No, I Do Not Also Hate Kittens, Puppies, and Frolicking Lambs

You know that photo I posted on here yesterday of my sweet little tulip buds?

That photo was taken last week before we left for a trip down south.  When we returned Sunday evening, I marveled at how much they had grown, clucking over them and pulling an errant weed here and there.

Yesterday morning, the boys and I headed into the backyard to play.  As I was making my rounds of the flowerbeds, I came to those tulips.  They were no longer six inches tall, and they were no longer green and pink and beautiful.

They had been chewed down, eaten by those irritating, disgusting, pagan RABBITS.

I hate rabbits.  I'm not going to sugarcoat it anymore.  No more, "Well, I just don't like the rabbits in my backyard.  I'm sure there are nice rabbits out there somewhere."  No more Watership Down.  No more God-loves-all-his-creatures-blah-blah-blah.  I'm done.

I was still stewing over all this as the boys and I went to Aldi yesterday.  After successfully completing our grocery shopping, we stopped by a local nursery so that I could peruse their vegetable seeds.

You know what I saw the second I walked in the door?

That's right.  Rabbits.

They had cages right inside the front door, taunting me.  Why on earth would a Garden Center have rabbits?  Wouldn't that be like a chocolaterie having a scale and a full-length mirror?  Or a library having DVD's?  (Oh, wait...)

A salesgirl quickly approached me, politely asking if I needed any help.

I got right to the point.  "Why do you have rabbits in here?"

"Well, some people like to buy them around Easter."

"Gardeners do?  You're telling me gardeners like to buy rabbits?"

(Nervous laughter) "I guess so."

Her obvious discomfort helped me snap out of it and put my I'm-in-public-so-let's-not-scare-people face back on.  She seemed very relieved when I asked her what kind of carrots they had.

I managed to make it through the rest of our visit to the store without incident, although Caedmon insisted on continually drawing my attention to the rabbits by pointing at them and saying, "Doggie?  Doggie?"

As we were leaving, Atticus wandered off a bit, distracted by a display of strange contraptions, right next to the rabbits.

"Mommy, what are those?"

I peered at the tags, then started laughing.  "Those are rabbit traps, Bud."

Maybe those garden center people know what they're doing, after all.

Flowers, Vegetables, and Scat

After an unbelievably mild winter (we saw just a few inches of snow, which is, of course, due to the fact that we finally bought a snow blower last summer), spring has arrived early here in central Iowa.

You know what that means:  Gardening!

I've been cleaning out and weeding the flower beds.  We've been out of town, so I've gotten all of two beds done, which means I still have what feels like miles of them ahead of me.  I'd like to get them done before our spring order of flowers comes in.  This year we've got a bunch of pink astilbe, some orange candleflower, jack-in-the-pulpit, and a couple succulents I'm going to try in a container.  When it warms up a bit I'll go ahead and fill in the flower baskets on our front porch.  One of these years I'll have my stuff together early enough to get some cool-season annuals in those- I love pansies and snapdragons- but this is not that year.

I confess that I have not planted any veggies yet.  I know, I know, this basically means I'm lazy and a horrible person.  I do have the vegetable patch about 70% ready for planting, and I've wrestled last year's Giant Sunflower out of there. My only goal for now is to get the lettuce in within the next few days.

I'd also like to try a small strawberry plant in a pot this summer, and if that goes well, perhaps start a strawberry patch next summer.  Our family has started going through around a quart of strawberries each evening at supper, and it's getting expensive.


While I love the way our flower beds look in the summer, there's something about them in the spring.  They're not much to look at from afar:

But up close, they're so... hopeful.

Our children have also been spending copious amounts of time outside, which is great for both their physical health and their mother's mental health, but also has it's drawbacks.

One day a couple weeks ago, I went out back to see what our older two children were up to.  Atticus beckoned me to him and asked, "Hey, Mom, you wanna see what's in my pocket?"

I was filled with instant trepidation, but answered in the affirmative.  "Sure, Bud."

"See?  It's a little ball."

I mastered my gag reflex when I saw the 'little ball' he'd had in his pocket, and managed to reply, "Bud, put that down.  It's not a little ball, it's rabbit poop."  

He paused to inspect it a little more closely before dropping it; Adelaide, on the other hand, instantly reached into her jacket pockets and pulled out two big handfuls of rabbit poop, throwing them onto the ground.

Then we all trooped inside and scrubbed our hands like we were prepping for surgery.

