A Place of Her Own

A place for stickers, more specifically.

Lou's three, so naturally, stickers are kind of a big deal around here.  Now don't get me wrong, I like stickers as much as the next gal, but a three-year old in possession of a sticker is a potential house destroyer.  Kids with stickers are in desparate need of a place to put them.

This is because, unlike me, Lou doesn't give a damn if the front door is bit sticky from sticker residue.  She thinks my desk would look a lot nicer if I would just decorate with a few stickers.  See, look how great the fish tank looks now that she's jazzed it up!  She couldn't care less if there are stickers wasting away on the floor; never actually removed, simply worn and ground in...  In short, she just really likes stickers, and if she had her way they'd be dotting the entire house.

Unfortunately, this is where we disagree.

I'm trying to let go some of my obsession with cleanliness, however I can't go so far as to let her decorate, willy nilly, with her stickers.  A girl's got to have some standards.

But I have to remember that the stickers are more than just a Made In China glossy picture of the latest princess craze.  This desire to decorate speaks to our inner desire to make a place for ourselves.  So she needs a place for stickers, we all do.  As adults we have paint, gardens, clothes, and real cars as our stickers.  We are constantly defining ourseves to the world through our stickers.  These personalized objects are signs of who we are and what we value.  And right now the things Lou values are:

     1. Princesses- Cinderella's best, but hey, we really like them all
     2. Anything in the pink and purple color spectrum
     3. Fuzzy animals with oversized eyes

Disastrously for Lou, these are not among the things I currently value above all else.

But Lou needs a place of her own, so I've made some concessions.  It started with sheets of construction paper put up on the wall.  One in the playroom for fun stickers, and one in the bathroom for those ones you earn by using the potty.  She's been given a bit more freedom to place stickers, judiciously and under adult supervision, in a few other places that are designated Lou spaces.  And, of course, she can cover her body with stickers all she wants; that shirt you're wearing, go to town!   

I know that she just wants her world to reflect who she is.

And it's my job to help her to do that without stickers.

Otis and Brandis

Lou has renamed the Hens.  Formerly Cinderella and Miss Lily, the Hens have been renamed Otis and Brandis.

These are certainly more apt names for these two birds.

I asked Lou how she came up with the names.  Oh, she just did.  So I asked her which hen was Otis.

Otis is the one who runs after me.

The Hens are both female, so like any poultry group missing a male, one female acts as the dominant one, taking over the role usually reserved for roosters.  Otis is, apparently, that hen.

Otis is slightly larger than Brandis.  And while Brandis likes nothing more than to relax in the dirt holes they've dug, Otis is constantly on alert.  Brandis looks like she's always warming the eggs she cares nothing about and lays only when she's up in the tree.  Yeah, they're not too smart.  The Hens patrol all day, taking frequent breaks for dirt baths.  Brandis lays down and snuggles into the dirt, kicking it up with her feet and wings.  Otis is down for a quick bath, but she's got things to do and a yard to oversee.  And she's constantly on the offense. 

Any noise will set Otis off.  She stands, alert, and honks in the direction of the offending noise.  Heaven help you if you try to get too close to HER hen, Brandis.  She's the one who scares off the smaller birds and she chases the dogs (and cats) away if they get too close while Brandis lounges.  She's also often running at the always offensive air conditioner.  Leave a ball in the yard?  Otis will run after it, wings up, looking as large as she can, until the wind finally blows it away.

So it makes sense that Lou thinks of Otis as the one who runs after her. 

Big, bad Otis.  Protector of the Hen Tribe.

The Bird Sanctuary

Little did I know upon coming home with those darling little bundle of Guineas that I would soon be opening a bird sanctuary. I have yet to name it, but it's open and operating.

I started out feederless and have progressed to six feeders and a chicken coop. This new combination of food and Hens has left this place crawling with birds. Chickadees and juncos bounce around The Tree and mourning doves dot the power lines. Bluebirds and blue jays flit through the yard, and for a second year the house wren has returned to her nest above the kitchen window. The first set of babies have just hatched, and the nest is too high for us to really spy, but we can see tiny tail feathers peeking out. give them a few days and they too will be flying around this place.  The Pheasant's been spending more time around, getting closer and closer to the house. We used to only see him out in the field until one day he appeared in the back yard. Now he makes a regular appearance. The Hens have begun to return his call from the field.

