finger thumb

not the birthday we'd planned

Today was a big day. Today, my little boy, whom we refer to here as the Little Dude, turned three. THREE! Three years old. I can hardly believe it. And we had big plans for fun and outings, and I'd hoped to fill this space tonight with pictures of the good times and sentimental musings about how quickly three years has passed by and what that all means. But you know what they say, the best laid plans...

I should have known things were not going to get better last night when the cold turned into a cough. And during the early hours of the morning the cough took on a distinctly barking sound. And at 6:30 a.m. Hubs called into work and told them he wouldn't be coming in today because he had to take his son to the emergency room at the hospital so that they could make a croup diagnosis and we could get some medication for it. 

Yep. Croup. Good times. So his big birthday outing was not to the farm/petting zoo with the wicked huge sandboxes and hourly tractor rides. No, instead he got to spend a couple of hours at the hospital, being asked to breath in and out while someone with a cold stethoscope listened gravely. Not fun.

But he is a trooper. We gave him his birthday present before he left, so he'd have something to play with - a playmobile loader complete with a little working man and a tiny shovel and broom. It was a big hit, and happily held his attention during all the waiting and diagnosing. And then Hubs, smart daddy that he is, stopped with him on the way home at an antique/hot rod car dealership place and they looked at and sat in old fashioned cars and souped up roadsters to his heart's content. 

And there were some more presents, and cake and sushi and visits to GranGran and Grandpapa's house. So it wasn't a complete bust. But it just wasn't what we'd planned. Though he did seem to enjoy himself, despite it all.

I on the other hand, was kind of bummed. Luckily, its not about me. But I would have liked to have been able to enjoy the day more, instead of just coping my way through it. Because I am exhausted. And I'm not using that word lightly. I am bone crushingly tired. And to prove it I've been nursing my signature exhaustion headache, which feels like someone is drilling a small but persistant hole right above my left eyebrow. So that's why you are not getting any pictures, or musings about the quickness of the passage of time in a small child's life, or any of that good stuff. Because I need to go to bed and put some sleep on this headache and pray that we all sleep well tonight. 

Hopefully there will be sleep. Peaceful, healing, unbroken sleep. And we'll all be happier and healthier tomorrow. And then I'll be back with pictures. In the meantime I'm thankful for our good country where I can get my child's health taken care of easily and cheaply and my little big boy, who is happy in the face of discomfort. Because no matter what happened, today, he turned three.  

mother of invention

Parenting is such a weird job; full of contradictions and surprises, both good and bad. The days are long, but the years are short, as they say. And, another good one is that its the only job where you keep getting promoted no matter how well (or badly) you do. Today's oxymoronic parenting truth was that on the days when you have the least energy and it is hardest to be on top of you game, those are the days when you must be on top of you game and pull out all the stops. 

By which I mean to say that the Little Dude has a cold.

I HATE COLDS!

Really, before I was a parent, I had no idea how badly colds sucked. Sure, I'd had colds, and they were certainly unpleasant, but experiencing a cold through your child, for whom you are completely responsible, is a whole other thing.

It started in the middle of the night last night, and I'm not going to go on about it forever because a) I've probably railed about colds before, and b) I'm so effing tired I can barely focus my eyes, but suffice it to say, I don't think I had an unbroken period of sleep longer than 45 minutes last night. There was intermittent crying and nose wiping and sneezing and crying that required my presence approximately every three quarters of an hour from 11:00 p.m. on. Finally, at 4:45, I could handle it no more and went and woke up Hubs and he took the last hour of his night (because he gets up at 6:45 to get ready for work) so that way I got ONE hour of uninterrupted sleep. (a note on equality and parenting: when neither of us worked outside the home and when we were grad students we shared the night waking equally, one night on, one night off. But since Hubs works with heavy machinery these days, I don't want him risking slicing off a thumb due to exhaustion. So I do the night wake ups and then get to sleep in on the weekends.)

