Running With Spears

Yesterday I pulled out my actual video camera (not my phone) and realized it still held videos from the past few years that I’d completely forgotten about. Oops. They’re mostly those big milestones that are exciting but totally bittersweet because they drive home so intensely how quickly your baby is growing up. 🙁

And then I started thinking about some other firsts; the ones that get completely overlooked, but really should  be celebrated. These firsts, while potentially still signs of growing up, are just too great to make me feel anything other than happy. 🙂

Here’s my top ten:

1. First time your kid manages to eat at a restaurant without making you take them to the restroom half a dozen times because they chugged their drink and have to pee. (Related: first time your kid is tall enough to reach the sink and the soap and whatnot and can actually go to the bathroom be themselves!)

2. First time your kids can swim well enough that you can actually just watch them from the side of the pool! The summer before Smiles was born we were almost there…it was tantalizingly close. Now I’m waiting with anticipation for it to happen; I’m pretty sure summer will be a million times easier then!

3. First time your kids manage to brush their teeth well by themselves and  they don’ get toothpaste and/or spit all over the sink! Can I get an amen?!?

4. First time you kid manages to buckle themselves into their carseat! Sure this seems minor, but so far only one of mine can do this, and when I go somewhere with just her, I can’t tell you how much easier it feels.

5. First time your toddler can actually run around in the backyard and play without trying to eat ALL THE THINGS!

6. The first chapter book your kid reads by themselves and gets excited about!!! True, reading is a huge sign of growing up, but I don’t care; it’s just too awesome! Beyond the fact that reading = the best thing ever, there is sooooo much freedom in kids being able to happily get lost in books. No more boredom when waiting, or protesting quiet time, or getting up when they can’t sleep at night (or at least a lot less of that!)

7. First time you take a trip after your kids outgrow the, “Are we there yet?” stage and you get to drive in peace. (Please tell me this happens someday!!!)

8. First time your kids are capable of being away from home for a few hours without needing a diaper change or sippie cup or anything and you actually don’t have to pack a diaper bag! I got to experience this for about two months before Smiles was born…oh to be diaperbag-less again. Sigh.

9. First time your kid tells you there was a new kid and they befriended her. Such a proud Mommy moment! <3

10. First time your kid makes you a cup of coffee all by themselves!!! Need I say more? This is just completely awesome-sauce!

What about you? I’d love to hear your favorite all sweet, not bitter firsts! 🙂

So we (and by we, I mean Misteris) lifted the box and checked on our backyard shrews 12 days after we first discovered them.

The babies were all still there, but furry now and honestly pretty cute. They seemed in my expert completely clueless opinion to still be at least mostly blind. But we did see one of the babies venture out of the nest…sort of.

Artist and Boo were incredibly amused that while the rest of the babies were all doing their best to wiggle beneath each other and hide, one brave, or perhaps just mischievous, baby scampered out to go find their parents who were hiding under the portion of the box that Misteris didn’t lift up.

The parents must have refused to share their hiding spot, though, because a few moments later the baby crawled right back to the nest.

Our best guess is that the babies are now just under the 18-22 day mark since we’ve read that’s when they’re weaned and begin leaving the nest…which means the first time we saw them was likely within their first week of life.

Artist and Boo can.not.get.over their excitement about this. So basically I’m winning as a parent right now.

Misteris says he’s thinking about ways to set up a hospitable habitat for the shrews so that some of them might stay and continue having more babies and multiplying and basically causing me to step outside one day and find a horde of them pouring out from beneath the ground and terrifying me…or,  according to him, just being cute and helping with the obscenely huge and disgusting slug population that we’re dealing with.

So, yeah…there’s that. We’ll see what ends up happening. God help us all. 😉

I love to read. Give me a great book and a cup of coffee and I’m good. This is a huge shocker to everyone I know. (Or not. Whatever.)

I also have a soft spot for really great blogs. I love it when I discover that someone else feels the exact same way as me about something. I adore laughing along with another Mom about the craziness of parenting. And sometimes there are posts that just resonate so deeply with me that I can’t stop thinking about them.

A lot of times I end up falling in love with the author of the blog or book. Their voice speaks to me. It’s beautiful and almost magical. For example, Jen Hatmaker and Sarah Bessey  have become my B.F.F.s. I mean there’s the minor detail that they have no idea I exist, but who cares. 😉

But sometimes there’s a really popular book that everyone raves about and it’s even in a genre I typically love, but it just doesn’t do it for me. Sometimes I can’t even figure out why. It simply doesn’t speak to me.

