Keywords

I'm a little fried this week and not feeling terribly inspired. It's been a while since I've even looked at my Google Analytics to get my laugh on over what people google that takes them to this site, and even longer said I shared some of these gems with y'all. Some highlights:

#4: mrs.wubbin - Now, if you don't know The Brakes and Gas blog (you should), you won't find this as amusing as me. Because "mrs.wubbin" is Gas' alter-ego. Well, that's not right. That insinuates a different persona. I'm totally not suggesting she's schizophrenic or anything. It's her other name. Handle, as some would say (who? I don't know. Shut up.). So I just found it very entertaining that mrs.wubbin was the 4th most popular search term that got people here. She's famous.

#6: preteen whores: I'm a little concerned about this one. Actually, I'm really concerned about the human race in general with most of what I find on my keyword list (each and every variation of ass and mom with lots of "big" and "fuck" thrown in there for extra measure) but I'm pretty sure the people that googled this weren't looking for a post about inappropriate Halloween costumes. I think they are looking for actual preteen whores. And, I am pretty sure they will end up on Dateline's to catch a freak predator or what not at some point.

#12: little preteen whores: So now they are specifying the type of preteen whore. No need to waste time sifting through the "big" preteen whores, or perhaps even the "medium" preteen whores. Inexplicably, "tiny" preteen whores didn't make the list which frankly surprised me, because everyone knows the tiny preteen whores are way cuter than the little ones.

#20 & 21: A good advice to my daughter & a list of good advise to doughter: I'm not trying to be mean here, but I'm going to say to these people that some good advice for your daughter would be to stay in school and pay particular attention to grammar and spelling because clearly, your parents did not.

#41: h1n1 infertility vaccine: Holy shit, there's an infertility vaccine? Odd that it's mixed in with the swine flu vaccine but whatEVER, we are saved!

#75: should moms show cleavage: Oh, for christ's sake. OF COURSE.

#98: tummy jiggles when I run: Keep running, kid.

#101: whores at the door: There's a very easy solution to this problem (if indeed it's a problem for you, it's not clear from this statement if this is something you'd like to start or stop). You know those signs that say "No Solicitors"? Just tack on a piece of paper that says, "and whores". That should take care of it. If they still continue to come to the door, when you open it just make a mean face and point to the sign.

#104: why did my child throw a tantrum because he didn't want to dress up for a school halloween party? : Um, I think you answered your own question. The tantrum was because he didn't want to dress up. That, and he is probably watching too much Calliou, because that kid is a total fucking brat.

Who's the biggest bully at storytime? ME. Don't forget it.

Being a working mom, it's rare that I get to partake in activities like story time at the library, or activities with other moms. For whatever reason, activities for parents and kids are extremely limited (if not completely non-existent) on the weekends so it's something working parents miss out on.

Which turns out, is probably a good thing in my case.

Sabrina's therapy has ended, but I'm still off one day a week through the end of this month. Wanting to squeeze every last bit of fun out of our few days left together, I took her to story time at our local library this week.

I was excited.

We got there a bit early and went to the kid's section of the library. There were a couple other kids there playing. One mom had her son with her, who was about Sabrina's age. She smiled at me, very friendly. Her son was adorable in his little cardigan with a bunny on the back. He and Sabrina mostly stared at each other, but I could tell a relationship was forming.

Two older kids were playing with some blocks in front of the couch. Sabrina wandered towards them, I grabbed her and re-directed her as I didn't want her to invade their space. I have some tact. She meandered to the other side of the couch, just opposite the kids. Sabrina looked at them and smiled. The little girl looked up and said to Sabrina, "Get OUTTA here!"

What.the.fuck.

She said that to my little girl! I KNOW! Unbelievable! Who could say that to this little face!

Sabrina hadn't done anything wrong.

So I looked at the little bitch and said, "That's not very nice." She just glared back at me.

For the remainder of the time we spent in this area, each time Sabrina walked towards the two kids I said, "Oh, honey. No, we don't go over there. Those are mean kids. MEAN. We don't like them." And I glared at the little bitch the entire time.

I often heard mom's talk about little assholes at the playground treating their kid poorly. Hitting, biting. Just being mean. So often, the mom would explain how they just left without saying anything to the kid or the parent. (Bitchy's mom wasn't in the area when all this was happening, and it's a good thing because when I figured out who she was later I saw that she was about 10 times my size). I wondered what I would do in those situations. My instinct said with my temperament, that I would say something. But you never know until you're put in those positions. Turns out I will not only say something, but continue to taunt the kid every available opportunity.

As we sat through story time, I found myself just staring at the little girl. She was easily 5 years old. This story time was for 0-3 year olds. I wanted to report her but the woman leading story time could clearly see her. Instead of enjoying our time, I sat there and thought mean things about bitchy. Things I thought but didn't vocalize:

• You're too old for this class. You must be stupid.
• You look poor.
• I hate you.
• You must be bitter because you have no friends.
• I hope you never have friends.
• Those light up shoes are so 2001.
• You're lame.
• When was the last time you washed your hair?
• I'll bet you smell.

I know I won't always be around to defend my daughter, and I hope that she grows up to stand up for herself when little bitches treat her like that. But for the here and now, she's one. It's my job. I'll totally cut a bitch if you fuck with my family. Even the little bitches.

Announcing: The Newest Graduate

Someone has officially graduated from Early Intervention!

Sabrina's last physical therapy evaluation was this week and she "no longer qualifies for Early Intervention services" which is the technical way of saying, she is one mobile little fucker and doesn't need any help with her mad skillz.

Holla!

There was some concern about her language development, but after completing the full evaluation they determined she is right on track for her age and is just fine. The director even feels she is speaking more than Chris and I realize...that we just aren't identifying words that she is saying. Sabrina walked towards her beloved tupperware (who needs toys? not Sabrina!), was pointing and saying, "Ahhhhhhhh tttttttt" and the director said, "See? She's saying, 'I want!'" and I was like, really? Because I thought she was whining.

Which actually made me feel a lot better, not that I will suddenly start deciphering this foreign language but it made me realize when parents say, "Oh, Suzy says lots of words! Every night she says, 'Night night, daddy. Love you! Go do the dishes!" that means their kid is probably saying,

"nnnnnnnn ttttt daDA! Oooggggooo. Moommoooo biiiishhhhhes."

It also means Suzy's mom is an asshole.

My baby is totally average, y'all. Scored right down the middle on everything, even language.

So proud of my average little one.

I smell a rat.

Literally.

Because this has turned into a pest control blog and not a parenting one, I wanted to give you the much anticipated update on our, ahem, issues:

Raccoons - the shit has worked. Again, literally. We bought $50 worth of mountain lion shit (who knew this was such a lucrative business?) and sprinkled it around our yard. Want to bring your kid over to play? Just watch out for the shit strategically placed around the perimeter of our backyard. If your kid is like mine and likes to put everything in their mouth still, this guarantees lots of fun for all involved. "Sabrina, what are you picking up? Oh my, mountain lion shit...again! Ha ha! Doesn't everyone have predator shit in their backyard?" (And yes, I'm trying to break the blogger record for number of uses of the word shit in one post.) Anyhow, we haven't seen the family of raccoons in a while. I can't decide if this is a good thing and they have decided to not hang out in our yard, or if they've just moved somewhere I can't see them. Like my attic. Which scares the shit out of me just thinking about that.

Ants - Totally had big ass carpenter ants. The exterminator guy confirmed it by checking out the carcasses that remained on the duct tape that I had spread all over every opening in my bathroom sink. I am so resourceful. I'm going to kind of sort of insinuate that we maybe haven't seen any ants since our new BFF, the pest control guy, sprayed for them, but I am very hesitant to come out and say something like, "they're gone!" because I know as soon as I type that, my entire bathroom will be overtaken by them. It's like they know. I don't care to jinx myself so I'm going to just say...things are okay right now.

Rat - So pest control guy put a couple traps under the house. Showed us a couple places where they could have possibly entered, so we sealed them up. Checked the traps for a few days in a row, no rat. Told pest control guy that we could just check the traps and give him a call if we caught one so he could come and get it (because he of course wants to do that, right?) and give us a new trap. Then, somehow, we forgot we should be checking the traps. Which, all we need to do is lift the access to under the house and look, I mean, the traps are right there. It's not like we have to actually go under the house, which is good because that simply wouldn't happen. Has everyone seen The Descent? We don't go into small spaces. We do not go into small spaces where rodents have taken up residence. We hire people for that because we are really big weenies. In fact, just knowing there were traps under there gave me the heebie jeebies big time, and I was having a hard time opening the access to check the traps. It didn't help that Sabrina thought that would be a fine time to come up behind me and bite me on the leg? either. I thought my blood curdling scream would have been enough to kill anything left under the house, but I was wrong. So like a week goes by and we've totally forgotten to check the traps. Until..."Do you smell that? It smells rotten in that bathroom?" Chris claims he doesn't smell anything. I gave him the side-eye but was distracted by Halloween candy and moved on.

Next evening I say, "Have you checked those traps? We should check them." For once, I'm not shaking as I check the traps. I should have been, because there was totally a dead rat hanging from the trap. Oh.My.God. And the smell?? Holy shit. Dead rats stink. It smelled of death. Literally.

