As you may have read, I have chickens. (That sounds funny if you read that like some sort of terminal disease - "Did you hear? She has Chickens." "Oh, no! Once that gets into the blood stream they don't usually make it past a month.") Ahem. I decided that if I was going to feed and clean up after the critters that I might as well make it interesting, so this spring we bought Araucanas, a breed of chicken which lays colored eggs. For reals.
My family has waited in wild anticipation for the colored eggs to appear, and they finally did. But they were brown. Brown. If I had wanted brown eggs, I would have bought any number of other breeds of chickens that lay plain ol' brown eggs. I was schnookered. But then, wonder of wonders, look what we found:
In the upper left is an egg laid by one of our two Leghorns, which are a year older and therefore lay bigger eggs than the newbies. In the bottom right is an egg laid by the only chicken who read the manual. Colored eggs, girls, blue and green and sometimes lavender. On a side note, the brown egg to the immediate right of the white egg had two yolks. I was frying a bunch of eggs for my nieces and nephews for breakfast and we were admiring how cute they were, the widdo biddy teeny fwied eggs, and then we were like "Whoa! Two yolks! Sweet!" We also wondered if the green egg would be lime-flavored. It wasn't. It was mint.
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Adam's newest thing whenever he is angry with me or has to do something that he doesn't want to do is to yell, "You're busted!" At first, because he's three and doesn't speak all that clearly, I thought that he was calling me a bastard. And I was like, "Wha...?" How do you even know that word? I have a couple of bad words that I say occasionally, but that's not one of my favorites. Then I realized that he watches Phineas and Ferb. A lot. So, now I get to hear "You're busted!" several times a day, followed by the tinier and more mangled version of the same phrase exclaimed by Jack. Because anything Adam does, Jack does also.
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I am totally the world's worst mother. Mike left Sunday night to spend several days with his grandmother and before he departed, he left me with this admonition: "I'm out of bird seed. Can you make some egg mash for my bird while I'm gone?" Yep. I can. Nope, I didn't. I figured that I was headed to the store the next day to buy more bird seed and that the little bugger could wait one day for his food. Obviously, he couldn't, as I found him dead in his cage half an hour before I left for the store. I haven't told Mike yet. How do you tell a ten-year-old kid that you starved his pet to death? After you had promised to feed it? I was sorely tempted to buy a new bird that matched the old one, but I can't bring myself to lie to the kid. As Moe told me, how can we expect our kids to tell the truth if we lie to them? So when he gets home tomorrow, I will put on my big girl panties and tell him. I hope he still likes me after that.
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There is another vote in my favor of Worst Mom Ever as yesterday was a tough day. The boys played Dueling Diapers, as I have not yet had the courage to begin potty-training. Jack would poop, then minutes later Adam would, then Jack, etc. Three times each, for a total of six nasty, nasty diapers. Jack bit me so hard that it brought tears to my eyes and I couldn't get my finger out of his mouth. He'd stuck a bolt in his mouth and I was attempting to retrieve it. He laughed as I struggled to get my finger out of his mouth. A few chickens got out and I had to rescue them from the dog, wearing only a nightshirt. A short nightshirt. It occurred to me only as I was walking into the house that there may have been farm hands around. If there were and they saw me, I'm sure they got a show, and I don't just mean me running barefoot after my deaf dog, yelling at him (yeah, he's deaf and I was yelling), and assuredly flashing everyone who cared to look. You're welcome. As mentioned above, I killed Mike's bird. Throughout the day there were many screams of "You're busted!" and the old standby, "NNNOOOOO!" because simply saying it isn't enough. It must be screamed until the voice cracks. It was a rough day. My nerves were fried. Then Noel walked into the house with an armful of carrots freshly pulled from the garden and deposited them on the counter I had just washed. "Look at all the carrots I picked, Mom!" I hung my head, thinking that I was now going to have to pull off the tops, wash the carrots and the counter and find something to do with them so that they didn't go to waste. She saw my reaction and started to cry. She'd been trying to be helpful. I. Suck.
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On the bright side, my flowers are all doing wonderfully as there are no goats to eat them this year. One of my sunflowers is over ten feet tall. I'm going to take pictures as soon as it blooms. It will be wicked awesome.
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I'm working on several sewing projects right now including capes and jammies for my small terrors and a quilt and some new baby stuff for a friend who's due really soon.
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Adam has become very protective of Jack. If anyone is harassing Jack (read: changing his diaper, dressing him, wiping his nose) and Jack is unhappy about it, Adam will yell, "Leave my bludder alone!" while glowering menacingly over the offender.
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We have adopted two stray cats, Edward and Babs, or as Jack says Eddard and Bob. They are friendly and the mousingest cats I've ever seen, which is great. As my good pal says, we live in the middle of a field surrounded by mouse food. We've got lots o' mice. We also have a pair of Great Horned Owls living in the tree in our front yard, which is really cool yet also kind of scary as I read that they occasionally attack humans. Super.
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The natives are beginning to stir. Adam just plunked his sippy cup in front of me on the desk and demanded "More milk!" The kid really needs some manners. So I'd better go. I most definitely do not want to be busted.