Anyhow, thank the Lord that the Baby slept perfectly through it all. And also many thanks that I am not sick too (yet). So it could have been worse. But the day was kind of rough. I abandoned all thought of housework or getting stuff done, and just concentrated on nose wiping and getting through it all. And to be fair, the Little Dude is not so bad when he's sick, just a little more fragile and in need of amusement. Also, getting him to keep his germy little paws (and face, and mouth) off his brother required almost a Herculean effort in the form of constant vigilance. My hands are raw from washing. But mostly, the biggest challenge was that I was very, very tired, and then I have a hard time being more paitient, attentive, focused and creative than I usually need to be. See how that works? More need + less resources = parenting challenge. 

After nap can be a touchy time even when nobody is sick, but it was really hard today. He only napped for an hour (usually does 1.5 to 2 hours) so he was definitely up with a bang and a wail. And naturally the Baby was up at the exact same time and in immediate need of breastfeeding. I had to reach way down into the bottom of my bag of tricks and rummage around to find something diverting for the Little Dude that did not involve rubbing his snotty nose on his baby brother. But I managed it. Ladies and gentlemen (but mostly ladies, I'm aware) I give you, bread tag fishing.

I'd picked up a little fish tank fish net for him the other day, as he was obsessing over one at a friends house the other day, and had intended to save it for his Birthday tomorrow, but we were in desperate need of fun today, so we busted it out early. He was rather non-plused about it at first (it was not green as was the one he'd seen at our friend's place) but when I added some water to the fun, things definitely started looking up. 

So basically, I filled a small recycling bin with water (got him to help me fill it one juice jug at a time; part of the fun) and then threw in anything I had on hand that I thought might float. Popsicle sticks, empty thread spools and a whole bunch of bread tags. 

Items can be fished out of the bin and dumped into the big stainless steel bowl. 

The bread tags were the preferred fishing item. And of special interest (you guessed it) were the orange and green ones. 

I knew there was a reason I was saving these things. I have, literally, three jars full of bread tags. We eat a lot of bread, and I just can't throw these things away. I love the shape of them. And the colours. And the way they are stamped with a date. I don't know if I've mentioned before, but I've got silver bread tag pendants with the boys' birth dates stamped on them that I wear all the time. They were my first mother's day presents, after the birth of each baby. I got them from a Montreal jewelry designer named Melanie Favreau. She's also on etsy, and makes some really cute stuff.

Anyhow, I'm going to take my tired self off to bed now. But before I do, I have to go wrap a present. Yep, its the Little Dude's birthday tomorrow. Three years old! Can you believe that? I'll be back soon to tell you all about it. But now, sleep beckons. For at least 45 minutes at a time. 

sorting

My little two-year-old boy is almost a three-year-old boy. And its a funny thing about parenting; so many things change and develop so slowly and incrementally right under your nose that you almost don't notice that they are different. For example, the Little Dude's new favourite thing is, well, favourites. Green, for example, is his favourite colour. I'm not sure if this is because most of his favourite tractor toys are green, or if its just the colour that rings his bells. Who can say. But he tells me quite often that it is his favourite. Unless we are talking popsicles, and then his favourite colour is orange. And he will distinguish between the two, as in "Green is my favourite colour and orange is my favourite popsicle. I get told this several times a day. And it is often illustrated for me as well.   You know, when your child is not yet born you hope many things for it, that it will be healthy and happy, and in my case, that it will enjoy sorting things. Preferably by colour. You can see how my dreams have all come true. 

And he did it all by himself. And of course, told me that this was his favourite popsicle colour. Just in case I didn't know. Hint, hint. 

And the conversation with this kid gets better and better. I find that I'm lingering over his bed tim tuck-in these days, just to hear him tell me things about his day (how he got to spray with the garden hose), or his plans for tomorrow (usually involving tractors), or what he's going to dream about tonight (the Schomberg Fair). 

