conquering monsters, the cow that peed, and farewell to the hairy beast

for the past few weeks, noe had begun to have problems with monsters. they were everywhere! one day, she had never seen on in her life, the next, she swore they were in the cabinets, the bathroom, the living room, the car, etc. and, of course, she was scared of them. i tried explaining that there's no such thing as monsters, but those of you who have been through this with a two year old before know that that is really pointless. a few days ago, however, we had a breakthrough, and because it's rather amusing, i'll share it with you! noe and mali had gotten some kind of stomach virus for a few days, so i was giving them some gatorade to restore electrolites and keep them hydrated. they love gatorade, so this was not a problem. anyway, noe says it's her blue juice (kind of like orange juice, but a different color....). so we're sitting at the table and she's drinking her blue juice when she suddenly sets it down and turns to me to say "monsters in juice". interesting. they've never been in her juice before. but now she won't pick up her juice, which means she must really be scared. so i remained calm, picked up her cup and looked inside and said "wow, you have monsters in your juice?" to which she replied in a small pitiful voice, "yes". so i gave her back her cup and said "well you'd better drink them. monsters taste good." surprise! it worked. she said "okay" and took a big drink and smacked her lips and said "ah". "is it good?" i asked. she grinned and said "yeah. drinking monsters." so we drank monsters for a little while, then she decided that there were monsters in her lunch, so she had to eat the monsters. this was followed by growling at all the monsters in their various places (china cabinet, chairs, dishes, walls, etc.). as if this was not amusing enough, later, she found another place the monsters reside: the potty. the answer to this problem? peeing on the monsters! that'll teach 'em, huh? so now we like to pee on the potty monsters and then flush them down the toilet. i would definitely not want to be a monster at this point.

as i got the girls ready for a bath the other day, noe starts saying "pee! no, no pee in bath tub!". i thought that meant that she had to go to the potty. when i asked her, though, she said no. so i thought maybe mali had peed, but she hadn't (i hadn't started the water in the tub yet, so it would have been obvious). no, it was neither of the girls. it was their toy cow that sits in the tub while they bathe. it was sitting the space for body wash in the wall of the tub and had chosen that moment to release some water that had probably been in it for months. it upset noe enough that he was peeing in the tub she was about to take a bath in that i had to "rinse" the tub before we could begin cleaning the bodies.

if you couldn't tell from the rest of the title of this blog, the hairy beast is referring to the dingbat dog we've been housing for far too long. he was a very pretty animal with his long red fur, but he shed like no other! we would sweep at least once a day, usually twice, and there would be tumbleweeds of wang cai fur dancing across th floor only moments later. there was no getting rid of it. as you know, we have been searching for a new home for him for a while now, too, and because he was in trouble, until we found him one, he was banished to the outside cold except at night when i was nice enough to put him in the basement with a blanket and some food and water. it was pitiful, though. he would sit almost all day at the back patio door and cry to get in (stupid since he always wanted to go out when he was an inside dog). but we started to feel bad for him because he got no human interaction. so we took pity and decided to let him back in. yes, i know. you thought from the title that i had gotten rid of him. i have not yet been so lucky. but in order for him to rejoin the family, we decided that he had to be shaven. i have a baby crawling around that puts everything, including dog fur, into her mouth. fai is also somewhat allergic to the fur, so we got some clippers and away we went. wang cai is no longer a hairy beast. in fact, he has many bald spots. hey, i'm not a professional and to have gotten done right he would have had to have been drugged, so lets not blame the groomer! he looks really bad! it's pretty funny. when he goes out to use the bathroom once it starts really snowing (we had some flurries today), he'll have to wear a sweater! anyway, we let the idiot back in...and would you like to guess what he did the second night he was in? that's right, he got into the diapers again. and now i doubt anyone will take him because he looks so funny. i really will just have to kill him. hey, christmas is coming soon, and they say dog meat is actually very good....

yesterday, i was supposed to go to the temple. i haven't been for over two years because of motherhood and nursing. i was finally able to schedule the time and i was going with the sister missionaries, one of whom is leaving very soon to go home. well, it was not to be. at 2:30am, i woke up to put mali back down and realized that my kidney stone was on the move again. it wasn't too bad, so i went back to bed hoping that i could get to sleep and not have to worry about it. at 6:30am, i finally gave up on that and took some medicine. fai had to get up with the girls and i kept trying to sleep. at 11am, i gave up on sleep and went down stairs to eat lunch. then i though maybe a shower would help. i did feel a little better and thought i was on the mend again and could go ahead and keep my appointment, so i left to meet the sisters. unfortunately, my pill had begun to wear off at this point (i forgot to watch the clock for this and didn't have my pills on me). we thought there would be some pills at the temple (lets face it, there are several old people there who more than likely are carrying!) and so we continued towards our destination. to be honest, my thought was that if i could get to the temple, it would all be okay. well, we didn't make it. in fact, i made it only about two minutes up the interstate before realizing that i was going to be sick. so we pulled over and i made it to a bathroom before losing some of my left overs. then one of the sisters had to drive back while the other called fai to tell him to meet me at the urgent care center. the pain this time had gotten worse than it was in january when i thought i was in labor. long story short, i threw up three times, got an x-ray and a lecture from the doctor, a vicadin and a shot (painful) of phengrin and sent home with orders to call the specialist about getting the stone taken care of. i will be calling tomorrow.

i have pics of thanksgiving to share (the first thanksgiving dinner i have every had to cook) and some funny wang cai pics. i will try to get them up later. for now, i'm going to sit back and relax with the hubby and a bowl of popcorn and bottle of water (pop is off the menu for a while due to the kidney stone...although, it appears to be made of calcium, so the pop isn't the cause!).