And there are some bloggers who drive me crazy. Facebook friends will share the bejeebers out of their posts but I just can’t even. Something about their writing somehow manages to rub me the wrong way every.single.time.

This used to trouble me a bit. In the past I’ve tried to force myself to trudge through a book that I felt I should like, and when I never did, I told myself I just wasn’t trying hard enough. I also used to feel bad that I’m so annoyed by bloggers everyone else apparently loves. And then I realized something…

It’s not only okay that I don’t resonate with every other writer out there, it’s awesome, because it means there’s room for my voice.

If we all loved the exact same writing then I might feel tempted to think all the stories are already written, or at least all the storytellers are already out there being awesome and writing all the awesomeness. So what would be the point of me adding my voice to the mix?

The fact that I don’t love everything written proves to me the necessity for many voices. I’m the only one with my exact voice, so adding it to the mix is a beautiful thing. Not everyone will love it, but some might, because we all resonate with different voices.

P.S. In case you missed it…this also means your voice is unique, and the world needs your story, whether it’s through writing, speaking, taking pictures, yada yada yada…or being a friend, Mom, teacher…whatever…yeah, be you and whatnot…also, I hope you like extreme ellipsis usage, because I’m obviously rocking that right now. 😉

It started with a box.

Well, actually it started with a swing-set that came in a box, but the swings are unimportant. (Any parent knows, gifts are always less interesting than the package they came in.) 😉

The box, of course, was more than a box; it was a boat, and a spaceship, and all the things that the vivid imaginations of children turn boxes into. And then it rained on the box.

So the box became a flat piece of cardboard, and it was a stage, and an island and…well, you get the idea.

Then it rained and rained and rained and hailed on the box. And it became trash. So Misteris went out to throw it away.

And when he picked it up, Artist squealed, “Look under the box! Look! Look! What’s that?” And I looked. And I saw something gray and fast darting toward Misteris.

I’m gonna be honest…I shrieked and ran toward the house, and shouted to the girls, “Stay inside!”

Misteris, however, bent down to catch the thing. And asked me to get him something to put it in. I was fairly upset that this would require me to head back toward the thing after having reached the safety of indoors. I mean, I appreciate the great outdoors; it looks great through the window of Starbucks while I  enjoy my caramel frapp. But I have no desire to be all up in the middle of the great outdoors. However, I also need my girls to go play outside every day and give me a few minutes of peace and quiet, and having them scared to go out just won’t do. So I had to risk an attack by the evil spawn of a rat and a cockroach. Yes, scenes from the Cockamouse episode of HIMYM were running through my mind.

So I took a plastic container out to Misteris. And he caught the thing. And a second thing. Yeah. There were two of them. Each about two inches long. Misteris speculated that they were something along the lines of baby moles. And then he said something that included the word, “Parents!”

OH MY WORD! I’m really amazed with myself that I didn’t scream bloody murder as I imagined full size mole parents descending on us in fury over the capture of their babies!

Fortunately, Misteris, seeing the panic in my eyes, clarified that the two he’d captured were parents. There was a nest of baby things in the grass that had been under the box. I approached the spot with trepidation. But then, oh my goodness, the baby things  were adorable!!!!

You guys, they are so tiny!!! In the picture below there’s a roly-poly (or pill bug, or whatever you want to call it) to the left, just to give you an idea about their size. Artist and Boo were SO excited! So Misteris let the parent shrews go and put the box back over the nest, after I took some pictures, of course.

I figured I should stop calling them things, so we came inside and  googled until we finally discovered that they are Southern Short-tailed Shrews. The girls eagerly devoured all the information we could find about the shrews, and still can’t stop talking about how awesome it is that we were lucky enough to find some in our backyard.

I’m pretty sure they prayed and thanked God for our good fortune.

Now, honestly, I couldn’t sleep that night because I just kept imagining the shrews taking over. I pictured myself stepping outside to find swarms of rodents tunneling up from their secret underground world hidden just beneath the surface of our backyard. (Fine, they’re not actually rodents, whatever. Yes, I know I have an over-active imagination.)

I also had nightmares about Misteris lifting up the box to check on them in a week and discovering that the shrew family had been eaten by snakes who had taken over their hiding spot and started their own little snake family in our backyard. I’m shuddering just thinking about it.

But ya know what? I never let on to my girls that I thought it was anything other than cool and awesome that we found shrews, and that, my friends is what I call being a super-mom! Go me! I’m pretty sure I deserve a giant latte for my valiancy!