Weekend Intelligence: Unmitigated Destruction

Alternate title: Living with a Terrible Two's Toddler. >.>; Clara was a walking, talking, screeching, grabbing, throwing tornado of terror and tantrums this weekend. I'm pretty sure I read about this somewhere in Revelations... So, in typical Weekend Intelligence fashion, here are the highlights!

House and Home

The overwhelming common thread that went through the whole weekend was Clara and her complete inability to do something that wasn't destroying something expensive. This is why we can't have nice things. As soon as you'd make your way to where she was doing something destructive and clean it up, she would have already gone and burned down Rome.

No joke, it's all over CNN.

In the course of a single weekend, she managed to dump an entire bottle of lotion all over the couch, loveseat, coffee table and carpet, make several swan dives off of chairs and tables onto the tile floor below, draw on the cabinets with an ink pen, bean the animals in the head with building blocks, eat a coloring book, send random text messages to everyone on DeAnn's cell phone book, mangle D's glasses, make several phonecalls to people in random locales and yell into the phone and nearly capture Fishie with her bare hands.

Now, I've seen a lot of people with kids Clara's age. You kinda have no choice when you have a child - they tend to travel in packs. And I've read more parenting guides than anyone really should. I have not seen one child even remotely as rambunctious and destructive as Clara, and I know damned well I didn't read about the Terrible Two's being this bad. Now before you parents with multiple kids out there get on the 'Been there, done that' track, let me say these two things:

--First: No, you haven't. This child is on haywired non-stop destruction mode from the time she wakes up until the time she goes to sleep. And even then it's a crapshoot. There are parts of the wall that are starting to buckle from where she kicks it and I'm not sure how much more the crib can take. Like I've said, I've seen many many toddlers and NONE are this rowdy when I see them.

--Second: Suppose that by some long-shot chance that you know what I'm talking about... WHY DID YOU HAVE KIDS AGAIN!? At least I can claim ignorance in that I had no earthly clue it would be this bonkers. What's your excuse? :P

Phew... Now that I have that off my chest... We were able to get a few things accomplished in the midst of chaos. D, Colin and I were able to work on the yard a little bit. At least the front yard looks good. I'm gonna have to rent something to mow down the rest of the jungle, cause the weed-eater can't get through it anymore, the mower can't get through it anymore and I can't get close enough to pull it.

There was also about 6 loads of laundry that got to some stage of clean. I had been out of town or otherwise spent the past two weeks, so D understandably had to let some things fall to the wayside. Mad props to my wife for taking care of two kids and not letting the house burn down. But the laundry needed doing, so we pounded that out.

We also did most of Colin's back-to-school shopping this weekend. Unlike years past, we actually got most of his stuff this time. There were a few things that were sold out. You couldn't buy red pens in any smaller amount than 20. There were no composition journals left. There was also an item on the school supply list that made me go o.O? It was "1 loose leaf notebook." Wrap your head around that. Loose leaf implies not bound. But the common term for that is a 3 ring binder, and they stated 3-ring binder for 5th grade, so I know they know what one is. And even if they did mean a spiral or other bound notebook, later in the list they asked for those things anyway. It was like asking me to go to the store and pick up a gallon of dehydrated water and a few quarts of headlight fluid. Maybe some diesel engine spark plugs for good measure. >.>;

In Game

ZNM's were cancelled for Friday night, so Keri and I decided to go level BLM. That was mostly what we did all weekend in game. And it showed. We got to within a stone-throw's distance of 70. I also went out and logged up some more supplies from Fort Karugo-Narugo for Supply Procurement Campaign Ops. And what should pop first but another Optical Needle. I'm still sitting on 2 that won't sell on the AH cause the price is waaay too high. Anyway, was able to get a few ops done before calling it a night. We ground out a ring charge on Saturday to get 70 and did some campaign battles, but nothing to write home about. Sunday's Dynamis - Windurst was cancelled due to lack of the needed jobs, so Keri and I got TS, Captsassypants, Amelisa and picked up a random BLM and did Wamoura babies to pick up Lv71 - two levels in one weekend.

I was sick Monday with some severe stiffness and neck soreness, so I stayed home and went to the doctor's office. He said it was likely the flu or some other viral infection, so I took it easy and crafted most of the day. I leveled my Alchemy from 14-28 and only spent about 20k on it. I also was lucky enough to be at the keyboard when Breg said the Dune Boots NM was up. :O So we took it down and I got a nifty pair of new kicks. :D

Back to the office tomorrow unless my supervisor wants me to keep the plague at home. At this rate, I'm never going to get any meaningful amount of PTO. -.-