Raccoon!

We had quite a strange night Saturday. Brecklen, Hannah, and I were watching a movie before bed and just as it was about to end I saw something moving in the corner of my eye coming down the stairs and stop about 5 feet from us. It moved like a cat and a thought to myself , how did a cat get into our house? Well it wasn't until I really looked at the animal I realized it was not a cat, but a raccoon! I screamed so loud I am sure that Aric thought someone died. This thing was huge, about 2 feet long. This animal was clearly just as scared as me. As I was screaming bloody murder Aric heard me say something about a raccoon and ran into the room to catch it. It freaked out and ran across our living room up a shelf , knocked down a picture on the wall, fell to the ground, ran across the room again right past Aric, ran down the hall and into our study. Aric slammed the door to trap the thing in.

Meanwhile I picked up the kids and sprinted upstairs to our bedroom so that the kids would be safe. Thank goodness the animal ran to our study which is in our basement. Aric just opened the window from the outside and the raccoon ran out, of course he had to climb over everything first. I am glad it didn't take long for the raccoon to leave the house. He left quite a mess though. I had no idea that they are such climbers!

As I ran upstairs to take the kids to safety I noticed that the garage door was ajar. When things calmed down I looked into the garage and saw paw prints all over my car. And he made quite a mess of the garage as well. It had been raining off and on all day and he must have come into our garage during the day and got trapped when we shut the garage door. He obviously managed to push the door open which probably wasn't hard since it wasn't closed tight, what are the chances of that? We were all a little freaked out and we decided to investigate the upstairs to see if he made a mess up there too. Brecklen thought it must have slept in his bed, so we looked in his room and I was relieved to see that it did not appear that our little visitor was there. I think he is still convinced that the raccoon was in his room. Poor Hannah. She kinda freaked out at my reaction and started crying. While we were looking around the house for signs of poop, or hair, Hannah just Kept saying "Raccoon chasing me", but it was so cute and hard to not laugh because it sounded like "accoon tasing me." We tried to make it less scary for her and had a stuffed animal that looked like a raccoon to give to her. We decided to name him Rocky the Raccoon. I don't think they had nightmares.

I was partly worried there might be another one trapped in the house and it would just pop out at me any moment. Thank goodness no sign of anymore animals, and no poop anywhere. I really did not want to clean up any poop from an animal. As it is I have a hard time not throwing up because of "morning" sickness when my own child poops , let alone a raccoon.

We didn't think that the raccoon went upstairs, but the next day I found paw prints on the side of our fridge, and there was animal hair on the top of the fridge. I kinda panicked. How long was it in our house? It was so quiet, we never knew it was there. I was about to take the kids upstairs when the raccoon decided to come downstairs, what if we had scared it coming up stairs and it really flipped out and attacked one of my kids? What if it decided to go to sleep in my bed and I woke up with some furry thing next to me? All the craziest scenarios went through my mind. We really did get lucky, it was not rabid, or angry, just curious and scared. It approached us instead of us stumbling upon it and feeling the need to defend itself. Well that's not something that happens everyday, in our house atleast.

It's a Girl!!!

We found out we are having a healthy baby girl. I am still due September 19th (I'm 20 weeks right now). Aric was able to be at the ultrasound. When they told us we were having a girl we looked at each other with joy and terror. Joy because of course we are so excited that the baby is healthy and it is going to be a girl. And terror because it is going to be a girl! It was exciting to she her moving around. It always makes it more real to see fingers and toes.

Brecklen really wanted to have a boy, and even named the baby Bennett. I can just see the trouble the girls are going to get into! Hannah is so independent and has a strong personality, I am a little worried about that times two! Brecklen is so sweet to Hannah, and she tortures him at times. No wonder he wanted a boy. But they truly do love each other to death.

When we got home we told the kids we had a surprise for them. I got an "it's a girl" and "it's a boy" balloon for the kids so I would be prepared for either one. We gathered the kids together and brought out the girl balloon and told them "IT'S A GIRL!" We were very excited to tell them, but our smiles and excitement took quite a dive when Brecklen threw himself on the couch and started to cry. Aric and I just looked at each other. We felt terrible. We didn't think he would react so strongly. Aric was prepared. Thank goodness. He brought out a special present for Brecklen. Silver Iron Man. Aric had given Brecklen the regular Iron Man a couple days prior so he could take him to the Iron Man movie and get Brecklen excited about it. Brecklen saw that there was a silver Iron man and thought he was really cool. Aric saved the day. Brecklen was feeling much better after getting his new silver Iron Man. We told Brecklen how much fun it was going to be that he and Dad get to go hiking and fishing and do all sorts of cool things together, just the two of them.

Hannah was much easier to please. She just wanted the balloon. She doesn't really quite get it yet, but was happy to know that she is going to have a sister, a Belle. Belle is her favorite princess. Well I guess there's no reason now to hold out on buying all the princess dresses and stuff now. This kind of validates some of my dresses that I just HAD to have for Hannah. Thanks Janee for reminding me that I get to buy my girls cute matching outfits. I can't believe this thought never occurred me! I can't WAIT to go shopping. Since this is a terrible hobby of mine, and I have been so good lately, I may have a relapse. But atleast my girls will look cute, and match!

The next President?

I was listening to Minnesota public radio in the car since I did not, for once, have the kids with me, and thought I would actually brush up on the news. I am typically the last person to know about anything unless it is the highlighted story on CNN.com. I usually find out news when Aric comes home from having common adult interaction that I hear occurs when you go to work, and then I tell him my news for the day, like Curious George created yet another disaster, or that Dora finally found the city of lost toys and brought all the toys back to all the sad boys and girls. I truly wish she could have found Little Bear #1 and 2, because that would make my life much easier. Back to my point...

I happened to catch a very interesting interview on MPR. This guy has BREAKING NEWS as he said it! Take it for what it is, I laughed the whole way home because it was absurd, crazy, and it started to make sense. Whether it is true or not, no one will ever know...

So per Top Secret information that this guy received from a nameless source high up in the Clinton campaign (no kidding) in a parking lot. This sounds like the beginning of a movie. Hillary is trying to LOSE the presidential election!! What? But it gets better. Obama and McCain are in on it too. Not one of the top candidates wants to win the presidential election. Why? Because as they said the next president is a sucker and will have to mop up a huge mess. But apparently things can't get too much worse (let's see the peak of the rising gas prices before they go that far) and that whoever will be president in the next election in 2012 will be able to swoop in when things are on an upswing and make real changes, and REALLY be the hero. So this is Hillary's plan, to win the 2012 election! They didn't go into detail for Obama. McCain doesn't really want to win either because the Republicans want to hand the mess off to the Democrats. What is America coming to!

They threw some names out there for the next president- Nader, and a guy named Paul. When I looked him up it sounds like it's Ron Paul from Iowa. But I don't know anything about him. I am really not into politics, but this next election is a big one. When I told Aric all this as I ran into the house STILL laughing he said "Isn't it more heroic to win the election and try to make changes now? " Apparently not. It is sad that IF this has even an ounce of truth to it that no one is excited to step up to the plate and take on the challenge. That one would more rather come in a be known as a good president when the economy is on the upswing, than an OK president or a crappy president just trying to do what they can. I just found this piece of information startling and just couldn't keep my mouth shut. This information was just way too out there. So if anything, this is to be thought provoking, and maybe even spark a conversation. Craig I would love to know what you think since you just love this stuff and know the world of politics infinitely better than me. It will be interesting to see how this election turns out.