Words, birds, turds and a bike

Words:
Belle has apparently been reading the blog lately and it seems she does not like being mocked for her lack of linguistic skills.  Within a week of my post pointing out her speech problems she scowled at me and started talking.

She's mastered the important ones.

Lollipop - "Pop-pa-pop"

Bumblebee - "Bum-ba-bum"

I have a stinky diaper - "Peeee yeewwwwww!"

Donut - "Do dut"

So sorry about implying that you had some mental disability, Belle.   Next time start proving you have skills before I have to mock you publicly.   


Birds:
Something unsettling is going on out our house.  At least once a day, usually twice, a bird slams into one of our windows.  This has been going on for TWO WEEKS.  For those of you who have remedial math skills, that is approximately 30 instances of kamikaze birds smashing into our windows.

Now, I'm not entirely sure what the motivation behind these events is.  Are the birds trying to kill us?  Do they really love our home and want to live in here?  Are they punishing themselves for something?

Lest you think they can't see the glass, please remember that I am a fairly poor housekeeper.  And I have twerps with grimy hands.  No bird who's made it out of the nest could possibly think that our windows were not there. 

Most just sort of zoom in from the side and ricochet off.   But not all.

In at least two instances the birds have, I believe, given themselves concussions.  The very first bird, a robin, hit the large window by our front door so hard that I thought someone was trying to break down the door.  It crashed to the ground in front of my front door and lay perfectly still.  For an HOUR AND A HALF.  No kidding.  I was just deciding I had to get the shovel and wondering where one throws a dead bird when suddenly it stood up.  And immediately fell over again.  Then it stood up.  And fell over. But after a few more tries it stayed up.  And after a few minutes it hopped away. 

Just yesterday another bird slammed into the same window.  It dropped down to the front porch too.  It then stood itself up, and holding itself perfectly stiff tipped slowly forward until it's face bonked into the ground.  It shook it's head in surprise and straightened up again.  And holding itself perfectly stiff it tipped slowly forward until it's face bonked into the ground - again.  The did it sit down?  No, It stood itself up AND DID IT AGAIN.  And I laughed.  I mean I felt sorry for it, but c'mon.  It took that little avian 45 minutes to be able to hop away. 

Now 'bird brain' isn't a term that leads one to think of a stout intellect, but apparently a concussed bird brain is even more stupid.

Turds:
Ok, so I just really put this in because it rhymed with "Words" and "Birds".  The only turd issue we have is that we keep finding poop on our deck from some large animal, like maybe an elephant.  Remember the raccoon?  Yeah, so do we.  But really, no raccoon could produce something of this size.  I'm not actually confident that there are any North American mammals besides the buffalo that could.  But would bison climb up stairs to a second story deck and poop dead center of the top step?  I find that unlikely.  Don't worry, I will continue to keep you all posted as this mystery unfolds.  You can always count on a good poop story from my blog. 


And a bike:
We went to a flea market in a small town semi-near us a couple weeks ago.  "Flea market" actually doesn't do it justice.  "Flea metropolis" maybe.  Here's a picture:


The thing covers 60 ACRES.  Fully half the shoppers show up on their four wheelers and drive around it.  It's a full blown Midwest flea market.  It's a ... cultural experience.  But it was sorta fun.  And D got a bike. 

It's about the smallest bike I've ever seen.  It was....well loved when we bought it, but the price was right.   Medman painted it green, cleaned it as much as was possible, bought some training wheels and lo and behold, a bike. 

D loves to ride it.  And as many of you know, D has a deep and abiding love for speed.  Thankfully he is ignorant enough to think that his bike is fast.  Because it is NOT fast.  I had visual proof this afternoon that it is not quite as fast as Belle's top running speed.  And when we are talking about Belle, "run" is used loosely.  She sort of leans forward and does a cheek-jiggling march. 

In actuality I'm amazed that he can make the thing move at all. It's tires are sort of flat, the chain is rusted and it weighs about 40 lbs.  Still, he's happy.  Even when racing around the cul-de-sac with the 5 year old across the street who has a real bike.  D just waits til the boy zooms past him and is coming back around again and yells gleefully, "You're behind me!"  Ethan, not amused, yells, "No I'm not, I already passed you!"  But D sticks to his guns, "Nope, you are behind me!  You only have 2 wheels on your bike.  You can't go fast.  I have 4 wheels.  I can go fast." 

