On Monday, the boys and I took a walk around the yard. Heath had shot a groundhog in the backyard just the day before, so the boys were still talking about it. They even suggested we go look for it (Heath threw it down the bank towards the river. Nice, right?) I tried to change the subject by asking the boys if they wanted to go play in the gravel, and of course, they did. Walking back to the garage to get their shovels Cash said, "I want something to shoot, mommy."
I explained to him that not all things need shooting. (Enter my thoughts of how wonderful it is to be married to a hunter.) The groundhog was close to the house, and in Heath's words a "varmint" so it deserved it's quick end. "Most animals around here are nice, and we should be nice to them." As we rounded the corner, B noticed the blue bucket they were playing with the day before, looked in it, and said, "Frog."
Yes, inside the bucket was the huge frog that they boys had caught the day before and put in the bucket. Oops. We forgot the set it free after playing with it. Thankfully for my "life lesson," he was still alive. We dumped him out, and with some difficulty, the frog hopped towards some mud.
Pour guy. I drenched him with the water hose hoping he might perk up. One of his eyes looked kind of funny, like it might have dried out. Can that happen?
We continued up the hill to the gravel. B was hopping like the frog and Cash was naming all the animals we've ever seen around the house that he wanted to be nice to. When we got up to the gravel, we found this guy:
The boys petted him some, we talked about his fuzzy "hair," and then they went on to play on the gravel pile. Scary enough for this little caterpillar, B caused an avalanche and he disappeared. Cash was extremely upset and dug and dug until he found him.
I helped Cash place him on this leaf in a nearby tree. Cash said he was tired and sleeping ...
After about an hour or so of running up and down the gravel pile, filling up dump trucks and unloading them, racing trucks down the pile, and checking the mail, we decided to head back to the house for lunch. On the way, Cash explained to Baylen that "dat caterpillar in the tree is going to be a butterfly tomorrow." I just shook my head with a smile.
Once inside, we took off our shoes, changed a diaper and pottied, and headed for the kitchen. "Mommy, look!" I looked to where Cash was pointing, and outside in the backyard, Ruth was walking toward the back steps with a snake in her mouth. Lovely.
Can you see it here? She would drop it, wait for it to slither away, and then pounce on it again.
The boys loved watching her. They even picked up sticks to nudge the snake so it would move causing Ruth to pounce again.
Really, how harmful is a three year-old in his underwear and an 18 month-old in a diaper carrying his blanket? I decided to give up on the "let's-be-nice-to-animals" speech for the day.
Obviously, nature wasn't working with me today. Don't they understand that they just need to steer clear of my boys and the cat?
1 comment:
What an exciting day!
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