Thursday, June 20, 2013

My week...in summary

I meant to write a post or two last week, but the boys had VBS, and then then Busy Chick turned 4 and had a party, and then the boys grandparents came and whisked them away to a far away place for 4 nights...and I.am.in.heaven....but before I tell you all what heaven is like...I'll sum up last week....

-VBS 5 days in a row...and I am the opposite of on time...always...have been my entire life....poor little Brainy Chick would LOVE to be on time all the time, and well....it's just never going to happen.  He actually considers it a treat, if you will, when we are on time...that's how rarely it happens!  So....back to VBS...we are pretty much late to VBS 4 of the 5 days...but never fear...since I'm always late, I'm quite ok with it!

-day 2 of VBS Brainy Chick and Busy Chick are actually ready, and almost on time...and then Chickette climbs up into the learning tower...and I'm out of the room, and hear a loud sound....so I ask the boys what it was...and they both say " Chickette fell out of the learning tower"....now...for those of you that are unfamiliar with learning towers, the lowest point of a learning tower is at least 18 inches off the ground....and she fell out of it somewhere...and then she held her breath, ran to me, and right before she got there, she fainted...out.cold....did I call 911?  NO...why you ask....well, I've been schooled in kids that faint by Busy Chick...he does this too....so I actually knew that she probably would faint...she came too, I gave her a minute, and we loaded up for VBS...late.again.....

-days 3, 4, and 5 of VBS go off w/out a hitch....

-day 5 of VBS we have 2 friends over after VBS to help their mama and I, rather ambitiously, decide to take them to the local farm...I give them my warning of "go to the potty now b/c I am NOT going in the portojohn with you...NOT NOT NOT"....all 4 kids in underpants say they are fine...we go play, and Busy Chick decides he needs to pee...being the class act I am, I found him a lovely looking tree....then Brainy Chick decides he needs to pee....and we find another tree....then our little friend, who is NOT a boy, decides SHE needs to pee....and since I am ill equipped in how to help a little girl pee in the woods, I sent her to the portojohn...ALONE....because they were all warned that I was NOT NOT NOT going in there..and I mean what I say!

-Birthday party day for Busy Chick...he is in FULL on gimme gimme gimme mode...he had his party at the farm...they have a little cow train at this farm...we are all getting ready to go on it, and one of our friends realizes she has lost her 3 year old...SEE...this stuff doesn't just happen to me!  All of the party except the missing kid go on the cow train....when we find him he goes on it too!

-night time at our house lately is a TOTAL show...I actually HATE bedtime because all I want is for Brainy and Busy Chick to get in their beds, be quiet, and go to sleep....I do not want them to ask for a snack, I do not want them to tell me what they are scared of, and I do not appreciate it at all when they come out of their room together, after being in there for less than 3 minutes, and tell me about a really bad dream they have had....so....Busy Chick had decided earlier in the week that the ONLY thing that was going to help him fall asleep was his brothers stuffed animal called Foosa...well, we only have one of those, so after trying everything else, I give in and reason with Brainy Chick to give Busy Chick his Foosa...because let's face it, we all want him to go the f*%k to sleep....RIGHT??  So we get through that night, and I'm an idiot, so I truck to not 1, not 2, but 3 different stores the next day in search of Foosa...find the thing...only to have Busy Chick tell me that night, in hysterics, that he NEEDED an alligator...well...guess what...we don't own one...and we can't just go buy things that Brainy Chick demands every single night can we....so since then...we have had 2 crying hysterics over an alligator...that we still do not have.....
 

This week the boy chicks are visiting their granparents for 4 days...and my next post will be all about how foolish I was when I just had one child and thought I was busy!  Until then....

Mama Hen....

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

the story of my actual chickens...

