Ringmaster or Zookeeper?

What I'd really like to be here is the Ringmaster - directing things to run without a flaw, ya know.

In reality, what I tend to be is the zookeeper - just trying desperately to keep the animals all fed, cleaned and behaving at least semi-decently.

Today -as days go -wasn't really ALL that bad for me -although some of the animals here didn't fare too good at times.

The battle wages on here trying to get the Princess to use the commode for BOTH functions. From Monday night until last evening, we totally enforced the "no pullups" routine but to no avail. She would still use the potty to "put water in there" or "make water" -as she refers to that action but beyond that -the only good thing was there were no accidents. But that wasn't really a good thing either because somehow she was evidently withholding that substance and that action can lead to some not nice at all consequences for little kids. So, yesterday, when she came home from school and there were still no messages of her having done anything at school along those lines, when she asked for a pullup last night, in order to try to avoid her "withholding" any more, a pullup she got. And within about ten minutes time -the apparent laxative effect they must have on her worked. Thankfully. So tonight, we went with that routine again. We tried to talk her into using the potty first but that looked to be heading into the meltdown direction so we averted two problems then - the withholding issue and the meltdown -by giving in and letting her have the pullup again. Guess we will just have to buy stock in Pampers Pullups is all there is to it there.

To avoid the potential for a massive meltdown which often occurs when Mandy has to leave for work, Bill had today promised Maya she could come down in the basement and help him work down there. He's trying to straighten out all the areas there, get the walls all seamed up nicely, smoothed out, painted and such so that sometime this winter when his ex-mother-in-law moves south and bestows on us her living room furniture, the sofa and loveseat we now have -which are both getting a tad on the threadbare side - will be moved down to the basement to the "sitting room" he's fixing up down there. He did put in a nice little electric wall heater in the middle area of the basement about three years ago and it does work nicely to warm the cellar. A couple weeks ago, through some of his scrounging activities and wheeling-dealings, he acquired a small woodburner that he hooked up down there too. The woodburner really warms that particular room and also takes a little chill off the floor in the dining room too- which is directly above that part of the cellar. So right now, the mid-section of the cellar really is starting to look very civilized.

For supper tonight, since it was just the son-in-law, Princess Maya and me here, I fried up a pound of bacon and then, mixed up a big batch of pancakes. Pancakes in Maya's book generally ranks right up there alongside Mac'n'che, Sketty and Noodles so I wasn't concerned about whether she would eat or not. Bacon also happens to be a meat substance she will also actually eat and does so with great relish too. Maya had one nice big piece of bacon, I managed to snag 4 slices and the rest - well the all landed on Bill's plate but when he was "finished" I couldn't believe my eyes. There on the plate was this pile of bits and shreds and pieces of bacon that he had pulled apart and wouldn't eat. Why? Because he regarded that as fat and well, fat is something I think he would rather die than ever touch! And all I could think was man, if I'd know you were going to rip that bacon up like that and discard THAT much of it, I'd have cut the tiny meat particles of the bacon off and put them on a plate just for you and then I would have had me a feast - a veritable FEAST I tell you - eating the rest of the bacon slices -the good flavorful fat parts ya know -rather than throw all that good stuff in the trash. Is my Scottish ancestry showing again, folks? Considering how my Mom and her parents were about wasting food, I 'm more inclined to think it is my Swedish side coming through there!!!

After supper, Bill decided since Maya had put her hand, full palm of each hand, directly onto a wall that was freshly painted, he would bath both the kids and get them each dressed and ready for bed. That works well for me because I can't get down on the floor and bend over the tub to bathe them because my back would be in an uproar for the next several days plus, there is nothing there I can get a good grip on to pull myself back upright after getting down on the floor as I would have to do to bathe these two.

