Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh MY!!!

Saturday was our Koch Company Picnic at the zoo. We all had a really good time. JB even went with us. The company provided hot dogs and BBQ for dinner. They also brought in jumping rides, carnival rides and carnival games.

As we waiting in line to play the carnival games, Carlie told me that she was going to win one of the big stuffed animals. I told her that I wasn't sure how hard the games would be. She walked right up there and won. She was the first one to go. She was SO excited. No one else won anything big.

I Hate it When I Have Dead Hair

Madi was staying with Granny the other day, and Granny was brushing out her long, curly hair. She casually mentioned "Your Mom needs to trim the dead ends off."

Madi got it stuck in her head that she has "Dead Hair" that needed to be gotten rid of. Granny and Papaw came down for the school carnival this weekend and in her best Diva voice Madi told Granny "Oh, Granny!!! You really need to cut all this dead hair off of me....its making my head hurt Sooooo bad!!!" So we trimmed a couple of inches off.

Good Hygiene is Important

One of my indulgences is taking long whirlpool bathes in our giant garden tub. The little girls frequently like to join me.

Lst night I had settled in with a book and was hoping for some alone time. But the girls discovered me and begged to join me. I couldn't resist, so they climbed into the tub with me. It took about two minutes before they were squealing, splashing and sloshing. So much for my quiet time or reading my book!!!

They decided that I needed some TLC, so they were soaping up my back, arms and legs and then washing it off. They were having a grand old time. And Carlie told me "Mommy. I'm going to make sure you have some goooood Hygiene!!"

Bet I was the cleanest Mom in town last night. LOL.

Professional Rock Picker

Two days ago, JB and I were working on laying brick pavers on the patio. The younger kids were very interested and Frank and Carlie wanted to help. I set Frank to sorting broken pavers for me. And he was excited to help.

Carlie wanted to "help" too. So I asked her to pick up small rocks where we'd dug out the soil for the patio. She was so excited to have a "job" and she told me. "Mommy, I'll be very good at this job." So I told her "I bet you will."

And she responds "I know I'll do a very good job, because I AM a professional rock picker, ya know!!!"

I am so glad that we have a professional rock picker in the family!!!

My Two Boys are Feeling Sorry For Themselves

It's hard to watch....but they are the only ones who can fix the situations.

JB still has no money....no job and no prospects. This weekend JB had explained to me that I was not his “REAL” family and hence would never come “FIRST” to him when I had asked him to attend some family events this weekend which he blew off.

I paid JB $10 for an hour’s worth of work on laying our brick patio two nights ago…mostly because I wanted to talk to him about a few things. I mentioned while we were going to get the sand and supplies that I hadn’t seen him chewing in a while. And in a pitiful voice he said he wasn’t chewing because he had no money to buy chew. So at 9 o’clock he came up stairs and asked me to go and take the money I’d just given him and buy him some chew. I told him that I was tired and it was 9 o’clock and I wasn’t going. He asked me again and said please, but I told him I wasn’t going. I asked him why he didn’t go…and he said he didn’t have enough gasoline to go to the store.

So he was pouting when I went to tell him good night that night. Poor baby. No one loves him, I guess.

And he’s been hateful with us and with the Nanny over getting him up in the mornings. Well no one woke him up this morning, and he didn’t set his alarm. So he was late to school yesterday. So that’s an unexcused absence. Since we aren’t his “REAL” family….no one saw the need to get him up this morning. Hmmmmmm. He was sent to ISS the rest of this week for skipping classes.

He asked me again to go get chew for him last night...I was going to the store anyway, and told him to give me his money and I'd pick it up for him. He'd already put the $10 in his gas tank, so still no chew for JB.

He's moping around. According to him his life sucks.

We are still at war with Frank over the homework. He refused to do his math in school....so therefore had alot of it to bring home. Refused to do it for the Nanny before I got home. So he sat at the table from 5:30 - 10:30pm last night NOT doing his homework. And he's feeling sorry for himself too. No one loves him either....because if we did we'd not make him do all this work.

Guess I am a mean Mom.

Six Years Ago Today, They brought Madi to Me

The day they brought her to me will be etched in my mind forever. As a little background, Bob and I had been married almost a year, and we'd recently discovered that we had significant fertility issues. We'd been told that we had a less than 5% chance of getting pregnant without InVitro Fertilization. We'd had Frank and Libby with us as Foster children for almost a year. The Social Worker had told us that it was looking like they would return to their Biological Father pretty soon.

