Let the dog in!

You raise your child hoping each day that she’ll grow up to be kind, smart, compassionate, and interesting. Or at least, I do.

And while some things go as planned, some other things veer way off course.

The Kid recently got a Tamagotchi. Do you know these?

They are small electronic “creatures” that hatch and need caregiving.
And Beep! to tell you about it.

Oh, sure, she was all excited about it at first.

Beep! Beep!

She’d scurry over and push buttons, trying all the options, food, milk, play, pooper-scoopering (push a button-way easier than diapers!)

Then, she ignored it for what seemed like not that long in real life time. I mean, really, an actual baby would NOT have died. I’m pretty sure. Not a healthy one, at least.

But this thing died.

Lucky for Kid, another one arrives in a box on the screen, and Blamo! you have child #2 (Oh, that life was SO easy!).

But we now had a problem. Or two.

A. Kid wanted a GIRL, and child #2 was a BOY.

B. Kid knew once it died, another child would come.

So, the next time we heard Beep! Kid didn’t move.

“Your baby needs something. Aren’t you going to take care of it?”

“NO!”

“Why not?!” (oh, the cruel, coldhearted beast I’ve raised!)

“Because I’m waiting for it TO DIE, Mommy!!”

I’m pretty sure the toy makers were not intending this.

But ever since the time setting on it got reversed and instead of it napping silently, I heard Beep! Beep! at 2am, I’m kinda waiting for it to die, too.

And I figure we got smart and interesting, at least.

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You may recall the raccoon who got stuck way up in a tree in front of our house? For hours and hours?

Trapped, cornered, alone, he looked like this:

Now, look at this guy:

Notice any similarity?

This is Conrad Murray, Michael Jackson’s personal physician, who sent a letter to his patients a few weeks ago that he would no longer be their physician because he had “a chance of a lifetime” he would pursue.

Turns out, he’s probably the last person to see Michael Jackson alive and he’s the person who unsuccessfully administered CPR on a worldwide icon.

Awkward.

Well, if he wanted fame, he made the right choice. Except that now he has his own lawyer (probably a criminal one, I’m guessing) and the headlines say things like:
Lawyer Denies Doc Drugged Jackson With Demerol
and
Lawyer: Doctor Found Jackson with Pulse
and
Jackson Family Doesn’t Trust Michael’s Doctor
and
The Terrible Plight of Dr. Conrad Murray

Boy, doncha just kick yourself all day after you pick the wrong line at the grocery store?

Maybe the doc needs a smidge of Demerol right about now….

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Pigeons get slammed all the time, don’t they? Rats with wings, right? We all hate them, don’t we?

They surround you by the hundreds when you happen to sit in a piazza accidentally dropping crumbs from that freshly baked, crispy-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside baguette.

Like you’re in a Hitchcock movie, only without the special effects.

They poop all over your car windows, usually in the center of whatever spot you need to look out of.

Who knows what nasty diseases they might be carrying.

Then I noticed that even though we don’t have large piazzas or fabulous baguettes on this island, we do have a healthy pigeon population.

I’ll admit, at first, it was cute. Cute to see these gigantor birds descend and try to eat from our feeder that was obviously not made for a creature this size.

Cute to hear coo-coo, coo-coo in the trees around our house.

But then, I noticed that they are the bird equivalent of teenage boys on the high school basketball team.

They eat all the bird food.

And want more. Pigs with wings, I say.

And while waiting to push their cousins off the feeder, they poop on my tiny box of lettuces I’m trying to not to kill.

And even if they are not eating all the food and pooping out all the food, there is this pigeon:

This pigeon doesn’t want to eat or poop; he wants to drive a bus, stay up late, and get a puppy.

And this pigeon is just as aggravating, or more so, than the live pigeons. Why?

Because this pigeon is able to take bedtime and turn it into a scream-a-thon as the Kid argues with the pigeon.

Over and over.

I may ban this pigeon from the house for infinity.

He makes all that cooing and bird crap appealing.

Are there any books you can’t stand at bedtime or anytime?

