Mom gets stuck holding the dog dish

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Friday morning 7:30 AM I’m kneeling at Kylie’s long legs sewing up a skirt slit that is not Bible college approved before she and Hayley go to their second day of a dual enrollment  8:00 Algebra class. A borrowed skirt from oldest sister Taryn who is five inches shorter than Kylie and not at all the same build, and I ask,  “How in the world are you wearing this?”  “Well I guess Taryn just had it a long time and doesn’t wear it anymore, it fits me now.” “Taryn STILL WEARS THIS SKIRT, Kylie! That’s what I don’t get, you two are built nothing alike!” “I don’t know, maybe it’s like the ‘Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants’, it fits whoever puts it on!” (Kylie LOVES that movie.) Taryn has had this skirt for literally YEARS.  We have gone round and round about the slit.  On Taryn’s short legs, the slit goes pretty high.  I put a safety pin in it when she first got the skirt – every time she wore it, the safety pin moved up.  I’d tell her to move it down – “Mom, it’s FINE!” I’d wash the thing, move the pin down, she’d wear it, move it back up.  I notice this morning the pin is completely gone, and there are zero safety pins in the house, save a tiny one from a sewing kit – that’s not gonna hold jean material together.  I get a needle and thread and start to work, happening to be right near Penelope’s feeding dishes.  She gets ALL excited that I’m there near her stuff and close to her on the floor and she’s all up in my buisness.  I try to shove her snorting, long tongued, excited body off me which makes her even more happy  because I touched her. I’m striving to make nice, tiny stitches, and Kylie says, “Uh, Mom, are we gonna have time for this?!”  The stitches begin to get bigger and sloppier, Penelope head butts me a couple more times, Hayley suggests another skirt she’s found, and I’m insistent we’re doing this.  10 minutes later they’re off – and not one animal has been fed or walked.

Guess who pours a cup of coffee and stands in the back yard in pajama shorts and a fleece jacket staring at the dog staring back at me instead of doing her business because she’s so excited that “Mommy’s out here with me!!!” (Side note: my kids take care of their animals, that’s the deal. Period.)

All of a sudden, it’s raining right where I’m standing but nowhere else!  I look to a tall tree above me in the surrounding woods, a squirrel running through it’s branches, shaking the leaves.  I move, Penelope turns from her business to stare at me some more and make sure I’m not leaving her.  “Hurry up, you dumb dog!!” I yell back.  She stares for another solid minute to make sure I’m not going anywhere before she turns back around to finish her morning doody.

A cat screams from somewhere on the porch – I turn just in time to see  Amelia Earhart getting mounted by Peanut, and she is NOT havin’ it, claws flying.  Yes, I said Amelia Earhart, that’s the name my son gave her when she showed up a couple of months ago apparently out of thin air (our house is a dumping spot for all animals for some reason, which drives me batty).  Peanut persists, and I am reminded of how much I loathe tom cats. 

Two of the five cats are glaring at me like, “WHERE’S THE FOOD?!?” so I fiinish Penelope (who is pumped because it looks like Mommy is going to get her breakfast now – it’s in the same place as the cat food), distracted, I pour half the cat food in Penelope’s dish, she gets excited to eat cat food, I realize halfway through what I’m doing, snatch up the food dish and chuckle out the door to the cats.

Looks like another day in Paradise – I’d better pour my tired self another cup of coffee!!!