Found Things

The title isn't a reference to a Tinkerbell movies, so if you were getting excited, I just wanted to get that out of the way.

On Saturday past, Charlie and Abe drew my attention to some beautiful butterflies I hadn't photographed before which were very excited about the soil in the pots that I had recently watered with fish poop fertilizer solution. These were "Mourning Cloak" butterflies, and we found out that their caterpillars are stinging caterpillars--a little alarming when you have little boys who must pick up every critter that isn't too fast too catch. Still, the butterflies are elegant, somber fellows that I enjoyed having around.

Mourning Cloak

Also, incidentally, peeing outdoors attracts Zebra Swallowtails...

This past Sunday evening, Abe found what I called "the grub from hell" crawling along the road where Abe was riding his bike. This thing was 3 or 4 inches long and very prickly looking, black head and torso, gray tail-ish part with lots of spikes sticking out the sides. Joe said it was a Stone Fly Grub, but I like my name for it better.

And over the last several days, I've found many tiny toads, small enough to sit on a dime. I showed one of them to Abe who loves to hold every tiny thing, but let the rest go on their toady ways, figuring it's hard enough being a toad the size of a bug without a giant 6 year old putting you in his pockets.

When we were in town yesterday, Tuesday, the boys took their bikes and road around the walkways at the athletic fields. They found a football which became ours because it was far enough lost that I was pretty sure no one was coming back for it. The boys spent last night tossing the old pigskin around, except no one but Daddy can throw worth a pound of bacon, so that was pretty comical. When the boys had given up on that, they ran around the yard and found Mourning Dove fledgelings in the hedge, and a tiny nest in the lilac with four eggs in it-all pale bluish green, splotched with brown. According to my 1944 copy of Birds of America, I guessed this to be either a Yellow Warbler or Chestnut-sided Warbler nest. Not having anything to go on but descriptions of the nests (in the book) and the appearance of the egg, I couldn't decide. The nest better fit the description of the Chestnut-sided Warbler's nest, but the eggs looked like Yellow Warbler eggs. Still, I'm not sure I can record this one in my birder's journal.

This morning, I found baby barn swallows that had fallen from the nest, either dead before they fell, or dead from lying on the concrete all night. Knowing birds as I do, I knew this was so that the strong one, whose head reaches the highest whenever his mother comes swooping in with a bug would survive to swoop himself one day. Bittersweet bird-ness.

So these are our found things that made me smile. And you know what? I can't keep any of them or take them with me, except a football. I find more peace and self-awareness looking outward at the world finding things than I ever do contemplating myself. I hope everyone has found things like that--things that come with freedom and joy without the thought of possession or the burden of cost. Even if they're not related to Tinkerbell...

A Tale of Elephantine Proportions

Hi, Mom and Dad.

I had a dream that was so vivid, I had to tell someone. Who better than the three people (Hi, Mom and Dad) who read this blog!? 

In the way of dreams, this one began in a completely unrelated space and time. I think I was in college, though it didn't look anything like the one I actually went to. Maybe it was a cross between Miami U and Denver U. Lots of brick, no straight line paths, a river, lots of copses of trees. Anyway, I was wandering around this place when I cam upon three skinny dogs who all appeared to be chained to the same tree. There was a Dalmatian, a German Shepherd, and some mutt dog, though the dogs are of little consequence to the dream. I saw them, and I wanted to feed them, when I heard the noise of a predatory large cat off in the wood. All the dogs turned to fight the coming large cat, and that was when  I saw the baby elephant. 

Everything up to this point, I can probably pinpoint in my subconscious. University = frustration with the day's lessons. Feral cats are from the book I was reading before sleep. The dogs probably came from my subconscious awareness that I needed to get up and let the dog out for a bathroom break and feed her. I get lost about the time the elephant shows up.

Anyway, the baby elephant was hidden from sight by the huge tree the dogs were chained to in my dream. At the sound of the feral cat's scream, baby elephant took off running, and he ran straight to me. Now, baby elephants, in real life, are still big as VW Beetles, but this one only came up to my knee. So, of course, I picked it up and took off running. And again, as things are in dreams, I was rather suddenly in a remote area where two houses stood side by side. One was about three stories tall plus a walk out basement, and this was the one I went into with B.E. in my arms. I really wanted to keep B.E., but was absolutely overcome with the awareness that it would inevitably grow up into an elephantine... well... elephant, and I wouldn't be able to afford to feed it. 

