Make Way for A Gosling

Driving down the freeway, there were a couple of cars ahead of me who seemed to be competing for the Worst Driver of the Year award.  Darting in and out of traffic, slowing down and speeding up for no apparent reason - you know, the kind of behavior that causes you to drop back a few car lengths so you can avoid being caught up in the accident they are trying to their hardest to create.

 

Lucky me, both cars were now in my lane, albeit a hundred feet ahead of me - and suddenly, they both SLAMMED on their brakes.  As far back as I was, I still had to brake hard to avoid hitting them.  I grumbled under my breath and was looking for an opening in the next lane, when I saw why they had stopped so abruptly.

 

Make Way for Ducklings!  Or a gosling, as the case may be.  One lone gosling, flanked by two adult geese, was crossing the busy four-lane freeway.  The adult goose in the back had his neck craned at a weird angle, apparently attempting to make himself look big and bad.  He was showing those cars who was boss.

 

They did make it safely to the median, but there were four more lanes of north-bound traffic to cross, so I can only hope they made it safely to their destination.

 

Have you ever seen just one gosling, though?  I don't think I have, and that makes me wonder what happened to his fellow nestlings.  I'm guessing those geese parents might have made some other poor parenting choices.

Kids Book List, Theme: Gardening

Have I already said how much I love the library?  So much, that my library card is activated at 4 of the 8 library systems in the Twin Cities Metropolitan area.  Our libraries have an awesome "exchange program" type thing here - first you need to obtain a card from your home county's library system, but you can have it activated at any or all of the other library systems.  Since I work in one county, live in another, and regularly go to two other counties for various errands, this is very convenient because I can just stop at the library wherever I am at the moment.  And because I'm such a nerd, I know which library has the best children's section, the best selection of audiobooks, and the nicest librarians.  (Pssst, to my local friends - the librarians in the Anoka County library system are, in general, the crabbiest, most unhelpful librarians I've ever met.  And I've met a lot.)

 

I'm subscribed to various newsletters from each of the library systems.  One newsletter tells me about the new books the library has just added to their collection - which allows me to put my name on the wait list immediately, meaning I usually get to read the book within days of its release - without having to pay for a hardcover copy at the bookstore!  Another newsletter, my most favoritest newsletter ever, is called "Birth to Six News", which comes from the Hennepin County library.  It's a children's books newsletter that comes out once a month and includes fingerplays, new and notable books, and usually a section that highlights books on a certain topic. 

 

Also, on Hennepin County Library's website is ELSIE (Early Literacy Storytime Ideas Exchange).  You can search children's books based on a certain keyword, and limit your selection based on certain skill groups that you want to focus on, like Phonological Sensitivity, Letter Knowledge, and Vocabulary.  You don't even have to have a library card to use this system - anyone can use it to create a book list!  

 

Usually, the kids and I go to the library and choose books, willy-nilly, off the shelves.  But sometimes I have an agenda, and this month's agenda is "gardening".  Both kids have an intense interest in the garden, and have been helping me plant, water, and weed.  So far, neither one of them has pulled up a desirable plant, either.  But whether that speaks to their plant knowledge, or the weed/seeding ratio in my garden still remains to be seen.  Honestly, I'm betting on the weed/seedling ratio.

 

Here's my "gardening" booklist for this week:

 

The Carrot Seed - Ruth Krauss

Growing Vegetable Soup - Lois Ehlert

Ten Red Apples - Virginia Miller

Two Old Potatoes and Me - John Coy

Carrot Soup - John Segal

The Enormous Carrot - Vladimir Vasilevich Vagin

First the Egg - Laura Vaccaro Seeger

Muncha Muncha Muncha - Candace Fleming

Farm-Fresh Cats - Scott Santoro

2 Reasons Why Carpet is BAD

Friday night I needed to go into a particular cabinet for a potholder.  This cabinet is not organized as well as it should be, as my extract and food coloring bottles are in front of the potholders - meaning, oftentimes when I reach for a potholder, I knock over a bottle.  That's what happened Friday night.  After I'd picked up the food coloring bottles off the floor, I realized I was holding a green cap but no bottle.  I looked under chairs, in corners, and under the refrigerator, but couldn't find a bottle anywhere so I assumed it had been used up and the cap just hadn't gotten thrown away.

 

*Cue the ominous music*

 

Later, I went in to start the kids' bath.  I was running the tub, which usually makes the kids come running.  A quick head count informed me that only one child had materialized.  Hmmm, where's Natalie?  I thought absentmindedly.  After the tub was full, I went out to find her.  And find her, I did.  In a puddle of green food coloring.  Which was all over my light-blue carpet.  And Natalie's hands.  And Natalie's khaki shorts.  And Natalie's pink shirt.

