the #1 reason not to have a kiddie pool (aka why no one will ever come play at our house again)

So last evening, Ben was taking way too long to mow and trim. After about an hour an a half I went to find him just to make sure that he wasn't a victim of heat exhaustion. I have to admit i was a little peeved because I had the children all day and I wasn't in the mood to bathe them and get them ready for bed all by myself. I grabbed Ellie and with Izzy in tow we stormed outside. There was Ben by the play area in the back where the pool is with a rake, a shovel, and the stinky trash can. He could tell I was mad but he quickly said "I've got a situation here". Then I watched as he put a looong snake into the trash can with the rake and threw it with force down the hill towards the woods. That is only the 2nd time I've said "oh Sh.." unapologetically in front of a child (the first was when Isabella peed through her swim diaper onto my upholstered chair 2 minutes before we had to leave for swim lessons). Ben said it was a copperhead and that it was pretty aggressive when he cornered it. I am not happy that he thought he could handle the situation (let's call varmint control next time please) but I am glad he found it and not me or the girls. I think I would have died on the spot. He thinks it was attracted to the water in the pool. So goodbye pool for now. We were going to take it down while we were away anyway, but it just might not go up again until Ohio.

chatterbox

The lightbulb has popped on in Ellie's brain and it seems that there are alot of things she has been thinking about. She will now say pretty much any word you ask her to repeat. When she wakes up in the morning or from her nap she now says "want mommy" or "want daddy" instead of crying. She said (I kid you not) "I love Izzybella" the other morning and she is the next person she is looking for after mommy and daddy. Other interesting words she has said are water, medicine, and glasses. She knows every friend of Isabella and hers by name and says them all. She kept saying "Look! Reed! Millie!" at church today (they were sitting in the pews where the good kids sit while my monkeys took the safer," easier to extract them "route of the back section.) She knows all of her Sesame Street characters and a song to go with each (Elmo is Melmo "la la la la"). It is so interesting since Izzy didn't really talk at all until she was 2.

Isabella is big into dancing right now. She won't go to class, but she is learning a little from me and from "So you think you can Dance" episodes that I DVR. She really does feel the music with her whole body and I'm not just saying this because I want her to be a dancer. Today at the Conatser's house she was doing an interpretive dance to the soundtrack of Caddyshack. Not something that everyone can do. The last time we visited Aunt Suzy an SUV rolled by with some heavy bass rap music and she had no problems shakin it for the c-bus. I need to find a dance school in Ohio that teaches contemporary/jazz. That is her genre no doubt. In other developments she is learning how to sound out words and write all of her letters. I am getting nervous about finding her a new preschool.