Since we're geniuses and wait until Friday night to check the trap, it's up to us to remove the rotting corpse. I'm not going to go into detail because 1) it's gross and 2) makes us look like weenie idiots, but it's gone.

Please make me feel better and tell me rats are independent animals that travel solo and there couldn't possibly be any other rats in the vicinity of our house, ever, ever again? I'm not sure we can handle this.

In unrelated news, Sabrina was a 50's girl for Halloween. I saw a toddler poodle skirt in a catalog and thought, "I could totally make one of those for Sabrina for less than $39.95!"

Only problem is as much as I'd like to sew, I don't really know how. I have a sewing machine, but I can barely get it to work because I have no idea what I'm doing. Still, I tackled the project and it came out alright if you looked at it from a distance. Since I had no idea what I was doing, my cheap alternative quickly added up because I kept having to buy more stuff to "fix" it. I think this might be the most expensive poodle skirt ever.

Oh, and she refused to sit still or smile for any pictures.

The Haunted House Incident

As we approached the Haunted House, you could see the fog from the smoke machine creating the exact effect the organizers were looking for. It was perfectly eerie, perfectly creepy.

The line was long, but that was okay. There was plenty to entertain us, including an extremely tall woman draped in chains who hissed at us and pounded the ground with a stake she held. People giggled nervously. I gleefully took it all in. I adore Halloween, Haunted Houses and horror movies. This is my element. I couldn't wait for the Haunted House.

Finally it was our turn. Chris and I held hands, as he gently guided me into the house. He knows how much I love the surprises and scares the haunted house has to offer, and let me go first so I could take it all in.

It was dark, so dark it was hard to see. We stumbled along, laughing, knowing someone, something would jump out at us soon. Chris has been through the haunted houses with me before, he knows I'll start screaming soon. Screaming, then laughing because it's so fun.

There were creepy clowns, deranged butchers, enormous spiders, a young girl that looked like she stepped right out of The Ring. Each was scary and thrilling. I couldn't stop smiling. I didn't want it to end. We approached an area where a woman was chopping body part, a la Texas Chainsaw Massacre. She grinned psychotically. We heard the chainsaw in the background. It got louder.

The push came from behind; it was sudden and hard. I fell to the ground, unable to get up. Confused, I looked for Chris. I quickly saw the push came from him. As I struggled to get up (without assistance), I felt him try to push by me as he ran from the chainsaw that scared him so. Almost as if it was a second thought, he grabbed for my hand as I lay helpless on the ground, vulnerable to the man with the chainsaw and the clowns that were circling. He grumbled something like "Move!" as he tried to drag me before I had a chance to get my footing.

My knee hurt a little but we continued on. It was a fantastic haunted house, full of scares that had me screaming and laughing with delight. It wasn't until we got to the car that I realized what had happened. I turned to look at my husband, paused and said, "Did you fucking push me to the floor in the haunted house?"

Yes, he did. The chainsaw was that scary.

It's official: I'm a germaphobe.

This is a vicious flu season. It's aggressive, and it's early. I've had the actual, real flu once in my life and it was awful. Really, you do feel like you're going to die. You want to die. It's that bad.

I got my seasonal flu shot as soon as I possibly could, and Chris and Sabrina got theirs as well.

But we can't get the H1N1 shot, yet. Chris and I probably won't be able to get it at all. Apparently, "healthy" adults from 25-65 are the last group to be allowed a shot, and poor mental health does not qualify you for the vaccine. I know, I told the woman answering the flu hotline how wrong that was, but she didn't agree.

I feel so vulnerable.

The instant someone says their throat hurts or they aren't feeling well, I start to feel sick. It's instantaneous. Literally my glands begin to swell the second the words leave their mouth. It's happened several times over the past couple weeks. I find myself washing my hands constantly, and each time I notice myself rubbing my eye or itching my nose, I immediately cringe and think I just infected myself with swine flu. See, just typing this is making my chest hurt.

Since Sabrina will qualify for the vaccine once it's available, I've developed a plan. I intend to take her for her shot, and as soon as they start to inject her I'm going to throw myself in front of the needle and hopefully get stabbed myself. Then I'll be safe. They'll still vaccinate her since she's part of the risk group, right?

Unfortunately, I haven't figured out a way for Chris to get the vaccine. Sorry, honey. I'll get you a nice hotel room if you come down with the plague.

Is this hell? Or karma?

I've had a hell of a week with what some may call critters; I call them wild animals.

Let's start from the beginning.

