Monday, December 31, 2007

Meet Harry, The New Year's Eve Chicken...

This afternoon, while the boys decorated yet another Christmas ornament (don't ask) I looked up to see a chicken looking through the window on our back door. I called the boys to look and took a couple of snapshots. Chas named "him" Harry. After a while, they got bored watching him and I only got occasional reports of how he was near their swingset etc. Then, Harry was gone.
Early this evening, however, Chas started laughing and pointing out the window to the front porch and saying something about silly Harry. Lo and behold, the damn chicken was settling in to a hanging basket full of dead flowers that should have been removed months ago. (By this point, it's almost a challenge to see how long I'll let it stay.) He's been up and down a few times now. I was going to ignore him until Eddie said, very sweetly, "But Mommy. He's far from his home. We have to take care of him while he's here." So Harry got some corn and some cornmeal. My sister came by and reports there are neighborhood cats skulking not too far away. Steph called to question about whether chickens will freeze to death in current conditions. Now despite allowing him to be named, I truly do not care about Harry. Circle of life and all that crap, you know? But my boys would be traumatized to find Harry either mutilated or frozen to death. So I just hope the dang thing has the sense to find her way home soon -- wherever that may be.
UPDATE -- 5:47 p.m. Eddie just walked in, looking very somber. He's been looking for Harry. "I think a cat might have got him," he reports. I assure him we would have heard the clucking, then go investigate for myself with a flashlight. No Harry. Fortunately, no Harry parts, either... Eddie has now, completely independently, come up with an explanation for Harry's absence. "Maybe he made a new friend!"

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

You may call it Wretched Excess...

But around here, we just call it "Christmas." Yes, the Jolly Fat Man has come and gone and left behind a veritable toy store. But we had two boys jumping up and down in glee and excitement, gasps of pure joy and overall giddiness Christmas morning, so I don't regret a single overly endulgant purchase. Not even the ones I forgot about until late Christmas Eve when we finally got the boys to sleep and managed to drag out the hidden loot.

Of course, today, poor Eddie paid in what can best be described as the preschool version of a hangover. He was sick and vomiting most of the day. He may have contracted a bug -- his cousin was sick last night. But it's just as likely that 48 hours of a diet that consisted of 80 percent sugar coupled with extreme self-imposed sleep deprivation was simply too much. Either way, I spent the day either snuggling a sick boy (the best part of the day), holding his head over the toilet (the worst part of the day) or playing with the healthy boy who desperately missed his much more fun playmate. I have too much work to do to have a day like this -- two deadlines loom at the end of the week, the kitchen is a disaster area and I have a turkey to cook Friday -- but that's what late nights are for I suppose.

At any rate, Eddie's much better -- he requested a trip to Red Robin for dinner and promptly stole his auntie's most garlicy french fries -- and the bedding is in the dryer, so all's well that ends well.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Best. Christmas. Present. Ever.



And it's not even Christmas Eve. Eddie has been working on this card for his Mama and Mommy this morning, pestering me to help him spell some stuff. This is what I got after I agreed to spell out "Love, Kids" to him, and write "Santa Claus comes tonight" as a sample for him to copy. Note the word "love" is mysteriously topped by a heart. What can I say? The kid knows how to suck up before Christmas.

Monday, December 03, 2007

Squawkers McCaw is a Squawkin', Talkin', Pain in My A**!

The boys reallly want a Squawkers McCaw talking parrot for Christmas, so we got 'em one this weekend at Costco. It was in the back of Steph's car so, while the boys and I were supposed to be sleeping this morning, she brought him in to hide. But there's a problem in that the little F'er seems to be motion activated. So I heard a screetchy "HELLO" as she came in. No biggie. Except that Chas apparently heard it to and it yanked him into full consciousness.

"I heared a talking parrot!"

"It must have been a commercial."

"But the TV isn't on."

"A commercial on the computer."

"But that's not what it says on the commercial."

"It must have been a dream."

"It wasn't a dream. It was a talkin' parrot!"

Things went like this until Steph came in to kiss us goodbye and confessed that she'd been "talking in silly voices." I'm not sure he was entirely convinced and I'm wondering how the hell Santa's going to put him under the tree without waking up at least one boy.

Robo Ed

Last night, after the boys were in bed, we heard complaining from Eddie. Not unusual. So Steph drew the short straw (also not unusual) and went to investigate. When she came back a few minutes later, she looked at me stone-faced and said, "You're gonna laugh."

Seems that Eddie was tired and trying to sleep but Chas kept pestering him. Chas explained that he had a question that he really, really needed Eddie to answer. So Mama asked what it was because maybe she could help. "Eddie, if you were a robot, would you tell me?" Eddie was trying to sleep and wouldn't answer, so Mama assured Chas that he would confess. Part of her wanted to say, "It depends on what kind of robot he was. If he were an evil robot, he wouldn't tell you." But for the sake of everyone's night, she didn't elaborate. Thank God.

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Just when I thought my children were geniuses, a couple of dough balls knocked on the door...

OK, for the record, I've never thought Eddie and Chas were actual, bona fide geniuses. But sometimes I allow myself to think that they are very, very smart. And then something like tonight happens, and I have to reevaluate.

It began, innocently enough, with dinner out at Chevy's. Chevy's is one of those places that gives more than crayons to keep the kids from getting bored and screaming loudly enough to disturb other patrons. It also gives pre-flattened, pre-cooked tortillas to amuse them. Yes, dough balls. Last time we were there, the boys were utterly bereft to have left the dough balls behind. So I said they could bring 'em home. Which would be fine, except that on the way home, the dough balls fell to the floor of the car several times, gathering enough dirt and God-knows-what to turn gritty and a bit gray. The dough balls were endlessly amusing to the boys who stuck them on the windows and giggled. Then someone got the idea to let the dough balls drive. Steph put them on the steering wheel and we had a laugh riot when they were unable to make a proper right turn to get us home. This put us on a dead end street next to a field. I said the dough balls wanted to go home to find their families and Steph "threw" them out the window.

Now, we played this little charade to see if we could get rid of the dough balls without having to listen to excessive crying. We could not. So shortly after we got home, the boys heard a knock at the door, opened it and found their dough balls sitting on the porch, waiting to be let in. (I would have said they were shivering in the cold, but that woulda been ridiculous.)

I don't know if Eddie and Chas think they've witnesses a Christmas Miracle or what, but they seem to truly believe that the dough balls knocked on the door. They had to call their Auntie and two cousins to relate this amazing story -- which they could barely tell because they were laughing so hard.

Perhaps the worst of it is that, after being told that Mommy could make them more dough in the morning, they were perfectly willing to let us throw their miraculous door-knocking dough balls away because they were, by this point, truly disgusting.