We are not farmers.  Not good ones anyways.  Back in March, The Rooster finished up our chicken coop, and we got 12 pullets and installed them into the coop.  In case you are not familiar with the world of chickening, a pullet is a chicken that is not a baby, but isn't laying just yet...around 16 weeks of age.  We decided on pullets because while yes, baby chicks are cute, for about 2 weeks, I have a baby child, and a baby boxer in my house, and combining such things with Busy Chick is certain to end in the demise of baby chicks...so we picked chickens that could just go straight outside.  Anyways...back to the birds....we got 12.  One night we didn't get out there quite early enough to lock them all in, I think it had been raining, and they wandered around too late....and then there were 11...same thing happened a few weeks later...we had a sitter for the children Chicks, and the bird chicks were still out eating worms in the yard, so we left them out...went to put them up that night...and then there were 10.  Last week I was playing in the yard with the children Chicks (this gets hard when I talk about my kids and the actual birds all in one post, but try to keep up) in the yard and I saw a large SUV slow to a stop in front of our house...and then reverse to the driveway and pull in.  I was actually expecting her to fuss at me for my birds being near the road..but she was kindly coming to tell me that she had just hit a chicken, and she was so sorry....I of course assured her that it wasn't her fault...and my next call, after telling The Rooster that then there were 9, was to the general store to order 3 more chickens...and now there are 12 again.  We had been cooping them since the tragic not making it across the road event last week, but in a coop is really no way to live when you have so much room to roam on, so The Rooster and I have decided to let the girls out of the coop, and we realize that by doing this, we may see our numbers dwindle again, but that they will at least be happier chickens for us doing it.  They will also eat less feed, b/c they are roaming around getting feed like they are made to do, and they will make less poop in the coop for The Rooster to clean up, b/c they will be out in the yard pooping there...so...win.win...happy chickens, happy The Rooster = Happy Mama Hen!

Here's hoping that we don't have any chickens crossing the road, and that the foxes are well enough fed at this point to leave these girls alone! 

I forgot to mention that Marley the Boxer has gotten after them a few times but so far hasn't taken anyone down....yet.  I can't tell if she can not catch one, or if she just enjoys the thrill of the chase. I'm sure at some point Busy Chick, Brainy Chick, or Chickette will accidentally release her into the yard when the chickens are out and we will get to see again if she can or can't catch a bird!

Now you know the story of my actual chickens....if you're wondering why we have them, it's for the fresh eggs...you simply cannot beat a farm fresh egg and we even took it up a notch and these ladies are non-soy, non-gmo fed chickens...so we get fancy eggs!

Any questions??

Mama Hen

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Stuff my Chicks Say...

People, trust me, I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried!

-at the allergists office with all 3 chicks...I was getting allergy tested, and had to take of my shirt and bra to put on one of those open back napkin thingys....Brainy and Busy in unison "Mama Hen, we can see your boooobies"....thank you boys....

-getting out of the pool for swim lessons I am quickly drying the kids off and hustling them to the restroom where we go to get dressed, and Brainy Chick announces "man, I peed in that pool a LOT today".....

-Brainy Chick was digging pretty good in his nose one night not too long ago and I told him to please stop letting me see him pick his nose....he replied by informing me that he picks his boogers AND eats them all the time when he's in his bed.....

-playing in the yard one day last week for some reason Busy Chick and I were, yet again, discussing whether or not girls have a penis.  Busy Chick looks at me and says "Mama Hen, I know you have a penis because I've seen you pee in the bathroom before and you can't pee if you don't have a penis"...I haven't bothered to take the time to explain to him what my special area is called because I do not care to hear the word VAGINA said loudly and often throughout my day...


If your chicks say funny things too, I'd love to hear them...surely I'm not the only parent whose very loud children make me blush on a daily basis!

Mama Hen

Friday, June 7, 2013

grocery store...with 3 kids...


You can tell by the post that what is about to transcend was nothing but bad ideas all around.  Let me confirm for you that taking 3 children to the grocery store, AT NOON, was a HORRIBLE and terribly STUPID idea...please learn from my mistakes!  