After dinner this evening, at his request, Hubs picked him up, and I held the Baby and we all did spins together (don't worry, I spun very slowly with the Baby) Things quickly progressed to chasing and being chased and being attacked by a tickle monster (Hubs) and saved (by me) and it was all hilarious and full of high pitched near hysteria and laughing so hard your sides hurt. Finally we were all lying on the floor, panting and giggling and the Little Dude declared "I'm Pooped!" (a saying which he has just learned and uses with great relish) Hubs said "Ok, lets go and brush our teeth and get ready for bed." "Yeah," agreed L.D. with a weary sigh, "I'm tired. From all that laughing and spinning and catching people." 

Indeed. All in a day's work when you are two, soon-to-be three. 

berry time

Nothing says summer to me like this:  Oh yes, its berry season again!

Ever since my mom brought me a basket of berries last week, I've been trying to find a way to get to the patch. And the other day my kind mom obliged me again, by coming and staying with the Baby, while he was down for his nap, so that the Little Dude and I could do some pickin'. (By the way, it is almost mandatory that you leave the 'g' off of that verb. I dare you to get down on your knees in the straw, surrounded by beautiful red berries and not say it like that. Pickin')

It had rained heavily the night before, but was a beautiful sunny, but cool morning. Perfect weather for strawberries. 

We only picked three baskets because they don't keep forever. One was for my mom, two were for me. They are all just for fresh eating, as we'll go later on this week sometime to do a big pick for jam. 

And I have to tell you how proud I am of the Little Dude's ability to delay gratification. As he snapped the first berry off the vine and said, "Dis is a big juicy one. I eat dis one right now?" and I said, "No, we have to wait till we've paid for them, you go on and put that one in your basket." But even as I said it, I thought to myself 'yeah, right, he's going to eat his way through this patch if I don't watch him like a hawk.' But I underestimated him because he very obligingly plopped the berry in his basket and then picked a few more. All of which went into his basket. Then he got interested in the little flag markers that dot the rows to show where they've been picked, and took off to investigate them. But he did not eat a single berry until we took them back to the barn and had the weighed and paid for them. "We eat dem now?" he asked. "Yep, now you can eat them."

And then he went to town. 

And almost seemed to make a game of seeing how big of a berry he could cram into his mouth without choking. I cut him off after 5 or 6, as we needed to have some left when we got home.

But after all the fun of the pickin', this was the highlight of our trip to the farm.   Of course. Strawberries, no matter how delicious, pale in comparison to a flame emblazoned golf cart. 

 

good eats

Father's day came and went this past weekend and I didn't really mention it, because I was planning to write this post and did not want to chew my cabbage twice, as they say. I got Hubs a couple of little gifts. Some new CD's, made him a cute/gushy card with pictures of him and the boys on it. Made him a fancy breakfast. And bought him a new book. I'd told the Little Dude, the night before, that the next day was Father's Day, and he helped me wrap the gifts. "What dat gift?" he asked me as we cut and taped. "That's a book." I told him. "What dat book about?", he asked. "Its a book about food." I told him. So the next morning as he excitedly handed the gift over to Hubs he said "Dere's a present for you! Its a book about food!" So much for the concept of secrets. 
 We own several other Jamie Oliver cookbooks, and sundry other fancy ones. Hubs likes those glossy, hardcover extravaganzas full of pan seared this and caramelized that. I bought him Hot Sour Salty Sweet: A Culinary Journey through Southeast Asia, an absolutely gorgeous book which he loves to look through and has never, ever cooked anything out of. This is kind of his M.O. and I tease him about it from time to time. He's got a nice little shelf of beautiful cook books which he never actually uses. He browses through them in the first week that he owns them, and makes plans and writes himself little notes about making his own ketchup (note: save old ketchup bottles) and growing thai basil, but then the cookbooks go up on the shelf full of little notes that will likely never see the light of day again. 

And Hubs has been a Jamie Oliver fan since 2000 when we lived in downtown Hamilton and cable TV magically appeared in our lives. We called it 'Cable from God' because one day all we had was an old set of bunny ears and two channels, and the next day, as if by some miracle we had hundreds of channels. The Movie Network! Space TV! The Food Channel! We could hardly believe our luck. 

