Thumper AKA fuzzy butt!

[PaGal]

Well they have done it now...they brought out the evil stepmom. Ha! One twin never wants to have her hair done first in the morning and will drag out eating, etc so her sister is always ready to have her hair done first. That started the whole mess this morning. She was made to sit on her bed until it was time to leave after her stuff was done. I can't take another morning like this so I made up a list of four morning rules, wrote it up after the kids left for school and hung it up. Since I hung it up it will be followed. It's too easy for me to forget about it once I have gotten past the morning. It's not in my nature to want to punish the kids. They are kids and I want them to enjoy their childhood and be happy but we also have to raise them to behave, be decent human beings.

I need to get some pics of Thumpers first real molt and I will try to get kitten pictures. Now that their eyes have been open for a few days.

 

[whitelop]

What are your morning rules?
I'm sorry that this is your second terrible morning in a row! Its hard to have bad mornings, it just sets a crappy tone for the rest of the day!
At least you have coffee creamer today!

 

[PaGal]

Morgan...I am not letting the start to this morning bother me. I hate running out of creamer. For me that is the very top of the list of things not to run out of. Coffee bothers my stomach unless it's with creamer so it's not like I can suffer for a while with just milk.

One rule is that one twin has her hair done first on Monday and Wednesday and the other will be first on Tuesday and Friday. I think it's kind of ridiculous to have to do this, they have to have their hair done why should it matter who is first or second but it isn't right for one to go slow through getting dressed and breakfast to purposely not go first.

Arguments usually start when they are done with what they have to do to be ready for school so during that time they which each have to be on their beds. They can read which is what they usually do when not arguing but they have to stay put.

Also mornings are now quiet time. They are not to communicate with each other. They can speak to adults.

The hair rule I will keep. The other two will be in place for a week and after that I will lift them and see how it goes. The fourth rule is they need to make sure their rooms are picked up. That one will stay. They have a habit of leaving some stuff out and I feel they need to make sure it's picked up. I shouldn't have to pick up their stuff before I can vacuum, that kind of thing. They are not too bad about it but it has become a reoccurring problem and usually by the time they get home from school my brains well past that and so forget to bring it up that they had done it again.

I know one problem is that they are used to women letting them get away with things and so they try to push it with me. I think they need to be reminded that what they would not do with their father goes the same with me. She was pushing it this morning and wouldn't have done that id her dad had been here, unfortunately he had to be at a meeting at the office this morning before going to the job he's currently working on and had to leave early.

 

[whitelop]

Those sound like good rules to me! I'm guessing their mom lets them get away with a lot? My mother in law does that to me, she undermines me at every turn. I really hate it! I guess maybe its a grandmother thing, but it makes me crazy. I'm raising my kid the way I want to and I don't want her to see him on the weekend and undo what I've done or let him do stuff that he isn't supposed to do or whatever.
Or like the dog that bit him, they have him now and I told her to keep the dog away from AJ. She doesn't listen to me and the dog is around him when he goes over there. I feel like a big B when I say anything about it, but it makes me insane. Like, I'M THE MOM NOT YOU! Thats what I want to scream at her!
Its probably not a grandmother thing with her, shes just the kind of person that thinks she does everything better than everyone else and everyone else's way is the wrong way. I just don't like her.
Wow, sorry.

Hopefully they'll follow the rules and you can have more peaceful mornings!

 

[PaGal]

It's actually all the other women in their lives on a regular basis. So yah we have a hard row to how when it comes to trying to raise them well but we do everything we can and they are good kids at heart so I'm sure they'll be descent people when they grow up but doesn't mean we can slack off on our responsibility.

My MIL is exactly that way. She didn't even raise my husband, his grandparents did but going by her she's the expert. It's a long story but hubby cut off all contact with her years ago though so we don't have to deal with it now.

That's bad about the dog. I'm not sure how bad he bit your son but it would make me nervous. I do love dogs and know the majority of them, even ones treated horribly would not bite but my daughter went to pet her friends dog whom she had played with before and the dog just out of no where bit her as she was walking up to it. Luckily it only bit her the once but she still had to get stitches in three areas of her face. She was 12 and is somewhat afraid of dogs now. It was an Akita so they are known to need the right owner because they can be aggressive and the friends parents definitely were not people that should own a dog like that.

 

[whitelop]

My dog was getting older, he's around 7 now. So my son was really rough on him and he was slowing down anyway. I wasn't in the room that day when he bit my son, but I'm willing to bet that AJ ran and jumped on him or wouldn't get off of him or something and Woody bit him in the face. He didn't need stitches or anything, thankfully. But it was terrifying and totally my fault because I wasn't watching closely enough. But the dog, was and is one of the best dogs I've ever had. He's really smart and not aggressive, but I think AJ hurt him and it was reflex for him to snap.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that goes through difficult in-law situations. I dislike them both!

 

[Pipsqueak]

Yay I've caught up! Now I can actually follow this blog.

 

[PaGal]

Pipsqueak...thank you for reading! I'm still making my through some as I have tried to start at the beginning.

Morgan...That's a shame! I know if I was a dog having young kids do what they do to me would test my nerves as well. I think you did the right thing with the situation.

Unfortunately I never got to meet my FIL as he passed away some time ago. My hubby says I would have liked him. I did have a silent conversation with him when we went to clean the family graveyard up. I definitely know how hard it can be to deal with shall we say difficult in laws!