We've also, apparently, acquired a turkey. The other day as Lou got ready for school, she and my Other Half watched a turkey make his way across the street to hang out with the Hens. The birds stared at one another, separated by the street, for a few moments before the Hens went back to eating. The turkey came over and ate with them. He left as soon as the front door opened, but we've seen him around, spending more and more time with the Hens. I can only imagine what kind of children they'll have...

And for some unknown reason, we've had more than a few ducks wandering the yard. It makes no sense, there's no body of water here, but here they are, none the less.

In short, this place is littered with birds. But on second thought, sanctuary might not be the correct term.

For one we've got three rowdy dogs. That's enough to keep the birds on edge. Not to mention the two cats who are more than ready to catch a bird snack. And then there's Lou. It's a favorite pastime of hers to keep the Hens on their toes. She's runs after them and they run in circles like maniacs. They're not smart enough to fly away, or even just run away. Instead they squawk and run in circles until Lou tires of her game.  She's also not a fan of the birds that live in HER pine tree.  So I often catch her yelling at them to leave, she's trying to have a goddamned tea party!

And the Hens are none too fond of our new sanctuary status.  They don't mind the little birds in the trees, but they chase after the ones on the ground.  Hen 1 (recently renamed Otis) runs after them and honks until they retreat to higher ground.  She also scares away the mama wren when she wanders into the garden.  Those bugs belong to her!

So maybe I haven't opened a bird sanctuary after all.  Maybe all I've done is created more chaos for our already chaotic yard.

Oh well, it's calming for me, so I'll call it a sanctuary.

Battery Operated

As a product of the iPhone generation Lou believes that there's no limit to what a phone can do and that everything runs on batteries.

Broken phone?  New batteries.  Game not working?  No problem, just grab some new batteries.  Dead car?  Just charge that battery.

The other day Lou was biking in the driveway and having a tough time of it.  She was getting stuck in the run-off from the dirt road and her wheels were slipping.  She looked at me soberly and said:

Mom, my bike's not working.  I think it needs some new batteries.

Ha. 

You, my dear, are the batteries, the power behind that bike.  How can we charge you up?  Would you like a snack?  Maybe you need a quick nap.

Wouldn't it be nice if everything were battery operated?  Fixing anything would be so simple.

Good.  Because by the time Lou has to start fixing things herself, everything probably will be powered by batteries.  And she already knows how to fix it all.     

Girls Poo Too

C'mon, it's not that gross.

Why is it that a poop joke is always funny and it's fine for boys to do, but everyone gets all grossed out when girl's poop?  What is this cultural aversion to female feces?  I have to wonder what kind of a message Lou is picking up.  I know that when I was five and figured out that society didn't like girls to poo, I decided that I'd probably be best off just not getting married as I loved to fart but couldn't imagine farting in front of a boy.  What would I ever do if my husband had to go into the bathroom after I poo'd?  He'd totally smell it!

Thank goodness I got over that.  Life would've been lonely.

I went to high school with a kid who didn't find out until his junior year that girls pooped too.  Seriously?!?!  He finally found out because a girl pooped during a party.  Subsequent potty users ID'd the smell she'd left behind.  God we were immature...  Anyways, that's how he found out- not because his mother told him or anything like that.  And not becuase he lived with his mom and any normal person wouldn't go to such lengths to conceal their poo, nope, nothing like that.  Is this something that we're no longer teaching our boys?  Girls are human too and their body functions in basically the same way yours does...  Guess that's just not a popular message.

Instead we pretend that our little girls really are the flowers they're named after.

Well I, for one, encourage the enjoyment brought on by gaseous emissions.  I remind Lou that you're technically not suppossed to fart in public, but hey, we all do it so don't stress.  I tell her that most people outside of our immediate family probably aren't as impressed as we are by her "massive poo", but we think it's cool, so celebrate all you want inside these walls!

Poo is just something that we all do; no sense in fighting what's going to happen anyways, there's plenty of other things to do.

I know that things won't change overnight, it's never going to be socially acceptable to fart in public, and we're girls, so we're probably not going to promote the fact that we poo.  But we all do it, so let's stop stressing so much.

Let's remember that girls poo too, and that's just fine!

Field Trip Trauma

Today was the annual end of the year field trip to the Animal Farm for Lou's school. 

Of course it's been raining all week, making the already muddy farm even muddier, and creating puddles so large and delicious even I could hardly resist them.  Needless to say, everyone was soaked by the time we finally made it back to the parking lot, and the relief I felt when I saw my car and knew that I had the freedom to just leave was immeasurable.

