Teething, Weeding, & Mousing

I am pretty sure DS is teething. He is not sleeping well during naps now and he is generally complaining about his lot in life with increasing volume. I know he is at the stage where he wants to do more than he has figured out how to do, but the general crankiness on top of it all seems to tip the scales toward cutting those first teeth. I can't remember when DD cut her first tooth--I am a slacker when it comes to baby books or scrapbooking, all those cutesy things. Sorry, if it's not something that I can finish in one session, I am just not going to be up for it. Witness the half-done cross-stitches abounding in my sewing bag. Curtains, bedspreads, that sort of thing--I can see immediate progress, and I can finish those in a few days. All other sewing, knitting, etc--sorry, not quick enough for me! I lose interest before I finish them.

To get off my tangent, I am wondering at what point I should start giving this kiddo teething tablets or Tylenol or the like. I really don't want to medicate my kiddos unless it's necessary, but I haven't got a good feel yet for when it's "necessary" with DS. This is the disadvantage of having a new little person, only 4 months old--it's not long enough to know him real well yet! Oh I know his cries, I know when he's hungry, etc, but the whole 'in pain' part has not factored in thus far, thank the Lord. So I think it will be a month or so before I finally decide what the threshold is for teething, and it will probably be when the little dude is screaming his head off and I can actually SEE a little red swollen bump on his gums. Until then he will have to tough it out--sorry buddy!

We did a mammoth work in the garden last weekend, DS's booger-ish behavior during naptime excepted. DH mowed every corner of our lot and also weed-whacked all the areas that needed it, including some particularly fine specimens of thistle that really ought not to have been allowed to get that big. I did some weed whacking myself, but I have never gotten the hang of the "bump" feeding of the string and so I was quite often stopping to manually unthread some more line and keep going. It was very annoying, so after blasting away around most of the playset and fire pit I happily handed it over to DH and focused on weeding. I managed to remove a good deal of weeds from the shade bed, happily rediscovering all the plants I actually planted in there last fall. They are all thriving, and I even have some lily of the valley in bloom! *swoon* I LOVE lily of the valley, so to have my own little flower stalk of them nodding away under the shade of my cedars just makes my heart happy. I also discovered that one of the weeds is unexpectedly spiny and it likes to stick to my gardening gloves. I would not be happy weeding without gloves, I think, especially since I was pulling up thorny salmonberry sprouts left right and center.

Lastly, we had our pest control person back out again today to treat a recurring mouse problem. Hmmm. DH saw TWO running around the house last night while I was at Bible study. Needless to say, everything on the floor has been through the washing machine today, and I was insistent that the guy actually get down into the crawlspace and try to find where they are coming in. He couldn't find any obvious places, but we now have traps in the house, some of which I have to keep DD away from. Oh goody. No snapping sounds thus far, but hopefully as it gets darker we will trap a few of the buggers. I'm all for protecting wildlife but I draw the line at uninvited guests in my house, especially of the disease-carrying variety. At least they are not glue traps and so they should be dispatched quickly. I strongly suspect we have some holes in the subfloor under the kitchen cabinets, and that is where they are getting in. It's also possible they were crawling through the wide-as-the-Nile cracks around our old doors, which were replaced on Wednesday with much fanfare & trumpeting! Yippee, our doors actually close and we can't see daylight around them! Plus they are fiberglass so much better insulating value--and we have some lovely glass in the front door now so that hallway is no longer as dark as pitch all day.

HAHAHA! DD has discovered the sprinkler outside and is insisting on running through it "with Daddy, Mommy, I want to do it with Daddy." Sure thing sweetie, as soon as he gets home! Hehe. Of course I will have to vacuum & mop the floors when she is not underfoot...drat. Maybe I can have a strawberry margarita while mopping. I'd love to say it will be alcoholic but I think we're out of tequila. Oh well...a frozen margarita will still hit the spot!