Um....we have clippers for that

I'm not really sure I even want to write this, but it has to be done. The other night I knocked and quickly entered Bob's bedroom to let him know it was time for lights out. What I saw was the one of the most horrific things ever. It certainly could have been worse, but it was bad. There was Bob perched on his bed with his toes in his mouth. I asked him what in the world he was doing. He just looked at me with that crazy, glassy-eyed, 20 foot stare in a 10 foot room and said "Huh? Oh, my toenails are pretty long, gotta take care of that". Are you kidding me?? I didn't know whether to puke or smack him in the head. I let him know that we are the proud of owners of not only one, but several fingernail/toenail clippers and asked him to please use them next time. Two and a half years until graduation (hopefully). I can do this.....I can do this.

Lead Kindly Light

We have the best neighbors ever. It just so happens that we attend the same church as them. Since the day we moved in they have been so kind and friendly. We are truly lucky. They happen to have a son that is a couple of years older than Bob. When Bob moved here he was a freshman in high school and the neighbor's son was a senior. The son was undoubtedly very popular and had a lot of friends. This made me nervous because Bob tends to latch onto people quickly and I have never wanted to have "that kid" that people have to tolerate. The son was always so nice and willing to help Bob get acclimated to the school. He even let Bob sit with them at lunch. We are truly grateful for this...we know it made Bob's transition to the school a little easier.

Once Bob feels he has a friend in place he will ultimately take advantage of that friendship. I don't feel it's intentional on his behalf, but still. One instance that made me want to crawl under a rock happened a few months before school was out. Since we and our neighbors attend the same church, Bob and their son would be at activity nights at the same time. Bob would always ride his bike over to the church while the son would drive. On one particular night the activity ran a little long and it became dark outside. Bob, having nerves of steel apparently, asked the neighbor's son to follow him home while he road his bike. The reason? Because there are a lot of cracks in the sidewalks. The headlights would help lead the way. Are you kidding me?? We don't live in Mayberry. There ARE street lights along the roads. Good grief. The visual in my head still makes me shudder. A tall, lanky, uncoordinated kid on his bike....riding SLOW....and the poor guy in the car following the kid on the bike, cursing under his breath and giving Bob the finger. Just goes to show how truly great our neighbors are. I'm sure their son could not move away to college fast enough! Hopefully there are no Bob's waiting in the wings for him there.

What's that smell??

A couple of summers ago the egg donor was actually willing to drop Bob off for his visit with us. It just so happened that she and her parents were attending a family reunion near where we live, so she agreed to drop Bob off on their way passing through. She always makes it a point to shove her way into our home, I'm sure just to peek around and feel sorry for herself that we live in a nicer place than she does. That summer was no different. When they pulled up she followed Bob right in and proceeded to drop all his stuff in the entryway of our home. She failed to tell us about the little "surprise" she just happened to shove under a shelf near the floor. The shelf is there for shoes...so they aren't thrown all over the place. It isn't meant to be a hiding place.

I mentioned in my very first post having to wear rubber gloves when doing Bob's laundry. This is because Bob has a problem wiping. What he fails to wipe off his rear ends up in his underwear. I'm not talking about a random skid mark...I'm talking pretty darn close to a whole turd. Bob also had a very bad habit of holding his bowel movements so long that he would lose control and it would just come out....which brings me to the "surprise". Apparently Bob had an accident while traveling in the car that day. I'm assuming the family pulled over because the smell was unbearable. However, what I would like to know is why on earth they would feel the need to keep the soiled underwear and travel with them the rest of the way?!? If it was my kid...those underwear would have been stinking up the closest rest area bathroom. The egg donor, having less than an adequate amount of common sense chose to put them in a plastic bag, which then ended up under our shoe shelf.

For the next couple of days I would walk into my home and get a whiff of turds. I could not for the life of me figure out where it was coming from!! I looked high and low, checked all the shoes to see if the kids had walked through a land mine. One thing I pride myself on is having a nice smelling home. I don't want people to walk in and pass out because of the stench, yet every time I walked into my own home, I wanted to throw up. Eventually we found the small plastic bag, shoved back behind MY shoes. That bag immediately went into the garbage outside. There was no way anyone could make me touch those. It still baffles me to this day that she would be so inconsiderate and try to hide them. Was it to salvage her embarrassment, or a deliberate attempt to "teach us a lesson"? I guess I'll never know.