Another Fun Filled Trip to the Library

It's been a while since I blogged a library trip. Here's how today went down:

Step 1, find library books. Gripe at kids until they find that last, stray book that was hiding in plain sight.

Step 2, climb in car that could be used to sear meat.

Step 3, realize I haven't filled out the book club forms correctly, roll down windows and tell kids to start coloring.

Step 4, speed down side roads to keep the breeze coming in. Air movement=good. Stop signs=bad.

Step 5, arrive at library and take kids and forms to information desk to redeem their reading progress for prizes.

Step 6, enforce strict limit of five books because the children, they just want to take one of everything home.

Step 7, shout/whisper at children to maintain the calm, quiet demeanor expected of library patrons.

Step 8, repeat step 7 ad nauseum.

Step 9, hide pool passes earned from reading books because mommy, she has issues with the public pool.

Step 10, witness B recognize his friends and excitedly rush to greet them.

Step 11, witness slightly older boy watch B do this and proceed to make fun of him.

Step 12, stare down older boy and shoot daggers out of my eyes while being grateful that my child, while loud and somewhat overly exuberant, is still innocent enough that he shows excitement over seeing his friends, (and that he didn't notice the older boy mocking him).

Step 13, head for check out desk. Notice new librarian lady and nearly die of shock when I notice the actual SMILE on her face.

Step 14, strike up conversation with nice new librarian lady and engage in small talk.

Step 15, watch smile on new librarian lady's fade as she announces $16 and .75 in fines.

Step 16, explain that I had called to renew books, and brought them back a day early even!

Step 17, watch new librarian lady be replaced by stern librarian lady to sort out renewal mess.

Step 18, repeat step 7 some more since step 13 is taking so long.

Step 19, repeat step 16 for next, even more stern, librarian lady.

Step 20, repeat step 7 some more

Step 21, receive stern lecture from stern library lady that I might check and make sure that I call on or before the due date to renew.

Step 22, explain that while my children and I may look like chaos, I do in fact, keep track of my library due dates and even have a special place for my receipt here, in my purse....see? Right here?

Step 23, exchange blank stare with stern librarian lady.

Step 24, wave to new librarian lady on way to door.

Step 25, Watch dream of having chatty conversation with new librarian lady go up in smoke.

Step 26, Pile bored kids into hot, sweaty car.

Step 27, Bribe them with free hamburgers earned from reading.

Step 28, wonder WHY they call it "fast" food, when in fact it is neither fast, nor food.

Step 29, Listen to kids whine and moan and complain about the unbearable heat and the "wind up my hair" all.the.way.home.

Step 30, listen to kids fight over who carries books in from the car.

Step 31, listen to K scream at her brother because she dropped her hamburger.

Step 32, collapse into heap from the heat stroke and stress and secretly wish the library delivered.

Where The Creeping Things Are

We've had a creepy kind of day.

K found this guy out in the driveway this morning:




Then, when they took him to the backyard to make him "comfortable" until they could take him down to the creek, she found this "little" guy:




He totally reminds me of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Then we slopped through school and went swimming. I love little white bottoms on top of little brown legs. But in keeping with today's creepy theme, here's a bug eye shot instead:

The Toe Bone's Connected to the...

One more reason to love homeschool. We had a little anatomy lesson last night.

We (I) started with "tattoo's". (Shut your eyes now mother, the ink in the bloodstream thing, yeah, you toally made that up didn't you?) Then I got a bit more *ahem* creative.



That is a big old Texas fire ant bite, I just drew in the ant so she'd remember what bit her.

Then we moved on to anatomy.







But then they exacted their revenge, with the help of their father...



My cheeks are still pink from the scrubbing. The kids? They still have pink highlighter all over them!

Homeschool Moment

The boy hates writing. Today his language arts assignment was to write a story about a pet show. To ease the whining that ensued, I offered to write down the story as he told me ad let him copy it onto his paper. Here is what we wrote:

Me and my friend D$#@! went to the pet show. There were cats, dogs, birds, rabbits, fish, lizards, hampsters, horses and their owners. I won first prize with my dog Tag. My friend D#@!$ won second prize with his cat. K won third prize with her guinea pig. K*&^% won fourth prize with her naked mole rat. We got medals and trophies.

