The kids are back to school. I have never been one of those moms who get excited to send the kids back. I really dread it, and it sneaks up on me, and I was just not ready to send them back. Chloee was so excited to start kindergarten though, and she loved her first day, so that's good. Chlo just seems way to little to me to be gone for school already. Man, I miss that little girl! Anyhow, she has gotten really good at keeping Mo busy. Yesterday, he begged to go to school with her, and he bawled most of the morning. Today, his matchbox cars are keeping him busy and happy. I am sure that it won't be long before Salem is better at playing with him. She has been kinda miserable the last few days. I am sure she is cutting teeth. It has been really quiet the last few days, that is for sure. On a positive note, Mo cleaned his bedroom yesterday, all by himself, and he kept it that way. Wow! Chloee being gone will make him my little helper, and he will have to grow up quite a bit. All of that will be a very good thing.
We have celebrated two birthdays since my last post. Chlo turned 6 on the tenth, and Rooshkie turned 12 on the 23rd. Chlo's birthday was pretty busy with melons, but we bought her some nice gifts, we had pizza, and I bought her a big balloon, which goes against my very nature. She did love that dumb balloon until Oak popped it on "accident." Of course, then it was a whole bunch of bawling from Chlo. But, I had endured Mo bawling all day long because of his lack of balloon. Chlo had picked out a nice mylar balloon filled with helium. I had also blown up a few to kick around on the floor. To make up for the fact that he didn't have a balloon, Jazz tried to appease him, by tying a string around one of the non-helium filled ones. This didn't quite cut it for Mo. He kept throwing his in the air, in the hopes of getting it to float like Chloee's. It just wasn't happenin. My parents also came down a few days later, and took Chlo shopping. She absolutely loved that, and felt quite important over it. My parents are awesome, that is for sure.
The melon business got crazy busy there for awhile. There was a store who distributes to restaurants in Vegas that were willing to take whatever we could haul them. But, they had to be boxed in small boxes, and they were very particular about what they wanted. The first load went down without a hitch, but they began to complain about our second shipment. They thought our melons were too small, and too soft. They also complained about sun spots. After that, Gregg became so stressed about anything that got put into the boxes that he was acting like he was going to have a nervous breakdown. He was yelling and insulting everybody nonstop. Whenever he showed up with the truck, the whole spirit of the place changed. He was obviously stressed because what we have in the field is not what the supplier wants. Nothing we picked was good enough, until he roared out of the field in a huff, with vows not to pay us for the loads he had hauled so far. This totally left us in a lurch. We had fourteen bins sitting in the field, ready to go nowhere. Ryan, of course began to scramble and try to find places for them to be sold. And, he was successful to a small degree, but we are nowhere near cleaning the fields of the ripe melons. Things have slowed way down, and well, I am not sure what is going to happen at this point. We are shipping out a bin here and there, but after 30 bins a night, it is quite discouraging. Fortunately, my family is awesome, and they have helped us where they could, and prayed for us. I feel at peace, and know that somehow, things will work out. We have invested $35,000 and six months of time. It will definitely take some time to recover, if we don't sell any melons from here on out. But, Ryan is up in St. George welding this morning for pay, and I know he will take care of us one way or another. He always has. I will still defend our melons too. They taste excellent, but they are on the smaller side.
