2005
humans, think they own everything
maura @ 10:49 am
It’s a Free Friday again, wahoo! I can’t remember what I did with the last one, but it wasn’t redoing this site, as you can probably tell. Today I’ve got to clean out the closet o’ Gus (into which old clothes + toys get tossed in anticipation of the day I’ll have time to organize it, roughly once every quarter or so), in anticipation of our Food Coop’s kids’ clothing swap next weekend. So let’s get right to it. I’ve been storing up stuff to write about, perhaps it’s time for a list:
1. Maggie
2. Garbage Land
3. Fun links
1. Gus, like most little kids, is a collector. Recently it’s been acorns, since it’s fall and there are just so damn many of them everywhere (also he’s been watching My Neighbor Totoro again, in which acorns figure prominently). The other day he wanted to wash the acorns, and spread them on a paper towel to dry on the coffee table. The next day, after we came home from school, I was putting stuff away in the kitchen and heard him crowing with delight in the living room, only to walk over and see that he had what appeared to be an undulating white MAGGOT in his hand.
Ew. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. Ick, ick, ick.
(Although, I should pause and say how cool it is that kids are born so unsqueamish.)
Nature-boy that he is, he was of course adamant in declaring his love for the little white worm, and quite unhappy when we suggested that the worm might be happier outside, with all the other worms. He even said to Jonathan, as the worm squiggled in his little hand, “Daddy, look at that little cutie!”
We were finally able to convince him to put it in a small plastic container and take it out to our courtyard, where he put a few leaves and a little water in there and promised to come back and check on her later. Miraculously it was still alive the next day, though I’m sure it’s dead now since the temps were in the 50s last night. Poor Maggie. Luckily, Gus’ first gymnastics class was yesterday and was such a hit that it seems to have wiped all thoughts of the little cutie out of his little head.
(I’ve been calling it Maggie the Maggot, but in actuality I think it’s the larva of a fly or something, rather than a true, necrotic-flesh-feasting maggot.)
Clearly, our son needs a pet. Maybe a hermit crab, though Anne advises against them? Or, better yet, something mammalian? Stay tuned.
2. Gentle readers, you may remember from last time that I was practically pulling allnighters to finish my book before it was due back to the library. Well, I failed. I decided that it was just not worth it to be so crabby and sleep-deprived over a book. So I returned it and re-requested it. What a sane solution!
BUT, the copy of Garbage Land I requested came in, so I wasn’t book-free for long. I zipped through it in a few days (it’s shorter, and more journalism than academic writing).
It was really, really good, but also really, really scary, the kind of book I’m not so sure I’m happy to have read. I’m newly guilty about the composter (we bought one for our courtyard a few years ago, but after the first summer I kind of lost steam and I haven’t used it all summer, which isn’t SO so bad because we have a disposal but still, we should be using it). I nearly got into a huge fight with Jonathan because I bossily demanded that we must start washing all ziploc bags. But, on the plus side, I did come to the conclusion that we are doing pretty well on the whole Reduce Reuse Recycle tip, so that’s somewhat soothing, at least. Of course, municipal waste is still only 2% of the total waste generated in this country, which is kind of depressing.
3. And now, links, because there’s been too much good stuff out there in the intarweb recently to let it go unremarked upon.
– some very excellent bento boxes
– the most hilarious company cookbook ever
– very fantastic blog entry about ritalin
– You know what would really fix their little red wagon?
Hey, I’ve got a closet to clean, leave me alone!
2 comments on “humans, think they own everything”
Well, J’s nixed the cat idea, as we can’t figure out where to stash the litterbox (neither of our bathrooms is big enough). I floated the hermit crab idea the other day but J was not 100% on board. Maybe I’ll bring it up again. Gus is so very into bugs + worms recently — even though Maggie’s met her maker he’s been excavating the courtyard to find ginormous earthworms. And telling us all sorts of fun facts about them — apparently they have little tongues that come out when you put them in a plastic kiddie pool. Fascinating!
Not “advising against” hermit crabs, just know that they do make skritchy noises ALL NIGHT LONG. Then during the day they do absolutely nothing, and your kid (if he’s anything like mine) will ask some permutation of the question “Is he dead?” every 5 seconds.
That’s all. Still, you don’t have to walk them, they don’t eat much, they don’t pee on your rug or eat the mailman (god I hope they don’t eat the mailman! or you’re in a really funky horror movie!) So they have their good points.
Also mom and I went to a great kids’ bookstore today and got a hermit crab book by Eric Carle! We