Head ’em Up, Move ’em Out

My son and daughter were together. They faced me at the dinner table.
“Mom,” my daughter started, “When we are done with our dinner, can we have a popsicle?”
“No, you already had one today,” I said and continued to eat my steak.
*****I should mention that when I eat steak, I turn into a rabid hound dog. When I brought my husband home to meet the family, my Dad grilled steak. Why? Why would he do that? I think because he’s seen me EAT steak and he wanted to make sure my boyfriend knew what he was getting into. You can tell a lot about a woman by the way she eats her steak. Reference: Miss Congeniality*****
The kids leaned in and whispered to each other.
“We will give you two dollars,” my son said.
“No,” I said. “Too many popsicles in one day is bad for your body. Would I be a good mom if I let you be bad to your body?”
The kids leaned in again and whispered to each other, trying to decide what direction to take next.

“We want to move,” my daughter announced.

How’s that for an ultimatum?

And let me just say: adjusting to three kids was total cake at first. But now? I mean, I’m not frazzled or going totally crazy, but my house is probably the dirtiest it’s been since, well, the boy was a baby. Alice Michelle can’t walk yet. She can barely roll over but my house is a travesty of epic proportions.
And no. I’m not being dramatic.
The only thing that keeps me sane is this face:

OOOOPS.
I mean THIS face:

Well, that. And fun little tender mercies like old men in thick boots and kilts, sporting long white bears and canes and tattoos while they buy ice:

And trips out west of town where I can throw rocks into puddles and click my tongue at Dad’s hosses and convince my kids that there’s small people living in the brush.
Naked Brush people?

In other news, I’ve come through a head cold (the house hasn’t come through yet), and Spatsy the Catsy has been taken extremely ill with pneumonia.
Which I didn’t know cats could get.
But they can.
He’s on the mend now (resting on a blanket in the kids’ tub), and our kitty is safely out of critical kitty condition. Soon enough, he’ll be back to doing his duty as half of The Welcoming Committee: