Category Archives: Uncategorized

If You Squish It They Will Come.

I love living in the country and some days little, unexpected, things happen that make me thank my lucky stars individually and by name that I live in a place without sidewalks.

For instance, I’m pretty sure that if I lived in the city there would not have been a roadkill rabbit at the end of my driveway for a few days.

And if there wasn’t a roadkill rabbit at the end of my driveway for a few days there wouldn’t have been two turkey vultures eying it up from the tree across the road.

And if there weren’t two turkey vultures sitting in a tree across the road Ivy, Clara and I wouldn’t have been able to look out the bedroom window eyeball to eyeball with the turkey vultures.

And if I didn’t think that was so neat I wouldn’t have grabbed my camera and snuck around the back of the house to try and catch a picture.

And if I hadn’t left out the backdoor so quietly Clara wouldn’t have come screaming out the front door looking for me.

And if Clara hadn’t come screaming out the front door the turkey vultures wouldn’t have flown away.

And if the turkey vultures hadn’t flown away they might have eaten our dead rabbit.

And if they had eaten our dead rabbit it wouldn’t still be sitting out front smelling bad.

And if the rabbit wasn’t smelling bad the turkey vultures wouldn’t come back.

And if it didn’t come back the three of us would be disappointed not to get to watch them at such close range again.

So I leave our dead rabbit out front, and thank my lucky stars once again that I live in a place without sidewalks.

And if you don’t think that dead rabbits bring fun and interesting times that’s OK, we can agree to disagree.

I’ll keep my dead rabbits, you keep your sidewalks!

Fantastic News

“I have fantastic news!”

That’s Ivy’s new announcement that precedes everything from information about what she’s been doing, what her imaginary friend is planning on doing or just letting me know that she said “excuse me” to a chicken and it moved out of her way.

In other fantastic news the sheep have arrived for the summer,

and we have two baby chicks.

They have been named Seed (the boy on the left) and princess  (the girl on the right) Ivy and Clara haven’t loved them enough to wear their feathers off yet but I think they are getting there!

Warning Labels

Warning labels are on just about everything and personally, I don’t even read them anymore. Why? Because I did a quick run through my kitchen and I have learned that all the appliances that cook food get hot. Not to immerse any electrical appliances or their cords in water and that children should not put electrical plugs or cords in their mouths. Which leaves me feeling as though not only have I wasted my time reading all the little labels pasted on cords but that I’m actually dumber for having done so.

A look at the warning labels on children’s products and you’d think they were actually selling pretty pastel death traps.  In fact it appears that Jane was courting serious injury or death all those times that she fell asleep in the bouncy/vibratey chair and I left her *gasp* unattended in the bathroom with the fan on while she napped.

Really it’s a small miracle she’s still alive.

But she is alive and well and big enough to use the Bumbo chair.

The Bumbo of course comes with it’s own slew of warnings that could be distilled down to a simple, short, “Don’t be an idiot when using this product!” but instead take up a paragraph of writing on the back of the chair.

But what really gets me is that it’s missing the one warning that would actually be helpful. What the Bumbo should actually say is this:

Please use common sense when using this product and NEVER use with a child who has to poop!

Now that would be a useful warning.

For those of you who have yet to experience a Bumbo let me elaborate a bit. The Bumbo is a very nice foam chair which is molded just right so that the child’s bottom is snugly cradled into it. This gives the child enough support so that they can “sit up” before than can actually sit up. Unfortunately the chair is so snug and perfect fitting that when the big blast comes there is no room for diaper expansion and the poop finds other avenues. When the poop is finding other avenues it is always bad news.

The most recent escape avenue was down the leg.

Down the leg all the way to the toes.

I then ignored the completely useless warning label on the back and took Jane, Bumbo and all, straight to the bathtub. Fortunately a little label reading told me that that I shouldn’t throw my curling iron, toaster oven or coffee maker in for her to play with and everyone emerged alive despite the ever present threat of “SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH!”

Thank goodness for warning labels.

More Bathroom Trouble

Me: “Clara what’s that wet spot on the porch?”

Clara: “Oh, me pee there.”

Me: “Please don’t pee on the porch.”

Clara: “But me WUV it!”

Since it’s imperative that I never let my daughter know that her loving to pee on the porch is funny, (because then it would become a regular… err… more regular occurrence )I stifled my giggles bit my tongue and changed the subject.

The take home lesson here that I’m hoping my children do not learn is that you can get away with all sorts if you’re funny enough while you do it.

Now please excuse me I’m off to work on my game face.

Clara’s Favorites at Two Years Old

Since I had so much fun with Ivy and her favorites I thought I’d ask Clara about hers as well.

Clara, what’s your favorite…

Color- blue

Animal – camels (???)

Food – french fries

Clothes- jumpin’ suit

Dog – Storm (“She even wick me!)

Cat – Fiona

Person -“YOU!”

Thing to do – play

Thing to do outside -Play in sand box.

Chore- “Goin’ in the house.” (Me: That’s not a chore! Clara: “GOIN’ IN THE HOUSE!” Me: Ok!)

Time of day – Friday (Didn’t pursue that one, after the chore conversation.)

Place to go  -Johnny’s house (She’s never been there.)

Thing to do at the park. “Wheeeeeeeeee down slide.” (Me: “Slide down slides?” Clara: “No, Wheeeeee down slide.”)

