Toads

Last night my neighbor and I took our dogs for a walk around the neighborhood. As we're walking, Juno suddenly attacks something in the grass, throwing her feet forward 900 times per second trying to stomp on it. It was dark and I could see was something small and hopping (I figured it was a cricket). Then I realized it was a tiny toad and snatched it up like any normal human being. All I could think of was "the kids will fricken LOVE this!" but soon realized that they were all in bed. Poo. 

But instead of releasing it, I carried it, cupped in my hands, all the way back to the house and tossed it in a mason jar (Daddy nailed some holes in the lid for me). I threw in some grass and a little water, and then put it in outside in our tomato planter to hang out happily (or not) until tomorrow morning. 

So this morning I checked to see if the damn thing was alive (it was) and then brought my kids and my neighbor's three girls out to the back yard to check out the toad. Calen and Sydney got to hold him, her older sister Hailey was NOT interested in touching him and we didn't let Cam hold it because he probably would have POPPED the damn thing (Calen was close to anyways). But he did crouch down and looked at it and then giggled. 

After ten minutes or so I decided to free the toad before he got stepped on/squished/popped/stressed to death. So we put him back in the jar and took a field trip around the fence to the neighboring yard (coincidentally where we found the injured heron in the tree last month) and let it loose. 

And that was that. The kids loved it. I should start my own nature camp. 

Sydney holding the toad and Cam crouching down to get a closer look

Toad. I like the sound of the word "toad."

 

Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better

Camden has suddenly become this little shadow to Calen. Not that he hasn't followed him around and copycatted for the last year, but in the last week or so he's really been doing more dare-devil "big boy" stuff if he sees Calen doing it. Like jumping off the toy box. And trying to drive the 4 wheeler ALONE (he is incapable of steering and it is quite alarming). 

He's also finally figured out his little scooter (to follow big brother on his scooter with, of course). He probably goes no faster than a morbidly obese ant crawling on the sidewalk, but he has the movements down.

His "I got this" face

For well over a year now Calen's favorite thing involving the pool is climbing onto the picnic chair and leaping off into the water. Usually this is far too high/scary/alarming/out of his league for Camden. But suddenly today, Camden decided he was big enough. He crawled up on the chair, jumped straight up in the air, stuck his legs straight out and landed on his butt. Which he thought was awesome. And repeated it. Over. And over. And over. 

Air.

And THEN, he watched Calen run across the lawn and leap head first into the pool. So Cam did too. I figured he'd cry when the water hit his face. But he didn't. He laughed and did it again. And again. 

This one is going to keep us guessing. 

Captain America Strong Bands

Calen has been wearing these arm bands for two days straight. He eats with them, sleeps with them, refuses to take them off. He calls them his "Captain America Strong Bands" and claims that they make him super strong. 

And that's the excitement we have had around here lately.

Shenanigans

The boys have been into mischief lately. Specifically, a few days ago.

I blame it on a lack of "summer" this summer. Grey cloudy days where the temperature doesn't go above 75 (in which East Coast -accustomed Calen claims is "cold"). And RAIN that keeps us inside. Being trapped inside means shenanigans are inevitable. 

It started on Friday. 

We have a walk through baby gate in the upstairs hallway. This is there because the boys wake up at o'dark thirty, a time in which I deem illegal and evil and the equivalent of basically the worst thing ever. I don't exist at o'dark thirty. I refuse to exist. So I let the boys play in Calens room and sleep happily in my bed until a time of morning that I deem acceptable to exist, like 8am. The gate keeps the boys from going downstairs and thus involving themselves in shenanigans.

On Friday, the gate got opened. Somehow. I assumed that I had left it open. When I woke up, the boys were in Calens room with lollipops in their mouths, and no less than SEVEN eaten lollipop sticks on the ground in his room. I went downstairs to find the step stool pushed up against the counter and the candy jar open. Shenanigans.

Well fool me once. I put the candy jar up high. On the alcohol shelf. Try to reach that you misfits. Sunday night I was absolutely POSITIVE I closed the baby gate. Positive. I checked twice.

Monday morning I wake up to the sound of the baby gate clanging shut. I jumped up like my mattress was on fire, half asleep, shouting to myself "OHMYGOD the KIDS are DOWNSTAIRS" and wondering just how the hell they got the gate open, and what the hell they got into, all while still midair from jumping out out bed.

I dove into Calens room. He was watching Cars, on his floor, with the entire Costco box of graham crackers beside him (a Costco box holds FOUR standard sized boxes of graham crackers). Half of an entire standard sized box was GONE. It was unopened the night before. Scattered throughout his room were teeny tiny pieces of cracker wrapper, cut carefully into a thousand pieces by Calen using ADULT scissors that he STOLE from the junk drawer. Beside the graham crackers was a cereal bowl with a few leftover pieces of Lucky Charms. Beside THAT was a souvenir sized cup full of lemonade. 

I'm staring at his room dumbfounded, wanting to scream or yell or just go back to bed and pretend it hadn't happened. I wanted to make some kind of amazing riot act about STEALING food SEALED SHUT from the pantry and SNEAKING it upstairs and USING SCISSORS to open it and eating HALF A BOX OF GRAHAM CRACKERS and why in the hell didn't they just wake me up and say "hey Mom I'm hungry"? But all I could mutter was "WHERE is your brother??" because Camden was suspiciously MIA.

"Over there." Calen said very nonchalantly, munching on graham cracker, As if he didn't realize that his little life as he knew it was about to end. Violently. 

Camden was hiding under Calen's desk, with a graham cracker in each hand. I think he was more aware of the trouble they were into than Calen was. 

Then, I went downstairs to assess the situation. It was almost as bad as I feared.

The pantry door was wide open (regardless of the child lock on the handle). On the kitchen floor was an empty Pop Tart box, which most definitely wasn't empty the night before. Next to that was a bottle of apple juice, cold from the fridge, but not opened (it was sealed and apparently childproof). Also there was the lid to the lemonade pitcher. Following the trail of debris into the dining room, I found THREE empty Poptart wrappers (so six Poptarts total were eaten), the now empty-that-was-full-last-night pitcher sitting in a puddle of what once was lemonade. Next to it was a container of Lucky Charms that was 1/4 empty. I bought those the night before. 

Did I miss anything? I don't think I did.

SHENANIGANS.

I went back upstairs to annihilate the kids but tripped over Calens scooter in his room. Calens scooter...in his room? Which means he CLUNKED that metal thing all the way up the wood stairs.

How in the HELL hard was I sleeping??

AND THEN Calen asked for breakfast! Umm, NO? You just ate the entire house. You're not having breakfast. OR LUNCH.

Okay so maybe I did feed him lunch later.

The kids got the floor mopped with them, but I still have no idea how they got the gate open. Daddy did something to "fix" it that night. I should have known that the worst mischief my kids would get into would involve food.

Freezer Meals and Broken PCs

So I havent been blogging much lately. One reason is that we have been tragically boring due to an uncommon cool and rainy August that has kept us indoors. And that we have spent all of this week watching the Little League World Series, which we WERE going to attend yesterday since its only 4 hours away, but then came to a terrible realization that Cam is TWO and not in the least interested in sitting still for a baseball game. So we will ho next year. When he isn't two.

Also my laptop is broken (literally. The top is breaking off) so Im trying to keep my blogging on it to a minimum. This entry is on my phone. Blogging on a phone is awful. I keep trying to hit the comma button and miss and hit the language button. Suddenly, Im typing in French.

This is what I did tonight! Im preparing for a busy fall and school year by making freezer bag meals. Chicken fajitas, wings, pork tenderloin and some teriyaki dishes were in the works tonight. My goal is to make some whenever I find ingredients on sale (today I found 18 chicken wings for $5 and a large lork tenderloin for $4). Then all you do is thaw and cook! Great for those busy nights or just those lazy "I dont feel like cooking" days

The Zoo

Yesterday it decided for once EVER to have absolutely zero humidity and be a wonderfully comfortable 75 degrees. Of course to my now-cold blooded family that meant WAY too "cold" to swim in the pool or go to the beach! So we thought hey, what a great morning to go to the zoo. 

Apparently, the entire county and all the tourists invading said county decided that my brilliant idea was in fact a brilliant idea and we should all go at the same time to this tiny zoo. 

It was a zoo at the zoo!

We lasted an hour or so in the zoo. Calen kept whining "there's too many PEOPLE here!" That poor kid is going to have a rude awakening come Disney World in November. We saw all the BABIES - and man there are a lot of them! Two new snow leopard cubs, a baby bobcat, baby monkeys and baby lemurs. Ahhhh! Enough to almost make you want a new baby. Or a kitten. ALMOST. Followed by a quick visit to the large playground that's on the zoo property, and we called it a day. 