But this thought occurred to me as I was wrangling stray children and herding them towards our tour guide: why is it that the only parents who came along are the parents of the children who don't need them there?  I know that if I were to send Lou on the field trip alone she would behave herself.  Sure, she'd still be a three year old, but she'd come back when you ask her to, she wouldn't barge into the barn if you told the kids not to, and she wouldn't push, shove, hit, bite, bicker with, bother, or in general harass everyone else.  Same could be said for the children of the other five parents who came along.

The kids you really dread taking out in public, those are the kids who are allowed to go on field trips sans-parent.  Why is that?  If my kid were half the problem that some of these other ones were, I would be too embarassed to leave her alone with others. 

Actually this lack of parent is probably why these kids are the way they are, but I'm trying to be non-judgemental here (not an easy feat for me as many of you know).

Are these parents that desperate for a break that they need an entire week of mornings off from their child, no matter the circumstance?  That they're willing to let their children traumatize other parents?  It's bad enough that the teacher knows what your kid's really like, are you sure you want everyone else to as well?  Maybe just living with such a whirlwind clouds the senses and dulls the part of the brain used for rational judgement.  Clearly, some of these parents weren't thinking when they dropped their tired crab-monster off at school with a bag lunch and sped back to the comfort of their couch. 

Honestly, if your kid is three, four, or five years old, then this field trip, one of only two the whole year, is a pretty big deal and if you're not working, then what's your excuse for not being there?  Why wouldn't you want to be there to take pictures and be in the loop when your kid starts retelling the field trip at dinner?

I'm not a parenting expert, but it seems to me that mostly what these frenzied maniacs want is for someone to listen to them.  They talk incessantly, and if it gets on your nerves, then try listening to it for a while.  Kids are more likely to shut up and take a break if they know that you'll listen when then open their mouths again.  They push because it makes you pay attention, and they run off just to see if you'll care enough to go get them.     

Problem is, that when it's not your kid, the knee-jerk reaction to a kid who's been nothing but a bully all day and shoves yours is to slap her across the face. 

I'm still debating whether or not that would've been a good idea.  Sure I'd probably feel pretty low right now, and true, it wouldn't be setting the best of examples for Lou, but if she's made it to the age of five and no one has yet taught her that that's just not acceptable, then maybe, in some ways, I'd be doing her a favor by teaching her. 

The point is, I can't parent your kid.  Neither can any of the other parents who came along, and Lord help the teacher who has to see that child every day.  I know, it's exhauting having a high-intensity kid, believe me.  But this is your high intensity kid, so get used to it, and start taking some control over the situation and both of your lives.  Even just pretending you're in charge can do wonders- for your self-esteem and your kid.  Try it sometime.  You just might find that being around your child isn't that big of a chore and maybe next time you'll tag along on the field trip.

Unless your kid is the shover.  Better to just cut your losses now and admit defeat.

I'm kidding!

Kind of.

Booger Cup

It's been a hell of a week.  I've got some extra time this morning and I thought to myself, I should really sit down with a cup of coffee and catch up on the news...

Since I'm half-blind before I have my coffee I poured myself the cup my Other Half has so thoughtfully left out for me and stumbled towards my desk.  I gingerly took the first sip, which is always too hot for me but I can never resist, clicked on Drudge and then wrapped my hand around the handle for a good gulp.

And that's when I noticed something sticky.  My middle finger was suctioned to the cup, held in place by a massive booger.

Gross. 

Although after three years of being a mother, it's not as gross as it once would have been.

I will bet you all I own that I know who put that booger there, although I can't even pretend I know why she did it.  Probably just because.  I'm often amazed at the places where they show up, but this is a first on one of MY cups.  If it were anyone else leaving boogers on my cup, this would be a really big deal.  Like a "you should really avoid mom for a while" kind of deal.  But since she's not here for me to see that smirk, I have no idea if this was done to be funny or if she just needed a place to hide her booger before dad saw it. 

What is it about our own flesh and blood that makes us so complacent in their abuse?  Ok, maybe abuse is too strong a word, but I think that in some countries, the crap I've put up with lately is considered abuse.

