Last night…

“I wanna look at moon.”

I carry Peanut outside.

“Dere’s da moon. She’s shiny. We blast off rocket and touch moon. Mommy, Daddy Peanut, Lily, kitties. C’mon Daddy. C’mon Lily. C’mon kitties. Let’s go. Blast off rocket. Fly moon.”

I tell Peanut it’s time to go back inside.

“Goodnight moon. Goodnight airplane. Goodnight stars. Goodnight storms.”

Once we're inside, Hubby asks Peanut if he remembers the moon’s name.

“Lisa?”

We remind him that it’s Luna.

“Oooooh, dat’s right. Luna.”

***

This morning we saw clouds on the horizon...

“I see big clouds.”

“Yes, they’re fluffy.”

“They soft. They have big tummies.”

***

At an intersection…

“Left.”

“We have to go right.”

“Go left. No go school. Go backwards.”

Hubby is much happier to be on patrol. The stress is less, hours more predictable, and he feels like he’s making a difference rather than being involved after the fact. That’s not to say he didn’t feel satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment getting a confession from a killer, but by then someone is already dead.

His detective experience has made him more proactive as a beat cop. He often goes a little further in trying to find people or get info when he’s on a call. In the span of a week, he arrested two sets of kids for possession of guns. Who knows if they would have done anything with them, but he feels better that the guns were removed and the kids got a little scare into them.

He also helped prevent a murder (a man hid in a place he knew his ex would be and planned to snipe her) and arrested another man who assaulted his ex with the intent of killing her, but was unable to do it.

It worried me that he deals with shitbags like this on a daily basis - people do not value life. At the same time, it relieves me that he gets them off the streets. I hope the two men who planned murders go away for a long, long time.

We at chez selzach are not very religious folk. I waffle on my beliefs (was raised protestant, but am not sure if I believe in a higher power), Hubby believes in God, but isn't much on church. We occasionally make references to God and Peanut's daycare is run by a baptist church, so they have bible stories and say a blessing before lunch.

Hubby and I would like to teach him a prayer to say at night, but the only ones we know make strong references to death. "Now I lay me...." It's not something we really want to teach our toddler. I doubt he has any concept of death and it's not something we're in a hurry to explain.

I came across an adorable book of blessings, prayers and poems at Hallmark. Peanut loves to "read" it (look at the pictures). Most nights he gives me his dinosaur book while he reads the other one. I read one of the prayers to him, and he was interested.

"Mommy, where God live?"

"God lives in heaven."

"God is really big."

Wow. God is everything, so I guess you could say that.

The kitties have a new dog house for shelter. I don’t know why we didn’t think of it sooner!

The cats were banished to the back porch earlier this year after we got fed up with them peeing on the carpet in our office, occasionally spraying our living room furniture, and clawing holes in said carpet and furniture. The peeing had gotten out of control. We got to the point of laying plastic garbage bags in front of the litter boxes and we’d come home to puddles of urine on them. It was filthy.

The carpet still smells and I’m sure the only way we’ll ever get rid of the odor is to tear it out. We’ve probably spent $150 on various enzymatic cleaners with moderate success.

We love the cats, but couldn’t handle the mess, so out they went. We asked around if anyone wanted cat or 5, but had no takers and our local shelter has a 70-90% kill rate, so it wasn’t an option.

Our back porch is only screened, and Florida summers are full of violent thunderstorms. We placed several cat carriers out for shelter, but rain would blow in the openings. The poor things would get wet and scared. This weekend it hit me – why not buy a dog house?

The cats love it. They can lie on the roof and doze, and when the weather is bad most of them snuggle up together inside. Perfect!

We would eventually like to enclose the porch…if only the home improvement fairy would wave her wand! Maybe she’d replace the funky carpet, too.

Hubby’s return to patrol has increased his interactions with colorful people.

He recently arrested someone with a warrant for a decade of unpaid child support. The man claimed he was no longer a US citizen, had mailed his birth certificate to the Treasury Dept. and was now “sovereign’ because of his beefs with our government. Too bad that doesn’t exempt him from back support.

As Hubby was filling out the booking-in forms, he commented “So, you’re not a US citizen, right?” The guy got real quiet and nervous. “OK, I checked ‘not a citizen’. I hope you don’t get deported.”

We and several of Hubby’s co-workers had a good laugh over it.

On a serious note, the guy got what he deserved. I have no respect for men who refuse to support their children.

A little girl from Peanut’s daycare died last week following complications from nearly drowning. I’m heartbroken for the family. We didn’t know her, she was a year younger than Peanut and in a different room. We may have passed her in the mornings or evenings without realizing it. I may have smiled at her, not knowing she would soon be gone.

Hubby was working the day she was found. He was relieved he didn’t get the call. He’s been around so much death in the past two years and it affected him, us. Little did we know she was a school mate.

