Stunned Bird Triage

The animal kingdom must surely rue the day some smarty-pants invented glass. The invention of glass especially haunts the bird population.To a creature solely dependent upon the laws of nature and physics, glass must seem a mysterious, magical, and deadly phenomenon.

When we moved into the country, I spent the first several months running to investigate mysterious crashes only to find nothing broken, spilled, or even messy. The crashes were loud and often. And totally unobservable. Being a logical person, it took about a hundred crashes before I began to believe that our house was haunted.

Then, as I gazed contentedly out the window at my backyard, a delicate jay bird gracefully left his perch in my tree and sailed on the breeze directly into the window in front of my face. The gonging crash caused me to jump and scream, but also to finally solve the mystery of the incessant crashes plaguing my waking moments.

With extreme relief, I dialed my husband's phone number and told his voicemail, "We don't have ghosts! We have glass!" His relief was on the low side of epic, and I'm pretty sure it was due to a disbelief of my assessment. The ghost assessment and the bird assessment.

Until he walked into my bedroom holding a stunned bird.

"Guess what just happened?" he told me, as if I wasn't used to it.
"Let me guess. That bird crashed into a window."
"How did you know?" He asked, impressed.
"You wouldn't believe how often..." BOOM.

I couldn't finish my sentence because, literally, just then, a bird crashed into the window behind me.

I would like to thank the winged nation for showing my husband that I am a genius.

Phone Funny

I love being able to tell my fancy phone things to do. I say to it, "Remind me to pick Emery up from school," and BOOM - Emery gets to go home. Okay, it's not that I would forget Emery. But I have most definitely been guilty of forgetting things like doctor's appointment, mailing letters, and making certain phone calls. Now my phone helps me remember all these important things.

Recently my phone helped me find a self-defense class and register for it. It was Makenna's idea. She looked at herself and realized that her muscles were not impressive. Then she looked at the wide world around her and decided that she could do with some defense training. Then she suggested that I find a class and sign the both of us up for it because it just makes good sense.

My phone found that the Windsor Heights Police Department was offering just such a class and that I could register for it by stopping at the city hall and paying twenty-five dollars. I knew that the chances were very slim that I would remember to actually stop by city hall and do such a thing, so I enlisted the help of my phone to remind me.

The next day, promptly at 9:00 A.M., I received a reminder stating, "Go to buy the City Hall."

I love my phone. It thinks I'm that important.

Revelation

"I like fall a lot more than I used to because of you," Mike told me as we watched the leaves fall from the trees.
"What do you mean? I don't like fall."
"Yes you do."
"No I don't. It is the death of sunny, warm days and the birth of shivering."
"You like all the colors."
"Well, everyone likes the colors."
"You get really happy about flannel sheets."
"Um, there're soft and fuzzy. What's not to like?"
"And you love wearing sweatshirts."
"Again, soft and fuzzy."
"You like pumpkins."
"Yum."
"And you love all the hot drinks: hot chocolate, hot tea, hot apple cider."
"Again, yum."
"And you love having crowds of people over to watch football and eat football food."
"Yes."
"You like fall."
"Touche."

Apparently I like fall.

Teenage Tricks

Having teenage children in your house is confusing and frightening for all involved. They are pendulums of flesh swinging between adulthood and childhood rapidly and without any notice. One moment they might say, "I worked ahead and finished all my homework for the week," and thirty seconds later they might say, "There was no toilet paper so I just didn't wipe." It is hard to know what to expect.

Let's face it - parents really should have one practice child. We've never done this before. We don't always know if we are overreacting, being unrealistic, or just plain blowing it. We should have a practice go around so we have at least a little bit of a clue what we are doing. When is the right time to dig in and get your point across, and when is it right to take your hands off and let the child make their own mistakes? Poor Makenna. Being the oldest, she has involuntarily sacrificed herself to be the stone upon which we grind our parental teeth. Sometimes I just want to look at her and say, "Sorry kid. Can I have a do-over?"

But, last week I had a breakthrough. Or so I thought. Makenna's room has always been a point of tension for us. I like it clean. She doesn't care what I like. Oh the tension. Then my motherly wisdom kicked in and I decided that her room is a small battle in the big picture and I took my hands off of it. I let her throw her stuff on the floor; I didn't say anything when the sink in her bathroom looked like a science experiment, and I kept silent when her shower became a storage unit. Then I heard a ghastly scream.

"What's wrong?" I asked after sprinting into her room.
"A spider! Under all those dirty clothes!" Makenna screamed pointing at a mountain of t-shirts and jeans.
"Oh, that makes sense," I said, relieved.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, spiders like cool, dark places. You've provided them with what they would consider a Marriott Vacation Resort."
"NO! I've got to get this all cleaned up. Will you help me?"
"No."
"Please!"
"No." I'm caring like that.
"I can't do this alone. It's a huge mess."
"That is why I won't help you. I've cleaned it so many times before and you always mess it up immediately afterward. I'm done with it."
"Mom! Please. I don't want to do it alone. I get bored. And lonely." I felt a crack in my grinch heart, and Makenna seized the opportunity. "It could be a project we do together and afterward we could watch a movie and have a day together."
"Makenna, if I spend my Saturday afternoon helping you clean this room and it gets dirty again I will be very upset and disappointed. I will feel like I wasted my time."
"I understand and promise that I will keep it clean."

So, by the end of Saturday her room looked like the lovely space I knew it could be. And, amazingly a week later it was still clean. Even her bathroom was spotless.

"I need to take a shower," Emery complained to me, "but Makenna is showering in my bathroom."
"Why is she using your shower?" I asked.
"I don't know, but she has used it all week. It is annoying me. She gets it all crowded with tons of shampoo bottles. I can barely stand in there anymore."
"Yeah," Josiah added, "and her clothes are all over my bathroom floor."
"Why are her clothes in your bathroom?" I asked.
"I guess she changes her clothes in there, but she just leaves her dirty clothes and never picks them up."
"Also," Mike said, "she has been brushing her teeth in my bathroom. She gets toothpaste everywhere."

Well played, Makenna. Well played.

Coon Dog

Arrow howling at a tree

My dog has never been trained in the art of hunting. I've read Where The Red Fern Grows, and I know how much patience is required to teach a dog such skills. I do not have patience.

So, I was confused when I heard my dog howling while I was making breakfast. Glancing out the window, I saw that he was safe and fine sitting under a tree. But the howling was relentless. Then he began barking and running in circles. I called him inside, but he was not to be moved. Finally, I walked to him and noticed by the torn up grass under the tree that he had been involved in the act of running in circles for many hours.

Why Arrow was howling at the tree

Not familiar with the ways of the wild, it took me a mighty long time to figure out what was going on. Then, in a flash, all that I had learned from Where The Red Fern Grows came back to me - not just the part that made me cry for days. But I remembered the part where the dogs hunted. I looked up into the tree. And there it was - a raccoon. A very large, very frightened raccoon.

My dog could not have been more proud.

And, honestly, I was just a little bit proud also.

Until the next night when he trapped thee raccoons on the neighbors porch at 3 AM and woke their family up with his ferocious barking.

Not proud.