He got them all cleaned up -looking really spiffy too they both were -noses all shiny and cheeks so rosy red you know and he got Kurtis a bottle then too. For a while things were fairly peaceful but then Kurtis started whimpering, then really whining and finally, dancing around his playpen and howling so I figured he must be in need of maybe some dry or clean pants and took him back to change him. As I started to undress him, I detected a strange odor - partially familiar to what I had kind of suspected upon picking him up but also a faint tinge of the mentholatum scent of Vick's vapor rub. WTF - why do I smell that I was wondering. Took the little guys diaper off and wow, the odor really hit me then - strong smell of the vapor rub stuff plus his little butt, right down the entire crack area was just beet red. I reached up for the tub of cream and as I glanced at it, I saw it was a new type stuff but then my eyes lit on the wording above the name of the product - something about "creamy vapor rub." I opened it and took a whiff and yep, my nose had not deceived me earlier - it was indeed a creamy baby type form of the Vick's baby rub but not something that would be recommended to use on anyone's behind, much less the poor little guy! No doggone wonder he'd been jumping around and whining the way he was earlier! Finally found some of the good stuff -specifically for his area -got him all greased up with that, clean drawers on and presto-magic, he was one happy little camper, good to go again!

See what I mean -if I were actually the ringmaster, not the zookeeper, little things like that wouldn't happen and we'd all live happily ever after in some cabin in the woods or some such thing.

I have to thank all of you too who responded to my "health hazards" post of Wednesday night. Many of you saw the wisdom in my words of warning there - don't bother bending or stooping to pick up unimportant things and risk injury to yourself. Leave it lay there till you can rope someone else much younger, much more agile to do that dirty work for you!

I finished up a pair of mittens that I knitted with the express intent they would be for Miss Maya. They turned out very nicely too - I was quite pleased with my efforts until I decided to try them on her to see how well they fit. Maybe in 3 or 4 years they will fit her fine but right now, her little hands just swim in them. So I'm in the process of making another pair - using a pattern I found in one of the baby knit/crochet books I was able to find but these are the kind of mittens that have no thumb hole however, they're gonna have to do for this winter. She'll be happy cause I'm using the hot pink/fucshia colored yarn which will go very nicely with either her hot pink jacket or her blue heavier winter coat! These mitts will also have a nifty purple verigated stripe pattern - two rows of the pink, two rows of the purple verigate yarn - looking pretty sharp they are thus far anyway.

And finally, I have a question for any of you reading this who write the nice little posts for pay - do any of you ever have problems with the submission of your post for approval and payment? I had an issue this week which is still not resolved and I have written several inquiries about not being able to get it to submit, as I keep getting an error saying the text and the link must match the required information on the instruction page. Well, I have checked and rechecked and checked several more times again and submitted, resubmitted I have no idea how many times and still that same error would keep coming up.

The first piece of information I received back from the company was that something was being transposed by my blog and causing a problem due to an issue in their code but I could go in an edit the symbol myself in the html. Say WHAT? Me, edit html? Are you totally, freaking nuts here people? I haven't the foggiest clue in the world how to go about doing that. SO I wrote back and in essence, told them that too.

Next they told me the problem was being caused by the need for use of a trademark symbol and that apparently my text editor when I copied my text over to my blog was screwing things up there or my blog was converting it to this illegal or incorrect symbol when I would try to submit my piece for approval and payment. Ok, this time at least they told me it was the "trademark" that is the culprit, but they still didn't bother to tell me what to use in place of that to get it to transpose across to make the trademark and still be accepted by the code on their end. Still comes under the heading of html editing doesn't it that they expected me to do too?

As of 5 p.m. today, I hadn't heard any more from the company on my questions and now, I see the offer is no longer available either so that means I did that post, spent beaucoup hours on it too researching, writing the text, working and reworking the links, etc., so that blogger would accept it in the first place for me to simply publish it and now, I haven't as much of a prayer as would a snowball in hell of getting it submitted and getting paid for it. Therefore roughly 15 hours of work -for what - for nothing!

Now I don't know if I want to take a chance on writing another freebie in the off chance the whole thing backfires on me yet again. Anyone doing these posts have any suggestions how to deal with a situation like this? If so, please let me know!

Now, I'm gonna go put some of that creamy vapor rub on my right arm though -where I banged it in my fall the other night and I now have a huge purple bruise there. Mentholatum type cream stuff is good for taking the soreness out of bruises -did you know that? Just make sure the bruise is no where near your super-sensitive areas like your behind!

Back now to your regularly scheduled programming.