I Need a Weekend, to Recover From the Weekend

 

I know a great deal of the blog includes our grandson.  The fact is, he is a big part of our life out here in the country.  We feel very blessed to have access to this little boy on an almost daily basis.  Now, with that said we have all decided that it works out better for all of us if I can be the Nana rather than the babysitter, so we actually don't babysit a great deal.  The exception was this weekend....the entire weekend, like 48+ hours of the weekend.

I woke up this morning feeling like I needed a pot of coffee, 2 Advil and about 6 hours of Dateline reruns.  How can there be so much energy packed into one human being that barely reaches my waist??

Here is the weekend in a nutshell:

Saturday:  Wake up at 6:15, smiling happy...it's gonna be a great day!  Breakfast of bacon and eggs (of course).  Get dressed.  Spend 15 minutes looking for shoes, break shoestring, fix shoestring, go outside and play football with Poppy. (Okay it is only 7:45 and 37 degrees at this point).  After 12 minutes of football change of sport to soccer for an additional 8 minutes.  Come inside get out sketch pad and sharpies, draw Angry Birds, barns, Christmas trees, dinosaurs, vampires, Darth Vader and farm animals.  Go back outside (at least we can't see out breath now) chase chickens, gather eggs, climb fence and taunt the goat herd.  Then back inside asking for his 20 minute allotment on the IPad.  Then it's on to Lego's, then blocks then farm trucks and back to football outside.  Mind you that scattered in between all of the antics are multiple requests for snacks, as well as requests for new and additional toys as Eli has "no toys to play with".

To top it all off, and I am not complaining we have to count EVERYTHING.  We count steps, cars, leaves, letters, buttons and the list goes on. At the grocery store I had to shut Eli off after he reached 309 because my eye was starting to twitch.  If that isn't tough enough we also have to take note of all the words and letters in, well life.  "Nana, what does E-X-I-T spell?  Nana, what does S-E-N-I-O-R spell"?  If he doesn't stop asking me, it's gonna be like Nana what does Z-I-N-F-A-N-D-E-L spell?  Geez!  With the spelling and counting going on why I would take Eli to the grocery store is beyond me.  What should have taken a few minutes took over an hour,  mostly because we opted for the self checkout lane and we had to call for assistance three times.  Eli scanned the item and more than a few times threw it back in the cart, or he scanned it twice or he put his entire body weight on the scale when we weighed the produce.  The checkers at Safeway have memorized my face, I have been banned from the store, my Club Member card confiscated.  It is a sad day!  At this point I have to add that I don't know how much money my daughter-in-law makes, but as a third grade teacher....it is NOT ENOUGH!

The rest of the weekend was an entire blur, but it included gathering leaves, jumping in leaves, walking around the miracle mile, making brownies, leading the pony and then riding the pony, and oops getting thrown off the pony. (Not a big deal since the pony stands only 3 feet tall).  Lots of hugs and loves and nursing care to the road rash on the butt from the pony accident.  Apples and peanut butter to make it all better.  Making homemade playdoh, painting, more drawing and GEEZ more spelling and counting. 

I spent several minutes trying to explain why we couldn't pick up the hitchhiker holding a sign and looking for a ride to Limon on the corner of highway 71 and 34.  We passed him going to the store and he was still there when we came home.  Eli had a hard time with the concept.  "Nana, I feel bad that the man doesn't have a ride", he said. ( I think he's gonna be a Democrat like his Nana)

Another dissertation followed as Jon tried to explain to Eli, what "breaking the plane" means as in football.  We are still working on that one, if you all have any suggestions!!

Brush: Beetdiggers Football

http://www.youtube.com/v/o8cEBXjAerk?version=3&autohide=1&autoplay=1&showinfo=1&attribution_tag=5K_yy_AtzGZDl3X3MW3VtA&autohide=1&feature=share

Struggles at School

 

Oh I am not suggesting that my little grandson is having struggles at school.  What I am admitting to is this Nana struggles to get the kid to school in the morning.  Last year when I had planned to take Eli to preschool and we decided it was a great idea to go on a little field trip to the river, Eli's Mom threatened me with truancy court.  Yeah a bit dramatic but truancy court!

 

So now when I keep Eli in the wee hours of the morning as his Mom finishes up her nursing degree I am on my best behavior!  Let me just say what I try to do and what actually happens are well... miles apart.  I will tell you the elementary school principal, who was a complete stranger to me on the first day of school, now knows me by name.  Not a good sign!

