Bobcats, Cougars and linuxes

For better or worse, Frost is a child of the digital age. This week I took him, Wren and Isaac to Northwest Trek to see the animals and make the tram ride around the wildlife park. We had a fun time although Wren was exhausted on the tram from missing naptime.

We saw huge bison and moose and were excited by the elk entering the rut, rubbing the velvet off their horns to become more sexy.

Anyway, Frost and Isaac really enjoyed the forest animals best. They loved the wolverine and the fisher (Apparently the fisher needs a bit of a PR campaign. Perhaps it should appear on Diego or Zaboomafoo. "What is that?" "Its an otter/ferret / badger" "Is it?"" was the most common conversation at its window).

Frost wanted to see the cats but we didn't have time. He called them the "bobcats, cougars and linuxes." Apparently linux is more familiar to him than a lynx.

Wren and Frost are now dueling over the small stuffy possum we were given in exchange for a donation at the entrance. Wren wept because he couldn't find "baby poss" at naptime. This adds poss to the essential sleeping equipment of:

1) Soft shirt
2) Small bun[ny]
3) Big bun
4) Baby Poss

I need to run, Diego is over....

Crooked neck and Wren-Is-a-Tyrant

Anyone who thinks that being a stay at home mother is light work should take a look at me today. I am walking around with a neck spasm after trying to balance reading a book with navigating a toy and lifting Wren up into an "airplane" over my head.

Something went tweak and now I am incapacitated.

My naturopath has prescribed massage and chiropractic work as well as Tiger Balm and hot and cold compresses to reduce nerve and muscle inflammation. Apparently, I also have signs of long term (chronic) nerve compression in my face / neck due to neck vertebra being misaligned. I am going to have a good relationship with a masseur and a chiropractor. The trouble I had with the Open Water Swimming is also related to this neck injury so perhaps something good will come of this in the end.

Wren, sensing my distress has been kind and helpful, NOT. He has developed a violent shriek of protest which he uses when I show that my will is not subject to his command. Frost, who has started playing a MMORPG (Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) and is developing a new vocabulary, has taken to calling Wren his minion but when the master gives commands this minion retaliates.

The scream is so far outside the boundaries of acceptable voice or volume that he is taken straight to his room until he stops. This can be a long time. The only true antidote for this behavior is to shadow him all day and remove any obstacle to his desires, to obey fully, to respond adroitly and to maintain a steady focus of listening and being present. I am not very good at this. Sometimes the demands are challenging (I want cookie for breakfast. I want watch Diego NOW. Shannon DO NOT GO DOWNSTAIRS WITH FROST." On other occasions they are reasonable but I am not able to respond immediately. Finally, they are those times when I am a lousy mother and lazy as a windsock becalmed. Then it is all my fault because I do not listen/ come/look/stand / sit and/or see in a reasonable time.

Still, the punishment for neglect is dire.

Anyway, there is good news. I have my US Citizenship application all ready. It was a lot easier when I realized that I have had my Green Card for 7 years and qualify to apply for citizenship as a resident rather than as a wife of a US Citizen. That means I don't have to prove that Joshua supports, loves and maintains me and that we have kids and a house and a bank account together and he is not dead and still lives with me. I still have to prove I am not a felon and have a good moral character despite my old arrest in Australia (for trespassing during an anti-logging protest).

Otherwise, we are all doing fine. Enjoying some cooler weather and some lazy days. I have the big box of lego duplo in the basement and Frost makes popcorn everyday. Wren chooses his own clothes and is potty trained (hooray). Josh has bought some new running shoes and a banjoy and hopes to run and strum more in the near future. The Subaru has a CHECK ENGINE warning and it has to go in for a service soon. Anything else? Not that I can remember.

Oh, if you LOVE YOUR LAPTOP please tell me. I am replacing the old iBook and am thinking of switching to our family desktop for most of my computing with an Asus Eee 1005 as my portable machine. Comments? Horror? Let me know.

Looking for Doffmetter

It is a lovely thing when your baby learns to talk. Lovely, and profoundly moving when the inchoate life-force reaches out and makes contact. All first-time parents (and some well rested veterans) wait with hope for the first word and two months later its obvious to everyone else that "ga ga ga" means pony.