Book –Go Dog Go! (“It’s dog party!”)

Thing to do with Ivy -Play in sand box.

Thing to do with Jane – “Say peek-a-boo!”

Friend – IVY!

Meal – pancakes

Movie -nothin’  (I’m not surprised the girl won’t watch a whole movie even if I want her to!)

To do in the car-” Drive.” (Me: “Drive?” Clara: “Yeah, DRIiiiiive.”

Song – “Rum tum tum” (She means the Little Drummer Boy but she gets her rum pa pa pums mixed up with the rat a tat tat, rum a tum tums from the book The Boy With A Drum.)

Flower – tulip (Probably because she’s looking at one on the table right now, I can tell because she called it “your yellow flowers”.)

Farm Animal – goat

After that exchange there is only one thing I can think to say. In the word(s) of my friend Katie that was:

Hilarious.

Ivy’s Favorite Things at Five Years Old

A little over a year ago I tried to ask Ivy as many questions as she asked me. I never succeeded in my efforts to even out the question asking but I wrote down some of her answers and you can find them here: Ivy’s Favorite Things.

A year later and Ivy is still full of insatiable curiosity.  Lately it’s been questions about books and songs, lots of questions.  Recently we were listening to Great Big Sea, she was happily singing along and then…

“Mom what does corpse mean?”

“Mom, what does bore mean?”

I started thinking that I’d better put in a different CD before I had to answer trickier questions than explaining that there was a dead guy floating on a piece of wood. Then I got distracted…

“Mom, why did she give him a baby?”

Oops!

Personally I didn’t think about the words of the songs I was listening to until I was about 25.  Apparently Ivy’s a bit more precocious than that.

In any case,  I thought it was once again time for a little score settling on the question asking, so I pulled up our list from last year.

Ivy, what is your favorite…

Color- pink/purple

Animal –unicorn -giggle, giggle – horse

Food – grilled cheese sandwich

Clothes – blue stripy dress (the one in the picture)

Dog – Trip

Cat – Fiona

Person – Katie (Way to go Katie Sal!)

Thing to do – Play with Joe. (Umm… Katie it’s possible this answer moved you from the category of favorite person to favorite mom of the friend I’d like to play with right now – sorry about that!)

Thing to do inside – take a nap (and to that I say – HA!)

Chore- “I don’t like doin’ chores.”

Time of day – noon

Place to go  – museum

Thing to do at the park – swing

Book – Walter the Baker and Pancakes Pancakes!

Thing to do with Clara – play

Thing to do with Jane – lay (as in lay on the floor next to her)

Friend – Natalie

Meal – “I don’t like breakfast.” (Me: “Yes, but what do you like, what’s your favorite?” Ivy: “Pancakes.” )

Movie – Milo and Otis

To do in the car- read books with you

Song – Pick Yourself Up by Fred Astaire

Flower – planies  (Known as peonies to the rest of us.)

Farm Animal – horse

I had a fun time comparing this list to last years, I’m hoping I can remember to do it again next spring!

If You Give A Kid A Tape Measure…

If you give a kid a tape measure she’ll want to measure the chickens.

When the chickens won’t hold still she’ll decide to measure her boot instead.

When she is measuring her boot by the flowers you might ask her to pose in front of them.

Being asked to hold still will remind her that there are flowers to be picked.

After she picks a flower she’ll need to swing it around crazily hitting herself in the face.

When she is done mangling the flower she’ll want to give it to you.

It’s possible that then her older sister will come home and when she finds the tape measure again it’ll be all fighting and tears between the two of them until you take it away.

The End

A Word From Jane

Jane’s a bit grumpy.

It has come to her attention that she is in fact the third child and her mother never takes pictures of her.

I tried to tell her that it’s because I’m always holding her or she’s sleeping,  making pictures either difficult or boring but she was having none of it. She told me she does plenty of interesting things and if I don’t start taking more photos and sharing them she’s never going to sleep through the night.

So without further ado, Jane at (almost) three months!

She laughs… …and say’s “oooo”… … has funny hair…… and enjoys a good arm chew with her sister. Now Jane, about that sleep?

Did I Just Say What I Thought I Said? III

Most recently in exclamations that shouldn’t have to be exclaimed we have:

“DON’T LAY ON THE DUCKS!”

Ducks today after thunderstorm, look at all the green and budding trees!

The biggest difference in today’s edition is that this was not yelled at a kid.

It was yelled at the dog.

A certain brown and white spotted dog who is endeavoring to be perfect but keeps doing things like laying on ducks which is preventing him from achieving that golden pedestal at the moment.

Trip and the ducks (in particular the two in the front of the photo) have been playing since he was a puppy.

Trip playing with ducks last November.

(Yes, my hunting dog plays with the domestic waterfowl. Why don’t you  just go ahead and get all those snotty comments out of your system now, I know you want to.)

When Trip was a puppy they would chase each other around the yard and every now and then he’d manage to jump on one and wrestle with it puppy style before it would escape and waddle away, only to come running back to tweak his tail.

Now they still run and chase but I’m a bit more worried about duck damage. Trip jumps on a duck, lays down on top of it to hold it still and then “gently” chews on his victim, er, playmate.

Which is how I found myself in the yard yelling, “DON’T LAY ON THE DUCKS!”

Not exactly the concise sort of command a dog trainer recommends, but it works fine.

Must be something about the tone of my voice…