Bob and I knew that when they left our house was going to be really empty plus it wasn't likely that we'd be able to have bio kids. So we decided to take another child in as Foster-to-Adopt. So we asked for placement of an young child who had a high likelihood of becoming available for adoption.

I had been laid off from my job in March of that year, and I was looking for another job. The state had called us about several kids, but etiher they hadn't worked out or we'd turned them down for various reason.

On April 22nd, the kids had a visit scheduled with their Birth Dad and Birth Grandma. I was supposed to drop them off at the visit and then return to pick them up. But the social worker did not show up for the visit, and I ended up supervising it. The kids were restless and aggressive during the visit . Frank threw a huge temper tantrum. I put him in time out, and Mr. Robey had gotten angry and had let Frank get out of time out. So when we left the visit that afternoon, I was mad at the social worker, mad at Mr. Robey and mad at Frank.

We got hom about 4pm. I walked in the house, and the message light on the answering machine was blinking. The message was from DHS. They said they had a newborn girl available, but that they had to place her immediately...and if I wanted her I needed to call them back by 4:30pm that day. I looked at the clock and it was just after 4pm. I called back breathlessly hoping that they still had her. We'd been thinking of a child around age 18 months to 3 years old. I really had planned for a newborn...which is unusual to find in DHS.

They said she was still there...that she was white, born drug free and her Birth Mom had given birth at the hospital and had left her there and requested that she be placed for adoption.

I told them I needed to call my husband. We always make big decisions together. I started trying to call him, but he was on a practice field doing Spring Football practice, and I couldn't get ahold of him!! So finally I gave up trying and called them back and said we would take her. So they told me they'd bring her over within the hour.

I called my Mom and told her that they had a baby for us. My Mom immediately burst into tears and starting crying uncontrollably. My Dad actually had to take the phone from her because she couldn't talk.

I waited and waited at the window for them to bring me the baby. Finally an old ratty state own car pulled up in the driveway, and an older lady brought an infant carried out of the back seat. I looked in the carrier and there was this teeny tiny, BEAUTIFUL baby girl in there.

The Social Worker breezed into the front room, plopped the infant carrier on the floor and said "Here's your baby, Sunshine." All that she came with were the clothes she had on, a couple of bottles of formula and a couple of diapers. The social worker was then just going to waltz out the door. I looked up and said "Wait!!! You haven't even told me here name!!" and she said that her name was Madolyn.

Bob didn't come in until dark that night. When he walked in and saw me with a newborn, he asked "What is THAT and where did it come from???" LOL. I explained what was going on.

Since we'd never had a baby, I had no supplies. We did happen to have a baby bed in storage upstairs. I told Bob that he was going to have to stay home with Frank and Libby and the baby while I went to the store and bought clothes, and blankets and sheets and formula and diapers. Bob had never, ever taken care of a newborn alone. He said, "She's so TINY!!! Please don't leave me alone with this little tiny baby. I don't know what to DO!!!" I told him that I had to, because I couldn't manage a baby and buy all the stuff that I needed.

So at 10 pm that night we are trying to take care of a newborn and put together a baby bed!!!!

And we are so lucky to have her. She's a joy. And she LOVES to hear the store of the day she came to us.



This last picture is one of my all-time fav pictures. It just makes me smile every time I see it.

Story to follow

Liar, Liar Pants on Fire

The lengths to which my son is going to avoid doing school work are incredible.

Frank is a bright boy. He makes all As and Bs without having to work too hard at it. He's well liked at school. So I'm not sure how this all became such a big issue.

It started off with him telling us that he did not have any homework. We'd take his word for it. Then we'd get an email from his teacher that he was way behind in class and not handing in any work. So the teacher and I decided several months ago that she'd send an assignment sheet home with him every day that listed the assignments he'd completed.

The next problem we started having was that the assignment sheet wasn't coming home. Or he'd show us the assignment sheet and tell us he'd already done all of the work at school. He stopped doing any work in school at all. The teachers could not get him to do anything. So the amount of work was piling up.

So then the teachers and I decided that she would email us the assignments every day. But once again, Frank would tell us he'd already completed the work at school, and then he'd tell the teachers he'd left the completed work at home. Then he suddenly began "forgetting" to bring the appropriate papers and books home. Sigh.

So finally the teachers told me they would make sure that when he left school that he had everything he needed to complete his homework with him. And I agreed that I would send the completed papers to school with Libby to ensure that they received them.

