How They've Grown!

Remember those tiny pink rabbit babies I showed you on a recent post? Well, here they are several weeks later:

We had an adventure with the darker gray one yesterday: the kids had been holding it, along with its mother and littermate, and then had assured me they had closed everything up when they were done. A couple hours later, however, they came running inside shouting that there was a baby rabbit on the loose. Sure enough, I went outside to see that every once in awhile, that little bunny was hopping out from under the barn, then dashing back underneath whenever anyone ventured near. I resisted the impulse to tell them that they should have been more careful closing up the cage, and after some patient waiting with a net, I caught the escapee and put him back in his casge, discovering as I did so that he had escaped through the hole made for the feeder - the feeder I had removed and hadn't put back on. Good thing I hadn't blamed the kids!

Tact

Today my mom had a conversation with Drew that must have been about her age (a manners infraction itself that I guess we should work on!) because at one point he said to her encouragingly, "Hey, Grandmama, only [correct double-digit number] until you're 70!"

Thinking about it reminded me of two other instances where more tact could have been in order, one that just happened yesterday as I was having my hair cut. There were several breaches of politeness during the haircut, actually, but the best one was when she finished and said with a sigh, "Well, the back looks good, anyway." She did get a tip, though, for having asked if I was a student. :-)

The other instance happened a few weeks after Chase was born and we were all in the car headed for church. I said half-glumly, half-teasingly to Dave, "Will you still love me if I never get back to a size [what I was previous to...well, Ryan's birth...]?" There was an uncomfortable pause before he replied - was that nervously? - " Don't worry, honey, you'll get back to [said size]." NOT the correct answer!

An Adventure in Tee-Ball

Well, I was going to fix the "friends and neighbors" post Ryan so thoughtfully finished and published for me, but this is much more interesting:



