The Girl made treats for everyone today, with some help from K.
The Boy was especially excited.
g
Animals
We’ve added another animal into our family, and now four or so weeks on, we’re all finally settling into some kind of rhythm of normalcy. Clover is still full of surprises, to be sure, but we know each other much better at this point. We know that if she’s chewing on something she’s not supposed to, it’s usually enough just to give her something designated for chewing. But every now and then, the rhythm skips a beat, we are less than vigilant, and Clover gets a hold on something she’s not supposed to have, like an inflatable rubber ball.
Which she promptly pops with her pin-sharp puppy teeth. And so she has a new chew toy.
Our new openness to new animals might get carried away if we’re not careful, though. We’ve had a black stray cat wandering around our house lately, undoubtedly drawn by our compost. We’ve made friends, then determined that the poor thing is pregnant.
What else can you do but temporarily — “Temporarily, kids!” K and I have both reiterated — adopt the animal. We’ve been feeding her while we confirm that she is indeed a stray. Monday, we take her to the Humane Society. In the meantime, we argue about what to call her for the next couple of days: Midnight or Nightmare.
Infinity
Driving home from Mass today, the Boy and I somehow got into a discussion about infinity. I can’t remember how it came up or even who brought it up, but there we were, discussing one of the great paradoxes of life and math.
To try to explain it to him, I talked about numbers: “You can count on and on and on and on,” I said. But this didn’t seem to support what I said earlier, about infinity having no beginning or ending.
“But it does have a beginning,” he protested from the back. “When I count, I say, ‘1, 2, 3, 4, 5.’ You start at one.”
I tried dipping into the topic of negative numbers to show him that we really could start anywhere.
“Negative numbers? Like 5, 4, 3, 2, 1?”
Throwing Away
It's much simpler to dump now and then sort later. Much later. That is what E has been doing with his toys -- cars, action figures, blocks, and the like -- for some time now, until all four of his main toy bins are hopelessly mixed. Last night, we decided that we had to get things under control, organized. I suggested it while putting the Boy to bed; he readily agreed.
This morning, then, we got to work by dumping all the bins into a pile.
"That sure is a lot of toys!" said the Boy.
"Perhaps too many," I suggested.
"Yeah, maybe too many."
We began sorting, making little piles of action figures, cars, train tracks, blocks, and more, and I suggested that we might want to get rid of some of the toys.
"Yeah, maybe the broken ones."
We made a deal with the cars: for every one car he gets rid of, he gets to keep three cars. That of course means he cuts his cars by twenty-five percent, which would be significant. I didn't think he'd agree. I thought he'd fuss about the suggestion, but instead, he went along with it quite willingly. He selected trailers for which there were no longer trucks, cars that were, in his words, for babies, and a few cars that just looked like they'd seen their best days. He was thoughtful as he culled his toys and surprisingly mature about the whole process.
Perhaps not so surprisingly: he's always imitating L, K, or me, always trying to be older than he is, always talking so seriously about such things as he sees K and me discussing important matters. He wants to grow up. He wants to be a man. The worst insult I can give him is to suggest, when he's fussing and crying over some trifle or other, that he's acting like a baby.
"I'm not a baby!" he protests.
"Then why are you fussing like one?"
The answer is always the same: "I don't know."
In the end, we got rid of two bags of toys. Broken cars, trailers with cars missing, mysteries (What is that? And what did it go to?) all got dumped into the trash bin. The rest we took to Goodwill.
It was a proud little moment for K and me, to see our little man realizing that he'd outgrown some toys, that he had more than he really needed, that he could live without them.
Skating Rink
Evening Sun
Taken the same day as yesterday's pic, just about an hour earlier.
Sunset Behind Babia
One of the things I love about visiting Babcia is the ability to walk out ten minutes from the house to see things like this. Now that I'm back at our own computer, I'll be going through photos and re-editing them in Lightroom. Prepare yourselves!
Changing
The Girl has a love/hate attitude toward her hair. She loves it because, well, she just does. I say she hates it because she really doesn’t take care of it. On our days off, if K or I didn’t remind her to brush her hair, she wouldn’t. At all. And yet it literally took us years to talk her into cutting her hair the first time.
This time, she went even further — just to the shoulders. Her concern: can I still put it in a ponytail? Our concern? Will it be easier to brush out tangles?
The unexpected side effect: a hair style that almost perfectly reflects her personality: a bit silly, a lot of fun, and simply, sweetly alluring.
Growing with the Pup
Having a puppy is like having a newborn in the house -- that's what we'd heard. There is a certain amount of truth in this: Clover requires a lot of time and attention. And like a baby, she can't be just left unattended. But the attention is easy to give: she's such a sweet puppy, always eager to get a belly rub or a scratch behind the ear. Eager to please. Genuinely remorseful-looking when corrected. Or is she just playing us? Probably a bit of both.
And she's so curious. Those two things combine to torture our cats. Bida tends just to hiss. It's all it takes after a snoutful of claws a couple of times. But Elsa runs, and so what does Clover do? Chase her, of course. Isn't she just trying to play? It's not just Elsa and Bida, and that's a little worrying. There's a little black cat that comes around often enough, and Clover tried to make friends with her, to no avail.
She remembers the encounter with Bida that left her with a slightly bloody ear, so she kept her distance.
The Boy is having a bit of trouble with her, too. She's still trying to herd him, and the herding is getting more intense. She nips at his shoes, chases him when he walks in the room -- the tail is always wagging, but like Elsa, the Boy is starting just to avoid her at times.
Unless there's a toy to play with, like a stick.
Still, despite it all, we're all pretty much wrapped around her paw.
How could we not be?
Learning
The kids are learning how to clean. The dog is learning how to walk on a leash. I’m learning to take a break from this.