After he wrote down the first sentence, he became discouraged and cried and whined at the top of his lungs for no less than 1 hour.

BUT.

He did finish the story, with some "minor" revisions:

Me and my friend D%$@ went to the pet show. And it was horabl. The fish were pranas the snakes bit me, the dogs chast me. The cats clad me. The lisrds were posunis. The pigs had buttid me.

He's going to hate the spelling list I give him next week.

But it is a major breakthrough in some respects. He absolutely hates coming up with stories, so, I'll call it progress.

One More Thing I Hate About PS

Well, the season of holiday cheer has come to a close and I'm here to tell you that it is followed by the season of Whining and Wailing and Gnashing of teeth. I hate Christmas break. Well, I guess to be completely fair, I like Christmas break O.K., but I do NOT like the learning hangover it leaves in its wake. I AM the meanest mother on earth. My children did school work the day after Christmas. But as the week wore on with the neighborhood children knocking at the door and the christmas treasures demanding to be played with and extra rush created by people being home to read the newspaper and thusly, our ad in the newspaper, it all added up to my determination to soldier on with lessons during the public school break being dashed into little tiny pieces. We were going to do school work every day. They get enough breaks during the year, the work isn't difficult and I want them to recognize that in REAL life, there really is no such thing as a BREAK.

So I gave in and they watched movies and played Nintendo until their eyes went all square and glazed over and they lost their minds. And I admit, the whining voices that pleaded that NO ONE else had to do school during christmas break got to me in a sort of peevish "I don't care what your friends are doing, this is what we're doing, but now I'm tired of fighting with you so have it your way", kind of way.

*sigh*

So today has been something less than stellar in terms of my ideal homeschool fantasy. You know the one where the children eagerly awake and dive right into their lessons, completing everything and then some in record time so that they will have the remainder of the day to work on their science fair project, which includes a cure for cancer AND the common cold.

Yeah. It's been more like:

Drag children out of bed by the hair at 10 am, so tired are they from playing yesterday and staying up too late.....again.

Beg and plead and yell at children to motivate them to clean up the school room which looks like an abandoned playground and crumb factory.

Start lessons.

Swear children will not have spring break if crying and whining keeps up at current level.

Fix lunch so that they will stop banging their heads on the table.

Put baby down for nap. Read history lesson because my ears are bleeding from the endless questions.

"What is 9 take away 3 Mom? I can't do it. Why won't you HELP me? I've never taken 3 away from 9 before, Mom....Mom...Mom...I can't DOoooooooo it...."

Make tape recording of the phrase "I will help you with it if you will ask me a question about something you do not understand, but I will not DO the work FOR you." because I have lost my voice.

K has long since finished her lessons, but B is still on Math. Only language, phonics and spelling to go.

Shoot me now.

Better yet, shoot the fool administrator that decided christmas break was a good idea to begin with.

Reason to Love Homeschool #437

I'll bet booger doesn't even make the weekly spelling list at PS.

When Mommy Blogs

The fairies, carrots, and Ello sticks go swimming.



We had a bit of fun on Friday. Ethel and I took our kids to a book fair and then the Museum of Science and Natural History. I love the museum because it is so hands on. The kids can touch just about everything and there is something for every age.

Water Tension

We decided to experiment with water tension today by making clay boats.


ONE boat


TWO boats


THREE boats


What the.....



And of course, now we have to sink the boats

Why Homeschool. Part Two.

Picking up where I left off...

Fifth grade was a new life, a second chance at having a good education. How blessed my family was and is, to be friends with both the Director of the lab school, and one of it's best teachers. Now that I think about it, it really is remarkable that the three families that were closest to my grandparents were full of truly talented educators. I don't know how it all went down for sure, but one of the families had a daughter who was becoming a teacher, she was the one who administered the reading test to me as part of her course work. The other two women took care of getting me in the school, and even made sure I had transportation to and from school, since we lived a little hike from town. The school it's self was a learning lab for the students at the college who were training to become teachers. It's simpler to call it a private school, but, that sounds stuffy and privileged. We weren't poor, but my life was not one of privilege. If not for the efforts of my grandparents friends, I would have had no choice but to continue on in public school. This thing they did for us was a blessing beyond measure.

