L-O-N-G Day...

Today was a L-O-N-G day...

We had an early start = start at 6:30am, which means the Hungry Dragon has to be completely ready by 6am, otherwise I'm not ready in time.

The early start was because we had to 'dress' a grave (Dad and I are the grave diggers for the local cemetery). The grave was dug yesterday afternoon - the first one Saphira's ever been to :) But we had to lay out the fake grass this morning, and align the planks (that the funeral people mount the coffin's winch to) because if its not level then the winch doesn't work...and it just wont do to have a coffin half way down a grave when it stops working. Looks bad for the family. ;)

So, before we left for work this morning, we had to start the alternator for Mum. This isn't unusual, but normally it takes 2 minutes to fuel it up and start it. However, today, a nut had come loose in it, and had stripped out a fairly integral part of the machine, and thus it did not work. Fortunately, we still had the 'back-up' generator nearby, so we were able to simply plug into that one, but we did have to dissemble the alternator so we could take the broken part to town to get a replacement. This all took time we didn't have :(

Dad stopped in to Nathaniel's to feed Pig, while Saphira and I kept going to Aunty Rachie's :)
We're so lucky that Aunty Rachie minds the Princess when she's not working! Its a huge help for us! :)

So, as I'm handing the Princess over to Rach, Dad drives past and gives us a toot. I hurry to give the final instructions to Rachie, so that I'm not 'too' far behind Dad at the cemetery.

A few short minutes later, Dad's calling Rach and asking her to tell me to stop in at the dump on the way past. Now I'm really hurrying!! :) I borrow Rachie's car for the day (YAY for D-Max! I love new cars!!) so that Rach has the car seat for Princess.

I rock up to the dump (about 300m past Rach's place) and here's Dad with heaps (literally, heaps!!) of batts of insulation. I'm all like: 'Bin Scab!'

Dad says: 'Quick, drop the tailgate and give me a hand!'

So we flog about 7 bales of insulation batts. I'm pretty sure its illegal to steal stuff from the dump, but there's no monitoring of the dumps up here - its all pretty relaxed. Besides, we know the Chief of Police pretty well, so I'm certain he wouldn't arrest us or anything ;)

Dad says: 'Take this back to Rachie's and I'll see you at the cemetery.'

Back I go to Rachie's.

Princess puts on a performance because she thinks I'm finished for the day, and why wont I hold her??

I scoot over to the cemetery and find that Dad's already hoiked most of the stuff we need down the hill to the grave. I drive D-Max up to the shed and get the last couple of (heavy) items. It only takes us a few minutes and we finish up there.

Then Dad says: 'I'll meet you at the job.'

I'm like: 'You don't want me to drop D-Max off at Greggy's?'

Dad says: 'Nah, we're running pretty late. Better just to follow me.'

So then we speed into town (I'm not sure Dad's speedo is working...) And we get the roof work part of the job done before it gets too hot...but it rained while I was up there, so that certainly put a dampner on my day (yep, pun intended). Then we scurry inside and quickly finish off the other parts of the job. Rach rocks up with Saphira in time for her 11am feeding, which is perfectly timed, as I'd finished packing up the truck, and Dad was finishing up doing a junction box.

I call Sharon to order lunch and we go to Greggy's to eat it. This way, Dad can order supplies for our next job.

Rach offers to take Princess to her appointment, but says she cant have her for the second one. I agree, and Dad and I take the truck to the next job. We then waste an hour while Dad completes the final phone survey a University is running to do with grief (from when Grandad Bull passed away). We *finally* get to the job, get it half completed, when Rach calls to say its almost time for her second appointment. I jump in the truck and drive over to Southside (10 minutes each way), toss her the keys to the truck and grab Princess and the keys to Mum's car. I drive back to the job to pick up Dad (as he needs more stuff from Greggy's). I drive him over to Greggy's, and after collecting the needed light fittings, I get in D-Max and drive it back over to Southside. Dad follows. We get there just as Rachie is leaving her appointment. I get in Mum's car with Saphira, Rach takes D-Max, and Dad gets in the truck. Rach goes on her merry way (thanks Rach for having her ALL day!!) and I follow Dad back to the job. He takes another 20 minutes and finishes that job (poor Saphira is sick of being in the car by this stage and is screaming to get out...) and then we head back to the cemetery to pack up...at this stage we're only running an hour late. Surprise! Neil Hughes (the fellow that fills in the grave) is already there! He's actually beaten us this time!! AND, he's packed up all the dressing, and has even carted it all up to the shed. So we just need to unlock it and hoick the stuff back in. YAY! I leave Dad talking to Neil, and Princess and I head to Amamoor to collect the mail. Dad's going to come home the back way. (shortcut)

After collecting the mail, we have a leisurely drive home, until about 7kms from home we run across Ronnie. He asks if I've seen a horse of his with a broken leg (I haven't), and I tell him about a new foal of his (he already knew). He also mentioned that we had some cattle out. I sigh, and say that I knew, as we have a break in the fence we haven't gotten to yet. We part ways and I cruise on home.

About 3 kms from home I come across a mob of 10 of our cows. So I herd them home using Mum's car. They're pretty good, and *mostly* stay on the road. But, cows don't travel very fast, and I'm almost asleep at the wheel. I keep looking in the rearview mirror, hoping to see Dad, but I'm not sure if I'm in front of him or behind him, as I took a while at the shop getting the mail, and he took a shortcut home...

