E4Y1

I woke up this morning with three females in my bed. It was an interesting state of affairs. Shauna had been up with the fetus and let Scout out of her kennel. They all three climbed back into bed. I have the great fortune of being able to sleep through all of my wife's current nightly activities: puking, coughing and sneezing (she's under the weather a wee bit right now), getting up to relieve a pressured bladder, getting up to eat or take a pill to ease a queasy stomach... However, Scout's brand of wound-up, sniffing, licking, squirming, stomach pouncing, wild wahini snuggling is something I have yet to get used to.
This interesting way of starting the day is a phenomenon of a certain molecule called E₄Y₁. Comprised of four parts estrogen and one part male chromosome, its effects in a household can be startling, disturbing, and absolutely befuddling. I have, of necessity, learned what men over the centuries have learned in order to deal with this malignancy: retreat to the shop, and stay there.

One E part of the molecule decorated by another E branch of the molecule. In case you're wondering, that's her 'I'm only tolerating this for a few more minutes' look.

Opening a few trinkets that showed up for the holidays.

Tasting the wares. Brooke was kind enough, and goofy enough, to bring home some of the goodies from the office and wrap them up for us!

The frazzled Y end of the molecule.

Thanks mom

There are so many directions I could go with this. However, I think I'll leave my reputation of being so kind to my mother untarnished. Or, not any more tarnished than it already is!
Thanks for the explanation, thanks for the doorstop- Shauna's one of the family: she likes it!

Buy one, get two free

Your one stop blog shop.
Number one:
You just never know what rig I'm going to bring home. I finally resigned myself to my wife's wishes and the neighbor's request and am working on filling in the ditch that never gets used. The neighbor is happy because it will keep his little system for flood irrigating from washing out into our ditch several times each summer. The wife is pleased because we'll be able to plant it all to lawn and get rid of the native foliage ('weeds' to those who sympathize with Shauna).

2.0:
The great neighborhood exchange.
This is just the smallest sampling of the wares that have been wandering around the hood.

Earl and Sandy bring a plate of sugar; in exchange, we send plates of sugar to everyone on the lane; in exchange for that, Ed brings a box of sugar; Naylors bring a plate of sugar in exchange for an evening of girl talk (at least I got to enjoy the sugar and a nap), and, as if our dentist wasn't happy enough, they sent another plate of sugar last night; other platters of sugar have walked out our front door, to return, I'm sure, with other sugars in tow; at the first of Shauna's business holiday parties there was a great exchange of sugar, and, since she left her change out one night, she owed the entire bank more sugar; and, a doorstop of sugar arrived today (see the second half of this post for an explanation and recipe).
Now, in my great ignorance, I wondered aloud that 'Wouldn't it be simpler if we all just fixed our own sugary specialties, kept them for ourselves, and forwent all this walking, trading, and exchanging niceties business?' Ah, but you have much to learn Grinch: that would be neglecting the spirit of the whole matter.
I feel as if my stomach is taking on the spirit of Buddha.

Numero tres:
Please study the following package closely. Any explanations or excuses, sarcastic, senile, logical or otherwise, would be greatly appreciated.

Post-op

Right now she's talking to her hat. Not sure if it's an intelligent conversation but she seems to think so. If you-all are sick of us going on about Scout, just wait 'til the kid arrives! There'll be gagging all over blogville.
So, the gray little booties are, I think, a south Idaho, redneck special. You'll have to let me know if this is the norm in chic, metropolitan, cosmopolitan places.
She had her surgery yesterday. While they had her in the land of nod, they removed her dew claws. Now she has to endure two weeks of bandages on her ankles (which she is none too fond of- see laid back ears). To keep her from removing the bandages, the doc's secret recipe is duct tape. Next time I go in for bunions, I'm going to see if my Medicare covers the duct tape special.
I wasted $2.50 (plus tax, prices and participation may vary) on her (Scout, not the little old lady). She has to take antibiotics so I got some soft treats to put the pills into. But the treats fell apart when I tried to put the pill inside. So, I fed her the pill straight up and she gobbled it without hesitation. Strange, but, considering some of the other revolting things she takes a fancy to... And everyone wonders why I can't stand dog kisses.