But while the baby books hype up the happiness of the first "Ma ma" they failed to prepare me for the conversational mishaps of my kids. Here they are, for your edification and compassion.

ISSUES AND CONFLICTS ARISING FROM EARLY CHILDHOOD LANGUAGE ACQUISITION:

Lesson number 1: Don't rush a child's development. Don't read too many books. Once a kid starts talking its impossible to shut him up. It is ideal if the child starts to talk around the time they have something worthwhile to contribute.

Both my kids have been early and insistent talkers. Actually, that's not quite true. Neither Frost nor Wren started speaking much before 15 months but since they did they have both been insistently articulate. There is the infamous long distance trip I took (alone) with Frost to South Africa when he was 20 months old. He spent much of our 18 hour hop from Atlanta to Joburg running up and down the aisle singing the ABC song and chatting to the legs that had aisle seats. He was a bit of a celebrity. During the trip he amused everyone by commenting that avocados were "very TAsty." Just take it from someone that has sat by a toddler during 72 hours of international travel - toddlers that talk do not always talk about things that are INTERESTING.

Lesson #2: Children do not learn words for your gratification.

Wren: "Shannon, I would like some tea. "

Both boys called me Mama / Mummy in the beginning. Somewhere pre-3 Frost noticed that I was called Shannon by everyone else and started calling me that. I have been unable to shake it. Wren called me Mummy too but is now in the transition. "Shannon, Shannon" he calls. "Shannon, Mummy!" When I remind him that I am his Mummy he says "Mummy Shannon?" Fred says I should "just ignore him" calling me Shannon and only respond to Mummy but toddlers are missiles designed for the sole purpose of detonating the ignorer. If there is an ignorer versus toddler competition I am doomed by virture of motherhood. Just how much "Shannon, Shannon?.. make it tea. Now. NOW. PLEEEEAAAAASE SHANNON" can you take?

Lesson #3: Kids acquire the vocabulary the eldest child uses, not the vocabulary from Good Night Moon.

Wren: "That big digger carried dumpster and Frost said "whattaheck?" he said "whattaheck?"

I think I speak well. Whenever a Facebook ap prompts me to test my vocabulary or verbal IQ or the books I have read I feel secretly smug (a smugness I do not put to the test but..). However, it appears our family is in need of some similes for "dammit" "fudge" and "crap" which slip out in times of stress and drama (no, not many of those around here).

Frost learned from me and his friends and is free and easy with his "dammits" which have been classed as non-felonious swear words. "Crap" is considered only slightly unpleasant and OK in dire straits [such as when your Guy is killed when you are near the end of a level or the computer freezes up and you lose all your progress at the end of your screentime limit]. Still, while I can stomach some colloquial rudeness in my 8 year old I think it is quite unacceptable for Wren to say "DAMMIT" when his block tower falls over. Its just not right. Further, all those first time parents at the playground could not imagine their baby (progressing right along through the baby book) could say a bad word like that. They don't understand that while Wren looks like a 2 year old he is really a size-challenged 8 year old and runs with the gang. He doesn't want to be friends with their kids just because they have some temporal thing in common.

Lesson #4: If you can't understand your child ITS YOUR FAULT. Dumbhead. Its YOUR FAULT.

When talking with you, children use the word they remember they heard yesterday but, like broken down telephones, the word may not correlate with anything in the dictionary. In this case it is your responsibility to solve the riddle. During the solving you should never never say "I don't understand". That's rude. That's being a dumbhead and you should not be a rude dumbhead to your toddler. They are talking to you and your are the understander so understand already alright.

I'll give you an example.

Wren tells me he wants his doffmetter pants. "doffmetter?" I repeat, in case I am miss-hearing.

"Doffmetter," he affirms.

"Hrrmm, where did you see Doffmetter?" I struggle?

"Yesserday, I have doffmetter. The NEW one."

I try, but fail. "I don't understand, Wren."

"DOFFMETTER!!!!!" Wren is shouting and starting to speak high pitched. He is on the verge of a tantrum.

"Ok, where did you see it"

"Innalaundry!" he whines, supine.

"Ah, your new underpants?"