Preschool has been out since last week, and since I, Mama Hen, often think I am SuperMom, I didn't think about how and when I would grocery shop this week with all of my sweet, quiet, and obedient Chicks in tow....So, here were were on a Friday morning, with an end of season T-ball party being held at our house on Saturday, and we were also almost out of milk...an upcoming cook-out and no milk can only mean one thing...I was due for a trip to the grocery store.  The two older Chicks had gymnastics AND swimming, so after running them ragged for 90 minutes and getting them good and hungry, I offered them cake pops as a shopping treat...you know....load the starving children up for sugar is definitely the key to great behavior...NOT!  Anyways...as we are going aisle by miserable aisle, Busy Chick is grabbing every single thing he can get his little 4 year old fingers on, telling me he is REALLY hungry for that thing (for example, croutons) and it's his FAVORITE thing...so no, after no, after no, we are on our merry way to the middle of the store...at this point, we've probably been in the store for a solid 15 minutes and Chickette has decided that the huge double seating car cart is no longer suiting her needs, and has begun to stand up and attempt to exit it...while Brainy Chick is talking non-stop about something, and Busy Chick is grabbing eggs off the shelves for me to hard boil...I took a quick moment to explain to him that since we have chickens we do not BUY eggs anymore, asked Brainy Chick to be quiet for a few minutes, and then offered Chickette the choice of sitting in the car seat buckled or unbuckled...her very loud "NO" assured me that buckled was the way to go...and for the next 30 minutes of our shopping experience, she could be heard throughout the entire store.  Yep, that's us...we spread joy and sunshine to everyone we meet!  Or maybe just laughs, "i've been there and done that smiles of sympathy", and possibly even an unknowing touch of birth control to some silly love struck teenagers that were thinking of making some bad choices tonight....to their parents...you're welcome!  

We did survive this trip, and I do NOT intend to take these 3 Chicks shopping with me ever again...until we are out of milk!

Mama Hen

just a Thursday....


There was nothing remarkable about this day...it was just a Thursday.  Brainy Chick and Busy Chick have been enrolled in swim school all week in the morning, and our plan was to go visit a local farm to run some steam out of the kids with a friend.  It was raining on the way home, so we decided to meet our friend at our house to play instead.  Here's what happened next....

Brainy Chick came running upstairs and into the kitchen where my friend and I had 3 of the 6 kids at the house eating lunch....Brainy Chick said "Mama Hen, Busy Chick has taken his pants AND underwear off in the toy room and peed on a game"....um...whatdidyoujustsaytome?  It's important to note here that Brainy Chick is a wonderful narc...one of the best...this is a trait I find very difficult because while I want to teach Brainy not to always be telling on Busy, there are some things that a Mama Hen NEEDS to know...like when one of her overly impulsive chicks has dropped his draws in our playroom and decided to pee pee on a game....go ahead and laugh, this.is.my.life....and the child was just getting started with his day!

The next thing Busy Chick decided to do was unravel the carpet on the stairs leading down to the toy room.  After that, he unraveled about 3 feet worth of duct tape...which I may or may not have tried to tie him up with...you will never know!  After that, Chickette was playing with a few of her baby dolls and put one of them in the shower...the shower that was NOT running...and I asked her "are you giving your baby a bath" and she shook her head "yes" because she doesn't say "yes" yet....and her brothers then said " we want to see"....so like any prepared and expecting mother, I said "DO NOT TURN THE WATER ON"...I'm sure you can see where this is going...Busy Chick sure did turn the water on her baby doll and soak her all up.....

Luckily, The Rooster got home at a reasonable hour yesterday and sensed my frustration with the middle chick, and took them all downstairs to play for a while.  

Whew...stay tuned....more of my days are like this than not!

Mama Hen

Introducing....

Hello....I'm "Mama Hen"....I have 3 kids...a 5 year old boy, an almost 4 year old boy, and a 22 month old little girl...for the sake of internet safety, let's call them Brainy Chick, Busy Chick, and Chickette...I'm sure you'll see why soon enough!

I am creating this blog as a place to keep my stories about these little chicks....if it happens to be entertaining to you to read what my every day is like...laugh it up!  Maybe I'll make you feel a little less frazzled...or disorganized, or forgetful :)

A little history of us....we live on a small farm somewhere pretty, we have the 3 human chicks, myself and my husband....for the sake of this blog, we'll call him The Rooster....please note that we do not have any actual roosters at this house, so when I refer to The Rooster, I am actually referring to my husband!  Seems easy enough right...well, maybe....we have 12 chickens...I'll talk about them on here often....our adventures in chicken farming are comical at best!  We also have 2 dogs, I'll let them keep their real names...Marley is our boxer puppy...she just turned 1, and Tucker is our blind as a bat in the daytime Jack Russell...they make an interesting pair!  We have a cat that lives under our front porch, b/c that's what happens when you live out in the country...he/she doesn't have a name, and we don't feed him/her...I assume he/she eats mice and moles...truth be told, I fed it kitten food once in an effort to tame it and it ran off never to be seen again for weeks...I was pretty sure it lost the battle of survival of the fittest out here, until I saw it catting around on our property....Lastly, we have bees...in a hive....that's new to us, and I'm not sure if they're even doing what bees are supposed to be doing at this point....but I feel it necessary to include them in our inventory because they will probably, at some point, be the source of something funny!