Turns out is wasn't actually luck. Or God for that matter. Jarred, our sketchy downstairs neighbor (we lived above a store on the top floor of a three floor walk-up in the sluggishly functioning left ventricle of the decaying downtown) had hooked himself up to illegal cable, and somehow, hooked us up as well. I didn't realize this until a year later when the aforementioned neighbor packed up his expensive stereo equipment, leather sofa and high end weigh scales and moved out, and our miraculous cable disappeared as abruptly as he did. Ah, well.  Jarred giveth and Jarred taketh away.

Anyways, my point is that the Food Network introduced us to Jamie Oliver, that endearingly tousle-haired Brit (though I'm told the British don't have much use for him) and Hubs thought he was great. The ease with which he made fresh pasta, and was all loose and fun with his technique (don't bother to chop those herbs, just rip 'em up and throw 'em in there) seemed very fresh at the time. We have, over the years, bought about three of his other cookbooks, and while they do get read, they don't get used. 

So my Father's Day present to Hubs this year was not just to buy him another Jamie Oliver cookbook to be perused and forgotten, but instead my gift, along with the cookbook was that once a week I would buy all the special ingredients and cook him a meal out of it. 

Last night was our first such meal.  And internet, it was AWESOME. I don't feel that I'm bragging here because I mean this as a compliment to Jamie Oliver, not me. The whole point of this book is that anyone can do it. I really like how it takes the intimidation factor out of fancy foodie cooking. Not that I'm intimidated, per se, I just generally don't feel like I have the time for this kind of stuff. I case you haven't noticed, I've got kids people. Two of them, which on a bad day can feel more like three. Ok, maybe that's exaggerating. On a bad day it feels like two and a dog. Because of all the pee on the floor. (Is it too gross to mention your kids bathroom habits while talking about food? Well, that's where I'm at these days, so deal.)

The whole book is a series of meal menus, with steps carefully choreographed and written out so that everything will be done and ready at the same time (something I can never get right) and most crucially, none of them is supposed to take more than 30 minutes.

The first meal I chose to make was Spinach and Feta Filo Pie with Cucumber Salad, Tomato Salad and Coated Ice Cream for dessert. Above you can see the Tomato Salad. Isn't is pretty? And I'm telling you, ridiculously good. (though I added a squeeze of honey to the dressing, it was a bit too tart otherwise)  One very satisfying aspect of this meal was the the Little Dude ate some of everything. He really seemed to like this salad, but that was not a surprise since he likes both little tomatoes and feta cheese.

The cucumber salad had olives in it, which was his favourite part, and eventually we had to remove it from his proximity as he would have spent the whole meal picking them out of it. I tell you, this kid loves anything that involves brine. A boy after my own heart.   And here's the main event, the Spinach and Feta Filo Pie. The Little Dude kept calling it a Cake. Cake, pie, easy mistake to make. But he ate it, so I don't care what he calls it. This was so much easier to make than it looks. Its basically a quiche but you used frozen Phyllo pastry sheets to make the crust. They even have videos online that you can watch to help with new techniques. Here's the one for this recipe. (Its about half way down on the right hand side under "How To's", called "How to assemble the pie from Spinach and Feta Filo Pie." Duh.)

   Here's what it looks like on the inside. It has two kinds of cheese in it and about a pound of spinach. Hubs loved it.  Here's the post-dinner carnage. I love it when the table looks like this. Like everyone has eaten and enjoyed themselves. There is a nice little lull as we all sit and digest for a minute before people want to get down from their booster seats and baths have to start being run. I like to take a moment and feel good about having nourished them all, and watch as Hubs plays with the Baby and listen as the Little Dude tells me one of his long winded stories about tractors and where we can find them. Its one of my favourite times of the day. 

Oh and the Coated Ice Cream for dessert was very nice. Chocolate and hazlenuts ground together in the blender. (Also called for coffee beans ground in there too, but I left them out as I don't do caffeine while I'm breast feeding) Then you roll a scoop of ice cream in it and eat it up. Yum. So good that it didn't last long enough for a picture. 