So I started the fifth grade with another round of testing. They figured I could read and comprehend most anything they threw at me now. At some point they made a video of me and a classmate demonstrating our ability to read and regurgitate, like we were some kind of circus act. They managed to make me feel a little bit special and a little more normal and tried to give me a glimpse of what could be possible. The school encouraged students to work at their own pace, and most of the kids that attended were very bright and hardworking. It was something else to be with peers who were above average, it was nice to have it be OK to be smart. And yet, fitting in socially was still elusive for me.

I don't know how I looked on the outside to people, but I was a mess on the inside. I'm pretty sure I spent more time in the councilor's office than the other kids combined. Somewhere along the way, despite the supreme effort of teachers who really cared about me, I lost the thirst for knowledge. What I really wanted, was to fit in, have friends, and not be the butt of people's jokes anymore. School just wasn't fun, it wasn't work, it was just a meaningless time suck punctuated by occasional after school activities that helped keep me from going off the deep end. We still lived on the ranch, and I would awake at four thirty am to complete chores and ride to town with my dad so that he could be at work by 7. After school, I made my way to his office and we rode home at about 7. My sister's accident was followed by my grandfather's illness and I juggled a lot at home. I felt the weight of responsibility around my neck and I resented that it made me even more different.

I was in the seventh grade when I told my family that I didn't want to go to college. I told them I'd change my mind if they'd let me take college classes in place of at least some high school course work. I knew it could be done because the kid I sat next to in typing class took college classes when he was in the ninth grade. I think the push to just hurry up and get childhood over with began around that time. I felt powerless in so many ways, defeated and worn out from wanting to be good, and never quite living up to my potential. In fact, I was sick of hearing about my potential.

The lab school didn't offer high school, so I re-entered the public school system. I had been good at cheerleading, and was encouraged to try out, but just couldn't muster the enthusiasm to do it. I heard you had to pay for the camps and uniforms, and arranging transportation for after practices and games meant negotiations with dad. I figured, "Why bother?" I was just putting in my time so I could get out. Somewhere, I stopped being the gangly girl with the pug nose and became the girl with the small boobs and the great butt. It attracted a few boys, and I picked one. I figured he'd probably use me and dump me, but he told me he loved me and wanted to marry me. I was 15 at the time and the idea that someone thought more of me than I thought of myself put me over the moon. He was a year older than I and when I was a junior in high school, I asked my parents to let me become emancipated. I didn't intend to marry him right then, I just wanted, needed, some kind of space. I wasn't raised to live with someone out of wedlock, but it would provide a means of survival, I was past caring what people, including my family, thought about me. When they turned me down, I planned a wedding date two weeks after my high school graduation. I turned down being the hometown rodeo queen and concentrated on the freedom that I could almost taste.

Brandi wondered what all this has to do with why I chose to homeschool. To me, it has everything to do with why I homeschool. I came a hair's breath away from screwing up my life beyond all recognition. I didn't love my highschool sweetheart. I loved that he loved me. It took all of 18 months after I graduated and got married to figure out that I could love myself and was worthy of a more suitable mate. I was married, divorced and remarried by the time I turned 21. When I remarried, it was to a man 18 years older than I who had three kids. It was sheer dumb luck and the love of God that I got an incredible husband who really did see through all the crazy, weird behavior, took a gamble on whether or not I'd grow into a decent wife, and gently began the process of helping me understand and gain self worth. My parents and grandparents did everything they could, but they couldn't overcome the feelings of shame, hopelessness and self-loathing that were planted there by my peers.

Academics played a big roll in my desire to homeschool, I figured I certainly couldn't do worse than the two room school house, and if I paid close attention to their individual needs, I could probably do a darn sight better. Socialization played a big roll as well. Socialization is one of the biggest concerns people seem to have about homeschooling, and quite honestly, it's probably the biggest reason I got passionate about it. I want to pick my kids' friends for a while. I want to make sure they look up to people worthy of their respect. I want to help them navigate their social interactions until they have a better idea of who they are and what they believe. I want them to be able to focus on school work while they mature socially, whether that pace is slower or faster than other children their age. I don't want their self worth tied up in whether or not they get picked for dodgeball, or who sits next to them at lunch. When I had my kids, I knew I could never send them to daycare. There wasn't anyone in this world who could love them more or nurture them better than I could. When it came time for school, I knew that nothing had changed. No one cares about their education and their socialization more than I do. When I first brought it up with Hubster, he wasn't completely on board, but he wasn't sold on the alternatives either. Finally, the more we talked and prayed and researched it, we knew it was what we were supposed to do.