Serves me right trying to go to the zoo during peak tourist season. I know better. No zoo after Memorial Day and before Labor Day. Period. 

Also, funny story about this tortoise. He was being enticed (however a tortoise gets enticed, that is) by a smaller turtle to come join her in the little pond. He lumbered slooooowly down to the water and then struggled to get his stubby legs over the big rocks into the water. It drew a crowd and we sat and watched the whole odyssey, and people clapped and cheered once he finally made it into the water like he won a tennis match. Which means they were clapping and cheering but they were very quiet and weird about it.  

 

 

Milestones: Suriving A Movie Theater.

Today we decided to embark on an extremely risky and dangerous adventure:

Taking the kids, BOTH kids, to a movie theater. 

And not to run wild and go crazy and jump the lobby counter to dump the popcorn machine all over the floor and climb the walls screaming like rabid baboons, but actually sitting still, being (fairly) quiet, and successfully WATCHING a movie.

We waited years to take either kid to the theater. Even Calen hasn't stepped foot in one (the free base movie theater doesn't count, because it's similar to the wildness mentioned above). We knew we had to wait for the right movie, one that would actually hold both boys' attention. And what better movie to sink my vehicle-obsessed kids into a drooling zombie than Disney-Pixar's PLANES?

Not that we didn't come uber prepared. I went into that movie theater packing. Packing licorice, Skittles, sandwiches, and two new Planes toys. Plus we bought popcorn and juice at the counter. It's a good thing that those 17 year old kids working there didn't check my bulging Mary Poppins purse because I probably would have been thrown out on the street for smuggling in so many snacks.

Our battle plan to survive the entire movie with a 4 and 2 year old was simple: keep stuffing food into their mouths so that they can't talk, and keep a toy plane in one hand and a cup of said food in the other to keep their hands full instead of all over each other. Then pray that the movie is entertaining enough to hold their attention. 

Also, we sat in the very back, so that if they decided to stand up, rock in their seats, bounce in their seats, throw popcorn in the air or otherwise be generally annoying, no one would see or feel them. 

And luckily for us, no one sat in front of us either. Maybe they knew better. 

Planes!

It worked. They ate popcorn and candy for dinner (showing was 4:40) and the movie was action-y and fun enough to keep the boys from blinking and slack-jawed (when they weren't chewing) for an hour and a half until the credits rolled. Except when they were commenting on the movie (even Camden, who kept saying "ready? Set? GOOO!!!"). They thoroughly LOVED the movie. It might be a new Disney favorite for them. 

Quiet. Still. Slack-jawed. Mission accomplished.

The Planes fun continued even after we got home, when the kids ran circles around the house with their new toy planes. 

Flying through the house with their new Planes planes. Notice Brother flying right behind him.

And also, candy and popcorn for dinner means and uber sugar/junk CRASH. I'm not sure if the kids are breathing in this picture. 

It was a runaway success. Not that I plan on risking my life in any additional movie theaters anytime soon, but for our first time, it couldn't have gone better. 

Chance

It's through tears and heartbreak that I announce that we had to say goodbye to our family dog this morning. 

Brad and I adopted Chance when he was 8 weeks old, in our first year of marriage. He was our "baby" before we had babies, our big happy go lucky stupid dog that liked to take off running (and thus making us chase him) whenever the back gate was accidentally left open, jumped up on the counters to eat the kids not-finished lunch, happily leaping all over whatever victim just knocked on the door, etc. Think Marley And Me on a smaller scale, that was Chance. 

But we loved him. 

Our Chance, when we brought him home. 2007

He was perfectly healthy and everything was fine, until about two years ago, when he started growling at Calen. Our kids have been trained very well to be extremely gentle, soft and calm with the dogs, so we were confused. We took him to the vet to see if he was sick or hurt, but he wasn't. The vet determined that the only thing that could cause this aggression was him ultimately being jealous of the kids, or thinking that they are a threat to me (Chance was essentially MY dog and was very VERY emotionally attached to me). We tried retraining, exercise, Calen being an active part in Chance's life (feeding him and letting him in/out the back door), but it never got better. In fact, it got worse. Chance would growl if Calen not only touched him, but walked near him, and sometimes even when he would try to pet our other dog Juno. The only decision was to remove him from our home, to prevent anything escalating that might cause some serious harm to one or both kids. 