He hops up as I pull out all the 8 underpants hoping that one is doffmetter. We check all 8 and as I see him examining and rejecting them. Then we have a moment of insight.

Wren: "NO THOSE! Where is doff-meter-fighting-guy! "
"Fighting guy? OH OH....Darth vader? You want your Darth Vader underpants?"
"YES!!! DARFVETTER!"

Problem.

"Wren, there were no pants with Darth Vader on."

I know I am right. They are all Cars and The Incredibles on the pants. Seeing him gathering himself to yell at my stupidity I rush to the laundry basket and gather all the other things we bought at Target. Wren scrabbles through them in excitement. We almost have reached communicative liftoff.

Wren says "It was there yesterday now it - is - not - there." [this is bad]

But all is not lost. Burrowing through dirty laundry Wren grabs at something blue. It is an Avengers T-shirt.

"THERE IT IS!" he is triumphant. "Hooraay."

We have found Doffmetter.

There are many other examples that are easy to see in retrospect or context but its very hard to make your mind leave the word you heard to find another. A few days ago Wren told me he had "lava" coming out his mouth (that was saliva) and you heard about Donna's Ark (Noah's to the biblical fundamentalists). We had "magnets" eating the dead seal on the beach and the T-doc on Greenlake is the "Greenlake DOCtor."

All of this is understandable as we acquire language without reading - I was the same learning spoken Indonesian - but it brings a great deal of stress to the conversational partner. The stakes are high and the volume loud. Its not like you or I learning to speak French over a cup of coffee. Its teaching someone else French when your student yells at you if you can't understand their guess at the word and they talk all the time about poop and cars and cookies and only learn the words that drive you crazy.

Now I am going to the dentist which means it will be quiet for an hour and I can drool lava from my mouth for a bit afterwards.

The Wild Things

I grew up in Durban, South Africa, and was one of those kids who have a series of hobbies which consume them. One of these obsessions was bird watching. Durban has a very rich birdlife and once I set up a bird table in the tree outside my bedroom and stocked it with seed and bone meal I had an exciting range of birds to watch. I still recall the day I saw burchell's coucal on my bird table and there were always weavers and barbets as well as the ubiquitous indian mynahs which nested in the park nearby. Over the years my family took over the birdwatching habit and even now, whenever Mum and Dad visit me we end up bird watching and sharing binoculars. Even Wren knows that when you see a bird you shout "give me the binoculars!"

So it was utterly utterly frustrating to arrive at Cape Disappointment on Friday night and find the sea filled - from horizon to horizon - with tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of birds. From horizon to horizon the birds were flocked over the ocean, diving and flying past.

A small section of the huge mixed flock on 7/31/09

Words cannot really convey what it was like. Photo's don't either. There was just SO MANY BIRDS out over the sea. They were constantly moving, weaving, plunging, some swaying in formation - long lines of 50 pelicans and 100 cormorants rising and falling in gentle parabolas. Flocks were out beyond the break diving and splashing into the sea while others were passing by like the flock of 70 pelicans I saw flying so close to the surface that I could see each bird reflected in the water beneath it. Further still, the horizon blurred with the sea and the small fishing fleet gathered in the fog marked the reach of the sea.

The beach was awash with feathers

On the beach the lines of yellow scum at the waterline were matted with small brown feathers. Ropes of kelp occasionally dragged dead birds - cormorant, small dark feathered things. Birds, birds, birds but no binoculars! Later, we stopped at the interpretive center and I asked their bird experts about what I had seen. Neither had seen the huge flocks I described but said that they had many schools of "bait fish" at this time of year - sardines, anchovies and another I could not catch the name of - and the birds follow the fish. This certainly conforms with my observations of the birds and you may see some of that if you enlarge the photo. They also mentioned that the fall migration begins in July for many species and it could be the beginning of this movement as the larger flocks gathered.

Wren learned the word "maggot" from a dead baby seal being consumed near the tide-line. "Want to see the magnets again!" he kept repeating. "See the magnets again." His new vocabulary saw more use at the dead whale.

Walking towards the bluff at the North end of the inlet, we found the tail of a whale, long dead. It had skin on it and smelt of rot from downwind. Some distance off, I saw bones protruding from the sand and dug about in sand to excavate a large vertebra (I had thought they were ribs). Liz, who is a naturopath and studied anatomy, was interested to understand the skeleton which was hard with so much buried.