The rest of the dream, though it seemed to take time to play out, was mostly me hiding the elephant from various people, like my dad and my husband, getting all coo-ey about how cute it was that B.E. kept swishing his ears, and trying to find the phone number for a zoo who would hopefully adopt a baby elephant. Two more significant events happened before I woke. I taught the baby elephant to hug me around the neck, and I fed it a magnificent meal involving carrots, lettuce, bananas, left-over nachos, and Pepsi. Even in my dream, I felt guilty about the soda. By the end of the dream, the baby elephant had actually shrunk down to the size of a cat. I think it wanted me to keep it. 

This reminded me a a picture book where this kid gets a dragon, and it keeps growing until its limbs all stick out of the windows and doors of the house. There's No Such Thing As A Dragon is the title of that book, and I think, in the end, the dragon shrank back down to a tiny dragon as soon as everyone admitted that he was, in fact, a dragon. If I were to put great stock in dream communication, I would have to ask myself what is the proverbial elephant in my proverbial room that I am ignoring? I leave you to ponder that thought. I have to go find enough food for a baby elephant...

The Mommy Wars

Disclaimer: the pictures in this blog do not necessarily possess thematic relevance.

I think the gerbil in my brain that runs the wheel that makes words goes into hibernation mode periodically. I haven't posted since August? Maybe the gerbil died. I don't know. I think last year at this time I was determined to blog once a week. And that, folks, is why New Years Resolutions are stupid.

Anyway, as I was clicking around "teh internets" today, and I ran across this blog written about how some Similac commercial is pretending to end the "Mommy Wars" but is really perpetuating the "Mommy Wars." The gerbil spontaneously reanimated and I thought... What the redacted are "Mommy Wars?" Apparently there is a whole cross section of hip, youngish moms who feel like every choice they make as mothers is in some kind of competition with the mothering world at large. Like breast feeding versus bottle feeding is a question for the history books or something. "I regret that I have but two boobs to give for my country!" Seriously, though... Is this really a thing?

So the gerbil took off running, and I was able to ponder these concepts a little. The conclusion I came to, if it can even be called a conclusion, is that we all spend too much redacted time on the Internet. Used to be, you had a baby and your parents and in-laws and maybe your neighbors all brought over casseroles and cooed a bit. Maybe offered advice that, in your sleep addled new mother state, you either forgot or ignored. And you went about muddling through to the best of your ability just like every other mother. Now, evidently, "good" mothers read mommy blogs and mommy books and buy all the best mommy products. Now motherhood is a competition, I guess. You know what? I'm glad I didn't know this. Only think how stressed I would've been had I known.

I suppose, as a writer of what could, at times, look like a "mommy blog" I might seem insincere with the above sentiments, but the truth is, I started writing this blog because I hate talking on the telephone. I thought, nine years ago, If I write down all the semi-interesting stuff in a blog, then I can tell my extended family and friends to read it and I won't actually have to talk to anyone! Awesome! It just so happens that a lot of my personal semi-interesting stuff has to do with my kids. So... accidental mommy blog! The good news for anyone reading this is that you don't have to include anything I say in your Mommy War strategies. I'd hate to perpetuate the chaos. 

Having said all that, I'd like to relate a story. The best place to wrestle is on Mommy's bed. This is a proven fact. I'm sure there are scientific studies and stuff. Anyway, after wrestling and tickling a while one day, my boys and I were laying around in a heap. The six year old says to me, "Mommy, your belly is soft." I'll admit, for a moment, I straight up panicked. YIKES! I have truly entered middle age! I have a soft belly, and wrinkles, and gray hairs and I will never be pretty and alluring again! But then I thought, Hey, wait: he means that as a compliment. He's small and snuggley and he likes to lay his head on mommy's pillow belly because it is warm and soft like a mommy should be. So, besides the fact that loving my soft belly allows me to eat more Snickerdoodles and put cream in my tea, I decided that I would be happy to have a soft belly because that's what being a mommy is kind of about for me. I'm pretty sure that guarantees I won't be winning any Mommy Wars. Good thing I didn't realize I was in one!