As I come over the final crest in the road, just before Nathaniel's place (the start of our property), I find a HUGE mob of 40 cows, calves and the odd bull. *sigh*

Thankfully, the gate was already open, so I just had to muster them in...but the 10 I'd just brought 1.5kms were getting puffed and weren't interested in going in the dang gate! :(

After about 20 minutes of stuffing around, I got them all in, minus one loony-tune cow and calf. Stuff 'em. I shut the gate.

YAY! We're on the home stretch! 1.5kms to go, drop off Mum's mail, get Peppie, and go home! YAY!

This is where my day got REALLY interesting...I hope you're still with me here.

I unpack the car and bring Saphira inside. She has a wet nappy, so I go to change it. Then I get the brilliant idea of giving her a bath. She didn't have one yesterday as she'd gone swimming (and they recommend that you don't bath them afterwards due to some 'great' mineral in the pool water. Its best to leave it on the skin overnight.) and I like to bath her every day or every second day if she's not too sweaty/dirty. Rach had given her a rusk to chew on, so she was mega grubby!

As I was going to bath her in the next few minutes I had a light-bulb moment and decided to leave her nappy off (B-A-D plan!!). I popped her in her (empty) pool in the kitchen while I poured her bath (also in the kitchen). Once it was ready, I looked down at myself and decided that I, also, was pretty grubby. I decided to duck off and have a lightening-fast shower. Saphira was thoroughly entertained by the chooks, so away I went.

I was back *literally* two minutes later. I didn't even take the time to put my glasses back on (second mistake). I stepped into the pool to pick her up, and felt something squish under my foot. I'm like: 'what the?' and had to raise my foot right up because I couldn't see (because of no glasses). Then it dawned, and I'm like: 'Poo? Is that poo??' And then scuttled off to wash my foot off (again!)

I came back a minute later and picked her up...thinking that there was only that tiny nugget that I'd stood on. Boy, was I wrong! When I picked her up, there was lots of poo on her bum still, so (being totally grossed out) I took her into the nursery. On the way there, she was really quite pleased with herself and was patting my shoulders and chest in excitement. Then, I found I couldn't put her down on the change table without getting poo everywhere! So I held her in one hand, and laid out a couple of wet-wipes where her bum would go. She didn't like that very much. It was cold and wet!

I cleaned up the worst of it, but found heaps on her outfit. I did a final check of her bum/back and discovered some on her foot! (What the??) So I cleaned that up...and then looked closer. It was all over BOTH her legs!!! I cleaned that up too. We're up to about 15 wipes by this stage. Then, I stood her up to try to get her clothes off of her without getting poo all over her. And I discovered she had some poo on her face! I looked closer...it was on her mouth!! *cringe* I looked at her hands. The same hands that moments before had been patting my *clean* skin...ICK.

ick, Ick, ICK!!

Another 9 wipes later, we're finally ready for that bath!

We had a wonderful time! She was super-pleased with herself and we were all smiles.
By this stage its 5pm (which is solids time), so we get out of the bath and go have some solids. She wasn't 'very' impressed with that...until we got to dessert = custard! She LOVES custard!! She gobbled that down, and then we went and played in the playpen (in the nursery) for almost an hour. At 6pm, we moved into the bedroom so she could have chow-chow. I fed her for about 30 minutes and then she was blessedly asleep! Hurray!

Pepper and I quietly exited the bedroom and I decided to fold the washing (so I'd have space to do my exercises) and then I called Michael for prayer and scripture reading. We finished that at around 7:10pm. I had a niggling thought to go back and check her 'pool toys' for poo. Luckily I did, because there were FIVE toys that needed immediate attention, and many wet-wipes. I should by shares in Huggies...

BUT, now all the poo is cleaned up. I've learnt my lesson, and it wont happen again. It took me half an hour to clean those darned toys! But now I can get on with my night *happy sigh*

I then decided to put away the clean washing up that had been drying in the rack. When I finished I thought I'd make up some more pre-made cordial bottles to put in the fridge...but to do that I had to move the pool (to get into the cupboard with the cordial in it) but I couldn't move the pool until I moved the bath, which was still in use soaking the poo-ey clothes she was wearing. This all seemed to be in the 'too hard' basket for tired little me, so I thought I'd just step into the pool so I could reach the cordial. (We keep a doona on the bottom of the pool to pad it, otherwise Princess would be almost straight on the hard concrete, and may put a hole in the pool.) My foot had *almost* hit the bottom when I remembered about that long-ago nugget I'd stepped on. I quickly picked up my foot, and in a stroke of brilliance, I flung the doona back to keep the poo-covered parts away from me. That's when I found the little pile of poo underneath the doona! *sigh*

I called Mum and Michael and complained to them both before going back and cleaning up *more* poo. It is now 9:15. I haven't had a shower or dinner, but Andrea made me dinner last night and so I'm having left overs tonight. Bless her.

The moral of the story is to ALWAYS put a nappy on, even if you're going to have a bath 'in a minute'. This will save you over an hour of cleaning up! YAY for wet-wipes.

Poo. Is. Icky.