I later googled whale beaching in the area and suspect it was the carcass of an immature Gray Whale which came to shore some months ago and was probably buried by the Parks Service to avoid a health hazard as it decomposed. The body was broken and parts may have been swept away. There was very little flesh remaining considering how large the whale must have been.

Wren was impressed by all the carnage on the shore and kept saying "saw a DEAD WHALE" and "see DEAD WHALE AGAIN?"

Camping at Cape Disappointment

Last night we returned from a two night camping trip to Cape Disappointment. It had been extremely hot in Seattle in the past weeks but at the coast the weather was cool with banks of fog and light rain coming off the sea in the mornings. We wore fleece everyday and enjoyed the campfires, hot chocolate, smores and sleeping bags. However, some of our campmates were less sanguine about the weather and comments such as "we could have been in Seattle in bikinis" were heard in the prematurely dark evenings as the noise of the surf rolled across the dunes. This didn't bother me as geography and climate have nothing to do with my not wearing a bikini.

Wren enjoyed the first day but by Saturday afternoon he was going through withdrawals from Go Diego Go and was "sad and want to go to Mummy's home, not new home, now." Here he is after being told that he couldn't watch Diego because there was no television and we were a long way from our house.

What kind of minivan doesn't have a DVD player anyway?

Thankfully, potty training continued to go well. Wren felt very at home on his potty as you can see from this fireside potty seat. I have taken to driving around with the potty in the car and this afternoon, on the way home from the Aquarium, we pulled to the side of the road so Wren could use the potty. Frost, having been forced to pee in a bottle on a number of occasions, thinks this is an excellent plan and suggested we keep the potty in the car forever. I was careful to go around corners slowly so as to avoid generating too much centrifugal force.


Frost had the most fun. He chased (and was chased around) by London (5) and enjoyed playing with Francis (pug). He was barefooted for much of the weekend and came home grimed with black metallic dust that is in the sand around here. Piper had a My Little Pony with a magnet in its foot which became encrusted with a thick lump of metal dust much as Frost's feet. I have had to wash everything we took camping and have made a list of the Things That Would Make Camping More Comfortable. These include a dustpan to clean the tent after the kids have played in my bed all day and a larger tent so I can turn over at night. Our current tent is a 4 skinnyperson tent and was bought before Wren was born. I think I would enjoy having enough space to have some of our clothes IN the tent instead of collecting black dust outside.

Frost was also happy at the treat of having Lucky Charms for breakfast number 1, number 2 and number 3. Wren had some every day but didn't really eat them. Both boys enjoyed the fire and roasting marshmallows and Frost finished an entire volume of his Rick Riordan series. He is now on number 4 - something about Titans. His DS battery became flat on the trip down so we did not have to 'negotiate' about screentime.

However far we were from wi-fi, Wren still found endless joy in the iPod touch. He played 'guys' and peekaboo barn when he was allowed which was when I needed to eat and not worry he was about to fall into the fire.

Is camping supposed to be FUN?
When I called Mum after we arrived home on Sunday night and she asked if we "had fun". Apparently I sounded ambivalent about the camping side of things (but not about the dead whale and seabird lallapalooza). I recall at some point on Saturday night having a glass of wine and opining that we should not book cabins next year because camping is about the discomfit. That camping should not be too easy and plush, that it was The Experience. I have never had an air-mattress and as a child we only did back-country camping . In America, all our camping has been 'car camping' which is what they call it when you put the kitchen sink in the back of the car and unload it somewhere else. Around us, most people had some kind of RV as well as a flotilla of little tents spread out around the campsite. Now that I have had time to think about it, I think camping could be a little more comfortable. A trip to REI will be happening shortly.

Taking the Beans Camping

The day we leave for a camping trip I always wonder what all the STUFF is for. This trip is no exception. I made a camping packing list which I have inserted at the bottom for posterity. To add to the complexity of the whole event I decided to bring dinner already made for tonight. I am bringing BEANS while John is bringing bratts, buns and beer. Anyway, Frost is reading the list of things TO DO and I have to run. Wish us a fun trip. I will explain smores to you on our return. Pictures promised.