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Our island police blotter always has some weirdness, and this hot weather has probably added to the weirdness factor, doncha think?

This week, modern domestic violence:

Assault: A 47-year-old Bainbridge man was arrested for punching his fiance at their Moji Lane home shortly after midnight. According to the victim, the suspect became enraged after she expressed displeasure in his lack of tidiness. The suspect went to a bedroom and she began watching TV downstairs. He sent her a text message ordering her to come to bed. When she refused, the suspect became angry and insulting.

First off, I’m guessing her expression of displeasure was along the lines of “you’re such a filthy, stinkin’ PIG” or maybe just “isn’t it time to switch to the summer pair of underwear?”

Not to say she deserved or asked for any beating. I firmly believe in freedom of insult. Just ask the hubs.

But what really gets me is what he does after she goes downstairs: he texts her.

Granted I’m old and have a mental block against even learning how to text (and, I might add, my spellcheck is also against it as a word), but really? Has it come to this? Post-fight texting? Does that work, guys?

“dont h8 me, plz”

“ur the best”

“i ws a jrk”

Are you people texting to each other in the same house??

What ever happened to the silent treatment? Texting is not part of that, kids! I don’t care how quiet your keys are.

Click-click-click.

End scene.

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The hubs and I might be the only ones impressed with this, but it’s my blog and I’ll blog about paint drying if I feel like it, and I might later this summer if the hubs actually paints the house.

We have suet bird feeders out, as you might know from my bajillion photos of birds on and around and next to suet feeders. Mostly, we get woodpeckers and some littler guys like juncos and chickadees on them.

But recently, someone who is not supposed to be able to eat from the suet feeder did.

I give you, Super Crow:

I cannot count how many crows have tried to hang on long enough to eat but invariably slip off too soon.

I know crows are supposed to be smart.

If he gets inside my house to grab my bag of white cheddar popcorn from the cupboard, I’ll know he’s figured out the secret code on our front door lock.

I’m scared to know what else this guy has figured out how to do….

Do you know any crafty animals?

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Things are hardly ever black and white in the world of parenting. If they are for you, congratulations and yes, Fox News is fair and balanced!

Some bad actions are clearly bad–hitting someone, pushing someone, or other violence. Although, even then, a time might arise when you are proud of when your offspring does them. Kid punched a boy at school, and we had a hard time being mad about it when she was only protecting her friends. See? Grey area.

Yesterday, Kid was mad at me. I can’t even remember why. She may not either, although her mind is remarkably good about recalling all maternal infractions dating back to age 2.75.

While she was on time out, she made good use of time: she wrote a note. (we’ve really come far from smearing body lotion on the bedroom furniture!)

They’ve been practicing sounding out words at school, and often, at home she wimps out and whines for help on writing words, rather than sounding them out herself.

This time she did her work all on her own. No one pushed her, no one told her what to write (obviously), no one helped.

The good news: during time out, she wrote an entire sentence and even signed her name (which I cropped out).

The bad news: the sentence was “dear mom you are stupid.”

I’m so warped I was kinda proud of her.

Naturally, I didn’t tell her that.

Instead, I lectured her about the power of words and using them in non-mean ways, blahblahblah.

But, really, I was silently noticing her noun-verb agreement and her dotting the “i.”

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As parents, we know that sometimes you end up doing something you later regret, whether it’s screaming “NO MORE TV THIS WHOLE MONTH!” or “NO MORE ICE CREAM EVER!”

Trust me, these statements are not a workable solution.

But feel better, parents, because even the wild kingdom makes mistakes.

Take for example this tree we noticed this weekend.

Some kind of evergreen on our lot. Notice that dark spot up there about 50 feet? He was there alllll afternoon, upside down.
Here’s an up-close:

A raccoon. I’m guessing male, given his totally poor planning. Just where did he think he was going?

We’re not sure if Becca treed him (oh, we’d be SO proud were that true, but really, she’s pretty entirely useless), but there he was all afternoon.

Even crows started harassing him.

For once, I feel sorry for a raccoon, don’t you?

Or does this just make target practice that much easier?

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