That's OK, D.  You just keep up that blind happiness that things are really going the way you THINK they are.  You've got plenty of years ahead of you to realize that actually your bike sucks and everyone is faster than you.  Even the toddler. 

Fun givaway!

I'm so excited because my good friend Bethany has the most adorable little invention called Squeaky Bunz and she's doing a giveaway!  Now, unless you are a 12 month old baby yourself, this giveaway won't be for YOU, but it is a FANTASTIC baby shower gift.

What's Squeaky Bunz, you ask?   Here's the description from Bethany's blog:

What is SqueakyBunz? SqueakyBunz is an all original design. I have designed onesies with a cute applique on the front and a matching applique patch on the bum. The exciting part, and the part babies LOVE, is the squeaky noise the patch on the bum makes. Not only are these little outfits super cute but they are a hoot for baby and family alike! 

Yes, a cute onesie with a squeaker in the bum.  Every time they land on that little tushy, it squeaks.  (Don't worry, not an annoying squeak.  Just the kind of squeak that makes everyone in the room chuckle.  Yes, sometimes the adults even more than the babies.) 

Here are a couple of her designs.

 And here's your favorite one-year-old wearing her personalized one from Miss Bethany.  (Sorry for the sucky pictures.  Did I mention she's one? Meaning 'will not pose for pictures'.)

These are perfect for when they are learning to walk.  Every time they plop down on their bums, it squeaks.  Belle likes to sit on the bottom step and bounce so it squeaks.  She giggles and giggles. 

So, here's the link to her giveaway.  And if you don't have a need for one right now just hop over there anyway and check out all the cute designs.  And keep her in mind next time you have a baby shower to go to.  Seriously, you will the the one that brought THAT gift.  The one all the grownups play with the entire time.

Nature Hike

So we've decided to homeschool D.  I sort of cringe while I type that because for some reason homeschooling is one of those polarizing topics.  I keep running across people who either rejoice because I am keeping him from becoming an evil psychopath from going through the dreaded public school system or I am destroying his social skills and turning him into a freak by keeping him away from public schools.  SO, between psycho or freak, I guess I picked freak.

But seeing as I'm sort of known for not having particularly strong opinions in general, it's not surprising that I do not subscribe to either of these extreme ideas.  Actually, I'm just excited at the fact that I can teach my own kids.  Mom, you'll be pleased that there seems to be a bit of the teacher in me because I really enjoy thinking up the ways we can have our own little preschool.  D is diggin' it and he's taken to me teaching him very well.  He's a tiny genius and it's fun watching him learn so many things.

Really preschool is awesome.  Absolutely anything can be considered preschool education.  Like laundry.  I mean we've got sorting by colors, following directions for which cycle to use, matching socks, fine motor skills in folding, etc, etc.  Now lest you think I am viewing school as slave labor, I will point out that having a four-year-old help with laundry quadruples the time each task takes.  I'd use a bigger word than quadruple if I knew a sophisticated word for 25 times as much.  Like Twenty-five-uple. 

Soooo, all that to say that we took our weekly nature hike today! We talked about season this week so we read the "Autumn" page in our library book to find what things we should find in the fall.  D's research yielded the following list, "Leaves, acorns, berries."  Ok, good list.  I have to say I wasn't sure we'd find berries.  Turns out I'm not too outdoorsy.

We headed to the local Conservation Department where they have a lovely hike that goes through all the local eco-systems or some such thing.  I really only like the forest part.  The prairie bores me to tears.  But I digress.  Here are some pictures:

2 cuties on a log.  Gotta love 4 year old smiles.

Turns out there are berries EVERYWHERE.

Excellent pointing skills.

And stinkin' cute.

Our big find.  Notice how no trees in these pictures are turning?  Yeah, the colored-leaf find was a bit sad.

2 cute tushies.

D said "Wait!  You HAVE to take a picture of the super awesome antenna!"

 And inside the Conservation Department is just as fun. Fish tanks, bee hives, snakes.

So there ya go.  No more complaints that I never post pictures of the kids.  The highly educated kids.