Here is Wren with one of the many harvests from his tricolor bean patch. He is feeling proud.



PACKING LIST FOR CAMPING

HOME JOBS:
Chickens have food and water
Cat has food and water
House closed
Basement door open
Put garbage out in bin to avoid smell
Pick beans
Water garden especially rear seed beds
Make boiled eggs

BASICS
Tent
Mat
Blanket
Pillows
Sleeping bag
Quilt/blanket
Flashlights
POTTY
Buckets and spades
Bowls
Plates
Coffee mug
Cups for drinking
Spoons, forks, knife
Can opener
Pot for water, pot for cooking pancakes
Popcorn maker???
Mallet head
Sun tent
**Sunblock
Camping chair (red, in garage)
Camera
Cell phone
Firelighters
Wood
Tub for washing
Dish soap/cloth
Dishcloths
Trash bags
Mosquito coils
Clothes pins
Lantern
Soap

FIRST AID KIT
Check it has:
* Bandaids
* Benadryl
* **CORTAID (poison ivy)
* Antibiotic ointment/wipes
* Thermometer
* Bug repellent
* Tylenol
* Tweezers (good for removing splinters and ticks)


FOOD & DRINK
**Marshmallows
**Light mayo
**Chocolate
**Graham crackers
**Lucky charms
**Powdered Milk
**Water
Instant coffee
Cup of noodles for Frost
Raspberries
Popcorn
Weetbix
Tea
Salt & pepper
Cookies
red wine
**Soda in small cans
Juice boxes
Cashews
Boiled eggs
Dinner Tofu, rice, veggies
LUNCH: Sandwiches [tuna, mayo, pickles, cheese]
Dinner: [pizza]
Apples
Celery
Cottage cheese
Grapes
Car snacks (celery apple for shannon, peanut bars etc for kids)


CLOTHES
Pajamas
Toothbrush
Toothpaste
Sunblock
Swimsuit
Towels
Shorts
Long pants
Long sleeved shirt
T-shirts
Shoes
Warm shirt / sweater
Hats
Sunglasses
Swim shoes
Wren's baby carrier (no stroller!!!)

TOYS
Bucket
Spade
Balls
Frisbee
Floats

Very hot day

Today was the hottest day on record in Seattle. At 3.30pm it reached 103 F (39.4C) at Seatac although other unfortunate souls in the region got much hotter (107 - 41.4 in Vancouver WA and 109F/42.7C in Medford, OR). It was also relatively humid and windless which made the air feel like a thick hot soup.

We started the day at 6am with fans blowing and playing Noah's Ark with blocks and animals. Wren calls its Donna's Ark due to some confusion between Noah and our neighbor. It is hard to play Noah with Wren. He refuses to limit the number of animals on the ark so we have an overpopulation of elephants but a mismatched family of small African animals who would have to mate in unlikely combinations if they are to repopulate the earth. If Wren were the chosen upright boy he would have us living with wartdogs and cheetlions as well as some strange polar-monkeys.

After breakfast, Susan and Joshua came to take Frost to Lake Roesinger for the day. Its a small lake an hour north of here where they have a cabin. I drove up with Wren for the afternoon and as the day heated up it was good to be in the water and shade out of doors. Frost spent about 6 hours in the water - diving, splashing, squirting, bombing, sliding down the waterslide and generally remaining wet. Even Wren allowed me to take him out into deep water supported by his swim vest that gives him enough bouyancy to allow me to swim with him in safety. We also floated around on an air mattress and had a lovely time. There was one near disaster when Wren knocked Susan's Ralph Lauren sunglasses off the dock into the deep water. "LOOK, LOOK" he shrieked, to which Frost added "The glasses are going down."

Susan and I were the only ones to appreciate the gravity of this disaster while the boys felt it was a diving challenge. Luckily, both Susan and I had face masks and since Frost remembered where they sank we managed to retrieve them from the 10ft deep water and the mud and weeds on the bottom. After that I put the sunglasses on the roof of the dock to stop Wren from repeating the 'game'.