 

I did what anyone would do in this situation.  I screeched, "What did you do omigod what did you do get in the tub right now omigod" and stripped her clothes off on the way to the bathroom.  I scrubbed her down, best as I could - not easy to do when the bathwater instantly starts to look like it's been hit with a major case of algae bloom.  Then I got to work on the carpet.  A bottle of vinegar, six dishtowels, half a bottle of SpotShot, and an hour later, the carpet was reasonably clean.

 

But this wasn't the end of the carpet fiasco.  Oh no.

 

Saturday morning, a mere 12 hours after the green dye incident, I opened a bottle of grape juice which I'd just bought the day before.  I gave the kids each their usual watered-down serving.  1/4 cup juice to 3/4 cup water - you know, I actually prefer it this way, too.  I think it's much too sweet full-strength.  But I digress.

 

15 minutes later - seriously, only 15 minutes later! - Ron bellered at me from the living room.  "Get in here RIGHT NOW!  I need you!" 

 

Natalie had thrown up her grape juice all over the living room carpet.  Luckily, I still had a few clean dishtowels left and I commenced to scrubbing once more.

 

But what's a little bit scary is that it was evidently because of the grape juice that she threw up.  Because Sam did the same thing 10 minutes later.  And then neither one threw up the rest of the day.  I'm still not sure what I should do - call the store and explain what happened?  I can't imagine them taking the bottles off the shelves because of that one incident.  And the kids didn't really get that sick.  One good barf and they were both right as rain.

 

I think I'm going to get hardwood floors.

*Heavy sigh*

Awhile back, I talked about how some research has shown that kids tend to go through disequilibrium around the half-year mark. Sam will be 3 1/2 next month, and the terrible 3's have officially hit our house.

 

On Thursday of last week, I got the first glimpse of what was about to come.  It was just general naughtiness, nothing I could really put my finger on, but in a general way the behavior was very out of character for Sam.  I have been wanting to paint the bathroom for awhile, and I did have this feeling like - "Hmm, maybe I shouldn't try to do this now, because it probably won't turn out well".  You know how you've heard you should always trust your instincts?  You really should.

 

After I'd cleaned off the yellow Sam-sized handprints from the front of my (Not Normally Yellow) bathroom cabinets, I banished Sam to his room and kept him on A Very Short Leash for the rest of the night.  Figuratively, not literally - though I have to admit, I just may have been tempted for a brief moment.

 

The weekend was like a marathon of episodes of a really bad sitcom.  Things that might be funny if you see them on the TV screen, but not so funny when you have to clean up the aftermath.  Like when I was carrying a bucket of sudsy water outside to wash my car, and Sam ran up to me and, as quick as lightning, yanked on one side of the bucket so the water spilled all over the kitchen floor, landing, and stairs.  Trust me, there was no laugh track playing at our house - although there was a deep, reverberating voice narrating the words "GET INTO YOUR ROOM RIGHT NOW OR SO HELP ME..."

 

And this morning, I received a phone call from my husband that Sam had detached a clump of hair from Natalie's skull using brute force.  A clump.  When you hear the words "a clump" and "hair" in the same sentence, it sends a shiver down your spine.  I have not yet surveyed the damage first-hand, but it can't be pretty.  I've been informed that Sam has lost custody of one of his favorite toys for the remainder of the week (and with just cause).

 

Anyway!  Let's talk about something else more fun, because frankly, I'm getting more annoyed every minute just from typing this.

 

Like my garden!  I am doing some experimenting this year with fun, new things which I've never grown.  Red sweet corn - did you know there was such a thing?  I've only seen the small, decorative kind of red corn.  But as we speak, I have red sweet corn sprouting in my garden.  And artichokes!  I didn't even know they could grow in Minnesota, with our approximately 2-day growing season.  But the seed packet informs me that they do, by showing our grand state on the "when to plant" map.  We even have an actual color that corresponds to an actual month range on the map key!  So it must be so!  And I found some fun varieties of heirloom tomato plants at the Farmer's Market.  One that produces striped tomatoes, another called a "Black Plum" tomato, and a "Russian Persimmon".