We have finished the soccer season, now tee-ball has begun. This time only Drew is doing it (in the hopes that we can finally get Aimee going in the horseback riding lessons that have been so ridiculously difficult to procure so far), but they have practices twice a week, so it's just as fun as soccer with two! At any rate, I knew we had practice last night at 5:30, and with the soccer season experience under my belt perhaps I should have been preparing for it all afternoon, but instead I thought an hour's preparation should do it...At 4:20 I gave a fifteen-minute warning to Drew and his friend from next door, who were playing legos on the kitchen table. They looked at me, but it was doubtful that anything actually registered. Then my mom called and we talked for a "few" minutes while I watched the little boys play -i.e., splash in the water table and raid the dog food - in the backyard. At 4:45 I hung up and began a mad dash to make up for lost time (especially since I was definitely not dressed to go anywhere), but the potty-training Ryan immediately informed me that there had been an...um, accident. Hey, no problem, especially since we were outside, and I cleaned him up in short order. I had to use the hose, though, for part of the clean-up (not on him!), and when I was finished, Ryan (mostly naked now), wanted to help. I let him while I gathered up my things to take inside, including the wipes and a couple bags from the clean-up. I had only taken in some books, however - and told Drew and his friend it was definitely time to be done! - when Chase began to cry, both because was wet as well as because he wanted the hose, so I went back outside, turned the hose off, and tried to get both boys inside. At that, Ryan became extremely upset - so mild a term for the storm that is an unhappy Ryan! - and very difficult to handle, but I manuevered him inside, along with a wet and also-crying Chase. I began sorting through a basket of clean clothes in the laundry area to look for some clean clothes for Chase, and Ryan began asking for chocolate milk. He had already had some, and I was really too busy anyway, so I offered some other options, at which he threw his cup at me. Time-out. More clothes searching, and LOTS more crying, from both sides of the room, as Chase continued to wail at me as well. Drew's friend finally went home, and I directed Drew to get ready for tee-ball. Now if he can make it from one end of our small house to the other without getting distracted, we're doing great, so sending him on a task this size is doubtful, but this time he did mange to change clothes and begin thinking about finding his glove. At the mention of the glove, Ryan, released from time-out, began to "ask" for a glove to take. We do have two, thankfully, and they had been seen together earlier in the day, but no one could remember where, of course, so I instructed Drew to go look as I herded the little boys to the back to get them dressed. I dressed Chase (he and Ryan were both still screaming) then had to grab something from the front of the house, when I glanced at the back door and realized I had forgotten to bring in the bags of dirty things. I went out to get them and saw that Daisy (the dog) had torn up both bags, as well as the bag of wipes, and scattered all contents under the trampoline. I told her in no uncertain terms how I felt about her, as Drew bemoaned to me that he still couldn't find the gloves. I asked him to help me keep an eye on the still-crying Chase while I cleaned up the mess under the trampoline, and after doing so, we all went inside again, found the gloves quite by accident as we passed by them, and went to put some clothes on Ryan. We discovered him, however, asleep on the hope chest in my bedroom - still, of course, naked! I called Dave and asked him if might be home in time to take Drew, but he didn't think he would make it time. I told him what was going on and that we would probably be late, if we could make it at all. He started laughing and I told him I would talk to him later. :-) I calmed Chase down, got dressed, then dressed Ryan, avoiding his kicking feet (he was not thrilled about being roused, as you can imagine). I grabbed the diaper back, the gloves, a ball, and the three boys and got them into the car fairly smoothly, then dashed across the street to fetch Aimee from her friend's house. All secured in the car, we saw we were not too late, and so we made our way to the Y, which is only a couple miles away, fortunately. Unfortunately, it seems most of Lexingon County enrolled kids in tee-ball and baseball, and all the teams practice on the same nights, so we had to park as far away as we possibily could have. I pushed Chase in the stroller and carried Ryan on my back, but had still missed half the practice by the time we made it to the field. That was really a blessing in itself, though, because Aimee was bored (bored, bored, bored, bored, and bored...oh, and hungry, too...), and Ryan and Chase were absolutely determined to go anywhere but the nice green patch of field I had parked us in. We were all hungry and tired as we marched back to the car, but when we got in, Ryan still wanted to push some buttons...He climed in, tucked himself in a corner of the car and refused to get in his seat. In carefully measured tones, I offered a compromise, suggesting he sit in the booster seat we allow him to use for short distances, and he agreed to that. As soon as I started the car, however, he unbuckled, smiling smugly at me. Without a word, I opened the door, picked him before he could escape, and placed him in his usual carseat - buckling quickly! He thrashed and screamed the all the way home, and one of the other kids wondered aloud how I could be so callous to his suffering. Actually I thought being silent was as much empathy as I could muster. :-) Upon making it home I let Dave feed the older kids while I sat and nursed Chase, pretty much fried by that point. But we survived, and I'm sure we'll do it again before the season is over!

Friends and Neighbors

I haven't been able to post very frequently for a variety of reasons, two of which are that I haven't had much time for it and that my laptop - which freed me a little by virtue of its relative mobility - is waiting for a new battery and is out of commission in the meantime. But I've been wanting to post on this topic for some time now, and hopefully I have a few minutes now.

Since moving here, we have enjoyed living in a neighborhood, being closer to friends in general, and just being more a part of a community, but iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiihhgfr4xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Imagery...5 Year-Old Boy Style...

Drew has been having difficulty falling asleep at night, so that in the past couple weeks he hasn't been succemubing to slumber until about 10:00 each night. This wouldn't really be a problem, except for him it means that, after the thirty minutes or so Dave sits with him and Ryan and the next thirty minutes he listens to books on tape (because he can't stand the quiet), he proceeds to patter up the hall every five minutes or so with all reasons he can't sleep. Every once in awhile one of us will sit with him longer until he falls asleep, but I think we're both past feeling guilty about not doing that every night - he's five, after all, we do spend time with him each night, and when we leave, he has someone else there ("I mean someone besides Ryan," he protests, often before we can even get the words out!). At any rate, sometimes I will massage achy muscles or let him use the heating pad, which does seem to help him relax and then go to sleep on his own, and this week I've also tried some mental relaxation techniques, hoping to give him some tools he can use himself. But this is how that's gone:

