Time Out

I've spent the majority of the morning in time out.  And I've earned it.

The thing about living with a three year old is that it can sometimes reduce you to acting like a three year old.  I must need to get out more often becuase I've started taking the things she says and does personally.  It can be hard to remember that you're the adult when you're in the middle of a very unsophisticated power struggle.

But alas, I am in fact the one in charge.  So I'm going to try to act that way... as soon as this time out is over.

The Greatest Story Ever Told

I've found myself humming the opening song to Cinderella all morning.  Cinderella, you're as lovely as a rose, Cinderella... it's the greatest story ever told...

What a huge claim to make, and yet I'm struck by how true it is, at least for a certain set of the movie-watching crowd.  Cinderella is a staple in our house.  Just as it was a staple for me a short twenty years ago.  Lou can't get enough.  We do Friday Night Movie Night at our house, which just means that we watch Cinderella each Friday.  And to be honest, I really don't mind.  It is a great story about a girl who has lived through the death of both parents and abuse by the individual responsible for caring for her.  Yet despite all of this she is kind and compassionate.  She has not been destroyed by her experiences.  Cinderella is naturally beautiful, and she's modest. There's no cleavage, no leg, no skimpy outfits. She's so well loved becuase she is so kind.  It's a simple story line, easy to follow, with a herione who is poised, graceful, and determined.  And these are all qualities that I would love my daughter to posess.  There's no violence, unless you count the scene where Bruno the dog snaps at Lucifer the cat, who has certainly earned this treatment, causing him to jump out of a tall window.  The bad guys are just bad people.  They're not witches or dragons; they're mean-hearted, not evil in nature.  No one tries to poison anyone and no one gets killed. 

What more could you ask for in a movie aimed towards young girls?  The whole "Princess" theme is huge in our house right now, but Cinderella is the only princess move that is really appropriate for my three year old to watch.  Sleeping Beauty is too scary for her, and the story lines of Mulan and Alladin are too complicated.  Snow White is scary.  But even more alarming to me is the way that Snow White, as a character, is portrayed: she's meek and dependant.  I was shocked when we watched Peter Pan a few weeks ago.  I had forgotten the sexist way that women are portrayed in that movie.  Tinkerbelle is jealous of Wendy, as are the mermaids.  And Wendy is jealous of these women as well.  The female characters in this movie spend the better part of their time fighting for Peter's attention (ironic?).  During a celebration, Wendy isn't allowed to participate becuase, as a woman, she's expected to serve and clean at the party, not enjoy it.  She is important becuase she is a maternal figure; and while she takes the lead as a mother, she's leaves every important decision up to the men in her life, clinging to them for protection.  The Little Mermaid could be construed as a cute story tarnished in the minds of parents becuase of Ariel's lack of apparrel.  But I'm more bothered by the fact that this movie poses as a story for little girls when it's the story about a love-stricken sixteen year old who sells her soul to a witch in order to leave her family and try to make a man she doesn't even know fall in love with her.

I have no idea what I will do if Lou starts acting this way when she's sixteen.

I don't mind the princess fantasy.  It's fun, it's girly, it allows girls to dress up and pretend to be someone else.  But how come the movies we choose for our children don't teach our daughters that being a princess doesn't simply mean that you are a well-dressed, well-cared for woman?  A princess is a woman of the ruling class, an individual in line to govern a country. 

But a Princess story doesn't need to be that serious, she was also at one time a little girl with little girl concerns.  Why are there no princess stories set during childhood?  Do their adventures as little girls warrant no documentation?

I want my daughter to believe in fairy tales.  Fantasy is central to childhood.  It's fun to prented to be a princess; great to imagine being swept off your feet and having all your problems disappear with one fateful kiss.  But I'm still going to remind her that there is no such thing as Happily Ever After, and snagging the Prince does not guarantee happiness.  That part is up to you.

Until then, I'm banking on Cinderella.  Let's hope her kindness, resiliency, and inner beauty make the most lasting impression.

Did I Miss Something?

We live in Minnesota where, even when it warms up it's cold.  Target headquarters are located here so I was shocked and dismayed this morning that my local Target no longer carries winter gloves for children.  Are they serious?  It's still January, right?  So we've got, what, at least three more months of cold, and Target, of all places, does not have kids' gloves?!?

Did I miss the cut-off date for the sale of childrens' gloves?  Is this an attempt to make consumers plan ahead?  They were selling swim-suits, yet there was not a pair of warm mittens to be had, despite the fact that it's not even five degrees outside today.

Are other parents more organized than I am?  Do they buy stockpiles of extra gloves at the end of the summer, becuase that appears to be when the gloves are sold.  Doesn't anybody else's child lose gloves over the course of the winter?  And why, as a clothing retailer based in Minnesota, do you not carry gloves in January?

I am stunned.

The Unreported Perils of Bird Feeders

The large pine tree outside our front door has become what I affectionately refer to as The Bird Tree.  It shades the small winter coop, it's where the Stubborn Hens sleep each night, and it houses the one bird feeder around here that is consistently full.  This feeder provides endless hours of entertainment for Lou and myself.  It's a busy intersection for the small birds in our area; plus the Hens are more likely to stick around when the feeder is full and there's lots of activity.  I think they miss the racous social scene of this summer.

Bird feeders are such an easy and inexpensive way to enjoy and nurture the nature around you.  But what I hadn't realized was that they were also a death trap for birds.  A cruel lure to an untimely demise.  Birds are fooled into believing that I am simply providing some extra calories this winter, that I have their best interests in mind, and while my intentions are pure, the intentions of my two cats most certainly are not.  Believe me, I've seen the way they watch that feeder, the lust in their eyes.

