Somebody's gotta do it!

My children discovered last week that picking up dog poop can be fun! That is, if you pretend that two sticks are giant chopsticks, and you are collecting a "surprise" in a flower pot for Dad.....How I laughed when I looked out the window to see FOUR children, without being asked, CHEERFULLY picking up dog poop, for no reason other than it's fun to use chopsticks. Notice the matted hair, the hand-me-down leotard and tutu, and, don't forget, those famous blue striped socks and patent leather shoes? Hmmmmm. Can we say "homeschool"? (No offense to my fellow homeschoolers).

































One of the dogs has had a massive...grapefruit sized....cyst? abcess? swollen lump on his neck, I'm guessing from a spider bite or snake bit or something like that. After a day's worth of antibiotics, a warm bath and some compresses, I discovered a fresh trail of blood starting from a puddle on the boys' bed upstairs, trailing all the way down the carpeted stairs, through the entry way, and into the living room.

I was pretty overwhelmed at the thought of cleaning this giant mess, so as an experiment, I set the carpet cleaner, a bowl of water with peroxide, and a scrub brush out on the stairs. Look what happened next. Jude started cleaning, then the rest of the three ran around the house looking for extra scrub brushes, saying "it's not fair" that Jude got to clean the blood from the carpet and they didn't. This is not a lie. I am pleased to report that the blood is gone and I didn't have to do anything but wash sheets!























And it sure is nice that one of my kids LOVES to run the vacuum cleaner!