So, did this book live up to its promise? Yes and No. Yes, the food was great. No, I did not make this meal in a half an hour. Maybe Jamie Oliver can, but I can't. At least not yet. It was a new recipe after all. I'll bet I can do it faster next time. And I am not going to be precious about this book. Its going to get banged about and spilled on and I'm even making notes in it. I'll keep you posted on other meals I make out of it. In the meantime, I totally recommend this one. 

out of time

Where does my evening go? Theoretically my kids are supposed to be in bed by 7:30, 8 at the latest, and I usually stay up till 11, because that's when I do the Baby's last feed for the night. So that's AT LEAST three hours. And where did that time go? I have no idea. Its nearly 11 now and I haven't gotten anything done. And I have stuff to tell you. And show you. That was my possible alternate name for this blog; "Show and Tell" because of how much I loved that part of grade school, and how much that sums up my life even now. And look, I made stuff today, and cooked new exciting food, and laughed at the funny stuff my kids said, and marveled at how hard and rewarding parenting is at the same time, and still, I don't have anytime to tell you about any of it. Sigh. Tomorrow is another day, as my mom used to reassure me, when I was a energy filled Type A little girl who had to be cajoled into bed at the end of the day. Thank goodness, because I have stuff to do!

See you tomorrow.

best. snack. ever.

Today was the first day of summer, and what better way to start the season than by eating this:     I call this little concoction 'a plate of awesome'. Recipe as follows.

1. Make some cupcakes on the weekend. Frost them with cream cheese frosting. 'Accidentally' make to much. Store excess in fridge, to be eaten by the finger-scoop full whenever you pass the fridge. Try to make it last for at least three days. Fail miserably.

2. Have a sweet, thoughtful mother who knows the people who own the local pick-your-own berry farm. She'll get the heads up that the berries are ready. She'll go and pick some, and bring you back a basketful since you couldn't go due to the fact that you have two small children and spend you time doing, like, EIGHT LOADS OF LAUNDRY A DAY. At least that's what it feels like. It's probably more like two. 

3. Taste the berries. They smell like the waiting room in heaven. Fend off toddler who would gladly eat the entire basketful in about five minutes if left unattended. Cut him off after a reasonable snack sized bowlfull. Tell him 'we have to save some for Daddy.' Bide your time. Wait till aforementioned small children have gone for a nap.

4. Toast a piece of whole wheat bread. It must be whole wheat. White would just be gross. Whole Wheat provides such a nice counterpoint for the sweetness of the rest of the ingredients. Plus also, its all you have in the house. 

5. Wait by the toaster, and AS SOON AS the toast pops up, spread the left over cream cheese icing on it. That way, the icing will get all melty. (btw, I have no patience for cold toast. Cold toast is just hard bread, and who likes hard bread? The British, that's who. Never order toast in the UK, they always bring it to you stone cold. The whole point of toast, in my opion is that it is crispy-ish AND warm. If you just want hard bread just leave it out on the counter and save the electricity.)

6. Slice berries onto warm icing. Inhale the sweet scent of the warm berry fields as they get heated up by the toast. 

Accompany with tea if you wish. Eat it while reading a book. See? Awesome. 

overheard

I can't get enough of what the Little Dude says these days. Ok, that not entirely true, because there are times when I do need to ask him to let someone else (like mommy or daddy) have a turn at talking. He's gotten very chatty these days. Especially in the car. Its just a constant stream of diggers doing this and tractors going there and lawnmowers driving up and down the lawns. And he is absolutely convinced that there is a toy version of each and every piece of farm machinery/construction equipment that exists in the real world, and he is very optimistic about receiving them all for his birthday. Its goes like this:

"See dat digger ova dere, dat cute little orange little digger? We should go to the digger store and buy dat cute little orange little digger, and den I will get it for my birsday!"

I'll get right on that. 

