Clara imposed a game of guess-the-bird-I-saw on me as we were driving.
Clara: “I saw a bird, guess what kind!”
Me: “A crow?”
Clara “No.”
Me: “A red-winged blackbird?”
Clara “No.”
Me: “A red tailed hawk?”
Clara: “Yeah!- No. Do you need a hint?”
Me: “Yes, please.”
Clara: “It had a beak.”
Me: “So… it was definitely a bird then?”
Clara: “And it was red!”
Me: “A cardinal?”
Clara: “YEAH!!!!”
Me: “Wow, that must have been pretty!”
Clara: “I don’t know, it was too far away I couldn’t see it.”
Me: “Oh.”
I’ve got great news!
No, really, it is great – my kind of great.
Ivy is reading books!
While Ivy has been reading all sorts for the last months, it wasn’t until very recently that she realized that if it was the right kind of book she could read the whole thing, by herself, the first time, with only a little help on the extra tricky words.
It’s awesome! Ivy’s reading confidence has grown exponentially in the last two weeks as she picks up book after book and reads them out loud to us.
All of course providing that the reading happens in a proper setting. A proper setting according to Ivy is one where nothing is too hot, or cold, or soft, or hard, or there are too many sisters, or dogs, or box elder bugs, or she is too tired, or too awake, or too bored, or too interested in something else… If any of that is the case, all bets are off and she will forget how to read the word “the” and everything else she has learned. At that point it’s better to smile and put away the books until another day before you end up contemplating selling her to the gypsies.
But that’s not my problem.
My problem is that my girl is too smart.
(It’s a pretty good problem, I admit.)
Ivy reads a book once.
All further “readings” are just memorized recitations using the pictures and occasionally, checking out a word for a beginning sound.
While this is impressive it’s causing us to go through a lot of early reader books. A LOT of early reader books.
We need more books.
This is where you come in.
For almost three years now I’ve been letting you know what my book recommendations are, now it’s your turn. I need help!
For all the talk I’ve heard about having a hard time finding books for boys there are a seriously lack of girly early reader books at our library. As you may or may not know, Ivy is girly. We need books with cute things, girls, princesses, silly stuff and fuzzy animals!
Right now Ivy has been reading the early reader Dr. Seuss books, Puppy Mudge, Biscuit, and a smattering of random things involving bugs and trains that she doesn’t enjoy near so much. So, my wonderful readers can you help?
What’s your best early reader recommendation? 
-Also, I’d like to note before anyone see’s fit to unnecessarily reprimand me that she rereads the books, practicing and gaining confidence many times before they head back to the library. I’m not a book reading, slave master that won’t let her succeed we just need some new material to mix in!
For most of my life I have been around chickens and their eggs. Therefore I am no stranger to odd eggs; the double yolkers, the “wrinkled” shells, the eggs with no yolks, the shell-less eggs… But today Clara found a duck egg that was a first for me.
As she handed it over, she told me that it was bad and we should get rid of it. At first I thought it was just a shell-less egg. Which, I must say, never fail to give me the hibijibies when I’m not expecting them. Just imagine. Reaching into a darkened nest box to pull out an egg, expecting a hard, smooth, warm, shape that fits just perfectly into your hand – and touching instead a cold, squishy, leathery feeling, blob. Uuughh, it makes me shudder just to think of it. After I recover from my split second of panic, when I think I’ve actually found a small alien in my chicken coop, I think they are fascinating – all wiggle and squish! Fascinating or horrifying they are nothing more than a regular egg that didn’t “cook” long enough to get a shell. I see these shell-less eggs most often in the young, the old and the severely startled birds.
In any case -this duck egg went beyond shell-less, it was shell-less with a tail.
The tail is a tube, about three inches long, that is open on the end and leaking out a bit of egg white.
Weird.
Fascinating.
I took pictures
I’m so glad I have a blog so I can justify(?) my pictures of weird eggs.
It makes me feel less crazy.
There is nothing like a good paper flotilla to brighten a foggy day!
Welcome to Mud Season, may all your puddles be filled with paper boats!
I’m a chronic wallet loser.
My wallet is small and I spend at least half my life wondering where it is and then finding it tucked into some “convenient” crevice or lost under the car seat. It’s been mentioned to me (in what I like to think of as more of a loving manner and less of a what-kind-of-moron-are-you manner) that I should carry a purse instead, so that it wouldn’t be able to hide on my so easily. But I’ve never liked carrying purses. Not only do I fill them with stuff that I don’t need to carry around but then I have to carry it around. And while it’s true that I lose my small pocket-sized wallet on a regular basis, it usually turns up somewhere on the property. Purses, in my brief experiment with them, get left behind in other places – much worse.
This time, my wallet had been gone for over a month and I was starting to worry. Not about identity theft or the fact that my check cards could be in the hands of an unsavory character. No, I was worried that I was going to have the face the music and head to the DMV for a new driver’s license. Visions of long lines, crabby government employees, crabby children, inconvenient hours and most of all, a crabby me, were dancing in my head. But even my fear of the DMV was slowly getting overcome by the inconvenience of not having a wallet (which is not as hard as it seems, so long as you know where you husband’s wallet is) and I set a deadline. I decided that if the snowbanks melted in the driveway and my wallet wasn’t to be found frozen at the bottom that, I would have to start to replace things. Which means, of course, the DMV. Things were looking dire indeed.
Then today I was scrummaging around the house looking for baby wipes. It was either find the wipes or get the bathtub going. And I didn’t really have time to bathe the baby before we headed out the door. So I was checking everywhere. Everywhere eventually included the diaper bag. Some of you would have, perhaps, checked your diaper bags earlier but this is my diaper bag and it’s usually not worth bothering with when it comes to finding actual useful items.