Daycare had a special memorial up today. Everyone was invited to write their wishes. What do you say? I wrote that I was sorry for their loss and wished them peace. It’s not enough, nothing is.

Peanut the photographer has been at it again.

One of the airplanes in his room:


A self-portrait:


Me in the shower (I'm so glad I haven't gotten around to de-scaling the glass.)

Cool! StaceyG considers me a





Thanks, Stacey!

These are 5 bloggers who I think fit the bill:

Mommymatic who can take the mundane and make it hilarious. And I think our sons were separated at birth.

Cheeky who is a kickass mama to two little boys. She balances single motherhood, her artistic endeavors, and work.


Mountain Mama who followed her (and her family’s) dreams to live in the mountains. She’s had some wonderful surprises along the way.

Dawn, the guru of child development. And creator of several wonderful blogs.

Redneck Mommy who doesn’t hold back.

Peanut is bossy, usually with me. A conversation we regularly have goes like this:

“I want apple juice!”

“What do you say?”

“Pleaaaaase.”

“Your juice is on the table. You can go get it.”

“YOU GET IT!!”

“I’m sitting down. If you want your juice, you can get it.”

“NO! YOU GO GET IT! YOU’RE NOT NICE!”

***
This morning he told Hubby he wanted sausage and pancakes for breakfast. Hubby obliged.

“I don’t want sausage ‘n pancakes. I want cheesy crackers.”

Hubby pours some crackers on his plate.

“NOT ON MY PLATE. INNA BOWL!”

Peanut continues to have rough mornings on the days I take him to daycare. We somehow survive getting dressed, eating breakfast, and the dreaded tooth-brushing routine. He is usually fairly happy to get into the car, but once we pull out of the driveway, he acts sad. When I ask how he's feeling he says either sad or tired.

I try to converse with him which tends to be one-sided. He either ignores me, or responds to everything with a soft little "no."

So I work a little harder at engaging him. I ask him what he sees out the window. Or I tell him what I see, which inevitably gets a soft "no" or a loud "No, I see it!"

Lately I've started "seeing" outlandish things like a herd of singing giraffes, or elephants playing drums, or somesuch. Peanut always agrees that he sees them, too and comments on them. They're loud, silly, naughty, or whatever. This morning he joined in on the game and saw monkeys playing trumpets and baby monkeys playing trombones.

It made for a nice ride to daycare.

Crappy customer service continued....

I exchanged a few more emails with the rep until he understood what was missing. He seemed annoyed at first, since all items were listed as shipped on the invoice. I had to explain that yes, they were listed on the invoice, but I only received 3 out of the 4 items. He agreed to send the missing reagents.

The shipment arrived yesterday. With duplicates of two items I already received. And missing the reagents AGAIN. Which were listed as shipped on the invoice.

Oy veh.

There is one vendor I can’t stand dealing with (for work.) Their customer service is crap, unless you’re buying something expensive, when suddenly they fall over themselves trying to help.

On an average year, our lab spends about $8-10 grand with them. I’m sure that’s small peanuts, but when you add up all the labs at Big University who do business with them, it probably runs into the millions. One would think that sort of business would inspire decent service.

We purchased a specialized piece of equipment from them a few years ago. The cost could have funded a small house. We received multiple phone calls and emails each week while in the process of getting specs, quotes, and finally ordering the thing. With the purchase came a $1500 credit account to purchase consumables. Once the machine arrived, our rep fell off the face of the earth. It took MONTHS to get the credit account set up.

To sweeten the deal further, shipping ran from $50-$75 per order. For items on ice or which required no special handling. (I can get shipments on dry ice for less from other companies.)

So, I’ve been trying to get samples for two kits for a week. Each kit retails for about $750.00, and we don’t know how they’ll work, so we want to test them out before purchasing one. With most companies, you get samples for free or a small fee with a simple call. Not with them. I was forwarded to the sales rep’s voice mail. Heard nothing for nearly a week. Emailed him. Got a response that his colleague in another department already handled it. Wrote back that I haven’t heard anything from said colleague.

Finally, I actually got a phone call from the rep. He said he'd make sure I get the samples for free. He knew which lab I was from and noted we have been good customers.

The samples arrived the next day. Missing a box of reagents. Back to email it is....

You know you live in redneck country when a 4-wheeler speeds down the road in front of your workplace complete with a dude up front and his barefoot girlfriend on back. And it looks like they’re planning to continue onto the 4-lane divided highway up the road.

You know you really live in redneck country when upon hearing this story, your husband’s reply is “Oh, that’s nothing. THIS is redneck…”

Hubby, his sergeant, and assorted other emergency vehicles, including an ambulance, were at the scene of something-or-other next to a gas station. A lady pulls up to one of the pumps on a 4-wheeler. With her 3 kids piled on back. She proceeds to fill ‘er up while SMOKING A CIGARETTE.

Really, really dumb thing to do. And even dumber to do it in front of cops.