The Connection Between Hutterite Chicken and Criminal Behavior

....or does Criminal Behavior Run in Families? Hang in there with me for a minute and the connection will be made clear shortly.

Being married to a chiropractor has many benefits, including connections to people around the state that we otherwise wouldn't have. For instance, I am now a true believer in locally raised, grass fed beef and doubt I will ever buy beef from the store again. We also have discovered the wonderfullness that is a Hutterite raised chicken. However, the privilege of having such delicious chicken available puts some serious stress on this Master Chef Wannabe. Hutterite chicken is so special that just roasting one in the oven seems almost criminal, and so I was on an internet search for the perfect way to prepare Beer Can Chicken as Kyle played on his Leapster and Emily looked for woosters in the back yard while banging away on some toys.

"Oh, no! Mama, look what Emmie did. Oh, no!"

No matter how important the perfect Beer Can Chicken recipe may seem at the time, experience should tell me that when my 23 month old daughter has not come to me in the past 5 minutes needing some attention, that I should probably be very worried, but the banging had been consistent, along with her girly jibberish that generally flows freely whenever she is happily engaged in some fun, and so I had no reason to think that I was about to discover what I discovered when I turned around.

I took a deep breath and slowly turned around. That tap-tap-tap-tappity-tap sound I heard earlier? Not a toy. That tap-tap-tap-tappity-tap was the sound of a lotion bottle being emptied, on the floor, on the wall, on the table, on the doll stroller, on my phone ~ pretty much throughout my dining room and living room. 

 "Oh, no, mama, all over your new rug!"

 Kyle was shocked! However, he quickly recovered and immediately began to "cwean up!" At 3 years old he still loves helping and he made sure Emily did her share.

The difference between Kyle's and Emily's forays into artistic expression with forbidden materials is that Emily doesn't enjoy wearing her art like Kyle did (thank you Lord!). But one thing they do have in common? A super cute "uh-oh, so I'm soooo busted" expression

I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing out loud. The absurdity of the fact that she managed to wreak that much havoc with a bottle of lotion while Kyle and I were both in the room with her, combined with the look on her face as Kyle exclaimed "Oh, no!" again and again was just too funny. It all added up to the undeniable realization that I will never learn my lesson! Alas, it is just so much fun to leave things like diaper ointment, lotion and toothpaste within reach of my littles to tempt them and test their willpower. Besides, it all makes for good blogging. And besides, this one clearly wasn't my fault, it was the Hutterite Chicken's fault.

Playing naughty; The good, the bad, and the ugly

"Mama, wanna watch naughty". Huh? "Wanna watch NAUGHTY!!" Naughty is the word of the month. It is used to describe anything that involves fighting with light sabers, hitting, kicking, pushing or knocking things over, but when you are an almost fwee year old little boy, naughty is also soooo much fun.Watch naughty is Kyle-speak for Star Wars movies. Play naughty with pillows indicates not only that you are about to be smacked across the knees or back with a pillow, but that you are expected to reciprocate. In fact, the harder you send Kyle flying, the longer he'll want to play.

 We've played naughty with pillows so much lately that he has even perfected his game face:

The Good: Kyle knows that Emily is too little to play naughty, and he respects that...most of the time. 

The Bad: There is the infrequent attempt at WWF-style wrestling, which surprisingly Emmie enjoys on occasion

The ugly: Regrettably there is a down side to the recent over-use of the term "naughty" in our house, as one member of this family now has the belief that being naughty has an element of fun to it.

Many of you may remember this unfortunate incident involving a tub of super strength diaper rash cream. Once in a life time incident, or recurring nightmare? If you guessed the latter then you win the prize. In the wee hours of Sunday morning I peeked into Kyle's room to check on him on my way to feed Emily. Apparently  he had gone into her room in the middle of the night, retrieved the tub of super-duper-strength butt cream, and returned to his room for a little late night art project. The damage appeared to be minor, a few small spots on the carpet and some smeared on a box of diapers. I took the tub of triple paste and put it in the bathroom, and before I left for work that morning I pulled up directions online for how to remove zinc oxide from carpet, leaving the supplies on the counter so Travis could clean up later. Fast forward to noonish when I arrived back home to find that those few, small spots had some how exponentially expanded to include large areas of carpet in Kyle's bedroom.

I will apologize to those of you who were unable to find any Arm & Hammer baking soda or Dawn dish soap on the store shelves this week, as I did have to use an alarming amount of each of them to remove all of the water-proof butt ointment from the carpet. I am pleased to say that Ky's carpet looks almost like new, and all butt cream is now kept out of reach of little hands. Some day this will be funny. Some day.

The bug strikes the Livesays

This past Sunday was supposed to be relaxing and fun. A weekend off from work, and hopefully a little extra sleep, with a lot more fun time with my family. Kyle crawled into bed with us early Sunday morning, and Emily woke up by 7 so I brought her into bed with us. Little did I know how much of a mistake that was, with poor darling Emmie paying the price. I was in bed with the itty bitties, watching Kyle doing his best to teach Emily his best wrestling moves after Travis got up to get some breakfast. Emily was laying on her back with Kyle sitting by her head and he started coughing. Instinct kicked in and as I was reaching to grab her Kyle leaned over and threw up. Unfortunately my protective instinct was still waking up and I was too late to save Emily from being the victim of her brother's upset stomach. Kyle spent the day laying on the couch, watching movie, faithfully carrying his bucket around with him all day. While Emily got sick that night, it was short lived and I am happy to say the itty bitties bounced back in no time.

In the wee hours of Wednesday morning Mama and Daddy realized they were not so lucky. I'll spare you the details, and instead share with you some of the chaos that ensued while Travis and I were for the most part incapacitated on the couch or the floor.

Kyle took advantage of the lax security to try his hand at film making, his skill far out shines mine as he knows how to add a soundtrack to his clips!

By the end of the day Kyle and Emily tried to make Mama and Daddy feel better by putting on a show

Since it is a rare occurrence for mama and daddy to both be home, at the same time, for the whole day, you might expect for Kyle to become a little miffed at the fact that it was a completely boring day. I'm not gonna lie, with the way we felt the poor kids were lucky to have eaten most of the day. I will admit that it wasn't the most nutritiously sound day, but he did eat pancakes with blueberries in them as well as 1.5 baby carrots so it wasn't all that bad. I wouldn't have even blamed him for engaging in some inappropriate attention seeking behavior. The only melt down of the day happened at naptime when "daddy turned off naughty!" (naughty is what Kyle calls Star Wars, which he had been watching after lunch time). In a show of true compassion my little man ended the day by taking all of the clean dishes out of the dishwasher and stacking things neatly on the counter. Such sweetness was a wonderful way to end a not so pleasant day.