So Frank came home from school on Friday. I'd already gotten an email from his teacher saying he had four math worksheets to complete. I asked him if he had any homework. He looked me right in the eye and said he'd already completed it turned it in at school. I told him that I wanted to see his backpack and notebook. He brought them upstairs, but there were no worksheets there. SO, I went downstairs to his room and started digging through all the crud on his floor. I told him that if I found the papers before he did that I was going to BEAT him. So he slinks over to his bed and digs out the uncompleted papers from under his bed.

He bawled for an hour while he worked on them. I had Libby take them back to school, and so we FINALLY got a set of homework completed successfully and handed in.

The next angle that he tries is being "sick". He begins telling the teachers that he's thrown up in the bathroom, but he flushed it before they got a chance to see. So the counselor and I told him that the only way he was going home from school was if he was running a fever or if someone SAW throw up come out of his mouth. So for a couple of days he laid on the couch in the nurses office. He finally gave up one afternoon and went back to class.

So I think we've finally got him cornered. He's going to HAVE to do his work, there's no way around it. Well I get a call yesterday that Frank had asked to leave class to go to the bathroom. The teacher became concerned when he did not return. They found him in the boys bathroom with his feet up on a toilet so that no one could look under the stalls and see that he was in there. So he was sent to the office again!!

Edited to add: Well he DiD manage to take it to another level today. His teacher had been initialling papers to indicate that he'd completed them. Today, Frank attempted to fake her signature. So now it is 10:10pm, and he's still working on the day's homework that he lied about.

Why couldn't he put all that effort and ingenuity towards something useful!!!! Like finding a cure for cancer or something!!!

March Quotes Archived

Look for every opportunity to go the extra mile. That's how you become extra special…and extra successful. -- Steve Ventura

Forgiveness is an act of self-kindness. It liberates your life force. It completes the past. Choose now to heal your old unfinished business. It is time to let go of the pain. Place your hurt on an altar and surrender it to God. Set your self and others free. Listening To Your Inner Voice - Bloch


RISK more than others think is safe
CARE more than others think is wise
DREAM more than others think is practical
EXPECT more than others think is possible


If you live your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself, and the dreams will come to you. Randy Pausch.


Brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want things. Randy Pausch.

Thursday

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

I haven't posted in a while. It's been a rough couple of weeks. March always seems like a stormy month for me. But here is a quick glimpse of what's going on

The Good (I think anyway) - I got a sassy new hair cut

The Bad - Frank has a patch of Eczema in his eyebrow and managed to rub one whole eyebrow off

The Ugly - Libby had a bike wreck and broke off half of one of her permanent teeth

All of this happened on the SAME DAY!!!!! Calgon take me AWAY!!!!!

I guess I'm going to be sick until I'm 51.

Libby is still visiting with my in-laws. Memaw is teaching her how to sew. They made Libby a skirt yesterday and she was really proud of it.

She called my Mom (Granny) to tell her all about it. Granny has always been Libby's confidant. Granny asked her if she was feeling any better. Libby said "Yeah, I'm feeling better. But they gave me this book, and it said that I'm going to have this sickness until I'm 51!!!"

Granny told her not to worry about it. That I would sit down and explain it all to her when she gets back home. LOL. Poor kid! So I went out to Barnes and Noble over lunch and got a book for us to read together that explains all about periods.

Wild Night 2008 aka Puking and Periods

When you have four or five kids, there are just going to be some wild days sometimes.

I started out the evening mad at JB. He finally had the day off on Sunday, and he told me that if I'd let him sleep all day, that he'd get up and spend some time with the family before he went out to see his friends. I got him up at 8:30PM (yes PM not AM) and instead of doing what he told me he'd do, he stayed long enough to make a mess in the kitchen and left. So he knew when he left that I was not pleased with him.

I was tired that night and decided to go to bed early. So I was in bed shortly after 9pm. The phone rings at 10pm. Our phone hardly ever rings that late, so it scared me. My niece Arlena was on the phone. She is 26 and lives with my in-laws. Libby has been there with them all week visiting during Spring Break. Lena tells me that she doesn't want to alarm me, but she thinks Libby has started her period. Now Libby is 8 and has shown no signs of development whatsoever. Lena said she'd told Libby that she might be starting her period, and Libby didn't know what that meant (because I've not had "the talk" with her yet.)

So I talk to my Mother-In-Law on the phone, and decide from the symptoms that Libby probably has a bladder infection. Then I talk to Libby and tell her that I'll explain all about periods to her when she gets home.

So by now, its close to 11pm. Bob and Frank have been downstairs playing PlayStation together. Frank comes upstairs crying like someone has died. It is the most gut wrenching, pitiful crying I've ever heard from him. Bob and I talk to him and try to soothe him, and he tells us he's crying because Bob beat him at PlayStation. Frank hates to lose at anything.

It's close to midnight by the time we get him settled down. I had just drifted off to sleep again when the dog starts barking at 12:30am when JB comes back home.

I roll over and punch the pillow. It was only a few minutes later when I hear little feet running into our bedroom and that sound that all mothers instantly know. Someone is going to hurl. I sit up in bed right at the same time that Madi throws up all over the bedroom floor. I look at the clock and its 1:34am.

She'd already thrown up all over her bed and bedroom floor. So I run a bath for her, wash her hair, clean up the floors. I decide that I'd be better off sleeping with her on the couch, because I don't want her to throw up in my bed.

We'd just gotten settled on the couch, when JB comes up the stairs. (Note: Bob has conveniently slept through all of this so far). He goes into the kitchen (its after 2am by now) and proceeds to cook ham and srambled eggs. As the smell goes through the living room, Madi goes pale and proceeds to start gagging again.

I go back into the kitchen and start hunting through the cabinets for some nausea medicine. JB knows I was mad at him earlier, so he's trying to win some brownie points back (I guess) by being extra helpful. So he's looking over my shoulder at the stuff in the cabinets and is giving me advice about what kind of medicine to give her. I look over my shoulder and give him "the glare" that only a Mom who's been up all night can give and he backs slowly away and returns to his cooking.

I give Madi the medicine, and she wants some water so I fix her a cup. JB is again trying to be extra "helpful" and offers to come get her medicine spoon and glass and take them to the sink. I tell him "She's PUKING. Do you really want to handle the stuff she's been drinking out of get it too?" He snatches his hand back with a look of horror and says "GOD, NO!!!" I imagine with the chemo that he went through, he's puked enough to last him a life time.

I had JUST gotten settled back on the couch yet again, when JB starts hollering in the kitchen. I raise my head up and he goes "It's a spider. A REALLY BIG spider." And then in a really quiet voice "Will you come kill it for me???" Uh that would be a big "NO!!!"

I finally got Madi to sleep, and then woke Bob up to sit with her for a while to make sure she didn't throw up any more. It was 3:30am the last time I looked at a clock!!!

At 6:15am the alarm went off and I got up and got ready for work. Singing to myself "I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan...and never, ever let you forget your a Man.....'cause I'm a woooommmmaaannnn!!"

The Persistant Preacher

My kids have always LOVED going to church.

We moved from Oklahoma to Kansas in 2005. When we first moved, we decided to rent a house for a year until we decided which area we wanted to live in permanently.

Just on the other side of our housing addition where our rental house was located was a very small Baptist Church. It was literally in walking distance from the yard. We had been going to church regularly when we lived in Oklahoma, but I knew that we'd be living in the rental house for less that a year. So we would occasionally walk over with the kids and go to this small Baptist Church.

The Preacher was 80 years old if he was a day, and all 20 plus members of the church were elderly. But they were very nice, and it was convienent. Still I wasn't very dedicated about attending, because I knew it was a short term deal.

Living so close to the church also had a serious draw back though. As convenient as it was for us to walk over and go to church, it was just as convenient for the elderly preacher to walk over to visit US and ask why we hadn't been in church in a few weeks.

One Spring day, I had decided to clean out my garage. I had left my pajamas on and didn't have a bra on. But I wasn't expecting company, and didn't think anyone would bother me. I opened the garage door to carry a box to the trash can, and there is the preacher walking up the drive way.

Drats!!! He's already seen me, so there's no way that I can dodge him. AND he's caught me in my pjs without a bra on!!! So I'm already mortified!!

He comes into the garage, and as usual the kids swarm around us to see if we have anything interesting that they need to listen in on. The Preacher starts in with his usual "Well, I haven't seen you and your kids in church for a couple of weeks. I just thought I'd stop by to make sure everything is okay."

Frank is standing there listening to us talk and he chimes in "You know, I ask my Mom to take us to church ALL the time. And she always just tells me No!!!" I almost died of embarrassment. LOL.

Karma will always bite you in the butt eventually

My Mom kept the three girls Thursday - Saturday last week. Libby started throwing up on Saturday night. My Mom said that Libby was the best sick kid ever. When she got ready to throw up, she'd calmly remove her night gown, take her glasses off, pull her hair back and then throw up. She said she was really low maintanence.

Secretly, in my mind, I though. "I am SO tired right now. I am SO glad that I didn't have to deal with that."

Well Karma came back to bite me in the butt big time last night. At 1:30am, I heard someone running into my bedroom, and then heard the sound that all Mom's recognize immediately. I thought "Oh no, someone's going to hurl!!!"

Sure enough, Madi threw up all over my bedroom floor. And she'd had red carpet-staining Kool-aide for dinner last night. She threw up all over my bedroom floor, all over her bed, and all over her bedroom floor. And the Diva is definitely NOT low maintanence.

So that's what I get for my secret mean little thought. LOL. The Princess is feeling much better today!

Jamie Lynn Spears

The other day I was watching TV with the little girls. We were watching Zoey In The Middle or Zoey 100....which ever show that has Jamie Lynn on it.

I commented to Madi "You know, you look like Jamie Lynn Spears." Carlie pipes up "Well I guess you know that Jamie Lynn is pregnant!!!"

Happy Birthday, Carlie!!!

My "Baby" is now five years old. And because Madi and Carlie are less than a year apart, for five weeks, I have TWO five year olds. That makes them Irish Twins.



She had her party at Chuck E Cheese this weekend. I invited 16 kids. I figured that 5 or 6 would show up, but she had 11 kids there! She had such a great time. She danced with her little friends. We ate pizza and played games. She got tons of Hannah Montana stuff and Polly Pockets.



When the party was over she hunted up each of her friends and hugged them goodbye.



Now that she's five and so grown up and all, she has informed us that she's too old to sleep in her toddler bed. So we are just going to have to get her a new one. She's also under the impression that since she's now five years old that she gets to go to Kindergarten next week and go to school all day every day. She's going to be really disappointed when she figures out that she can't start Kindergarten until this Fall.



Memaw and Pepaw Pool came to the party. They took Libby home with them. Memaw bought her a sewing machine and is going to teach her to sew this week. Frank is going with Granny and Papaw Morgan this week to Kentucky to visit my Sister.

Two's company, but not in a revolving door.

I normally post about my kids. But tonight I got an email from an old friend. And I had to post about one of the funniest things that every happened to me at work.

About 8 years ago, I got my first job as a Supervisor. I was asked to build a production support team, and that meant interviewing and hiring a couple of employees. Josh was THE VERY FIRST person that I ever interviewed. My first impression of Josh was that he was very large and athletic looking (He's probably 6'4" and has the build of a football player), very smart and pretty quiet. And he's fresh out of college.

He showed up for the first day of work, and told me right away that the company had issued him two checks for his moving expenses. They'd accidentally paid him twice. I was really impressed with his honesty!! I told him that we needed to go talk to HR to get it straightened out, and that HR was in another building that was serveral blocks away.

Instead of trying to give him complicated instructions about how to find the build and the office, I decided that I'd just walk him over there. It was a hot sticky day in August. The front of our building had a revolving door entrance.

Leading the way, I stepped into the revolving door. And instead of waiting for the next slot in the door, he got in the revolving door WITH me. WHAM, the door comes to a sharp halt and we ping pong back and forth against the front and back panels a couple of times. LOL.

Now we have ANOTHER problem. We are crammed into a revolving door together like sardines in a can and we are stopped. We had so little room, that we had to take teeny tiny baby shuffle steps to get going again!! I felt like I was on a Saturday Night Live skit. LOL.

Poor Josh, once we got out of there, his face was beet red.

Josh's first week doesn't get alot better though. Our building has a parking garage. And the only open parking spots are on the roof. So you have to drive through the entire parking garage to get to the top to park. There are signs in the garage that warn you to please turn your lights on while inside the garage.

Well Josh is driving an old junker college kid car. And apparently the warning bell that lets you know you left your lights on doesn't work in his old car. So he turns his lights on to drive through the garage, gets to the top...its sunny....he doesn't realize he left his lights on....and his warning bell doesn't work!!!

I'm sitting there at the end of his second day of work and Josh shows up at my desk. He goes "Mmmm....Julie....I need your help." So the first day, he gets in the revolving door with me, the second day....I have to jump his car. Poor Josh!!

I actually had to jump his car a couple more times in the following weeks. LOL. He did it, not just once, but SEVERAL times. As soon as he got his first paycheck, he went out and bought a new car!

Josh turned out to be a GREAT employee. He did a fine job, and I always enjoyed working with him. I got to attend his wedding, and he has two little boys now who are as cute as bugs in a rug.