Bird feeders make easy targets of the birds they attract.  While the birds may get a quick meal, they are also likely to become a quick meal.  By bringing birds into my yard I am unwittingly increasing the odds that some of these birds will be killed by my cats.  It's certainly not unrealistic to think that my cats could indeed catch a bird.  It wouldn't be the first time.  Actually Aiko, my little lady, got three bats last summer.  THREE BATS.  How does a cat catch a bat?  I have no idea.  All I know is that on three separate occasions last summer I woke up to a dead bat waiting for me by the garden.

And even if these birds are not killed by my cats, am I simply creating a new generation of lazy birds, dependant on the bird feeder welfare system?  What happens if I suddenly move?  Will the birds be able to find new feeders?  Will they expand their territory to include new feeders?  Will they even know how to survive long enough to find a new feeder?  Maybe I should put a TV out there too and constantly play an informational video on how to catch worms, bugs, and scavenge for bread crumbs. 

Has anyone ever published a study detailing the number of birds killed by cats in yards with bird feeders compared to yards without feeders?  How come no one seems to be as concerned about this issue as I am?  Where's PETA?  Maybe I'll just take down the feeder until I know for sure whether or not it's safe. 

Or maybe not, what if the birds starve?

Revelations upon Leaving the Farm

Last night Lou  (who's three) and I left the farm and ventured into the Big City.  We went downtown to the American Burger Bar to watch the band, which can mean any number of standard bands between my dad and my brother, and last night was The Family Feed Bag.  A band made up of six members, two of whom are family, the rest of whom feel like the random uncle you see every so often, who may or not be related, and who shows up at the most obscure times. 

I love watching Lou when we go out to see either my dad or my brother play.  She's still young enough that she thinks that this is just what everyone does.  She was out there dancing her heart out, obvlious to all eyes on her, and taking for granted the fact that she could just strut around the stage and chat with the band as they played.  It's wonderful to watch. 

It's so easy to become conscious of the eyes around you, to censor your actions- and words- in social situtations.   And to some extent that's simply what happens when you mature.  You worry about others as well as yourself.  But what if you could forget about everything for just a short while and completely enjoy whatever it is that you happen to be doing that moment?  In the process of growing up we shed so much of ourselves, creating the adult that we think we should be.  Hell, we even lose brain cells.

One of the gifts (and curses) of having a child is that you have a daily reminder of what you once wanted to be.  And I'm going to guess that it had nothing to do with you being armed with a mop and Pledge, once again cleaning the living room that, despite your best efforts, remains covered in dog hair, toys, miscellaneous socks, and cheerios.  It had little to do with a revolving door of laundry, dishes, and more laundry.  I wanted kids and pets and a lively house, but I had no idea that I would be (or even could be) cleaning up so much poop, puke, and pee.  It's easy to forget to enjoy the music around you when all you can see is an endless list of things to do and others to care for.

So it's part of my new year's resolution, my loose web of life goals, to take a cue from Lou and start enjoying life more, letting myself be me, no matter what kind of chaos I'm surrounded in.

I know I'm still going to stress over the dog hair all over, honestly, it looks like we must be running a fur factory in here.  But there was a time in life when I couldn't have cared less about dog hair on the couch.  So I'm going to try to remember what it was like to be that girl.

Stubborn Hens

We have six bug infested acres out here, so this summer I decided to get proactive.  I got fifteen guinea hens who had arrived in a box not much bigger than a shoe box, and were the most adorable baby birds I'd ever seen.  A few short weeks later they had evolved into dinosaurs.  After one of the dogs went on several epic killing sprees, and an unidentified predator picked the last of the white ones out of the tree, I was left with eight hens.  There was no way we could keep them over the winter.  The birds certainly knew where home was, but for the most part they were wild.  It was a struggle to get them into their coop, and for the duration of their flying lives, they'd slept in the pine tree directly outside our front door where they could make a fuss each time I went outside after dark. 

The bitter cold was fast approaching and I was left with limited options.  So I chose the best one: drive the live birds "up north" and return a few days later for some vacuum packed chicken.  One stumbling filled adventure later and now I'm left with six vacuum packed chickens and two oversized grey hens who are more than a little wary of me.

Of the Final Eight, three of the hens were decidedly outcasts.  On the bottom of the pecking order, they were constantly harassed.  They were chased away and pecked at if they followed too closely, or tried to eat when the others did.  If any of the girls was having a tough day, she took it out on one of these three.  So of course, two of these did not make it into the coop of the Sunday eve of Monday's Day of Death.

They were "going up north" early Monday morning, and since I couldn't imagine how to remove eight sleeping chickens from the branches of a pine tree before sunrise, I decided that I would get them all in the coop the night before, making the morning extraction easier.  Except I couldn't get them all in because the other hens kept kicking out two of the rejects.

So I finally gave up.  Six chickens eventually (adventurously?)  made their sterile way to chicken heaven.  And now I'm left with two stubborn birds.  Try explaining to a three year old that all the chickens will be going up to heaven soon, but that's ok because chickens don't live very long.  "So mom, if chickens don't live very long, why are these two still around?"  They refuse to sleep in the coop, preferring instead the branches of their pine tree.  They survived the snow we got on Christmas and the bitter cold that followed.  I kept waiting to wake up to a frozen bird fallen from the tree, grim I know, but the odds are seriously against these two.  But apparently, they refuse to freeze.  And these formally tiny rejects have nearly doubled in size now that they face no competition for food.  They're calmer, and it's a lot quieter around here now.

Winter's definitely not over, but they have survived, no wait, they've thrived thus far, and it can't get much worse than it has been.  So despite my best laid plans, it looks like I'm going to have two huge hens hanging around this summer.

I wonder what they'll think of  next year's hens...