Like yesterday, when after a big day, she completely melted on the way to the car.  Had to be carried, kicking and screaming; strapping the car seat was an incredible feat of skill and speed.  She yelled the entire six minutes home that she just didn't love me anymore, her strongest insult since the word hate has been ruled out by a preschool of kids not allowed to express strong feelings.  Of course she got distracted once we got there and saw that Grandpa had mowed the majority of the field.  But I'm pretty sure that exposing the ear drums to a scream that high pitched for six minutes at a time is in fact a torture method used on terrorists. 

But I'm her mother so not only am I suppossed to put up with this crap, but I'm also suppossed to try and understand where it's coming from.  So I stayed calm in the car, resisting the urge to turn around and do my best impression of my dad and tell her to SHUT THE F*** UP! and willed myself to remember that she'd had a big day and skipped nap. 

Maybe it's those high intensity times that make the small things, like boogers on coffee cups, seem a lot funnier than they probably are.

There are a million ways to make someone smile.  And while a valiant attempt was made by my duo on Mother's Day, it's really those moments you don't expect that make life enjoyable.  And, of course, it doesn't hurt that boogers are easily removed. 

Wish the same could be said for those damn shower crayons...

Adding to the Collection

Well it's been almost three weeks since poor Pierre went up to fish heaven (aka our septic system).

He'd been pretty sad for a few days, moping around the tank.  Cinderella did her best to cheer him up, nibbling his tail and nudging him in an attempt to make him feel better, but to no avail.  I came home one day to find him quite dead.

Thankfully he was anchored near the bottom, wedged between a few rocks.  I was hoping he'd stay there until after Lou went to bed and my Other Half came home from work so that he could be the bad guy and flush the fish.  Unfortunately, Cinderella was still trying to cheer him up so when I looked at the tank a few minutes later she had dislodged him and he was drifting all over, even Lou would know he was was dead.  Therefore I would have to be the one to flush him, and quickly, before naptime was over.  Here's my dirty little secret: even though I've had a fish for about the last five years, they creep me out.  They're fine when they're in the tank, but I hate how the wriggle when I scoop them out to clean...  I used to stand outside my dorm room and wait for someone willing to scoop out the fish each week so I could clean the tank.  Then when the tank was clean I'd have to wait again for someone willing to put the fish back in.  

Anyways, I put on my big girl pants and flushed Pierre.  And Cinderella has been lonely ever since.  So this morning as I ran errands I stopped by PetsMart to buy her some new friends. 

I couldn't figure out where they kept the smaller goldfish.  In the rows upon rows of fish the only goldfish I found were the large ones with puffy cheeks, and that's just too much fish for me and our small tank to handle.  I finally found someone who appeared to work there and asked where they kept the smaller goldfish.  The kid stared blankly for a moment or two before the lightbulb came on.

Oh, they're in the Feeder Tank!

The feeder tank?!?  Gross.  Remind me to never buy a pet that I have to feed live fish to, not that I'll probably need much reminding.  He walked me over to the feeder tank, a veritable clusterfuck of skinny goldfish in various colors and undetermined states of life and death, and told me to pick some out, he'd be back in a minute after he moved some boxes.  I had to walk away and check if the tortoise was still around, I couldn't handle all these fish crawling all over eachother.  He finally came back and asked if I'd picked any out.  Was he kidding?  It was impossible to see individual fish in there.  I told him I had a lonely goldfish, and could he please just scoop out two that looked reasonably alive.

With suprising disregard for the welfare of the fish, two living goldfish were quickly scooped up and put in a bag.  I also decided to get a male betta to put in a flower vase that's been sitting around here for months.  I never get flowers anyways, and we've been talking about how it would look cool to have a fish in that vase. 

 

Yeah, I know I have a collection problem.  

On the way home I wondered what Lou would name the new fish.  Chances are they'll be named Ariel and Belle, but I wasn't sure what she would name the betta.

I got home just before naptime ended.  Lou got up, came to find me, and spied the fish instead.

Oooooh!  Princess Tiana!!!  Mom, thank you so much for getting me a Princess Tiana!

Who would've thought that a thirteen cent fish could bring so much joy?  I think I'm going to stop buying toys.

The other goldfish is named Princess Belle, and the betta has been named Prince Charming because he's a boy. 

I'm not sure how long the fish craze is going to last, hopefully long enough for Lou to be able to scoop them out of their tanks when it's time to clean.  Either way, I'm stuck with fish for a while now.

Oh well, it's fun, it's funny to hear the names Lou comes up with, and entertaining to watch.

At least now the cats have a TV.