It's with those types of events in mind that I'm both excited- but also a little anxious- for what spring will bring this year.

Slow Motion

I often feel bad for Caedmon.


He gets beat up a lot.  Not necessarily on purpose- his older siblings seem to view him as yet another piece of furniture, to be stepped on, crawled over, or knocked aside as they run past.

Atticus is by far the worst offender; I'm not sure whether this is due to his Y chromosome, the fact that he's three, or if he's just kind of rough.

Caedmon and Adelaide play very well together.  She's usually pretty gentle and patient with him, and still seems to find him to be exceptionally cute rather than exceptionally annoying.  But she's still only five years old, and has a lot to learn about how to handle a toddler.

He's obviously smiling and enjoying himself, despite having his shirt and jacket pulled up to expose his belly. I'd be snarling and scratching at my captor if someone tried that with me.  Compared to the kind of treatment he usually receives, however, this is bliss.

It has also resulted in an unusually tough kid.  When he fell down a step and landed flat on his face on the industrial carpet at the library this morning, he came up laughing- a far cry from how his older siblings would have reacted.

I suppose there is a positive side to all this abuse.

(Pssst... If you click on the first photo, it will bring you to a larger, slideshow format.  You can then use the right arrow button on your keyboard to scroll quickly through the pictures and watch as Adelaide and Caedmon slide down.)

Wrong Again

About a year ago, I wrote a post about how I generally believe boys and girls to be fundamentally different.  Since then, I've had a couple different people challenge my opinion and basically try to tell me how wrong I am.



On a completely unrelated note, here's how our kids have been spending their spring break so far:

Atticus has been golfing...

... and climbing stuff.

Adelaide has been reading stacks of books...

...and twirling.

Caedmon has been hitting himself in the face...

...and laughing.

And hitting himself in the face...

... and laughing.

Yeah, those people are probably right.

Stop The Madness!!!!!

We're all friends here, right?

Well, friends, it's time for some tough love.  Because I've kept my mouth shut for a long time, hoping this little problem would get better or solve itself, but it's just not happening.  Time for an intervention.


Let's start with a quick review:

What, boys and girls, do you call this little thingamajigger, in between the brackets? ------>     {   .   }

Very good!  That is a period.  A period is used to indicate the end of a declarative sentence.

Question #2:  What is this thing here, again between the brackets?--------->      {   !   }

That's right!  It's an exclamation point.  It is used to indicate not only the end of a sentence, but also to express intense emotion or loudness.  You're so smart.

Here's my beef:  I have noticed a certain tendency- among internet users in particular- to overuse exclamation points.  It ends up looking something like this:

"I went to the mall today!!!  It was so great!!  I got some blue suede shoes!!!  Now I look just like The King!!!!!"

When you use exclamation points over and over and over again, they start to lose their value.  But that's not my real problem.  What really bothers me is several exclamation points in a row.   {!!!!!!!}

I'm going to be real honest here:  Don't do this.  It makes you look dumb.

I'm saying this out of love, people.  My intention is not to alienate, but to educate.  So let's discuss a few alternatives to this increasingly common error:

• Broaden your vocabulary.  Don't just tell me that your red velvet birthday cake was so great!!!!  Tell me what you liked about it; it was rich, decadent, flavorful, sinful, moist, whatever.  Be descriptive.  Adjectives and adverbs are your friends.

• Try a comparison.   Don't just say, "I'm so happy!!!!!!"  Give me a basis for comparison.  "I'm as happy as a pageant contestant who's arch-rival discovered Nutella two weeks before the swimsuit competition."  This gives me a far better barometer to your emotions than five exclamation points.

• I don't have a third idea.  But to my mind, a list should have at least three items, and I was bound and determined to have a bulleted list today.

Even I honestly don't mind multiple exclamation  points every once in a great while, especially if you have some truly superior news to share:  "My wife is pregnant with quadruplets!!"  "I just nailed my interview and landed my dream job!!!"  "We're going to Dollywood!!"  

It's the repeat offenders that get me.  It's hard to take what you say seriously, or believe your news is really that exciting, if everything you write ends with this!!!!!!

In other news, Spring is almost here!!!!  

I Never Thought I'd Say "Nipples" This Many Times In One Post

Usually, I try not to label my children.

I don't mean covering them in nifty tags made on my nonexistent label-maker.  I mean thinking of them in terms of "the pretty one," "the creative one," "the dirty one," etc, etc.

