is still here to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Enjoy the ride.

The Grand Poop Debacle of 11/07

*WARNING: this whole blog entry falls under the category of too much information and should not be read while eating. I'm serious.*


     Bath times are usually a happy time in our house. The girls bathe together, and they love it! Jenelle pats Meri's tush and say, "nakie bottom Meri!" and Meredith occasionally dives for Jell's toes, thinking they are a passing toy that needs to be chewed on. Such was not the case the other day.
     It all began when Meri started crying. She stood up and as I went to grab her, Jenelle and I noticed at the same time that Meri was pooping. In the bath. Jenelle proceeded to scream and scramble FRANTICALLY out of the tub as if her life depended on it. (When do I get to run screaming from the room?) As I stood there frozen, totally at a loss for what to do, she deposited three lovely logs in the water.
     I sent Jenelle to retrieve a bag of wipes, and honestly, miracles do happen, she returned with said bag in her hands. There's a first for everything. So I cleaned Meri, sat her down, and went fishing. As I finished bagging the toys for a later but thorough sanitizing, Jell screamed, "More poopies!" I turned and saw another tootsie roll on the bathroom floor behind me. More wipes, more bags, more sanitizing. Walking to the trash, I found two more treats in the hall.
     At this point, you're asking, why wasn't she in a diaper? I'll answer - she had now pooped as much as she usually does in 2-3 days, not 2-3 minutes. And I was just trying to get things under control enough to get them back into fresh water with LOTS of soap. Got that cleaned up, sprayed down the tub, and sent Jenelle to go fetch Meri who seemed to have wandered off again (I promise, sometimes I am a little more on top of things. The girls don't normally run totally wild and naked).
     Meri started crying, which tends to mean Jenelle is trying to drag her to me, against her will (I really gotta stop thinking Jenelle can help in times like this). Before I could run to the rescue, Jelly started to scream. Unusual? Oh that's because the nightmare was nowhere near over. Upon arriving, I was sure that Jenelle had now pooped all over the brick, and smushed it all around, and I do mean ALL AROUND for fun. But no, this was more of our little, angelic Meredith's doing (Honestly, where did all the poo come from???).
     Jenelle had her eyes closed as if she was unable to face the horror, and was screaming and flailing her arms because she had stepped into a tiny, tiny bit of it which was mashed between her little toes. In her defense, nobody likes the feeling of fresh feces between their toes, but I kinda thought my first priority was to keep Meri from eating it, which she was most persistently interested in doing. However Jenelle wouldn't stop screaming and throwing herself at me until both toes were spotless. Helpful. This was one of those moments where you look around and have NO IDEA what to do. A few dozen arms would be helpful, for starters.
     Anyway, I got them cleaned somehow (even washed the poop off of Meri's upper lip), in the tub, and then tried to figure out how to sanitize brick, or at least remove the seriously disgusting discoloring. All I wanted to do was burn the house down. I changed my whole outfit despite the fact that I couldn't find any keepsakes on it. I'm sure it was somewhere, how could it not have been? Oh yeah, and all of this happened about 20 minutes before my visiting teacher was dropping off her 2 year old for me to babysit.
     Moms are shockingly underpaid. So hopefully I haven't made you swear off having kids (like my sister), or given you nightmares for the next week. Hey, there was a warning, and I only wrote this upon request. I keep getting told that these are the things we laugh about later. Perhaps much later.

And just for fun (and don't forget to check the "Family Fun" album for new Halloween pics (at the end)):