I have found myself scared to death that I will screw this up. I worry that my kids will be "the weird kids". The first year, I worried over my ability to teach them what they need to know. But the farther along this path we go, the more success we have under our belt and the more confidence we gain to keep going. So far, both kids have learned to read and write, do addition and subtraction, read time, count money, measure things, and they have the bug, the itch to learn more. They hate it when history time is over and they often don't even realize I'm giving them a science lesson. They just like spending time with mom and dad and playing together. We're starting 1st and 2nd grades this year. They play well with other kids, in the neighborhood, at church, at community sponsored sporting events, and at homeschool functions. We don't plan on homeschooling through high school, but even that depends on what we feel is right at the time. I have struggles with dyscalculia, and the thought of teaching them higher math makes me extremely uneasy. But if that is what needs to be done, I will find a way.

The bottom line is that deeply personal events brought me to my knees to figure out what I could do better for my kids. We've heard differing opinions on whether we should or should not homeschool our kids, but it finally came down to Hubster and I feeling like this is what we are supposed to be doing, and then doing our best to do a good job of it. I can only hope my kids will have a much better experience than I did, and I feel more and more confident that my choice to shield them from the world will help them with the things that matter most. My job is to protect them as long as I reasonably can and do everything in my power to help them set and realize their goals and dreams.

And believe it or not, that's the short version! LOL

Why Homeschool. Part One.

Chris from Notes From the Trenches has started another blog over here, and I'm not sure why she has two, but I do know I can't get enough Chris. Today she talked some about her homeschool, which I was so glad to read since, even after stalking all her old posts until her site meter flagged me as a potential serial killer, I haven't seen much about how she does things, why she chose homeschooling, what a homeschool day is like in the Big Yellow House. Hmmm. Maybe she'd give me an interview! LOL Anyhow, after I visited Kacey's blog and read about her grandson, I got to thinking I really should put down on "paper" why I picked homeschooling. My kids may someday want to know why I turned them into social lepers chose to school them at home.

Just so everyone is clear right up front; To each their own. Whatever school you dig is dandy with me. The main thing I've noticed is that people usually have a strong opinion about homeschooling, and that's cool, but if you can't be supportive, you can keep it to yourself around this neck of the woods. I'm not trying to convince people that public schools are evil or tell people they aren't being great parents if they don't homeschool, I'm just going to tell you how I, (we, really) feel and felt to make this choice for our family.

I didn't decide to homeschool on a whim. The thought never even crossed my mind until we moved to the great state of TX. The older three have done fine with public schools and I've done my share of parent teacher conferences, wrapping paper fundraising and crazy back to school supply lists. When we moved to TX, our kids did notice that the classes seemed easier, but they didn't complain and life went on. When we moved here, we also started to hear about more and more homeschooling families. Droves of them. Back home, if you were homeschooled, you were a freaky-folk. But I had to admit that the more I thought about sending my cute little kiddos off on that big yellow bus, I thought more and more about my own school experience and I started to think that there had to be a better alternative. So settle in and I'll tell you my tale. I'll start my story by taking you down the path of my education.

School started for me at a young age, I must have been three or four, because I attended two years at a religious pre-school. The thing I remember most about pre-school was graham crackers with milk, the smell of my nap rug and how being around the nuns made me feel like I had swallowed my tongue. I remember being picked up from school when it was dark outside and how I loved to memorize the streets from school to Grandma G's, the bank, the store and home.