Labeling seems like a dangerous practice when it comes to your offspring; if that one is "the smart one," then what does that make the rest of them?  The stupid ones?  In addition is the thought of a negative label becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, because if I think of a child a certain way- disobedient, messy, slow- aren't I more likely to treat them as such?

So I do my best to think the best of our kiddos.  I try to focus on their potential and their positive attributes.

I've been having a little trouble lately, though.  Trouble with a certain label and our middle child.

I keep thinking of Atticus as "the weird one."

Yesterday, as I was getting Caedmon up from his nap, I heard Atticus moving around in his room.  Moments later, he called to me, "Hey Mommy, come look at dese."

My heart sank; about half the time he wants me to come inspect something, I'm not happy with whatever "dese" are.

I scooped Caedmon up and bravely entered the bedroom.  Atticus was standing there in  nothing but a pair of shorts.  He was looking down at this torso.

"What did you want to show me, Bud?"

"What are dese?" he asked, pointing.

"Those are you nipples, Bud."

(Pause)  "Hey, Mom, are you proud of me?"

"Proud of you for what?"

"Proud of me for having nipples!"

"Uhhh... sure, Bud."



Seeing the conversation written down, I'm starting to think maybe the problem doesn't lie with Atticus.  My end response was pretty weak, after all.  Surely I could have come up with something better and more kid-affirming than 'Uhhh...sure.'  Something more like, "Absolutely, Bud!  I'm super-proud of those amazing nipples of yours!" or "Definitely.  Best nipples I've seen all day!" or "Bud, with nipples like yours, who wouldn't be proud?"

Maybe I'm not supportive enough of my children and their nipples.

Or maybe kids in general are just weird.

Our Children Are Doomed

Sometimes I feel sorry for our kids.

Generally this sympathy is brought about by one incident or another that makes me say, "Wow.  You really are my kid," or likewise makes Derek say, "You really are your mother's daughter/son."

Last week's situation involved Atticus having an outburst in his bedroom at naptime.  Upon hearing his sudden shrieks, I loped up the stairs, ran into his room, and asked, "What's the matter, Bud?"  He cried/yelled, "There's something on my eyes!"  My thoughts immediately ran to logical explanations like blindness due to acid in his eyes (because you know we keep a vat of acid in the corner of our childrens' bedroom), so I rushed over, knelt down, and tried to gently pull his eyelids up.  He resisted and said, "No, HERE!"

He then ran his fingertips over his eyebrows.

A few weeks before that, it took me the better part of an afternoon to finally figure out what was bothering Adelaide.  All she would tell me was that she had done something bad and was afraid that I wouldn't love her anymore, and worse, that God wouldn't love her anymore.  I petted and soothed her enough to where she finally admitted, sobbing, that "I bowed down to Atticus!"

It took me a bit to figure out exactly what she meant and what had happened; something about how she was bowing down for some reason or other, Atticus happened to come stand in front of her, and after all the Old Testament stories we've been reading about people like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, she thought that literally bowing down in front of anyone but Jesus Himself would earn her a one-way ticket to Hell.  It took quite a while to calm her down after this one.

I can only imagine what Derek must think during these little kid-crises- perhaps that he should have been a little more choosy in his search for a wife and subsequent mother of his children?

I am well able to understand what our kiddos are thinking during these episodes.  They're probably similar to the kind of thoughts I have when I wake up in the middle of the night, it seems especially bright outside our bedroom window, and my first thought is, "Aliens.  I knew it."

Our son's little eyebrow scare mostly likely brought forth feelings like the ones I had the other night when, after calming Atticus down at around 2 am, I crawled back into bed, Derek rolled over in his sleep, and one of his hands came to rest near my leg.  His fingers were on part of my pajama pants, and somehow, every time he inhaled, his hand moved a fraction, and it plucked at the material of my pajamas.  I chuckled over this for a second, until horror overcame the humor, because I rapidly managed to convince myself that due to the fact that he was lying on his back, his hand couldn't have been facing that way and performed that strange plucking action; instead, he must have sprouted another hand off of his hip, and it was this new limb that was snagging my clothing, trying to get my attention.

It took me a full minute to gather the courage to throw the covers back and see if there was an extra hand near his abdomen.  I'll save you the suspense:  there wasn't.

So although our children may seem crazy now, don't worry.  Strong evidence suggests that while they may not outgrow this paranoia, they will become rather skilled at hiding it from the public at large.