Callie and the Rabbit

Callie is now 2 years old and has developed some pretty good hunting skills.  She has been known to catch birds, mice, and voles, but her preferred animal this spring has been baby rabbits.  Prior to this week, I was the only one aware of her taste for bunnies as she would leave them near the compost bin for me to find.  Everyone else in the family was oblivious.

So a couple of days ago,  I sent the two older boys out to the bus stop to catch the bus to school and before they can even get to the street, Callie runs through the yard with something in her mouth and drops it in the driveway right in front of them.  Brady starts jumping up and down and yelling “Go Callie, go!” because he thinks she’s caught a squirrel while Luke immediately realizes she has a bunny.  (Brady’s response after realizing it’s a bunny, “Oh, nevermind”  Why he was excited about the possibility of her catching a squirrel, but completely ambivalent either way about about a bunny is something I haven't been able to figure out even after talking to him about it, but I digress.) 

I go out to meet everyone in the driveway to get them sent on their way and Callie decides to pick up the bunny and take off with it.  At this point the bunny, which had previously remained silent and I thought was probably in bad shape, starts squealing.  Nope, the bunny is still very much alive.  I look over at Luke who is about to cry and who says to me with tears in his eyes, “I feel really bad for that bunny.”  I attempt to tell Luke that’s life sometimes and explain to him the laws of nature in 5 seconds while ushering him across the street to the bus stop (How lucky are we that the bus stop is literally the curb across the street from our driveway?  Very.  One of the perks of living at a t-shaped intersection I suppose.)  Now that the boys are across the street at the bus stop, Callie proceeds to repeatedly pick the bunny up, carry it a little, and set it down again, each time causing the bunny to squeal over and over while Luke watches intently.  I realize at this point, I have two choices:

1.  I can send a very upset kindergartner to school who has a field trip that day that he's already a little anxious about and this may just be the thing that pushes him over the edge. 

2.  I can attempt to rescue the bunny in the approximately 30 seconds before the bus arrives.  

I choose the second option, which has me chasing Callie with the squealing bunny around the yard in my work clothes but bare feet.  The grass was pretty cold that morning, by the way.  I succeed in getting Callie away from the bunny and placing a bucket that happened to be laying next to the house over the bunny as the bus is coming down the hill.  Smiles appear all around from the boys and on to the bus they go.  As soon as the bus pulled away and rounded the corner, I let the bunny out, told it it was on it’s own, and wished it good luck as it hopped off.  As soon as the incident was over, I realized this was yet another time when I have a two year old running amok in the house while I attempt to wrangle wildlife in the yard.  (See the bat story here.)  Then I turned around to find that Caleb had been watching the entire incident while standing in the window of the storm door.  I can only imagine what he was thinking.

Nose Punching

So this is really Ryan's story, but I will attempt to retell it.  The other day, Brady and Luke were upstairs getting ready for bed with the typical overtired-kids-sibling-squabble nonsense that seems to accompany 99.99% of bedtimes.  Luke comes downstairs to tell Ryan, "Dad, Brady keeps shaking my mouthwash."  After a couple of stern reminders from Ryan sent from the bottom of the stairs telling Brady to cut it out, Luke comes down the stairs again with "Dad, Brady is still shaking my mouthwash."

Let's take a moment to look at the situation.  Two kids are supposed to be brushing their teeth. Instead one decides he will shake up the other's sample size mouthwash bottle recently obtained from the dentist.  Why?  No other reason than to torture the younger brother.  Does it matter if the mouthwash is shaken up?  No.  Does it bother the younger brother immensely?  Yes, and the older brother knows this.  This is not the first night of the shaken mouthwash bottles.

So back to the action, at this point Ryan has had enough and tells Luke, "If Brady does it again, you can punch him in the nose."  Perhaps not a Dad of the Year moment, but we've all been there, or if you haven't, it's probably coming, besides, he was single-handedly putting all 3 kids to bed that evening, so we'll cut him some slack.  Where was I when all of this was going on? I don't remember, but not at home for whatever reason.  So, after Ryan issues his nose-punching permission to Luke, he quickly follows up with, "But you have to tell Brady what I said, that if he shakes it again, I said you can punch him in the nose.  You can't just walk up the stairs and punch him."