I went on to Kindergarten, and I remember the day I decided to learn to read. I was watching Ripley's believe it or Not or some similar show and they showed a child who was four and could read. I was sick about it. I was already past four, and I couldn't read. So I bugged my mom. She says she wouldn't teach me because she didn't want me to be too far ahead of my class. I remember reading signs to her on the way to and from school. Grandma says she thought Mom was talking crazy talk, but I remember her giving me the Dick and Jane book, reading a few pages with me and going into the other room. Within a few hours, I had made it through, and from that day on, I could read. And read I did. I was voracious right from the start.

We moved before I started first grade, and the first day of school, I boarded the little yellow bus bound for the two room school house that served our ranch community. It started the moment I boarded the bus. There were two boys who were in fifth and sixth grade. They called me ski jump, owing to the upturned, button nose that sits in the middle of my face. I couldn't stand it. I had no idea why they would treat me like that, and I remember wishing I was invisible. At school, my class was the largest. There were four first graders, and they were all girls. I don't even remember if there were second graders in our class room, I think there were, and the third to sixth grades were taught in the second classroom.

My teacher was outstanding, one of the best in the district. Tests were taken each year, and I know mom told me that she was given the option of moving me up a grade, but declined because she was worried that I'd miss something I'd need later. The only difference I noticed in the class room was that I sometimes got extra work, and I ALWAYS got poor marks in behavior. Those little boxes at the bottom that graded area's like, "Uses Time Wisely", "Works Well With Others" and "Controls Talking" could be marked for area's worthy of special note were filled with the "Needs Improvement" check mark every.single.time. Grades given were E or E+, S or S+ and U. E=Excellent, S=Satisfactory, and U...well, you get the idea. I thought I deserved an E on everything. I did what I was supposed to, and I was always done first. School for me was like being reminded of things I already knew.

But as much as I excelled in the classroom, I paid for it on the playground. Remember that this is a country school. It doesn't take as long to teach when the teacher to student ratio is 1:6. These were the days of school recess. The teachers talked, the kids played, and the bullies reigned supreme. In this day and age the schools employ "Playground Monitors", but not so at the two room school house. I don't think I made it out of the first week of school when the three girls in my class held my arms back and used my stomach as a punching bag. It's not that it hurt so much, as I just couldn't believe what was happening. I don't remember when, or even who I told, but I remember my mom trying to teach me to hit pillows in hopes I could defend myself, and any other times I complained, it was explained to me that I acted like a know-it-all and that's why the other kids picked on me. Now to be fair to all parties involved, I probably was a know-it-all. After all, I pretty much did, know.it.all. At least where first to third grade was concerned. I probably was a brat, and I had no idea how to be liked, and really, in the scheme of things, that was all I wanted, to be liked. Well, to be liked and be the best, at everything.

Despite the social problems, I had an amazing grade school experience that included afternoons peering over the bridge at the river while we ate our picnic lunches, building snow caves and spending endless hours sledding down snow covered hills, school sponsored weekly ski trips (I ALWAYS ditched ski school after the second year...Sorry dad!) even a real Indian Rendevoux where we got to bead our own moccasins, make coup sticks and sleep in two real, full size, tee pee's. We climbed the rope everyday during our "unofficial PE", and used the mats to make mazes during recess. We had mud bomb wars and got our library books brought to us on the BookMobile. Our PE and Music teachers came once a week, and since I could memorize anything, I was always given the lead role in the school play. The good parts were very, very good. Unfortunately, the bad parts grew worse and worse with the passage of time, and my self-esteem was tossed like a dingy on the sea. Up with one kind word or success, down with every playground snub and awkward moment.

I couldn't tell you for sure when things came completely undone, but I know everyone around me recognized it when I yelled at the music teacher and crawled under my chair. I scared myself that day. I never had an easy time dealing with authority. I couldn't give words to the feelings I felt, so I got frustrated and cried, or lied, but I had never yelled. My reading was tested and it was "discovered" that I could read and comprehend high school level material. I was tutored for reading in the room with the older kids, but my parents knew they had to make big changes. At the prompting of a family friend, they enrolled me in the Lab School at the University and I began attending there in the fifth grade.

Love and Hate at the Local Library

Love- Row after row of books.
Hate- Grumpy Librarians. You'd think they'd at least like kids a *little bit*, but no.

Love- That you can take home as many as your heart desires.
Hate- When the kids beg to take home Sponge Bob Squarepants videos instead of something...I don't know...book-ish.

