Skip to main content

Not Ready for Those Birds and Bees

 It's spring.  Officially.  But unofficially it's been looking a lot like spring for the last few weeks.  Trees are starting to bloom.  Wildflowers are popping up everywhere.  The birds are singing in the mornings.  Deer are running through our yard constantly, and the turkeys are everywhere.  

Last week we almost hit a turkey that was in the middle of the road.  I'm usually pretty cautious but this guy was at the crest of a hill, and I couldn't see him until we were right up in his tail feathers.  It didn't help that he wasn't making any attempt to get out of the road.  

"He must be hurt," I told the boys.  "It looks like he's been hit by a car.  He is acting really weird."  

We crept by him in the opposite lane.  I had nothing to dispatch him with and wasn't about to use my hands, so I wasn't going to stop.   As we passed Sawyer shouted, "And he's even got another turkey under him!"

Oh.  

"Aren't you going to call Grandma?!" Fischer asked, thinking she could put him out of his misery.  

"Ummmm, I'm driving."  I wasn't prepared to give more details.  They ask a lot of questions.  

At dinner the boys told Ross about the "hurt" bird.  He was a little more forthcoming with what they actually witnessed.  "He wasn't hurt.  He was helping the hen make babies."

"Oh.  So they were going to put the eggs right in the road?  They won't survive there," said Sawyer with some concern.

"No, maybe you should ask Mom to explain it," Ross said with a smirk.

"Actually, I think that's more of a science question," I shot back.

Meanwhile, the boys forgot what we were talking about and moved on to another topic.  I thought I'd dodged a bullet.

The next day I was eating lunch with Fischer and he brought the topic back up.  Apparently, he forgot I was part of the dinner conversation, and he proceeded to explain to me what was happening on the road.  "Mom, the tom wasn't hurt.  He was actually doing the hen..."  He paused for dramatic effect, and I choked on my water.  He didn't realize how effective that pause was.  He continued, "...doing the hen's eggs."

Sigh of relief.  "Really?"

"Yeah, he was helping her lay her eggs."

"Oh.  That's cool," I said, wiping my brow and immediately changing the subject.  

We are going to have a lot of explaining to do.  Just not today.    

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sheltering in Place

In the past three months Corona Virus has more or less turned the world on its head.  I feel almost guilty for not being more stressed or put out by the whole thing.  We have been extremely fortunate. What we thought was a most impractical move on our part, wound up being a huge blessing.  With our two boys and our two newborns, we moved out of our house with no yard in the city limits and into my parents' house in the country while waiting for our new house to be completed.  The weekend we moved "quarantine," "social distancing," and "shelter in place" became the new mantra of our state.   Moving in with my parents meant ten plus acres of play space and two extra able bodied adults to help even out the score with the four kids.  Win for the St. Clair's!  Unfortunately, my parents are beginning to realize they may have made an error in judgement.   Yesterday, Sawyer gave their cat swimming lessons.   Last week th...
1 comment
Read more

Bump in the Road

 If your kids aren't annoying you at least occasionally, then they probably aren't doing childhood right.  Ours are winning at childhood.  Actually, we came to the conclusion the other day that if they are annoying you all the time, then you probably aren't doing parenting right.  And when I say "you," I mean "we."   We weren't enjoying our kids recently, and we wondered if that meant other people were also finding them unenjoyable.  It made us finally pause and take a long hard look at what was bugging us about our kids.  We felt like we were in a perpetual state of irritation.  Once we made our list, and it was lengthy, we noticed a theme: attention.  Our kids were begging for our attention with every behavior.  It was annoying, but it was our fault, and it was fixable.   We started putting down phones and brooms and laundry and giving undivided and intentional focus to our kids throughout the day.  It wasn't a huge...
Post a Comment
Read more

Advanced Placement

 Not to brag or anything, but I think we are raising some very advanced children.  At two-years-of-age, our girls have already worked out the art of manipulation and deflection.  It's the antithesis of endearing.   They went missing the other day - the girls did.  That's never a good situation.  They were in the house, and I knew they were in the house, but I couldn't see or hear them.  Silence is the loudest alarm system.  Fischer took action and found them both in my bathroom.   "MOM!" I met them in the hall.  Carter was covered in clumps and blobs of hand cream. "Emi did it," was her unsolicited response.   "No," I told her.  "I think you  did it." That night I got ready for bed and pulled out my one "self-care" splurge - my face cream .  It was in my drawer where I always keep it.  The lid was screwed on.  And it was empty, wiped clean.  "EmmmeerrrrrSON!" Guilty.  They were both ...
2 comments
Read more