 

[PaGal]

Kittens...

 

[PaGal]

I hope these ones are better...

 

[PaGal]

Can't forget Thumper...

 

[PaGal]

The second pic is of the underneath of the skull I found at the beach...

 

[PaGal]

Now just so you all don't think I'm morbid or something. Normally I would not collect a skull. I was at the beach just at the edge of the water hanging out with my little grandson. I kept putting my hand under water to get a handful of sand and would lift it to where I could see and then let the sand sift out through my fingers. Just looking for unusual sea shells or what have you. I found the sharks tooth first this way which I was really excited about since me and the girls had been wanting to find one for a while plus they finally got to see exactly what one looked like since I had described their appearance but the girls kept bringing me bits of shell asking if that was one, over and over again every time we went. Now they know. I later pulled up the skull this way. In the first pic the pits on the skull are actually small barnacles so knew the skull had to have been there for some time and so should no longer be germy.

 

[PaGal]

I saw a toad last night and tonight one hopped into the garage. Yesterday morning we had eight white cranes in the yard. I'm not sure what kind but I will try finding out. One day this week we had a small snake lying in front of our door to the garage. I think spring may be here.

I know it's been here, we have just had cooler weather than normal.

 

[PaGal]

The kittens are getting around better although still very wobbly on their feet. I zip tied a piece of cardboard to the front of the cage so Isabelle can jump in and out but the kitties won't be able to for a while. They are starting to attack play. The dark striped one attacked his moms tail although it wasn't moving.

I wish I could have gotten a picture. It was hilarious! Oh my gosh did I laugh! The dark grey one with silkier fur had a Mohawk!!! His hair was pushed up on each side and it was sticking up in a point right down the center of his head! I said all he needs now is a little piercing.

 

[Pipsqueak]

I just love kittens!! I'm just so fascinated by Thumper's ears. Yep Spring is finally here, I've seen 3 turtles and a small lizard today that I'm just about to look up.

 

[whitelop]

The skull to me, looks like a deer skull but it wouldn't make sense for it to be on the beach.

The cranes were probably great white egrets or great white herons. I have a blue heron that comes and hangs out in my pond from time to time. He's really cool to see and HUGE!
I have bullfrogs in the pond right now and toads all around. I also just caught a snake the other day in the compost heap, it was a baby garter snake. There is one window that I always see little lizards in. I think its because the rose bushes are right next to that window so they go up the rose trellis and then into the window to sun themselves.
I also just got a full view of my giant alligator snapping turtle that lives in my pond. She is the size of a car tire! HUGE. She's been here as long as we have and she just keeps getting bigger! She also looks like she's been hit by a car, there is a some serious shell damage that looks like its healed. She is the reason that I can't get ducks or geese, because I'm scared she would hurt them by biting their feet. She's twice the size of any duck or goose I would get. haha.

Those kittens are adorable! I just to want to cuddle all of them! Their little warm soft bodies, ahhh I love kittens. Thumper is a handsome boy! I love to see them cleaning themselves like that, its so funny.

 

[PaGal]

Pipsqueak... he has crazy ears or maybe it's just Thumper that is crazy. I love turtles. We see one in the yard every now and then but really see them down the road near the creek although it's usually them crossing the road which I don't like seeing them on. I found and injured one once and took it to a wild life rescue. I was told that turtles are pretty indistructable and most times it's a vehicle that gets them.

Also, that they have territories and if taken from that area they will spend the rest of their lives trying to get back there so when the turtle was healed I picked it back up and released it where I had found it. In this case it was our property just a natural gas employee had to be on the property and I think that's what happened, he hit the turtle.

 

[PaGal]

Whitelop...I was trying to get a pic of Thumper's molting on his back and he decided to groom at the same second I snapped the pic. I love seeing him groom. I think it is just absolutely adorable.

The skull isn't very big. Since it was in the water I figure it could be just about anything. The water is so good at transporting objects over time.

We see cranes around the area a lot just not usually at our house but areas where there is water weather the river, ponds or swamp. I haven't seen these kind before. One area where there are some larger ponds has swans. They are so pretty to see and nice to see them in the wild.

I saved a snapping turtle once. It was outside of my work and one of the guys was talking about making turtle soup out of it. He is the type that would have. I used the excuse that someone could come along with a child that could get bit so I got it into a big box and put it inside until I left for the day. I then took it to the river and released it. I have no idea how it got to be by work because there was no water for miles around and they usually live in water. He was about 18 inches long.

 

[PaGal]

The morning was so nice and quiet and not a single argument since it is quiet time. Now if only I hadn't had the worst nights sleep last night.

Hubby brought home a large box for Thumper the other day. I brought it in last night. I have way too many boxes in the room and there are still two others out in the garage. I'm not going to use them all because it's just crazy plus I want Thumper to have room to run around. I am going to use the new one to replace the one that is a second level because at the time I was wanting a bigger box for up there than the one I had.

Too bad he doesn't have any walls in his room not broken up by doors or I would just place boxes around the walls with tunnels in between some then he could have a ton of boxes as well as room to run. My hubby actually brought up a while back about doing the same thing as now but building a town out of wood. I could do so much more with that. I can only do so much with boxes since I can't use tape.