Love- Browsing the covers of books for hours.
Hate- Hearing the shrieking of my two year old as she protests her stroller confinement.
Hate Even More- Hearing the shrieking of my seven year old because my two year old BIT him whilst he attempted to school her on Library etiquette. You know, basics, like, don't run, don't scream and don't tear all the books off the shelves and throw them at other patrons.

Love- Picking out new adventure filled pages to introduce my children to the world of literature.
Hate- Computers on child size tables, in the picture book section...

Love- Summer Reading Club.
Love Even More- All the cool stuff we got for DOING Summer Reading Club.

Hate- That our Library doesn't put a sticker with the due date on the books anymore...They give you a list.
Hate Even More- That they still have to put a sticker in the book over the theft protection device. This sticker serves no purpose other than tempting little fingers to peel it off, meaning that not a week goes by that we don't announce our entry to the library by setting off the alarm. At least print the due date on the damn thing so when I notice it, stuck to the bottom of my foot, as I sit on the toilet, I have some idea of whether the books need to go back this week or next.

Love- Having a place to let the children run wild quietly entertain themselves during 100+ degree weather.
Hate- Having to leave the books I look at on the end of the row to be *counted* instead of putting them right back where I found them.
Love- That, for once, someone else has to pick up all the books my kids get out.

Hate-Leaving.
Love- That we get to do it all over again next week.

Renewal of Spirit

I have said before that it seems as though life moves in cycles. Everyone experiences and talks about "life's' ups and downs", and maybe that's true for them, but I rather picture life as going along in a horizontal motion rather than a perpendicular one, stretched out across the timeline of our existence that stretches from infinity to infinity. And instead of the wheel spinning up and down, I picture it moving along that line, and spinning us like the Egg Beater ride at the fair, round and round as we travel down the timeline to our destiny.

The last two and a half years of my life have felt like we were at the back of the cycle, several yards back from where we had originally progressed, and caught in the g-force that was pushing us back. But every once in a while, I catch the glimmer of progression that seems to indicate that we are about to regain what has been lost, and progress further along the path of life than we have heretofore adventured.

I have spent the last few days ironing out what our life might be like in the next year, and two years, in terms of my husband's employment, my going back to school, and our plans with respect to homeschool. It appears as though the school schedule will allow me to still homeschool B and K. I hope I'm not kidding myself here, but I really think that I can structure my time to provide a quality education for both my children and myself. Having the support and help from my husband in both these endeavors is amazing.

The crowning moment in this new cycle of moving forward came in regard to homeschool.
I've spent the last two days researching curriculum and formulating a plan that goes beyond "if I can get them through this year and not screw up". Anyone who homeschools knows the self-doubt that can go along with undertaking sole responsibility of educating your children. I found a quote today in my research that hit me like a ton of bricks and was the cherry on-top of my freshly renewed excitement and dedication to homeschooling:

The object and design of education is Liberty!

* We teach morality so they will be free from vice.
* We teach literacy so they will be free from ignorance.
* We teach economics to free them from financial bondage.

How true and noble this statement rings! My desire that my children be classically educated by me, in our home has always felt like the right thing to do. The resistance we've met along the way, which felt devastating at first, just melts away when I remember that the education path we've chosen for our children will give them a childhood filled with classical literature, opportunity to think about math as more than problems on a page, a firm grasp on the details of the History of the World, and the opportunity to explore their world and their place in it.

My first and second grader absolutely lit up as we read the Washington Irving version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I think it really says something about the opportunities afforded by teaching your own children, that as we meandered our way through the unfamiliar syntax and verbiage, we had talks about slavery, learning, descriptive writing, and the feelings of others. I think a great many people would dismiss this incredible work as far too advanced for children this age, instead feeding the child a watered down version with far fewer descriptives and a simplified plot. With little guidance from me, they not only *got* the story, they got excited about it, and wanted to spend extra time talking to me about it, with B even calling me to his bedside to whisper his questions and theories to me in the dark. I have no doubt that their learning and excitement is something that I wouldn't give away for all the world. The impact we have on our children is so incredibly vital to who they become and how they function in the world around them.