Right now, our living room is still 94 degrees and I am stuck to my chair and my arm keeps adhering to a magazine on my desk. Outside I can hear the sprinkler in the garden and the thrumming of the window fan in here. Its cooling down outside as darkness falls but the way they designed homes in the 40s did not allow for windows that opened or air that moved. The sunglass knocker is sleeping with a fan.

Potty Training
Thankfully, Wren is not sleeping with a hot diaper because potty training has been going well and is now on day 3 with few accidents. The only major blooper was during lunch at Third Place Books where Wren, standing on a chair while reading a book, made the statement "I am PEEING!" He was. The pants he had on were no impediment and the chair was puddled. I pretended that he had spilled his drink and wiped it all up with napkins but I suspect all but the most absorbed patrons would have heard him. Thankfully, the man sitting next to us appeared to have believed my ruse. He was reading a book with EROTICA in red cursive script so his mind may have been absorbed. I know he believed me because when I returned with the napkins he picked up his books on the table between us and checked they had not got wet. Now, he would not have expected Wren to pee upwards onto his books, right? That seems unlikely so I hope my quick exit was not followed by lots of "Did you see that baby pee on the chair?" and huffing and eye rolling and such social approbation.

Entrails in the Wading Pool
The only other excitement at home (beside Josh acting like a bear with a sore head due to the heat) is that this morning I discovered entrails in the plastic wading pool in our back yard. I looked for a long time hoping that the pink fleshy things were worm bits, that an earthworm had clambered from the earth in search of moisture and died in our tepid pond but there was no way it was species wormus. I also noticed lots of grass and dirt in the pond and suspected raccoons had been washing some fleshy bits there last night.

My suspicions were confirmed when Josh woke up. He reported various skirmishes with a racoon family of a mother and three babies who were playing in the wading pool after midnight. Josh watched the mother collect snails, break them, wash them in the pool and then eat them up. The babies ate apples and played in the water until he chased them off. We are concerned about raccoons becoming too comfortable here because they could decide to eat our chickens if they were hungry and the chickens were accessible. With the high heat today I left the chickens out in the yard while we were away but I fear for them without us home and do not want to take that chance in less extreme heat. My concerns are even greater after speaking with Susan who lives near us. Recently, her Labrador was attacked by a mother raccoon with a baby. The bites left puncture wounds and removed fur and the dog needed to see the vet for treatment. I don't want a fierce mother raccoon eating our chickens, hurting our cats or worse attacking one of the family because she considers our yard her turf.

Josh is doing his best to defend our garden.

Heatwave

Seattle is having a heatwave. Its 32 C (90.3F) in the early afternoon and is predicted to last a week and reach highs of around 102F (39C) on Wednesday. Here is Cliff Mass's weather blog that explains the predictions and how this will be a record breaking heat for our region (coming after a record breaking dry spell this spring and summer). Everyone is moaning about it and having trouble sleeping (Josh slept in the basement last night and Frost had a fan) but I am feeling rather smug because I am enjoying it.

I am not sure whether I don't "feel the heat" as much, live in a cooler part of town, am used to it from living in hot places (Brisbane, Australia, Indonesia and Durban, South Africa) for 28 years of my life or have strategies to cope but it makes me feel happy and well. I feel as if I have more energy. I feel expansive and relaxed.

The hottest weather I have ever known was in Indonesia but it gets very hot in Durban and Brisbane. In those places the humidity is also a huge factor while it is really very dry here (44% humidity) at the moment. By contrast, in Durban the humidity is 82% today, in Ambon Indonesia it is 67% and in Brisbane it is 87% (they are all in winter though).

This morning I ran around Greenlake at 10am and then had a swim in the lake to cool off. I was quite wet with perspiration after the run so the swim was great and I am hoping to take Wren swimming again later.

Anyway, here are my ideas for coping in a heatwave:
1) Stay out of the sun
2) Wet your hair.
3) Wear a damp sarong and lay it around your shoulders.
4) Drink lots of water.
5) Make popsicles.
6) Keep the house open in the morning when its cool and then close the windows in the heat of the day IF you are in a place with no breeze. If you have large open windows and are elevated - keep them open to catch breeze. Seattle homes are notoriously bad in heat - they are generally designed with closed windows and insect screening which stops the breeze.
7) Shade and screen sun facing windows ON THE OUTSIDE. Its very little help to shut the blinds because the sun has already heated them through the glass and they act as big heating panels for your room. An awning or even a blanket hammered on the outside of the house will work better.