Raccoons
Let me preface this by saying, we do not live in the country. We live in a tract. We do not have sprawling yards.

So why the fuck do I have six raccoons hanging out in my back yard? We have a small deck area flush with the ground with a piece of wood one might call a bench. The raccoon family call this shelter. I call it hell. Contrary to what Disney will lead you to believe, these are not fun, furry animals that burst into song and have birds flying gleefully around them. They are menacing, disease-ridden animals that attack 74 year old women and maul them nearly to death. Get off of me PETA - you want these raccoons, you're welcome to them.
I want them gone. So I have done the following:

• Had a stare off, Chris called it a draw
  
• Yelled "get on, now!" and then thought, when did I turn into Jed from the Beverly Hillbillies and/or a 75 year old man.
• Talked about it incessantly to anyone who would listen.
• Called my neighbor when I saw them to warn her hoping we could commiserate about the invasion, but they have dogs so they don't bother them and we're just stuck with the damn raccoons ourselves.
• Read that they hate the smell of humans, so I put three socks out in their preferred area (I had just done laundry and it's all I had to put out there, and no, I don't know where the 4th sock went but this is proof the washer/dryer doesn't eat socks, sometimes they disappear before they even get to the laundry.) Anyway, at one point all the socks were missing and I expected the mama raccoon to knock on our window wearing 3 socks and inquiring where the 4th might be. That didn't happen, but mysteriously the socks reappeared in the same spot where I had put them in the first place. I believe they used one as a pillow. The socks are still out there.
  
• Sealed up the two foundation vents we have that had small holes due to the a/c lines. Then, the very next day noticed a 2 inch hole gnawed into a perfectly in tact vent. Fuck.
  
• Panicked that the raccoons would nest in our chimney, drop down into our fireplace, open the fireplace doors, walk into Sabrina's room and maul her.
• Tied the fireplace doors shut and duct taped them. Then asked Chris is the flue was shut and perhaps that would stop them from entering the house and killing us all in our sleep. Note this was after the duct tape had been applied. Chris made a big sighing noise, removed all of the rope and duct tape and assured me the flue was shut.
• Called my dad to find out if the flue would indeed keep the raccoons out of the house. He assured me it would, but at the same time he questioned them getting in the fireplace at all, and since everybody knows that is like their 2nd favorite nesting spot and he clearly wasn't aware of this fact, I questioned whether or not he really knew if the flue would keep the raccoons out of the house and continued to panic on the inside.
  
• Called some wildlife exclusion people who deal with this shit for a living (?) and was told my best option right now would be predator poop. Honestly, she said poop. I said, "poop?" and she said yes, poop. I had read that coyote urine was a detractor and she said, "well, coyote urine is synthetic so it doesn't always work. We have actual coyote and mountain lion poop. You sprinkle it around the perimeter of your yard and the raccoons will think there are coyotes and mountain lions near by and they will steer clear of your yard. It's $25 for 2lbs."
• I am buying shit tomorrow.

Ants
With the rain came the ants. As if I needed something else to deal with. Ants pouring out of those little holes in the sink (what are those holes for besides ant entrances, anyway)? Most concerning is there are some really big ass black ants mixed in with the regular ants, so I think we now have carpenter ants which is really..... Fuck. I want them gone as well, so since the discovery, I have done the following:

• Panicked
• Sobbed a little bit
• Upon the discovery of the ants, realized we have nothing in terms of ant or bug repellents, and since I just love the smell of my non-toxic household cleaners we don't even have a little 409 to spray at the assholes. So we sprayed cucumber multi-purpose cleaner which eventually dazed them enough that we could get rid of some of them. At least they left this world smelling good.
  
• Once we got the holes clear enough, I then duct taped the holes shut, and duct taped the drain in case they decided to come out of there.
• Then I slathered Vaseline over every single crevice they possibly could escape from since one time someone told me that worked.
• The vanity is so covered in Vaseline that I think the counter might slide right off if you put any pressure on it.
• My parents bought me some ant spray and trap thingies so I wouldn't have to go to the hardware store for the 4th time this week.
• I've sprayed the living shit out of the sink and drain, the trails I found outside and put ant stakes out.
• I re-duct-taped everything because frankly, I don't believe they're gone and I just can't deal with a sink full of ants right now. I'm not too emotionally stable at this moment.

Rats
This morning, per my now normal ritual, I drew back the drapes to check and see if the raccoons were in their normal spot (they weren't!), and to see how my ant traps were doing (they're doing well, thanks for asking). Then, I see something scurry quickly by.

A rat. A motherfucking rat.

Now we know what chewed through the foundation vent.

Since discovering the rat, I have:

• Called pest control.

I am done with this shit.