So through teaching my children today; amid the piles of laundry, the sinks full of dirty dishes and the never ending cycle of chores that goes into maintaining a home and family, I rediscovered the joy and excitement of parenting. The fact that I get to be these beautiful children's MOM! I'm so excited I could just pee myself!

Why I love this Kid

Or maybe more appropriately titled, "Why Homeschooling isn't for the Softy". B had to write a story today during Homeschool about George Washington. They gave several words for him to incorporate into the story, a whole page of lined paper to write on, and then the page can be torn out of the book, folded and he could write a title on the front of it, so it looks like a book. Here's what he wrote:

he wus th first President of United STaTeS H was Brave soldier He prayed ubowt God He lobeed the Bible.

Obviously *not* his best effort, but he did it with a smile, and the title? i Love mi mom and mi DaD

Despite the overt flattery to avoid re-writes, it will be in my save it forever pile. *sigh* Yup. Give me a cheery countenance, an attempt at sounding out the words to spell them, and a side of shameless manipulation and I'm putty in his hands.

Population Explosion

When I decided to do the great egg hatching experiment, I figured we'd end up with 5, maybe 6 chicks out of the deal. Our backyard herd consists of 6 birds, and suits our egg needs pretty well, although I could do with a couple more hens, and one less nasty rooster. This is the scene at my house yesterday morning:











At last count, there are 16 chicks in the box, all dried off and pecking at their chicken feed. There are at least three more eggs that look like they are going to successfully hatch. That would more than triple my flock. That is a problem. Even if half were roosters, there are still too many. Worse, it is extremely difficult to sex baby chicks, you're looking at a 50/50 crap shoot at best. So, it appears that I'll be visiting my local Tractor Supply on a more regular basis and leaving them with a more significant portion of our paycheck. At least for a while. Maybe instead of a lemonade stand this summer, my kids can sell chickens at their roadside stand....

What are we doing to the eggs, again?

This has been the question of the last two weeks since my friend Ethel told me, amid snorts of laughter, that my kids told her we were going to "fertilize the eggs, but Mom needs you to do it!".

INCUBATE.

Not fertilize.

So we started the project today. I marked the eggs with X's, and the newest ones, from the past two days, I put dates on because I fear our sucess with the ones we saved prior to that may be limited due to length of time at room temperature. Fortunately, Ethel also promised a dozen or so eggs from her own flock to up my chances of success.

See, ever since the great "Baby Chicken Scrambling Incident" of two weeks ago, I've been after Ethel to get her incubator out of deep storage so we could start our big science project of hatching some eggs out of our backyard herd. My kids have not been OK with eating chicken eggs since they found out where baby chickens come from. They've been convinced that every egg we've cracked open is nothing short of murder. Things only got worse when, after several months of telling them we'd hatch some out in the spring, we started saving eggs for the hatch-fest:

Me: "What's wrong with B?"
Dad: "I dunno, he's crying about some chicken egg or something"
Me: "That AGAIN?!"
Dad: *shrug*

Me: "B, what are you upset about?"
B: "Daddy broke the baby chicken egg!"
Me: "No, daddy just used some eggs out of the fridge!"
B: "Nu-uh!"

I go grab the blue carton off the counter, sure enough, it's the carton that's supposed to be on top of the baker's rack.

Me: "Dad, you need to listen to your kids once in a while"
Dad: "I did! But they're weird about the chicken eggs!"
Me: "Well, you better hope you don't get sick. Those eggs you put in your omlette have been stored at room temp for at least a few days."
Dad: "Oh, *those* eggs? You didn't just leave them out of the fridge?"

I seriously doubt my kids will ever eat eggs. Unless they are disguised as cake, or cookies.

But anyhow. I have almost two dozen eggs in a styrofoam box on my dresser. I'm afraid the pressure might be to much, I may crack. You see, the kids are expecting a 100% hatch rate out of the deal, the brochure says 70% hatch rate is considered a successful hatch, and I'm afraid we'll be holding funerals for every egg that doesn't live up to it's potential. So does anyone know? Tell me now, when baby chicken eggs don't hatch, does that mean they get to go live with Heavenly Father? Help.me.now. You would think chickens would be sturdier pets than say, goldfish. But I'm here to tell you: Not so much.