But after well over a year of trying to rehome him, or put him in a rescue, in state, out of state, anywhere, everywhere, our attempts failed. No one would take a dog with aggressive tendencies. He was growling at Calen every day now and Camden is getting to the age where he wants to pet the dogs too. The executive decision from both Brad and I was to peacefully put Chance to sleep. This morning, we said goodbye after 6.5 years of being in our family. 

Brad and I are deeply grief-stricken and devastated. It wasn't as simple as putting down and old dog that was at the end of his life anyways. It was ultimately deciding to kill our dog, and I can't explain to you how much it hurts to the absolute core. The tears keep flowing even though it's been several hours. Our house feels empty, Juno keeps looking to the front door to see if her adopted brother is coming back, it's just awful. Even though friends, family, even the vet told us it was the right thing to do, if felt wrong. But what we had to remember was that it was protecting our kids.

So rest in peace, my dear Chance. We will miss you. I'm sorry that it had to be this way. 

Please, I could do without any "you should have done this instead..." or any other such "advice". We tried everything. We did everything. We already feel absolutely racked over the decision and the loss. Your judgement won't help us. But your prayers and thoughts for healing of our family will. 

D&H Summer Games, Day 5

Today was the final day of our little week of summer games for the kids. Now that my Pinterest boards are thinned out and we've run out of ideas, I'd say it was time to call it good. But we saved the best for last. 

Today's agenda: SUPER NINJA OBSTACLE COURSE OF AWESOMENESS

...or something similar to that name. 


Each kid took a water balloon from a bucket on the picnic table near the start line. Then, They had to hop into two hula hoops full of shaving cream, climb our little cube climbing toy that had a curvy sprinkler wrapped into it so they were being sprayed like crazy. Once they climbed through, they had to run and slide down the slip n slide, leap into a baby pool filled with water and shaving cream, then LEAP into the big pool with their water balloon. Then, run back to the start and do it again. The kid that threw the most water balloons in the pool wins. 


Calen LOVED this game and kept playing even after the balloons were gone. 

Calen's face of concentration is hysterical

Climb through the cube climber (Sydney rocked this game and was today's winner)

Slide down the slip n slide

Leap into the big pool. Calen had the best "leap"

Maybe an hour or so after our summer games officially ended, we decided to hand out "trophies". And the trophies were delicious ice cream treats. A bowl with an ice cream sandwich on the bottom, an upside down cake flavored ice cream cone on top, a dollop of whip cream with sprinkles and a cherry. I wish all trophies tasted that good. 

 

The kids (minus sleepy Cam) and their trophies. Good job on the Summer Games guys!

This actually turned out to be a really fun week. Even though the games were very simple (due to the kids ages), it kept them busy for a couple hours each day and the entire budget for the games (not including things we already owned) was $20. I'd say we got our money's worth.

D&H Summer Games, Day 4 (Rain and Bird Delay)

The weather decided that it wouldn't be our friend today and let us play outside (unless we wanted to play out in THIS:

slightly alarming weather

So we decided to postpone our summer games until tomorrow. The Duran girls did come over and we did a quick paper plate and streamer craft to make jelly fish. 

Calen's jellyfish hanging out on our aquarium

But on to more important news, like I WAS FAMOUS TODAY. Or something equally outrageous. So as I stated on Monday, we found a great blue heron stuck in a tree via fishing wire on the other side of our fence. We called our local nature center and after a couple hours the fire department managed to get the bird down and they took it to a wildlife rehab place. Well we got the call this morning from our nature center that it was going to be released back in the wild at the bay by our house, so of course my neighbor Marina and I went to watch it happen. Along with like 50 other people, including two groups of kids from Nature Camp and all the people/firemen/random folks involved with Mondays rescue. It was cool to see him (her? or him. They didn't even know) be released, and even cooler that instead of flying away, he cut right through the huge crowd of people (scaring the POO out of my neighbor kids) and taking a stroll down to the water. 

What I didn't expect was to be interviewed by not only some newspaper reporter (CM County News or maybe Exit Zero Magazine, I have no clue) AND a local television news station. And I REALLY didn't expect my interview to actually make it on the 6 o'clock news. I guess if I'm going to be on the news, it might as well be for something good, and not like burning down a building or something.

Camera crews. Seriously.

Come out! He was unimpressed with leaving

Home sweet home

So I guess we're famous or something. I'll admit it was kind of neat to be a part of. But kind of corny that it made the news. THOUGH, I'm always refreshed when I see happy stories on the news and get a break from the violence/senselessness, so I guess it's not as corny as I think it is. 

Or maybe, it is.