This is My Family

Tonight while returning today's unfortunate collection of half-dead roly polys to their natural habitat in the flower bed, I accidentally stuck the top of my head into a spiderweb. I don't know how long my hair and the spiderwebs were in contact before I figured it out, so when I came back inside I was sort of freaked out, imagining bugs in my hair. I asked Slipshod to check and take out anything that shouldn't be there. Of course he took the opportunity to give me a hard time.

"Oh my god, look at this!" He reached up to pull something out, and yanked. Then he presented me with his white, web-like discovery.

"That's my HAIR, you dork!"

"Look at how white it is!"

"Ow. Yeah, I see. Thanks."

He reached up again. "There are a whole bunch of them!"

"STOP! I only wanted you to look for bugs. Yeesh."

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My sister's pet bunny died on Thursday and when I told Sweet Pea her response was a concerned,

"Awww maaaaaaaan - now they'll never see him again. And they'll have to go back to the pet store and get another bunny."

Sometimes I worry that she's growing up to be a little too materialistic when she makes a comment like that... but she won't understand what it feels like to lose a pet until she loses one of her own. Then she'll understand that you can't just go get another one and feel better.

She does love animals, though, and not just kitties anymore. She discovered roly polys - I believe I mentioned that in a post a while back - just before her birthday. She got so into "taking care" of them that one of her grandmas got her a "bug shack" for her birthday. She now believes that she must collect and care for roly polys every day. I make her put them back outside every night that I remember, and usually those days they live to see the flower bed again. But I don't always remember to make her put them back, and then... well, roly polys are scavengers, so yesterday's dead roly polys are today's roly poly food. Yuck. ha ha!

But during the day, Sweet Pea spends hours on end "taking care" of those little critters. She tears up grass and rips up leaves and adds water to make them "bug stew" and "bug cereal," she takes them out of their cage and lets them walk around on her hands and in small bowls and plates from her play kitchen so that they will get exercise, she gives them drinks. Yes, she sometimes drops them when she has them out to exercise. I stepped on one today and felt horrible, but I didn't know there were any bugs on the floor! Now she's not allowed to take them out and let them roam inside the house. Slipshod thinks it's funny, because he used to do the same thing as a kid. He even lost caterpillars in the house and once had a butterfly hatch out of a chrysalis that was attached to the underside of his desk. As for the drinks - I keep trying to tell her that she just needs to put a tiny drip of water in the cage or a bowl for the bugs and that will be enough for all of them all day, but we invariably end up with a couple near-drowned bugs in a tiny bowl that has water nearly covering the bottom of it.

Oh well. She's learning. Lots of things.

Sweet Pea still doesn't appear to see much point in wearing clothes if we're not going out and nobody's coming to the house, but thankfully she does know that she has to wear clothes under those circumstances. I am now working with her on the idea that she will not be wearing her favorite kitty shirt to school every day. Especially not on days 2 or 3, when it has yogurt and fruit juice dried on it.

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The Bug's new fun thing is opening and closing doors. She can't reach door handles, though, so she is forever closing herself into various bathrooms in the house. She is also very fond of opening the sliding screen door to the back yard, stepping out, closing the door, and then not being able to get back in. But she can get OUT - so we have to keep the glass door closed when we don't want her to go out, which is of course most of the time.

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As for me, well, I'm just plugging away. This morning I kicked the kids out of the bathtub until further notice, because my morning shower has turned into a whining fest complete with kids sitting on my feet and fighting with each other. I'm working on moving their evening schedule earlier so that they can eat dinner, get a bath every night (I used to do that as part of Sweet Pea's bedtime ritual but things as they were sort of flew out the window when The Bug came along), and get to bed early so that they have a chance to get the sleep they need every night. Because no matter what time they go to bed, one of them always wakes up during the 6am or 7am hour.

How is that about me? Well, I am the one responsible for the organization and orchestration of these rituals and routines. So wish me luck FINALLY getting my hiney organized. I really have to now, so I'll be able to get The Bug napped, the kids fed, and Sweet Pea to school on time every day. Thank goodness we're able to break ourselves in slowly with only a partial day.

That's about it... nothing exciting going on here, but everyone is making me giggle, what with the white hair removal, partial understanding of death and earnest caretaking of critters at age 4, and insistence on the closing of any and all doors despite a lack of ability to reopen them.