Awkward Moments

What do you say to your neighbor after you get them arrested? I called the cops on our upstairs neighbors last night after an alarming amount of noise and the kids screaming. The guy got arrested, but I hear him up there now so he's back. He has to know it was me that called the police. That and I spied out the window the whole time, and eaves dropped as well as I could. And I think he saw me hiding up there when he was waiting to get loaded into the patrol car. So what do I say when I run into him on the stairwell? Hey sorry about getting you arrested last night. So how was prison? Good, good, well see you later. Yeah that seems like an awkward conversation for sure. Maybe I'll sprint to my car for the next week. I can open the door and tell the kids to run for it. Oh well I'm off to the store so I must leave the confines of my apartment, like I said who needs cable?

Warding off vampires

Hailey and Greggers must be secretly reading my Twilight books and developing a fear of vampires. Because they felt the need to make our clothes garlic scented. I popped open the dryer last night to move laundry and out pops a bunch of garlic cloves. At first I was baffled, then as I dug around I found what appeared to be an entire head of garlic, broken into cloves and all the little peels in the lint trap. Dave came out to see what I was mad about and said oh yeah Hailey said something about putting something in the dryer. Apparantly, during their morning hunt for food we inadvertantly left out, they decided it might be fun to throw garlic in the dryer. I must not of noticed because I dried a load of laundry with it. Not only does that load reek, the dryer does too and I'm afraid to use it. I don't want everything to smell like we've been eating at the White House every meal. I swear those two will get into anything. The garlic isn't down low. I'm thinking of buying those grizzly proof food canisters backpackers get and keeping all of our food hung from the ceiling in those.

More tales from the ghetto

So this afternoon I call one of McKenzie's friends mom's to find out if the little girl is coming over tomorrow. This poor child's mother has a song called "Horny like a rock star" playing for her message. Seriously. At first I thought I was hearing wrong. Surely this is not really her answering machine. But by the second time through (those are the only words, apparently she selected the chorus for her message) I knew I was hearing right. Who does that? Crack dealers? Pimps? This woman has children for pete's sakes. I certainly hope she changes the message before the kids know what it means. I mean sure me and Nik had songs for our message before. Things like Anne Murray and Lionel Richie. But I think "Hello is it me your looking for" is a lot better than "Horny like a rock star." Is there a polite way to tell someone that they are not giving the impression that they will make stellar friends for my child? I guess all get togethers will be at my house. If that's her public persona heaven only knows what she plays around the house.

Missing the Campbells

Sunday evening I was playing dollhouse with the girls and all of a sudden Hailey got so sad. I asked her what was wrong and she said "I saw a picture of Maddie and it made me think about her and miss her and now I'm sad." It was so sweet. So we called the Campbells right up, Hailey told Maddie that she missed her and loved her and then she was instantly fine. Then they make a whole bunch of plans they'll never do (sounds like me and Nik) and life was good again. Then I see Greggers walking around talking on the phone to Sadie talking about who knows what for 20 minutes. Its like living in a house full of pint sized teenagers. Even the mention of Sadie, Maddie, or Eli is enough to send Greg running the window to look for them. He'll stand there with his little face pressed up against the glass saying "Sa Sa coming Mom!" Over and over until I finally tell him no not today and he melts it tears. After Sunday's sadness incident, I put the Maddie picture in a frame for Hailey. Now she randomly runs over to kiss her picture and then right back to playing. Maybe it makes her feel like Maddie's with her.

Who needs cable?

So since moving to the fabulous psuedo ghetto of Spokane Valley we have discovered a fascinating new past time. And its free! We call it the trashy neighbor show. Our extremely disfuntional upstairs neighbors are going through a divorce. They have two little girls and have decided the best way to deal with things is to drag them through the muck along with them. So every night around 11 the mom and her new boy toy show up to pick up the younger girl, (these poor sisters don't even get to live together any more), and take her home. This usually provokes a screaming match that eventually moves into the parking lot. All of the adults swear and scream and the kids shriek and run and hide from their parents. This is when the free programming begins. We sneakily peak through the slats in our blinds and watch them battle it out. Usually one of us is holding the phone in case we need to call the police and one of us has shoes on in case we have to go get those poor girls (this has happened before.) Sometimes its sad, sometimes quite funny (when the kids aren't involved) Then for the encore the dad goes inside and swears to himself for a while then gets in a good half hour of emotional vacuuming. He must have the cleanest apartment in the complex. Then for a closer when we take out the trash before bed, we get to watch the mom downstairs sit outside and smoke with her teenage sons. One big happy family. So if your thinking your cable bill is a bit too high, just move to a trashier area and bingo free entertainment.

Oh the Joy!

So this afternoon while I'm on the computer the girls are happily jumping away on my bed and Greg decides to join them. Now my bed is really high, so he gets up on it by climbing on a stool, then swing his leg over the organizer attachment on the pack and play. Then he stands in the pack and play and climbs up on my bed to jump with the girls while I ask them sweetly to please get down. Suddenly Hailey says "Greggers is stinky." I was sure she was wrong since I'd already dealt with that for today. Well lo and behold not only is he stinky but he's also apparently has diarrhea because it ran down his leg and left a really disgusting trail on his trek up to my bed. And also where ever he jumped. Image my joy when I discovered that mess to clean up. Also pretty glad I went for those cheapo Walmart diapers whose entire purpose seems to be to just provide a different exit down the legs of a sick child. All I could do was laugh about it. To top it off Greg had no nap today because he finally climbed out of his crib and thought it would be more fun to sit on the floor and read than nap. And I wonder why my sister doesn't want kids.

Easter

Dave and I woke up to the kids yelling Hey I found another one! Greggers was thrilled each time he found another egg. Of course once he figured out there was candy in there, well what was the point of looking for more when you can just stand there and eat and your sisters keep bringing more? The kids each got a Reester Bunny (its like a giant bunny shaped Reeses peanut butter cup) and thought they'd died and gone to heaven. I don't think Greg has ventured out of the chocolate food group since Easter morning.