our first child

We know you all noticed Scout in the background of the picture of Shauna on the last post and were anxious for an update on her.
Sorry.
She went to the hospital this morning. Gets her hysterectomy today. And a couple of fingers chopped off- or dew claws. Whatever. She's getting so grown up! She can undo the velcro on the back of her hat (yes, she has a baseball hat) which is unfortunate because we can no longer torment her by wrapping it tightly around her leg.
She's really into yoga. You should see some of the advanced poses she can get herself into!
When she gets older she'll make a good line backer. At the moment, it's cute when she tackles my leg, though Shauna doesn't let her get away with it. It might lose some of its cuteness as she gets taller and heavier.
She loves to go to work with daddy. Plays in the mud, eats rotten potatoes, romps around in the snow drifts. She gets quite put-out when I leave without her. When she knows I'm getting ready to leave, she's paranoid about staying between me and the pickup so she doesn't miss her ride. It's going to be a little rough for her to have to share our attention!
But, as it turns out, she won't have to share as soon as we thought. 'Momma knows best,' the ultrasound tech said. I could have pummeled him. Surely he knows how insufferable a woman gets when she hears that! She's only as far along as she thought she was: a month behind what the baby doc said. (Should we be looking for a new baby doc?) That pushes the due-date to May 30.
Since we're only at 16 weeks the pictures aren't as good- so we might get sent back at 20 weeks. Good news is that the little critter was sleepy and held still for the photo shoot! Woke up toward the end and decided to wave its arms and wiggle a bit. Since when does a human moving its arm, beating its heart, wiggling it legs, etc elicit such rapt attention? Oh yeah, it's the whole miracle of life thing.
We know you've been planning your whole life's schedule for the past month around this moment, so we'll dispense with the rambling and move onto the pictures.

video!

In the very beginning you can see her arm move down from her head.

50 yard line

Half way through the pregnancy.

Keep your thumb near our preset. I know you can hardly wait for tomorrow's headlines. For those of you who have forgotten, tomorrow we tune into the black and white baby TV machine. Gotta see if there's still a little critter in there. Or, we could just ask my wife.
"Dear, are you puking?"
~sound effects~
Yep, there's still a critter in there.
Whatever it is, it's mighty wound up. Everyone blames Shauna when we mention that. Astute folks around here.
11 hours 'till show time. Mind you, it'll be a titch longer than that before we get it all documented online. So hang onto your lug nuts.

George is in jail

That bit of the small town saga is brought to you by some new-fangled technology they call facecrook.
Now, up in the hill country, they know a feriner when they see one. Ain't that far yonder, yet they knowed we weren't from those parts. No sir, we're from down in the valley.
And that's how we met, George and me. In the que at the register after a little date. No, not him and me, the little old lady and me. He was payin' his own bill. He wanted to know what I do and it turns out he does the same thing. Counts beans, among other things, and I took an interest in that because we're fixin' to be countin' beans too, come next spring. Countin'em and hoping they multiply for a good harvest.
Anyhow, we sparred a few pleasantries and parted company.
Next morning, I mentioned the encounter to Mike (one of our bean counters- and potatoes, sugarbeets, grain...). Sure enough, prime the small town pump, kick back, and let the stories roll.
Year before last, we were trying to work up a little proposition with the folks up in the hill country so's we could grow some tater seed on their ground. Couldn't quite never get things in writing though so it never happened. Apparently there was a bit of a discrepancy in regards to rightful ownership. It goes somewhat like this:
Our new acquaintance up in the hill country managed to run amok and was headed for broke. So, in order to hedge his bets, he gave the land to his daughters. All legal like. Now, son-in-law (who just happens to be neighborly to Mike) decides all of a sudden that he's just about had his fill of this family and wants to get unhitched. It's a real convenient time to be doing that sort of thing seeing's how there's some newly acquired assets to be split up. And they're still working on splitting them up- or not. Depends on what side of the coin you fancy. Seemed like a good time for us to keep our fingers out of their pie, and our spuds out of their ground.
So, the next week, I bumps into our hill country friend at the local hardware store. He'd come down with a daughter (not sure if its' the unhitchin' one or t'other) lookin' for a heat lamp. Had quite a few people in the store interested in his interest in a heat lamp. We squared off with a few more pleasantries and I hollered at 'em to get me a heat lamp too. Do me good for those nights in the dog house. But that's not why he was getting one. Nope, they found a baby elk abandoned in a snow bank and they're nursing it along all right but it'll be much better with a little extra heat on it.
We paid our respects and went our separate ways again.
The other night we were trading stories around the boss's campfire and, by and by, I threw in that we'd met George. His eyes lit up and he tells us what he'd learned on facecrook that morning. Yep, our friend found himself on the wrong side of some bars.
What's the feller in jail for you ask?
Poachin'.
Come on out. We'll show you a good time.
Just keep your nose clean. You get to go home, while we'll be headlines for a month.

I'm pretty sure this is totally unrelated to the rest of this post. Scout used to fit in the bottom of this bag and go everywhere with momma. In fact, you could have fit two or three Scouts inside it. She can still get her head in to retrieve every last crumb of the treats that were in there.