Diaper bags fall securely into the “bags I don’t want to carry” category. Over the years I have learned that those molded pockets in the door of the truck work great for holding a few diapers, as does my jacket pocket. A box of wipes really just fits better loose on the floor of the truck than crammed in the top of a diaper bag getting in the way of the actual diapers, and children suffer no ill effects from a drive home in nothing but a diaper if things have gone seriously awry. Not to say that I don’t use my diaper bag, I just don’t use it unless I have to. Now, after six years of use, it’s zipper doesn’t close, a mouse chewed a hole in it, the strap has a large knot tied in it because the plastic doohickey that held it all together broke and it rarely leaves the house, much less gets packed with the variety of useful items I see in other mothers’ diaper bags. So, you can imagine my surprise when I opened it up to find that it did indeed have a package of wipes, a single diaper and when, on a sudden flash of inspiration, I looked in the front pocket – my wallet!
Saved from the DMV by a poopy diaper!
“Great news! ” I hear the kids say and already I’m internally bracing myself to hear the rest of it- their definition of “Great news!” very, rarely aligns with mine.
Today I’m showering at a fast and frantic pace so that I can get out of the house in time to make yet another, spur of the moment, doctors appointment for my ear when Clara bursts into the bathroom and I hear it:
“Great News!” Clara says, “the door was locked but I knifed it.”
Me: “You what-ed it?”
Clara: “You know, where you can put your finger nail in the doorknob I put a knife in there and now the door is unlocked! Isn’t that great!!!”
Like I said, our versions “Great news!” rarely align!
The pants-less, princess proclaims, “Great news!”
My last post was about what a great dad John is and, while that is still true, the gushing over my husband is starting to make my eyes roll. So today my John story is less about greatness and more about sabotage.
Sorry Honey.
I had yet to fall asleep when Clara woke up crying and wanting someone to “nuggle” with her. I got up to find Clara trying to leave her room, scooped her up and tucked her back into her bed.
She was not satisfied.
Clara explained that she wanted to sleep in my bed. I, disliking the idea of stolen pillows and tickley hair up my nose for the rest of the night, asked why. Well… She wanted to sleep in my bed because my blankets were better, and my pillows were nicer. Clara didn’t like her room that night and her bed was not “comfy!” Starting to be sorry I asked, I laid down next to her to snuggle and I pointed out how nice and comfortable her bed was. I showed her how soft her blankets were, and admired her new pillow case on her pillow. Clara, completely unconvinced, just hauled herself out of bed, picked up her water bottle and waded through a sea of stuffed animals as she headed out her door. By the time I caught up to her there she was explaining to John that she was coming to sleep with him because his bed was nicer. John responded, “Yeah, it is, isn’t it.” as he rolled over and fell back asleep.
Sabotage.
Having had all my arguments nullified by Johns one sleepy comment I looked down at Clara happily tucked under my down comforter with her head on my pillow and got a bit huffy. I decided that I would sleep in Clara’s bed, that way I wouldn’t have to fight for bed space or deal with anymore crying and I could just go to sleep.
So I did, and I discovered something.
Her blankets are not as nice as mine, her pillows are awful, and while I find her bed to be very comfy she has a ticking clock just above it that is truly terrible to sleep under.
Clara sleeping with different blankets in a rearranged room – still have to work on that pillow though!
Sorry Clara!
I’ve always thought that being a dad seemed like a good gig. As in my original post on the matter (Mother’s Day) I could elaborate on that but, out of respect for those dad’s who read this, I won’t.
John has always been a great dad. And while his daughters all love him and love doing things with him, lately something very interesting has been happening between him and his youngest girl.
When John leaves Jane cries or frantically waves goodbye over and over and over again.
When he returns Jane rushes to greet him as soon as she hears his voice.
If I’m carrying Jane through the house she will attempt to leap from my arms to his as we pass.
When John puts her to bed he sings her to sleep and she cuddles in and falls asleep in his arms in a way that she never does for me.
Recently Jane was having a bad night, a double ear infection kind of a bad night, and I had been up rocking her and singing to her and while she was settled down in my lap she wasn’t happy and she wasn’t sleeping. After awhile John came in the room to check on us, (added proof of great dad-idness). Jane crawled off my lap, crawled across the floor and pulled on his pants until he picked her up where she snuggled right into his shoulder.
Clearly I had been dismissed.
I crawled back into my own bed as I thought to myself “So, this is what it’s like to be the dad? Yup, I was right, it’s awesome!” and smiled as I fell back asleep.
Did you ever start to suspect that your ear infection had moved into your brain and that you were probably going to die a horrible, brain infected, death that was going to start with you stupidly wandering around the house confused as to why you couldn’t figure out when your child was coming home from school?
No?
Then your clocks must not look like this:
Then did you ever have a horribly circular conversation about telling time…
“But Mom it says 2 o’clock”
“I know but it’s wrong.”
“NO, it says 2 o’clock.”
…and think perhaps that even if your brain wasn’t infected and rotting pounding it against the wall wasn’t going to help it function any better.
-Wait, don’t answer that, I don’t want to know! I’m happy living in my fantasy world where I’m not the only mother with these problems!
(According to the computer the time was 3:56 when I took the above photo.)
For the last week I’ve mostly looked like this:
Well, less fur,shorter snout, but same general position.
Two varieties of antibiotics later and I am hoping that soon I’ll be back to my normal blogging self.
Until then I shall leave you with a bathroom conversation with Clara.
Clara:” MOOOM!!!!! MOOOMMMM!!! MOM!! MOM!! MOM!!”
Me (go into bathroom to find Clara on toilet): “Yes?”
Clara: “People don’t eat bugs – cause they yucky.”
Me: “Yes….”
Clara: “…..”
Me: “???”
Behind the Willows 