 

It has been decades since I have had to get a school age child up and ready for school and when I did this back in the day, we merely pulled up to the school parking lot, kissed the kids good bye and drove away.  So the first time I attempted to do this with Eli he informed me I needed to walk him into the school.  Now this is all well and good, except for the fact that I had taken Eli to school that first time....in my pajamas.  "Eli", I whined.  "You can walk in by yourself can't you?"  "No, Nana, you HAVE to walk me to the door".  I took a deep breath as I looked down at my morning attire.  My pajamas consisted of sweats and a tshirt.  Not to bad except the sweats had huge, ridiculous bold blue and white stripes on them.  I had no socks on and to top it all off, cowboy boots.  Could it get any worse?  To make a long story short, I found a jacket in the back seat, pulled it on and tucked my unruly hair behind me ears.  I tried to make a hasty trip up to the door but Eli had to stop and look at every blade of grass on the school lawn apparently.  I think the school officials were probably calling DHS as we approached the door!

 

After the first day of school, let's see.  I left my coffee cup on the roof and drove off breaking the cup in the path that all the children cross.  Oh and Tuff got out and ran amok through the crowd one morning, at least I was dressed more appropriately for those times.  Not to mention the times we are um, tardy.  In this day and age the school is locked down tighter than a drum.  Once the school bell rings I think some kind of automatic lock is engaged.  That's what it seems like anyway because I have to try and smuggle my grandson into the school like a Mexican drug lord.  Geez! We have forgotten the backpack, left the house before brushing teeth and one time, not too long ago I loaded Eli up in the truck, with no shoes on for Christ sake!

 

Despite all the antics of this Nana, Eli got a perfect attendance award a few weeks ago and last night received a special award from the kindergarten teachers.  I went to watch him receive his award and I swear, when no one was looking the school principal pointed his middle and index finger at his eyes, and then he pointed them at me.  "I'm watching you"!

Cluckingham Palace

I promised you my chicken stories but I have to start from the beginning.  The "ground floor" so to speak.  You can understand my very tolerant husband's dismay when I brought 10 adorable chicks home from the local farm store.  I had discussed this with Jon prior to the purchase (when I say discussed I mean, I asked him if I could get chickens, he said no, then I begged please and he was silent - which I always interpret as a ....YES!)

So 10 little chickens joined our family and lived in the garage under heat lamps in a livestock tank.  They didn't stay little for long.  As I scoured the Internet for a suitable chicken coop design the chicks got bigger and bigger.  As I walked through our property trying to visualize the most user friendly place to build the coop, the overcrowded teenage chickens were starting to get aggressive with each other.  Only adding to my chicken induced angst was the fact that as the chickens grew, the wind howled and late spring rain and snow turned our normally sandy soil to mud.

After an exhaustive search I finally found a chicken coop that I, oops I mean the chickens could live with.  It was perfect, and user friendly and old school.....and I'm faily certain I will end up living in it at some point.  I found the plans online and I should have known what we were in for when I printed out the plans...all 29 pages of them.  I didn't have the wit to stop right there, I mean I would have only been out the ten bucks I purchased the printed plans with.  No, I hade to run to Lowes with my plans in hand and get supplies.  I figured if I got everything prepared Jon could just well, put it together, right? Just like leggos!  The kid at Lowes looked at the plan, looked at me, then looked at our pickup in the parking lot and announced, "yer not gonna have enough room in that truck, fer all this lumber".  Again should have just stopped right there.

I "presented" my husband the plans and the materials or should I say the first truckload of materials, as if it was a gift.  Here honey I did all the foot work for you, the hard part is done.  At some point I remember Jon saying "I have never built a house before, even a chicken house".  I answered that with, "Ah come on, we can read, we can follow directions, we are fairly bright, right?"  After that moment it was all a blur of lumber and sawdust, and mud and nails, and cuts and bruises, multiple bribes to our kids to come to the country to work and I think I do recall several threats to call a divorce attorney.  In the middle of this process I thought I might as well pick out a wallpaper and maybe some curtains because I would be living out here soon.  I really thought that was the case when Jon wired the coop for lights and heat.  If he plumbed in a toilet I would have really been worried!  My father, otherwise known as Sweden, you know not picking sides, had a front row seat to every last bit of the chaos.  I think he suffers now from PTCCS - post traumatic chicken coop syndrome.

In the end the coop turned out perfect.  Jon did build a house with steel siding and windows and nesting boxes, cupboards and shelves.  The now grown hens love their new digs and took to it very quickly.  Why does Jon still have the divorce attorney's phone number on speed dial??

 

Just breath

 

This photo was taken November 1st about 7:00 a.m. looking over our pasture toward the East.  I am blessed.  Enjoy!