I hope you find a cooler spot and can get to enjoy the heat. We are going camping this weekend and I hope our campsite has some shade!

Potty Training
Wren is doing potty training (again). He has gone 36 hours without diapers and was dry at night. I hope this is not just because he is dehydrated but he is managing to pee in his potty with almost no accidents. He has not had such success with poop but I remain hopeful and motivated. We have a goody box of treats he can have each time he uses the potty and he seems excited about them. Wish us luck and perseverance.

The Boys Hunt Flies

Since the advent of screentime I am always on the lookout for a compelling outdoor activity for the kids. Imagine my excitement when they invented a new game "hunt for flies." It started after breakfast when Frost rushed inside to tell me that "there is POOP on the deck and it is covered in flies!" Wren was thrilled and rushed outside with Frost who shouted "no, no, no WREN DO NOT TOUCH IT."

Of course, Wren had no such thought. He knew exactly what he wanted - the fly swat. He has been brandishing the fly swat for weeks looking for a moving target: cat, boy, mother. Now he had flies!

Before you become anxious about the unexplained poop on the deck, I'll tell you that it is from our chickens who are allowed to range freely for a few hours a day. Josh says they climb up on the deck because it is their natural inclination to seek the heights. Anyone who knows chickens knows it is also their natural inclination to poop dramatically. They occasionally do this on the deck which is what the boys discovered. If it makes you feel better I shall add that I cleaned almost all of it up before the game progressed and that the little bit I left was as fly BAIT not sloppy housekeeping.

Once Wren started having a fabulous time swatting flies Frost became eager to have a go. As a lazy mother still having her morning vapors I wanted to encourage Wren to remain occupied so I could drink my coffee and didn't step in to let Frost have a turn. When I tried, Wren erupted in grief and anger so I gave the swat back to him. Then Frost erupted in the aforementioned emotions. In particular he said "mothers are supposed to let their kids SHARE and not be SELFISH you are a SELFISH MOTHER because you are not letting me have a turn. That is JUST SO WRONG. I can't believe it. WREN I AM GOING TO SWAT YOU!" When I realized the depth of the injustice [was going to result in violence] I rolled up a tube of newspaper for Frost and told him this is what my family have always used for flies and its much stronger and faster. So, he was happy with that.

Here is the result - my Lords of the Flies. They killed about 10.

If life gives you berries make frozen yoghurt?

Tara and I took the boys berry picking today. It was hot (again) and we wanted to pick organic berries so we ended up at some farm out by Monroe that did not have the typical U-pick ambience. It was strange. We followed directions to the farm and ended up at what looked like a home remodel that had stalled at the sheetrock and plastic wrap stage. The family was living in a mobile home at the end of a nice concrete drive. At the side of the drive three little girls in swimsuits sat under a pool umbrella on a cement slab and a tree, shrieking with starlings, was the only shade for miles around.

I sent Tara to inquire.

Indeed, the man said, the raspberries are in the field so we loaded up with carboard flats and headed to the rows. The vines were very large and despite some trampling from other pickers it was still a bit of work to get down the rows. Canes had fallen over and tangled the path and it was not quick picking because many of the berries, though large and beautiful, were firm and unsweet. We felt they might be not quite ripe.

Wren screamed and cried for the half hour or so we took to pick a half flat. He hated the "sticks" that made it hard to walk. He wanted to go home, to the car, out of the jungle, to be carried. And he cried. Frost and Alex were also a bit weary of the picking although Alex actually DID some picking which is more than I can say for my kids.

On the way home from the desolate hot underripe fields we stopped at a sweet diner and had huge milkshakes and pie. Wren fell asleep in the car on the way home, transferred to his crib and took a 3 HOUR NAP. I slept for an hour too.

I have sampled the berries again and found that they are no sweeter. Tara says that someone took a berry from her box in the kitchen and she saw it discarded in the sink.

I have decided to make a little jam and to make the rest into raspberry frozen yoghurt or raspberry icecream, or perhaps both.

Now I am going to drink bedtime tea.