Date: Apr 26, 2008
I've been working on this the last week. It's shrinking slowly. The original pile was about 5'x1.5'xknee high. It was ugly. I think I've got it down to about 3 or 4 loads left.
Earlier this week, I fleetingly saw what looked to be a tube of toothpaste in a certain (who shall remain unmetioned) toddlers mouth, rounding the corner into the kitchen. I forgot all about it. Until that night. Our toothpast was G-O-N-E. I looked in the usual places of the tub, trash can, magazine basket, John Deere tin of toys, toy box all the way downstairs, in E's boots, everywhere!!! Then I vaguely was aware that I had seen that tube earlier in the day going to the kitchen. So I searched the kitchen. Nothing. Searched again. Again nothing. And then I remembered I had the door open most of the day because it was so nice. Great. It could be anywhere! Under the deck, in empty flower pots, in flower beds, in the dog feeder, in the dog's water, around either corner of the house. It was dark out by this time. I actually found it here:
You can't see the dirt on the screw-top but it was no doubt, used as an excavating tool. Oh well! More grit to polish the teeth!
Here are some items currently MIA:
-small travel-size bottle of shampoo for weekend and camping trips (2 mos)
-male titanium wedding band (at least 1 mo)
-brand spankin' new hair clip (3.5 mos)
Items that have been recovered in rare cleaning endeavors:
-small notebook of Wyatt's accomplishments since I'm not the 'got-it-together' mom who has a baby book. Found under upper deck in back of house.
-sippy cup MIA 3 days. Wyatt left it outside, Buster confiscated it, and I found it dirty and lonely in mud.
-softball mysteriously showed up in the trash can one day. Didn't even know it was missing!
-sock: Wyatt knew where he put it because when I asked him where it was he said 'trash' and went straight in and got it.
-ear thermometer of which I had no idea was missing until cleaning behind the headboard. This is a very favorite place of missing items to hide.
-ear thermometer MIA second time, only it was found dead-upon-my-arrival by drowning in the dog's water. RIP
I'm going to go lay down now because my back and ribs hurt. The ribs are yet another area cramped by Jarrett's impossibly long legs.
How? Why my body? Will it stop? How come he can't come out N-O-W????? 6 weeks and 2 days left. But who's counting? Only the one with the extra 33 lbs on a 5'2 1/2" frame and chronic back pain! I have actually wished that my doctor would find a medical reason to take this baby out of me on Wednesday at my next check-up. Of course I wouldn't want it to cause any risk to Jarrett but I'd take the high blood pressure and the severe swelling to shorten the length of time my body is subjected to carry this wonderful, awesome, joyous, enlightening, best-time-in-my-life, never-felt-better, bundle of joy! I wouldn't trade it for the world but I'd like to make an order the next time it happens. Two nights in a row I soaked E with tears this week. I think they need to make an anti-hormonal concoction that pregnant women can take to stabilize their mental condition. How come a man hasn't come up with that? I think it's worse on them than it is us women! I was so frustrated at little things that, like the laundry, pile up, and before you know it you're at the boiling point. Luckily for me, and for E, I kept my mouth shut and the tears rolling and by the time I was done I felt better. I didn't feel anymore like this:
Unprovoked and awful charges – even so the she-bear fights,
Speech that drips, corrodes, and poisons – even so the cobra bites,
Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw
And the victim writhes in anguish – like the Jesuit with the squaw!
Ah! To be female! This is one bad piece of writing. Talk about summin it all up! I wonder if hormones had already been discovered when Rudyard penned this poem?
When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.
But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
When Nag the basking cobra hears the careless foot of man,
He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can.
But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws,
They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws.
'Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
Man's timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say,
For the Woman that God gave him isn't his to give away;
But when hunter meets with husbands, each confirms the other's tale –
The female of the species is more deadly than the male.
Man, a bear in most relations – worm and savage otherwise, –
Man propounds negotiations, Man accepts the compromise.
Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact
To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act.
Fear, or foolishness, impels him, ere he lay the wicked low,
To concede some form of trial even to his fiercest foe.
Mirth obscene diverts his anger – Doubt and Pity oft perplex
Him in dealing with an issue – to the scandal of The Sex!
But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame
Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same,
And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail,
The female of the species must be deadlier than the male.
She who faces Death by torture for each life beneath her breast
May not deal in doubt or pity – must not swerve for fact or jest.
These be purely male diversions – not in these her honour dwells.
She the Other Law we live by, is that Law and nothing else.
She can bring no more to living than the powers that make her great
As the Mother of the Infant and the Mistress of the Mate.
And when Babe and Man are lacking and she strides unclaimed to claim
Her right as femme (and baron), her equipment is the same.
She is wedded to convictions – in default of grosser ties;
Her contentions are her children, Heaven help him who denies! –
He will meet no suave discussion, but the instant, white-hot, wild,
Wakened female of the species warring as for spouse and child.
Unprovoked and awful charges – even so the she-bear fights,
Speech that drips, corrodes, and poisons – even so the cobra bites,
Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw
And the victim writhes in anguish – like the Jesuit with the squaw!
So it comes that Man, the coward, when he gathers to confer
With his fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her
Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands
To some God of Abstract Justice – which no woman understands.
And Man knows it! Knows, moreover, that the Woman that God gave him
Must command but may not govern – shall enthral but not enslave him.
And She knows, because She warns him, and Her instincts never fail,
That the Female of Her Species is more deadly than the Male.
Rudyard Kipling, 1911