Ryan says he thought that was going to be the end of it.  So Luke walks back upstairs and Ryan says he hears a rather animated discussion taking place followed by Brady coming down the stairs.  "Dad," Brady says, "Luke said you told him he could punch me in the nose if I shake his mouthwash again.  Did you really say that?"  Ryan replies with, "Yes, I told him he could, stop shaking the mouthwash, leave your brother alone, and get ready for bed."  Brady goes back upstairs.  After about one second, Ryan hears Brady crying.  Really crying.  Not crying like he's mad but crying like he's actually hurt.  Ryan goes up the stairs to see Brady lying in the hall outside the bathroom, curled up in a ball and holding his nose.  The conversation goes something like this:

Ryan: "Did Luke punch you?"
Brady: (sobbing) "Yes."
Ryan: "Did you shake his mouthwash again?"
Brady: "Yes."
Ryan: "Why did you do that?"
Brady: "Well, I didn't think he would actually punch me." (more sobs)

It is at this point in the story that we start to worry about the decision making skills of our oldest child, that and his grasp of cause and effect.  After assessing Brady to make sure no readily apparent damage was done, Ryan asked Luke where he punched Brady, and Luke responded by pointing to the tip of his own nose, "Right here," he said.  I'm sure it must have hurt, Luke's still pretty small, but it doesn't take much for that part of the nose to sting.  Ryan finished the evening with an edict that there would be no more future nose punching for any reason, that was just a one time permission, and then he sent everyone to bed.  I'm happy to report this happened over a month ago and there have been no other nose punching incidents.  Funny enough, there have also been no other mouthwash shaking incidents since then.  Perhaps Ryan's on to something.

Fire Safety

Earlier this fall, the fire department came to visit Luke's preschool.  It wasn't a normal preschool day for him, so  took him up there just for the safety demonstration.  When the fire fighters asked the group of kids what you should do if your house is on fire, Luke, my shy little guy, raised his hand in front of the entire group and replied, "You go outside."  My heart swelled with pride and I was equally impressed that he knew the right answer and that he was brave enough to speak up in front of a group of 30 to 40 kids.

Later that day, I was bragging on Luke to Daddy.  Reminding Luke about the event earlier in the morning, I said to him, "Luke, what do you do if our house is on fire."  He piped up, "You go outside."  To which I responded,"Yes, that's right, good job."  Turns out he wasn't finished, as he then added "And when you're outside, you start a fire!" in a maniacal voice.  He may have followed up with a crazy laugh, I'm not sure, I was in a bit of shock.  This kid has a dark, dark sense of humor that I think is going to take some getting used to.

Go There, Then Over There

Caleb doesn't talk much yet.  So far he just has a few words - mom (ma), dad (da), sippy cup/milk/drink (ba), hi, bye, and a special sound for the cat that is a crowing sound he makes by sucking air in.  That being said, he knows exactly what he wants, where, when and how.  He's figured out how to direct people through a series of pointing gestures and one syllable sounds best described as "eeh."

Today Caleb came up to me and put his arms up to be picked up.  He then pointed toward the kitchen and said "eeh" and we were off.  Unfortunately, his pointing is not very accurate and he never looks in the direction he points.  It's more of a palm-up, grand sweeping gesture that is reminiscent of some upper class matron that can't be bothered and should be accompanied with a drawn out "dahling, would you be a dear..."  And thus began today's game of Marco Polo/ Hot and Cold.  We went all over the kitchen, from counter top to counter top, looked in the fridge, each time never coming up with what he was looking for.  The typical items of interest - sippy cup, crackers, fruit, cheese, were all shoved away with disdain.  Finally, he indicates toward the pantry and - aha! - spots what he is looking for right away...raisins!  Raisins.  A five minute search for a box of raisins.  This kid has really got to learn some more words.