Tuesday, May 12, 2009

News From My Neighborhood: It's just not fair

Weeds. Pretty soon we're going on vacation, and when we get home I leave in a matter of days for a work trip. I told Krista I would work for her today doing whatever chores were most important, so I spent a large portion of today weeding our garden. One thought that came up several times was THANKS A LOT, ADAM! We really appreciate you providing weeds for us. Not that I would have done better, I'm sure. But I have my least charitable thoughts about you, Father Adam, when I am weeding. Especially when I am trying to carefully hand-pick those little weeds that have the explosive seeds that when you touch the weed they leap off like monstrous fleas and hit you in the face or burrow into the soil and then send out their tiny little maniacal laughs.

Words Kids Love But Don't Understand. I've been teaching the kids new words I think are useful for them. For instance, A was pleased to learn the word risible, and it's a word that is often useful for her. The one word my kids use multiple times a day but seem not to understand is the word "fair." For instance, A told me today that it was not fair that she has to use a car seat but that her older sister doesn't. I explained that it was, in fact, fair because when she reached Z's age, she, too, would be allowed to do away with her booster seat. I asked her if it was fair that Z was at school and she wasn't. I asked her if it was fair that we were going to the grocery store and she was going to get a cookie. Then she started laughing like crazy.

And then I saw a mom and her kid at the school having this conversation...

Kid: That's not fair!

Mom: Yes, it is!

Kid: It's not!

Mom: It is!

Kid: Not!

Mom: Yes, it is!

I personally think it's not fair of an adult to use their superior intellect and reasoning against a child like that, don't you agree?

I think I have a future in ornithology. I love it when the birds start returning to our neighborhood. We've been getting a lot of new birds at our feeder this year, and a good number of our old friends from last year, including a big bunch of yellow warblers. Today this black bird with red wings came to our back yard to say conk-a-lee! It seemed to have a message just for me. I wondered what sort of bird it was. Maybe a scarlet banded conkalee. Or a Crimson Midnight. Or an ebony feathered garnet winged backyard bird. So I decided to look it up. And, as it turns out, that black bird with the red wings is called... a red winged black bird. I am never looking up a bird's name again. What's that bird? Oh, that's a little brown speckled bird.

1 comment:

  1. Is the red winged blackbird the one who pooped on you?

    ReplyDelete