The boy follows through. He got that idea in his head, and he didn't let it go. Blessing #3 spent the evening creating his vacuum, er, I mean dirt picker-upper. Now he's hung up on the idea of his daddy helping him tomorrow to get a valve attached to it.

His words: Daddy. My dirt picker-upper needs a valve. Dad. Dad. Dad. Daa-ad, tomorrow can we put a valve on it? Can we, dad? My dirt picker-upper still needs a valve, dad.

After he told me he had finished building his "machine," I told him to bring it inside so I could take a picture.

You'll have to come out in the garage, moma. It's too big to fit inside.

So from the driveway, standing in the rain, I snapped pictures of the creation. As it was too big to fit into the house, it was also too big to fit in one frame of a picture... so I snapped three.

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This afternoon in the car, Blessing #3 looks out the window and sees a big pile of dirt in a yard.

B#3: Moma, why is there a big pile of dirt on the sidewalk?

Monkey Moma: I don’t know. Maybe they are digging a hole or something.

B#3: Hmmm… you know what I’m going to invent when we get home? A dirt picker-upper.

MM: Oh really?

B#3: Yeah, so then people can pick up dirt.

MM: Do you mean like a vacuum cleaner?

B#3: No, I mean like a dirt picker-upper. And it’s going to have a tank and a long tube that sucks up the dirt and a switch to turn it off and on and it’ll plug in. And then I’ll dump the dirt from the tank into a bowl. Mom, do you have a bowl I can use for my invention?

MM: Do you mean like a trashcan?

B#3: No, I mean like a bowl. Then I’ll dump the dirt from the bowl into a trashcan.

Recently we had just given B #1 a lesson on how, during matters of discipline, “correcting” her parents was disrespectful and that she didn’t need to get in the last word, didn’t need to fight over facts that aren’t up for interpretation anyway. “Especially,” I told her, “when you’re wrong.”

B#2, who was obviously eavesdropping, says, “Moma, Daddy... She wasn’t correcting you at all. She was actually incorrecting you.”

That got a laugh from the Hunky Monkey and the Monkey Moma. That was so clever that we now use it quite often, facetiously or not.

As in: Oh, don’t you even think about incorrecting me!

Before lunch, as he’s using the Windex to clean the sliding glass door, B#3 says: Oh, moma. I got some Windex on my hand. That should keep me nice and clean, shouldn’t it? That’s why I just wiped the rest of it on my head. To get the dirt off, you know.

B#4 had her fifth birthday Monday. After the biggies were all out of school, we went to the park and played… until it got too windy and cold. We ate dinner (she chose Nothing But Noodles- an especially good choice as Mondays are “kids eat free” night!) and had a chocolate kitty cake before bed.

And fortunately I realized- before anyone else noticed!- that I had accidentally put a 4 on the cake rather than a 5. I was able to correct it before the cake came out and we were singing "Happy Birthday." B#4 might've cried had she seen that I really did cancel her birthday so she wouldn't get any older!

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Some things are a hassle.

Like having to transfer the newly-purchased gallon of milk to quart jars.

Some things are disturbing.

Like the discovered floaties in that new gallon of milk.

Because while occupying his time awaiting a refill, someone *ahem* Blessing #5 *ahem* felt the need to drop a wood chip and a macaroni noodle into the jug.

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And Disney teaches us another way to discern between good and evil:

Overheard in the kitchen-

Blessing #4: No, no, no! The bad guys always ride the brown horses, and the princes always ride the white horses!

B#3: No, they're black horses, not brown!

B#4: They're brown! And the princes always ride white horses!

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Buying in bulk. That's what we do around here. Milk by the six-gallons. Eggs by the five-dozen. Whipping cream by the half-gallon. ;-)

Speaking of that whipping cream, I got it all used. Some for filling the cake, some for soup, and the rest whipped up and into the freezer for topping off hot chocolate, coffee, and ice cream!

Yep, whipped it up, put it in mini-muffin tins, froze it, transferred to a gallon ziploc.

Just moments ago, I realized that somebody (I won't mention any names *ahem*) put a cooler ice block on top of all my beautifully frozen whipped cream dollops. I know have a whipped cream blob. That would have been a lot easier to begin with. Hmmm, I could've thrown it in a tub and called it Cool Whip.:)

I am also, while I type this, in the process of browning five pounds of ground turkey. I don't know why exactly, but I have always been a little turned off by that big log of turkey-in-a-tube. Until I got it for $4. And then that big log of turkey-in-a-tube was quite appealing. So I am browning (which, I might add, takes a long time) five pounds of ground turkey to freeze in smaller servings to mix in with other things... like more expensive ground beef.

Hopefully it's decently tasty since I'm going to have a lot to use.

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Practicing endurance for those high school locker-stuffing bullies.

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March comes in like a lion...

We started off March with a bang. At least we ended the first day of March with a bang.

We finished up our quickie meal at McDonald's last night, and I looked on the floor under the table and saw that Blessing #3's coat had fallen down there.

"You better get your coat off the floor," I said. "It's nasty down there."

So, he stepped down to get the coat of that nasty floor.

And in the process, he stepped on the coat, which slid, and his feet went up while the rest of him went down.

Boom, bang, crack. Cheek hits edge of table, head bounces and hits side of booth, body drops and chin busts open on that nasty floor.

A deep cut but a "clean" one. It needed stitches or something, but we weren't quite sure it warranted an expensive trip to the ER, and the urgent care center was no longer taking patients.

So instead of driving to the hospital, we drove to the RiteAid. But as luck would have it, they were out of all the bandaging/first-aid supplies we needed. So we went across the street to the grocery store, and the Hunky Monkey bought some sterile guaze and butterfly strips.

And we set up in the kitchen and put him back together.

B#3 is as good as new. Or so we hope when we remove the bandage covering the butterflies! He can now join the club of busted-chin scarring. (The monkey daddy has got one, and the monkey moma has got two.)

He got to stay home today and take it easy. I can't even count how many times we had to tell him to take it easy and to stop running in the house. It looks like he might have to miss out on his first spring soccer game this week... wouldn't want him to get bumped before it heals up all the way.

So I had a "long" school day in that I only had to make the trip there twice- once to drop the older girls off, and once to pick them up. Except for the phone call from B#1 who had left her glasses in the front window. (Again.) And I got to make my middle-of-the-day trip anyway.

I used part of my long day to make a chocolate pie. I have been talking about making one since Thanksgiving, and I finally did it. My excuse was all that whipping cream I needed to use. :)

I finished putting it together tonight, and B#6 completely lost it in a fussing fit in the middle of beating the cream, so I was holding her while whipping. She eyed that whipped cream and jabbed her hand in it.

She thought it was tasty. :)

It was.:)

I am looking forward to tomorrow morning.

Because when there's leftover pie, you get to eat it for breakfast.

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