Now that I've told you who's here...I will tell you that I'm a stay at home Hen...I also like to call myself a photographer...although raising Brainy Chick, Busy Chick, and Chickette are my first priority.

About the Chicks...

Brainy Chick is almost 5 1/2 years old....he is...well...brainy....he's very smart, and some might even call him a know it all! One day a few months ago, Brainy Chick set out to see how high he could count on the phone to my mom, she got off the phone with him at 650, and he kept going until he got to 950...and I did not help him except to hold his place for him if Busy Chick interrupted and made him forget where he was!  This kid proves to me that some people are just science and math people...I was not...he is.   He's going to Kindergarten in the fall, and no, even though I live in the country, I do not homeschool...that's great if you do, I have nothing against it...but Brainy Chick likes to argue...he particularly likes to argue with Mama Hen...so at this point, I felt that him going away to learn fun things was in everyones best interest!   Brainy Chick is finishing his first ever season of T-ball...just to give you an idea of where his heart truly is, I asked him if he wanted to play T-ball again next year and he said "nope, I want to do Science....Mama Hen, I want to do science experiences (he means experiments)  those are the best!"......Brainy Chick is also the kid that takes it all in, and he's recently gotten funny...or at least so he thinks.  He thinks it's hysterical to say "Mama Hen, I just vomited"....WHAT?  Then he follows that up with " I'm just kidding..."....um, yeah...real funny kiddo!

Busy Chick will be 4 years old in less than 2 weeks and he is BUSY. Don't get me wrong, he's also very smart...but he's as busy as he is smart. When he's tired, he gets especially busy.  He idolizes his big brother, and I a little bit fear that he'll be somewhat lost without him next year when Brainy Chick is off at school 5 days a week.   Busy Chick can be the sweetest kid ever...and often lays a smooch on my arm, and then says "Mama Hen, I just kiss-ded you"....but, every sweet side has a rotten side for this chick....when he's in time-out, he spits...and that pushes my buttons and ruffles my feathers in a way that I never thought possible.  I've tried EVERYTHING to make this spitting spot...I've ignored it, he spits more, I've put soap in his mouth...didn't really deter him much at all, we've done time-out, spanking (yes I spank, leave now if you have a problem with that)....the one thing I have found that worked is I made him sit out for the first 5 minutes of his gymnastics class when he spat in my car on the way there...he hated that, and it was very effective.  Busy Chick LOVES his baby sister, and he LOVES his dogs...he will actually weep if Tucker won't lay with him.  Marley's still, well, a boxer puppy, so she's not a reliable snuggler just yet.  You will be hearing about Busy Chicks games later on...he's always got something up his sleeve.

Chickette will be 2 in about 2 months and she's starting early.  She was a VERY easy and laid back baby, like Brainy Chick, but she's taking on some of Busy Chicks more stubborn traits as of late, so I'm not entirely sure what's going on with her right now.  She doesn't talk much...but is picking up new words daily.  Brainy Chick sat her down on his bed today with all of his bedtime buddies and began to teach her to talk...and it actually worked, so like any good mother, I praised them both and video taped this monumental occasion!   Chickette is funny, and can be quiet when she wants to be...you can be with her for hours and not hear her make a peep....but, strap that lady into a shopping cart at the grocery store and you WILL hear her in all corners of the store...and if you happen to be her unlucky Mama Hen, you will receive the "oh you poor thing" stares, or even better yet the "what were you thinking bringing 3 kids those ages to the store, have you no sense" stares...those are my favorites.  Chickette sleeps like a dream at night, but can take or leave a nap during the day.  She also thinks she's between 3-5 years old.  She likes to wear dresses, which is just fun for me because I am so enjoying dressing a girl up!  She also likes to play in the mud...see...every side of my little coins has a flip side as well!  Chickette is no longer afraid of our actual chickens...she started out afraid of them...can't say that I blame her since Brainy Chick and Busy Chick hand fed them worms, they come running when they see people....but now, she chases them and tries to pet their feathers.  She also loves to read.

The Rooster doesn't really need much of an introduction...he works for a job, does farmy outside things on the weekends, loves spending time with his family, is amazingly handy, and is a huge supporter of me and my photographic ambitions!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoy your visit!

Mama Hen