Do you ever have those moments when you realize that your version of normal is actually the very opposite of that? Like when you're at a restaurant and order "juice-wawa" for the baby without even realizing that yours is the only family on earth that calls it that? I had one of those moments recently. I have them a lot, actually, and it usually happens when we have an "outside" person come over to our house. Let me explain.
In anticipation of actually having a regular date night with my husband, I invited someone up to our house to meet the kids, in hopes that she can become a regular babysitter for us. I've known this girl for a long time, know her family, and think she is great. I was super excited for the boys to meet her and even cleaned the house
in the morning in preparation for her visit. (I didn't want the usual mess to scare her off or make her think I'm some sort of crazy mom who can't keep her house clean (even though I totally am)). So, she arrived, the boys were thrilled to meet another adult willing to talk to them and build legos, and we soon decided to give her the tour of the farm. That is where we went wrong, because we were about to encounter a whole lot of "normal" that, it seems, is really only normal for us.
The first stop, of course, was the chickens. As we walked to the coop, Moses told her all about raising them from chicks, shoveling their poop out into the pasture, and the fact that our puppy had recently killed one and now maybe he is a "bird dog" but we hope not, because if he is we will have to get rid of him... I was barely registering his flow of (completely normal) conversation, because I had noticed that the chickens were not in their semi-enclosed coop area. This is unusual, especially in warmer weather because they like to stay in the shade close to their water. Moses and I immediately went into chicken-protection mode and scooted out around the corner to the pasture, with our future babysitter and Titus in tow. As soon as we did this we were faced with the devastated remains of one of my Buff Brahmas, which was completely covered in wasps.
Everyone gasped, and Moses and I ran forward to get a better view of what had happened. (It occurs to me at this point that I am glad we actually
did gasp in horror, since up here on the farm we often stumble upon your run-of-the-mill dead animal. The usual response is to roll one's eyes, grab the nearest shovel or long stick, and hoist the thing into the garbage can. Or, in a lazier moment, just call one of the dogs over and hope he gobbles it up. If it had been anything other than one of our prized chickens, the poor babysitter would have thought we were downright inhuman.) Upon further inspection, we noticed that only the leg was left of our once beautiful chicken. Moses and I both started jabbering at each other at once: "Only the leg! Another Buff Brahma! Those are the nicest ones! Oh man, dad's going to be so mad at Bentley! I don't want Bentley to be a bird dog - I love him! Maybe it wasn't him - maybe a possum got it! Where are the other ones? What if something ate them too? I can't believe this - where is the rest of it?!" and so on. As Moses and I set off through the pasture in search of the rest of the dead chicken, I had a brief moment of clarity and realized "
maybe this isn't normal." I looked back at the future babysitter and confirmed: no, this is not normal. One glimpse at the look on her face told me that not everyone goes running around their backyard looking for chicken carcasses with their young children in tow. Maybe not everyone has even seen
living chicken, let alone the severed leg of a dead one. This poor girl had obviously not, though she put on a very brave face and helped us round up the rest of the chickens, who were unharmed.
After we returned to the house, I tried to make some boring yet comforting conversation with her, asking her such things as "how are you liking school," and "how are your brothers doing," but the dead-chicken experience was kind of still looming over us. She miraculously agreed to come back the next day to babysit the kids while Brett and I went out, and I apologized for the "weird afternoon." She was very forgiving and said something like "well, sometimes these things happen," which was very nice of her. Things like this don't EVER happen to most people. As she got into her car I couldn't help saying "this is actually a pretty normal afternoon for us," which didn't seem to make things any better. I had a momentary uncomfortable feeling as I watched her car disappear down the driveway ...
things are crazy up here, aren't they? But then I heard Moses calling for help - a hummingbird had gotten into the house and he needed help getting it out. I snapped out of it, ran into the house, and returned to my regular old, normal life.
Lest you begin to think we are high-brow around here after my last post, I thought I'd share what we did after we got home from our weekend at the W in San Francisco. We went to a goat's birthday party. Yep. Little Man turned one, and we were invited - got an invitation in the mail and everything. Of course we brought a gift - Saltines would have been better, but Ritz crackers are a close second when it comes to goat gifts. Here is Moses presenting the birthday boy with his present.
