The Dark Side of Seven (or Darth-Sohn)

Today Frost is home from school because of a faux-snow closure and all of us are enjoying watching the squirrel climbing up the birdfeeder. Since I put a large metal band around the pole it takes the poor beast a few attempts (aka falls to the ground) to make it over the impediment. Its better value for the birdseed but it will still eat most of it before a bird gets any.

Spending all this time with Frost I have started to notice that he has a very dark sense of humor. Is this my fault? JoshI'm wondering if I should have let him read The Far Side so young or perhaps the Simpsons?

Just after breakfast he announced: "Shannon, I am making all the faces in the paper into Zombies"

Wren was interested and so he started teaching him how to do it (Wren was only scribbling in black pen but he had the vision!)


Frost: "Come Wren, you make weird markings on their faces. But now I not only doing Zombies, I am doing HALLOWEENS TOO and now Wren's doing Halloweens too."

When Wren's scrawl did not satisly Frost's aesthetic he added: "Wren, let me help you more Zombify." Here is the result of Frosts newspaper zombification.



We walked to the Third Place Books for lunch. This place used to share the Honey Bear Bakery which was a spot that was popular with old people and small kids. I liked it because I could read board books to Wren on the floor and then have a cheap cookie-coffee combo for about $5. No More. They have undergone a rennovation and a new restaurant has moved in. They do sell coffee but also tasty restaurant meals. I am not sure how they manage it but I always end up spending a lot more than I anticipated. Mental note: this is not a casual coffee spot any more. It is a R-E-S-T-a-U-R-A-N-T. Also, the large (tall) coffee is tiny - if delicious. I think they use Illy. For lunch for the three of us (and everyone knows Frost eats like a gerbil) it was $30.

While at the bookstore Frost fell in love with a calendar titled The Bunny suicides Calendar 2009. It is by Andrew Riley. Some are very macabre and some are funny and some are both. Frost is now begging me to give it to him for Christmas. While looking it up online I found another title by the same author - cartoons called "Lies to tell small kids". It is very funny. Some of them had Frost and I laughing together "Tell them that rain is god's wee wee" and just me: "wine makes mommy clever."



The Bird Feeder
Mum asked how the bird feeder that is squirrel proof was doing. Have the birds found it? This was one of Mum's projects while she was here. The answer is "YES". As you can see in the picture below, Wren has enjoyed watching many small birds (chickadees and white eyes) eating the suet and the mixed seed. Apparently, feeding birds over winter is quite controversial. I was listening to a show on NPR in which callers shared their strategies for keeping hummingbird feeders thawed during the cold snap. Some use hand warmer packs, others leave lights on all night and others take their feeders indoors overnight. The critics say that this is causing the overwintering of hummingbirds outside their range. Who knows, we are only offering seed.