 

Also, trees!  Now, those of you who know me well will laugh at this.  For, oh, the last 5 years or so, we've been talking about moving to a single-family house with more property.  (We live in an upper-lower duplex, and although we don't rent out the bottom half anymore, we mainly use it for storage so it's largely wasted space.  And who really needs two kitchens and two laundry rooms.)  I think, after 5 years, we're finally ready to give up the dream.  After all, moving is A LOT OF WORK.  Inertia is just easier.  So I'm planting trees.  Trees which won't fruit for 3 or more years, which basically ties me to this land.  Because after paying so much money for these trees, and all the time put into their care, I want to be around to see them pay off!

 

First, I purchased 2 apple trees from Linder's (a local chain).  I bought a Honeycrisp and a Sweet Sixten...yum.  I paid $50 each, which seemed like a steal since the independent greenhouses I'd perused charged $75 to $100 for the same trees.

 

Then, I was at Fleet Farm last week (another local chain) and found my holy grail...a Mesabi cherry tree.  I have been looking, and looking for one of these for a couple of months now.  It was marked $44.99.  Awesome!  But even more awesome, it rang up at 25% off - $33.74!!!  If I had room in my yard, I was sorely tempted to buy a pear tree and a plum tree, also.  Maybe next year, I'll find a place to squeeze them in.

 

Ah...now I'm feeling much better.  I'd so much rather think and talk about my garden than my behaviorally-challenged 3 1/2-year-old at the moment.

Beyond the Birds and the Bees

We go to the library almost every Saturday, and check out a new bagful o' books.  About three weeks ago, we were heading to the checkout desk when Sam snagged this one off the shelf:

I was *this close* to telling him to put it back on the shelf, we had enough books already.  Thank goodness I didn't.

This book has been single-handedly responsible for giving me more free time in the past three weeks than I've had in the past three and a half years combined.  Well, if you count free time as ten-second intervals of silence in between requests to identify a bushbaby or a lesser red panda.  I've actually learned a lot, too.  Did you know that a black panther is actually just a regular old leopard, who happened to be born with black fur?   I don't know exactly when I'll use that tidbit, but you never know.  It may come in handy someday.

Who'd have thought the answer to all (well, one, but it was a big one) of my problems could be purchased for only $29.99?  (Actually, I'm going to be buying a used copy for much less, but I'd pay about 10 times the cover price if I had to.  Shhh...don't tell the seller.)

Book Review: Look Again

I recently finished Lisa Scottoline's newest book, Look Again.  I've read (and loved!) everything she's ever written, and this book was no exception.  Even though the ending was a bit too pat and the plot was a bit too implausible, I still loved it.  Scottoline is funny and clever, but unlike Janet Evanovich, whose Stephanie Plum books I stopped reading a few books back, Scottoline's books are always original.  (I used to love the Stephanie Plum series, but after the first ten books, I started to feel like I was reading the same book over and over again.  Then again, maybe I was.  My memory, like the old gray mare, ain't what she used to be.)

 

If you've read Lisa Scottoline before, you know that she normally writes legal fiction, and her books usually star the same case of characters.  Look Again was a total deviation from her regular formula.  The main character, Ellen, is facing the possibility of losing her 3-year-old son so I'm sure this book affected me more than it would affect someone else who doesn't have a 3-year-old son.  But you may not want to read the last 50 pages when you're, oh, riding a crowded passenger bus home from work.  Just sayin'. 

 

I was most excited to read on the inside flap of the cover that Lisa Scottoline has a weekly column that runs in the Philadelphia Inquirer.  If you're a die-hard fan, like I am, this column is worth adding to your reader.

Finally, An Update

Phew.  As I wipe the sweat off my brow, I hardly know where to start explaining where I've been and what I've been doing.

I have been a bit busy lately, with a big project.  Not the "raising two young children" project, or the "taking care of a house" project, but a different one.  Gardening is one of my passions, something I haven't been able to do much of since having kids.  The summer after Sammy was born, we had to tear out my beautiful garden to put in an ugly septic mound.  

This used to be my garden.  Now it's basically a big pile of...well, you know.

Ever since, I haven't had the time or the ambition to start over, but this year I've decided to change all that.

This is what I have to work with:

And this:

I've spent the past couple of weeks digging out tree stumps, hauling black dirt, weeding, mulching, planting, and fencing.  And that's why I haven't been posting lately.

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I love summer.  Love, love, love it, for reasons to numerous to mention, but one of the reasons?  Messy projects can move outdoors, leaving the cleanup to Mother Nature instead of Mother Exhausted.

  

Nah, I didn't really leave the kids outside until it rained.  I mean, I let Mother Nature clean up the driveway.  The kids, I sprayed down with a garden hose.  Which they thought was great fun - almost as fun as the painting itself.