Anyhow, since that time we celebrated Rooshkie's birthday. She desired to have an evening of night games at the park, and she was really quite elusive about the whole thing. She kept telling me that I didn't have to come, that it would be no big deal, and that really....she didn't need me to come at all. Of course...this kind of appeals to me because hey, I have plenty to do at home at all times, but why did she not want me there? She also made it very clear that no one in the family really was needed or wanted at this particular party. Her birthday actually fell on a Sunday, and she wanted to have a nice dinner party with the fam on Sunday, but her party on Saturday night was a friends only deal. This of course caused quite the uproar. Oak always insists on coming when he is told that he can't. Jazz was way upset that she wasn't wanted, and Wames wanted to go simply because she wasn't wanted. I ended up taking Rooshkie and a secret friend (Calla) to lunch, and then I took them to Walmart where they bought chips and pop for their night games extravaganza. During this whole little trip to town I got many phone calls from her siblings protesting the fact that they were not wanted. I finally just told her that I felt that Jasmine at least should be invited to her party. I knew that she had invited a bunch of boys and girls her age, but Jazz is only 2 years younger. She protested, but finally gave in. Well, we get to the party, that I am not wanted at, and she had invited quite a few kids. I asked her what she had planned, and she shrugged her shoulders. What???? The kids began to arrive with gifts, and she was not prepared to play a single game. I immediately began trying to remember some of the night games that we used to play. I got some big embarrassed frowns from Rooshkie when I suggested "button, button, who's got the button" and "duck, duck, goose." One of the boys was eager to play ghosts in the graveyard, but he insisted that it had to be pitch black in order for that game to work. So...I put a can on the grass, and tried to recall how to play "kick the can" I seriously haven't played it since the 80's. I finally started to remember when they wanted to move on to another game. I tried to recall "murderer in the dark" which requires people to hold each other's hands. This game turned into a fiasco because these kids are still pretty awkward around the opposite gender. None of the boys were bold enough to hold hands with a girl and vice versa. I finally got them playing that game pretty good, but one of the boys figured out which slip of paper had the murderer sign on it, and he would purposely draw it out every time. This made it a little bit obvious when he turned out being the murderer time after time. Also one of the other boys had a hard time catching onto the game, and he would ask if he could just randomly squeeze people's hands because he wanted to....ummmmm no....that in fact messed up several games, but he just couldn't seem to grasp the concept.
At this point, it was getting pretty dark. I urged them to start "ghosts in the graveyard," because they all seemed somewhat familiar with that game, even though I could not specifically remember the rules. Once again the same boy insisted that it just could not be played until it was darker. I said fine, why don't we tell a few scary stories just to gear up for the game then. This was met by a lot of excitement from the boys. They all had stories that they had heard around campfires at scout camp that they wanted to share. They all talked over each other, and their stories were so incomplete and convoluted that they weren't really scary at all. That didn't stop the group of girls from walking a distance away and plugging their ears because they were just too scared to deal with the stories. Really, I didn't hardly feel a shiver of fear during any of it. The evening was finally beginning to cool off, the cows were in the next field over mooing softly, and the sunset was absolutely gorgeous. At this point they decided they could try playing "ghosts in the graveyard." Wames called me and informed me that Dilly was way upset and wanted to go to bed. I left one of the more responsible boys in charge, and went to get Dill. After all, most of these kids are 12, and I was going around the corner. They finally seemed to be playing pretty good too. Anyhow, I asked Wames if she wanted to go and finish up the party. An hour was really all that remained, and Dill was wanting to bed down. She balked a little, but finally said she would do it. That turned out to be a horrible decision. Anyhow, I should have taken Dill and gone back.
My desires for Wames was for her to keep the kids playing games. Well, she did try to get them to play a few things, and she just couldn't keep them interested. We were so horribly ill prepared it wasn't even funny...seriously, though, I didn't go into detail, but my week had been as bad as bad can be...because she didn't want me at her party, I had not planned it. She insisted that this group of kids play night games every night, they live right on that same street, and really, it is a nightly occurance that she is never invited to because she doesn't live in the neighborhood. She just wanted to be included for once. It was not that way at all. The girls would go off in their little group and whisper, and the boys would climb trees, and horse around...to try to get the two groups together required some games. Wames abandoned the games and just started to scare the two groups. This proved to be disastrous and kind of ruined the party. The girls got so scared that they all (with the exception of Rooshkie) ended up bawling...she apologized, but they all were so scared that they went home way upset...yeah, we had some mad parents...wow...Rooshkie's party was quite the bust.