Little Man was a very gracious host - he even shared his birthday cake with his Aunt Angelina and allowed his other goat friends to eat the decorations. We weren't the only guests, either. All of the other "hill people" (that's what we humans call ourselves up here) came bearing gifts as well. The only snafoo occurred when Lamb Chop (who is MUCH bigger than Little Man and Angelina) decided to take a running charge at Moses, who went flying into a shed, banging up his elbow pretty good. Maybe she was jealous or something, but I sure was tempted to turn her name into something a little more literal. Ah, home... :)
I looked it up to make sure I wasn't embarrassing myself, and here it is: Irony is "incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs." For example...
Moses (after shrieking in fear): Mom! Titus is pretending to throw his fork at me and he has that IN-TROUBLE LOOK on his face!
Somebody turned 2 yesterday, and all he wanted was a blue cake and a jumbo jet.
I managed the blue cake (complete with lots of bowl and beater licking):
... but we're still working on that jumbo jet. Maybe for Christmas, Titus. :)
(Oh, and now if you ask him how old he is, he will respond "I'm a wild boar." Hmm... I wonder why...)
I just found this at my dad's house and couldn't resist posting it here for you all to enjoy. My brother David made this for himself when he was probably 10 or so (He is now a famous scientist - you can read more about him here and some of his work here). I don't know what cracks me up more, the bit about "un called for" or the fact that my mom signed it. Classic!
Today my son threw up chocolate Teddy Grahams into his brother's hat while we were driving home from the park, where I spun him too fast on the spinning thing. And that's all I have to say about that.
Do you ever have those moments when you realize that your version of normal is actually the very opposite of that? Like when you're at a restaurant and order "juice-wawa" for the baby without even realizing that yours is the only family on earth that calls it that? I had one of those moments recently. I have them a lot, actually, and it usually happens when we have an "outside" person come over to our house. Let me explain.
Everyone gasped, and Moses and I ran forward to get a better view of what had happened. (It occurs to me at this point that I am glad we actually did gasp in horror, since up here on the farm we often stumble upon your run-of-the-mill dead animal. The usual response is to roll one's eyes, grab the nearest shovel or long stick, and hoist the thing into the garbage can. Or, in a lazier moment, just call one of the dogs over and hope he gobbles it up. If it had been anything other than one of our prized chickens, the poor babysitter would have thought we were downright inhuman.) Upon further inspection, we noticed that only the leg was left of our once beautiful chicken. Moses and I both started jabbering at each other at once: "Only the leg! Another Buff Brahma! Those are the nicest ones! Oh man, dad's going to be so mad at Bentley! I don't want Bentley to be a bird dog - I love him! Maybe it wasn't him - maybe a possum got it! Where are the other ones? What if something ate them too? I can't believe this - where is the rest of it?!" and so on. As Moses and I set off through the pasture in search of the rest of the dead chicken, I had a brief moment of clarity and realized "maybe this isn't normal." I looked back at the future babysitter and confirmed: no, this is not normal. One glimpse at the look on her face told me that not everyone goes running around their backyard looking for chicken carcasses with their young children in tow. Maybe not everyone has even seen living chicken, let alone the severed leg of a dead one. This poor girl had obviously not, though she put on a very brave face and helped us round up the rest of the chickens, who were unharmed.
See the crazy one, the one biting his brother's foot? That guy has been cracking us all up lately. His favorite new word is "too." He sticks it at the end of pretty much any sentence, and it usually makes sense, in a weird way. There are the often-heard "I wanna dee-dee dah-dah too," (I want a quesadilla too) and "I wanna det dowwwn too." And then the more original "NO BAHN-TEE! DO DAT TOO!" (No, Bentley! Do that too!) But the other day we heard his best use of the word "too" to date. Pointing at his older brother, who was on time out, he said "Bebe in tubbah," and I said, "Yes, Moses is in trouble." (Even though he can pronounce Moses' name, he insists on calling him bebe, with a French accent to boot. Moses hates it, but the rest of us hope he does it forever.) He thought for a second, put his little hand on his hip, and said "I wanna det in tubbah too." Somehow I don't think that's going to be a problem for him.