This is what Josh has to say about the revolving door incident

"I am glad I gave you a story to break the ice with your new employees. I also have a story that I get to tell anytime somebody asks "What is your most embarrassing moment?" It always gets the most laughs out of all the stories. Any time we go through a revolving door, my wife still starts laughing or makes some sort of gesture like she is going to get in with me. It never gets old....for her. :-) "

I'm glad you keep in touch Josh :0)

Big Boys Throw Fits Too.

I often talk about my little boy's tantrums. Well today, my big boy threw one. What is pictured above is the remains of his alarm clock.

I KNOW that he's really tired from working so many hours at his new job. But Bob tried to get him up for school this morning, and he wouldn't get up. I tried to get him up nicely. When that didn't work, I put his alarm clock on a static station and turned it up WAY loud and left.

He threw his alarm clock on the floor and then stomped on it. Then he slammed his bedroom door and the bathroom door.

I told him that he will come home with a new alarm clock tonight or more than just the alarm clock will hit the fan!!!!

Some things are not supposed to be crunchy.

Frank and Libby are 8 and 9 now, and I've let them start cooking a few things on their own. Frank woke me up this morning to ask if he could scramble some eggs for breakfast. I sleepily told him yes.

Later in the day I asked Madi how her breakfast was. She said "Well we had eggs, but they weren't very good!!" I asked her what was wrong with them and she said "Well they were crunchy!!!"

Hmmm....guess they got some shells in the eggs.

My Hero is....

Frank and my Dad have always been close. They both like to work on things together.

When Frank was in Kindergarten his homework one night was to draw a picture of his Hero to submit to a Poster Contest. Well he decided he would draw his Pawpaw with his fire truck. So he draws a stick figure in pink...because pink is Mr. Mobley's favorite shirt. Mr. Mobely was Frank's Principal. I am looking at the picture and there is something in the middle of Pawpaw...so I ask what that is and he tells me *Well Mom, those are Pawpaw's balls and pecker.* In that Duh tone of voice.

Soooo I told him he'd better draw some pants over Pawpaw. So I ask him what color are Pawpaw's eyes, and he makes them blue. Then I say *Don't forget to give Pawpaw some black hair.* and he goes *Well Mom, why? Because really his hair is gray.*

If that doll had just kept her legs shut....

We signed the papers on our current home two years ago on Carlie's third birthday.

With in a month she had flooded our basement. I was getting dressed for work one morning when Libby hollers from the basement "Mom, there's some water in the floor down here!!!" I grab a bath towel and head downstairs. About halfway across the basement "Squish, squish, squish" Okay, I think, I'm going to need something ALOT bigger than a towel.

I did not realize that the sink in the downstairs bathroom didn't have an overflow drain. From what we pieced together, Carlie had been giving her Polly Pockets a bath in the sink one night, and had left the faucet on the sink running at EXACTLY the right amount so that no one noticed that it was on, but over the course of the night managed to fill up the basin on the sink AND flood half the basement.

I had to pay a $500 deductible on my insurance and call in the disaster recovery folks to dry out the carpet and the sheet rock.

A few short weeks later, the toilet upstairs gets stopped up. Not completely stopped up, but enough that it does not flush easily. We try everything to fix it. We plunge it with the plunger. We put Draino in it, and try vinegar mixed with baking soda. Nothing works.

So I eventually call a plumber. Now being new to the area, I didn't know any of the plumbers, so I pick one randomly from the phone book. Loretta is home when they come to fix the toilet.

She said she answered the door to a little old man who was 90 if he was a day. Along with him was his 60 year old daughter and 30 something year old grandson who looked like he'd just been released from the El Dorado Prison. She's a little nervous about the trio, but lets them into the house. She said the old man was so frail and wobbly that she grabbed him by the elbow and steered him to the couch. The woman and her son proceed on to the bathroom to work on the toilet. They end up having to pull the toilet out of the floor. Out of the depths of the toilet he fished out a poop and toilet paper encrusted Ballerina Doll (one of Carlie's fav dolls). He proudly brings it into the living room to wave it under Loretta's nose and asks if she wants to keep it. Ummm...that would be a big NO.

The doll doesn't have any knee joints, and is in a sitting position. The plumber tells Loretta. "Well, if that doll had just kept her legs shut, you wouldn't a had a problem!!! She woulda gone right on down!!!"

So that was another $100. In about two months time, Carlie cost us $600. But she's worth every penny. I wouldn't trade her for a blue speckled pup!