Ryan just happened to be staying and taking care of his Grandma that night, or I could have really used his help. I had Wames come home with a bawling and upset Rooshkie...after all, Wames had ruined her entire party, her friends were bawling, and would probably hate her forever. It took me forever to get to the bottom of things, to get Rooshkie calmed down, and to finally send the kids to bed. I was way mad at Jerusha and Jamie....Jerusha was not one bit prepared to host a party, and Jamie was not sent there to make the girls cry (apparently the boys were fine with being scared by Wames). Wames was just trying to make the party fun, but it backfired big time...and these girls are all in the ward, and I love all of their parents a ton. The last thing I wanted was for them to have to comfort scared and crying girls all night. Whew...it was a horrible week all in all. Ryan's truck broke down, I lost a bunch of cash when it fell out of my pocket shopping with Rooshkie, and I got pulled over....the list goes on and on for last week, and the party was just the horrible cherry on top.
Finally at about midnight, I had everyone settled down to some degree and in bed. I was just finally starting to get into a deep sleep when a series of loud bangs hit the windows and front door. I woke up with a jolt bewildered and confused. There was an incident a few months ago, when Ryan came home and he was supposed to be out of town. I had locked the house up tight, and he had tried to rouse us by banging on some windows, but ended up sleeping on the lawn because he couldn't get us to wake up and let him in. My first thought was that he had come home from Grandma's because he needed something from the house for some reason. I stumbled down the stairs and turned on the porch light. I stepped out on to the stoop in my garments and hollered for Ryan. All I heard was a whole bunch of falling footsteps...it could have even been someone on a horse. The night was perfectly still. Then, I called for the dog, because she ought to at least bark when someone is on the property that shouldn't be, but she was nowhere around too. I was way confused, but then realized that it would have taken multiple people to do all of the banging simultaneously that was done. At that point I felt kinda sheepish standing there in the light of the porch in nothing but garments. I went back inside and was met by a crying and sleepy Wazz...she was scared to death because she swore up and down that someone was in her room. She heard voices, and was sure someone was there. Serious moment of truth...all I could do was deal with the situation.
Anyhow, I went upstairs and grabbed a gun. At some point I moved the little kids and told the bigger ones that they were to go upstairs...if I had to shoot, I didn't want to worry about missing and hitting one of my kids. I felt like a real warrior, training my gun, and looking in closets and under beds. I am, and will forever be grateful that I was taught from a child the importance and significance of guns. I am glad that there was one available, but the house was empty. She must have just heard voices before there were knocks on the outside windows. I don't know, and may never know who it was. There is a good chance that it was am attempt to payback Wames for her shenanigans. In any case, I was glad that I was able to handle the situation without getting anyone else involved. Guns are good to have.
The rest of the week has been somewhat typical. Ryan has been helped by a gentleman in Enterprise, and we have been hauling melons to all of the vendors that he hauls corn to. Because of that Ryan brought home some lovely ears of corn. This excited Mo to no end. He has been nibbling on them raw, and you guessed it...he brought them to bed with him the other night. He has actually been kind of better about sleeping in his room, but not the night of the corn....we ended up sleeping with ears of corn and husks trailing around. I'll never figure it out.
We have had a few shenanigans at shrsh like usual. Mo came in shouting CANDY! loudly, over and over. He also wanted me to lick and chomp on a make believe ice cream cone that he had made at shrsh. It consisted of a raggy old baby wipe that was wrapped around a pencil. It did resemble an ice cream cone, but I wasn't about to lick it or bite it. He insists that I do certain things, and honestly, at times I just refuse to play along. This makes him mad, but he has got to know that he can't control people.
Another positive thing, is that my little Sager made the Volleyball team. I am so proud of her, and this news has changed her whole attitude around about school, and the town etc. Seriously, I am way excited for her.
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