"Where's your favorite place?" I asked soothingly one evening as his eyes were closed, "A place you feel the happiest and most peaceful?"
He smiled. "A basketball stadium!" he offered enthusiastically.
"Okay, we're sitting in the stands after a game, feeling happy..." I began, trying to salvage this image, which seems more exciting that calming.
"No, no, no - I'm playing basketball with Tyler Hansbrough!" Tyler, if you do not know, is the University of North Carolina's star player, the National Player of the Year, and Drew's hero.
But this is not going so well! Somehow I try to have him refocus, so we try to talk about different parts of his body and how they feel in this happy place (after I try to have him just sit beside Tyler Hansbrough - a water break, maybe...)
His feet - "They have basketball shoes on them!"
His hands - "They're holding a basketball!"
Now he's more roused than before, and I kiss him goodnight, promising to check on him a little later. :-)

The next night, I tried offering the peaceful place myself. "Let's close our eyes and imagine we're on the Island of the Blue Dolphins." (He had been listening to the story on tape the past several nights.) "Let's think about how quiet it is there, with the trees above us, the warm sun shining on us, the waves washing up on the beach. Let's look at the blue, blue water, with the fish swimming around in it..."
"Devilfish!" he exclaimed, his eyes popping open.
"Okay, devilfish," I agreed. "Now close your eyes, and let's just watch the devilfish swim."
"No, I have a spear in my hand," he said, once again being drawn into the image in a somewhat different way than I had hoped. His eyes open again. "It's a long spear, with a seal's tooth for a point," and he proceeds to tell me in detail and at some length about how to properly construct a spear for the purpose of catching devilfish.

So imagery has not been working as far as achieving sleep goes, but I guess I can't fail to appreciate his vibrant imagination. And I can feel assured that should we ever be stranded on an island somewhere, he'll know how to catch fish!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Well actually, I, who have whatever is the opposite of a green thumb, have had success this year with our garden (so far!), and it is growing quite well. We've had salad on three nights solely from my lettuce garden, and it's still growing - although it was raided today, along with some of the newly sprouted corn, by some of the chickens, and I lost a couple of my finest lettuces. :-( I guess I can make the sacrifice more or less cheerfully, however, if the pest-control mission I sent them on will eventually prove successful. (We saw not a single roach, and hardly any other insects, during our time at our Gray Court house, the backyard of which the chickens were allowed to roam more or less freely, so my theory is that now that I am seeing some unwanted guests here, letting the chickens out more often mights again be cheap extermination. But this IS the Midlands...) At any rate, everything else in the garden is growing fabulously, and I have high hopes for a good yield. As I mentioned, the lettuce garden has been doing well already, the peas are climbing fences, the tomato and pepper plants are thriving after being set in a few weeks ago, broccoli, corn, cucumber, and carrots are coming up at different stages, and there are even pumpkin vines coming up in a pumpkin patch we made near the barn. I planted watermelon and cantaloupe that haven't come up yet, and I still have to plant the green beans (around a bean tepee we're working on) as well as the strawberries (which I know I'm doing a little late, but we'll see...). I have things planted all over the yard, but these are some views of the main garden. (Don't make fun of me, those of you who are better gardeners!) :-)

Some Droll Characters :-)

One of our rabbits kindled last night, and we had to bring the two resulting babies inside to warm them (they were nearly frozen when Dave went out to check on them). I showed them to the kids this morning, and when Drew peered into the box, he exclaimed, "Aww, they're such droll little creatures!" I'd like to say I kept a straight face, but that was too difficult, and fortunately, he didn't notice my great amusement. I think he picked that expression up from Mr. Popper's Penguins, which he and Aimee just finished listening to on CD, and while "droll" probably would be a good description for performing penguins, I'm not sure it really applies to rabbit babies. Judge for yourself:

The last picture is from another litter that was just born this afternoon. All the babies, except one, whose rather bizarre deformities fortunately can't be seen in the picture, are healthy, and the first litter fed this morning, which is a good sign. Because of the stress and adjustment from the move, it's been months since we've had any babies survive past the first week, so we're hoping things will begin to change for the better with this round of litters.

We also have new chicks, though not ones our own hens hatched. I've been looking for blue-egg laying chickens, and we just discovered some at our local feed store. So here are our new Americaunas: