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The Second Child

I’m sure you’ve heard that saying about how you worry less about your second child because you’ve been through it all before.

The problem is I was never super worried with the first child.

Today Ivy, Clara and I made a big leaf pile at my parents house for the two girls to jump in.

As we were playing I thought Clara had a stick.

It was not a stick.

It was a dead shrew.

She was about to put it in her mouth.

Not completely lacking in the worry/grossed out department I leaped the leaf pile and took it away.

Ivy of course was fascinated by the small dead thing and wanted to know what it was and speculate on what killed it. (Yes, I realize that this is kind of strange but at least she’s got the idea of what dead means, and how food chains work.)

As Ivy and I were checking it out I noticed both it’s front legs were missing and it looked very, fresh…

As I threw it into the woods I decided that it couldn’t have been my second daughter, the girl who eats everything, who ate the legs.

Right?

Right.

Then we went back to jumping in leaves.

It’s possible a bit more worry in my life might have been a good thing.

In The Dark

Last night we lost power for a few hours, or as Ivy says “The batteries ran out!”

John and Ivy spent time reading books by the light of a little green flashlight while I played with my camera.

After the girls were in bed John and I had just settled down for a nice night of lounging and reading in the dark when the lights came back on and it was back to previously scheduled chores, what a bummer!

The Great Debate

For years my husband has been calling me a “crackpot.”

I hate to admit it but among his various reasons for this some might have an element of truth to them.  There is one topic though which I refuse to admit to the “crackpottedness” of my ways, Macaroni and Cheese.  I am a firm believer that regular Macaroni and Cheese is disgusting. It is slimy, watery and in general something that should only be fed to small children (I make them eat all the food I don’t like, but that’s a different story) Spiral Mac and Cheese is totally different. Spiral Macaroni and Cheese is something that pregnant woman’s cravings are made of, it’s more robust, with very little slime and tons of cheesy goodness crammed in all the ridges.

I love Spiral Macaroni and Cheese.

I hate all other shapes, I will not eat them.

John being a man and willing to put almost anything dead in his mouth thinks this makes me a “crackpot”. I feel I just have a more discerning palate. One night as I was unjustly accused of being a “crackpot” for this very reason we conducted a brief phone survey of our friends but than accused each other of only calling people who would agree with us… both were guilty as charged. But now I have a blog, and over in the sidebar there is an intriguing option called “polls” so tonight I thought I’d give it a try.

What do you think?

Are you a “crackpot” too?

Or is John right and I am a “crackpot”?

 

“Stupid” Questions

Ivy was in a great mood today.

She was good.

She was helpful.

She played with Clara.

She listened well at story-time.

She drove me insane.

Here is the problem. When Ivy is extra super happy, she talks extra super much, and it’s not just talking.  It is non-stop question asking.

Now before you think I’m a horrible intolerant mother let me refer you to this post –One Hundred and Seventy Seven.  The short story on that post is that one day Ivy asked me 208 questions in one afternoon, I learned from that experience that counting the number of questions only makes me more insane  and does nothing to stem the flow of asking.  In fact it’s been almost four months since that day and we are still in question land.

Especially when Ivy is in a extra super happy, because that means she is also in an extra super talkative mood.

The problem is that I am happy to answer real questions.  It’s the “stupid” questions I have a problem with. Every time Ivy asks me a “stupid” question I hear countless old teachers’ voices echoing in my head saying “There is no such thing as a stupid question.”

But there are.  There are lots of stupid questions.

Things like “Mom, where is Storm?” – In the same crate she’s been in for the last two months and easy to locate because she is barking.

or “Mom, are you eating?” -While we are all sitting down eating lunch together.

or “Mom, are you peeing?” -That needs no further explanation other than to say I look forward to the days of kid-free bathrooms.

Repeat questions are also stupid questions.  If you have already asked me three times what color my shirt is, time number four is, without a doubt, a stupid question.  Possibly two and three were as well.

The stupid question crowning moment came late this afternoon. Ivy and I had a conversation that almost made my head explode.  It went something like this:

Ivy: “Mom, what you doin?”

Me: “Pulling out weeds.”

Ivy: “Why?”

Me: “So we can plant garlic here.”

Ivy: “Where are you puttin’ those weeds?”

Me: “In a pile over here.”

Ivy: “What are they?”

Me: “What are what?”

Ivy: “Those.”

Me: “These weeds?”

Ivy: “Yeah, those.”

Me: “I don’t know what kind of plants they are.”

Ivy: “Mom, what are they?”

Me: “Ivy, I don’t know.”

Ivy: “No, what are they?”

Me: “I don’t know”

Ivy: “What are they?”

Me: “I don’t know!”

Ivy: “DON’T SAY YOU DON’T KNOW!”

Me: “But I don’t know what they are.”

Ivy: “Mom, they are WEEDS, just say weeds.”

Me: “Why are you asking if you already know?”

Ivy: “I don’t know…”

Just typing that might have made five more hairs go gray…

The problem is I suspect she just wants to have a conversation with me, but all of my strategies to teach her how to start one without asking a question she already knows the answer to are massively failing. The end result is that I end up pulling out my hair on days Ivy is super happy while feeling guilty that her happy question asking makes me insane.

So please if you know how to get a kid to stop asking stupid questions let me know.

If by chance you are one of my old teachers who have accidentally come across this blog – I challenge you to take Ivy for the day and see if there is still no such thing as a “stupid” question.

Walking Piper

Piper is the best dog ever.

I can say this, because she is my dog and everyone knows that their own dog is the best dog ever.

Exhibit number one of Piper as the best dog ever:

Just so you know and can be suitably impressed my calculator and I did some figuring, Piper is approximatley three times bigger than Ivy.

I am extra proud of my big lug of a dog, when I think back on how Piper started out heeling.  While it has been long enough that I’m not exactly sure what the issue was in the beginning  I do vividly remember Piper refusing to walk on a leash.  Refusing to the point that she would lay on her back and while growing and attacking the leash.  Things were so bad that we started over and switched sides (she’s a right sided heeler now) before she would walk next to me without turning into a psycho attack dog.

Then we hit the stage where she was an extra large puppy, and she sort of knew the rules but still had too much puppy left to follow them all the time. The trouble was that when heeling and seeing something extra fun like a squirrel I started to worry my shoulder would be dislocated before she learned she wasn’t allowed to lunge after them.  We invested in a Gentle Leader and while I’ve heard some people had bad experiences with them it was perfect for Piper and I. Now six years later we were running at the local park and I had the only dog not pulling off it’s owners arm when it went by another dog.

Piper, the Great Dane even a three year old can walk.  Clearly is the best dog ever.

Well, most of the time…

Pumpkins

*Please ignore the date stamps on the photos as almost all of them are wrong!*

Since Ivy’s first fall her Great Gramps has grown her (and now Clara as well) a whole pumpkin patch full of pumpkins.

The first year Ivy was amazed at what she found in the pumpkin patch

The next year pumpkin collecting inspired nose wrinkling, always a sign of true happiness!

Last year Ivy took her pumpkin collection duties a bit more seriously.

Now this year it was Clara’s turn to be amazed at her pumpkin patch finds….

..while Ivy used the pumpkins (and everything else) as a climbing tool!

As you can see the girls and I have loved pumpkin picking time, and it looks to me like Great Gramps loves it all too!

Notes From The Photographer (that’d be me) –

I tried really hard to get a picture of these three  sitting with the pumpkins.

Ten pictures I took and not a one of them has more than one person looking at the camera…

…I tell ya, it’s like herding cats!

One Year Old!

Clara turned one on Thursday.

It just so happened that Thursday was the day I caught the first picture of Clara looking like the little girl she is becoming instead of the baby she was.

So much change in so little time!Happy Birthday Clara!

Technical Difficulties

 Back home from our visit to Tyler we are still experiencing technical difficulties with our internet. multiple phone calls by both John and I yesterday we have a plan. The satellite internet is getting fixed, they claim it’s “high priority”… we’ll see. Then in another four months when our contract is done we’ll be getting something else!

Right now we are at story time and Clara is uninterested in cooperating to listen to stories or sit at the computer. Hopefully we’ll be back online soon!