Luckily there are some companies out there that do make realistic equipment replicas, (Bruder, Ertl) though some of them are not up to the strenuous toddler play that the Little Dude is going to put them through. (he broke another hammer on the weekend. A child's tool set hammer that was quite good and made of real wood and metal. I think we might have to buy him an actual small grown-up hammer, because he's broken three children's hammers and at this rate we're going to have to dip into the college fund to keep him in tools) And funnily enough, for all his constant talk of buying this or that toy for his birsday, his most treasured toys as of late are a plastic spoon and a small blue dohickey that has an elastic attached to it, the original purpose of which was to launch a small dollar store airplane, (Thanks Auntie C!) but has now become a permanent extension of L.D's hand, which he uses to lift and dangle and carry any toy or item that has a hook on it. Lately its been a pair of baby shoes that still have the store packaging that hung them on a display wall. So funny.  

But back to the chattiness.

I keep meaning to write down all the cute/funny things that he says. I think someone even gave me a special mother's journal for that purpose, but I can't find it. Typical. Anyhow, I do jot his bon mots down, but it is usually on the corner of the credit card bill envelope that is sitting on the counter by the phone. So I have this funny collection of bits of paper with random kid saying written on them that I've at least got to put in a file folder or something. Its not really ideal. So I'm going to try and write them down here, because at least that way they won't get thrown out with the recycling. And anyways, its often not what he says, but how he says it that is so hilarious. Today Hubs was trying to assist/hurry him up the stairs at dinner time, and it was so funny to hear his sweet toddler voice floating up the stairwell, saying, in a most disgruntled fashion, "Daddy, don't help me so much!" He did not enjoy being rushed apparently. 

And the hand gestures! Oh, its the hand gestures that really get me. To see him describe with his two fingers and two thumbs pinched close together and held up in front of his eyes, how tiny, tiny, tiny that dirt mite that he saw was. Or when he carefully ticks all three of those steam rollers that he saw outside, off on his chubby little fingers. Or the way that he throws his hands up in the air in disbelief when he talks about not knowing how something or other came to pass (like for example how all those apricots got eaten all up). Its is a thing of beauty, I tell you. 

Oh, and the singing. He leaned over the Baby the other day, and between hugs, sang him a song that featured the lyrics "Baby, Baby, My special little boy." And when we went outside to pick a new bouquet of flowers for the kitchen table, he helped by gathering some sweet (though very short stemmed) daisies, all the while singing, "pretty and lovely, pretty and lovely".

Just last week we saw a bunny in the back yard, having dandelion greens for his breakfast. "Look," I said, "he bit that leaf right off that plant." 

"Bunnies don't bite mamma, they nibble." he corrected me.

And after a few minutes of reflection as we watched the rabbit munching away, he added, apropos of nothing. "that bunny needs hands."

scrappy

So I mentioned the other day that I visited the Echoes in the Attic studio and got a bunch of scrap, and showed you the little poppy art that I made. Want to see what I'm doing with the rest of the scrap? Sure you do.  This is the scrap. (And also, that's my toe in the lower right hand corner there) It's Home Decor weight, all from the same manufacturer, and cut off of some sample books. Most of it has been used by the EFTA ladies to make bags, but there is a 3" x 9" strip of each left. It had paper stuck on the back, with the fabric info, so I soaked it overnight and peeled it off. Which was kind of a pain, but I'm kind of a glutton for punishment and like that sort of picky challenge. Plus you know how I don't like to throw stuff away, especially fabric, so it felt worth it. 

Then I took the scrap, and some nice neutral linen coloured cotton, and tried to sew some blocks with it. But the glue residue on the fabric made it hard, as it stuck to the machine plate in a very unpleasant way. So I decided to foundation piece it, and I used batting scrap as the foundation so it can be a Quilt As You Go project, and hopefully not take too long. This is also my first attempt at free form wonky blocks. That is to say I am doing no measuring, and I'm cutting free hand. I'm going for that Gee's Bend feel, (see more Gee's Bend quilts here) instead of being all anal about it, as I have a tendency to.

And I must say, I'm really enjoying it. It's quicker and quite fun not to have to cut with a template or something like that. All the blocks come out a little different, but you trim them to square at the end so that you can make them fit together. But all the interior seams are at slight angles and it just give a very nice loose feeling. 

Here's what it looks like when you sew a few of them together.

Also, I made these stripe-y blocks, which are twice as big as the little blocky blocks. They are made from some other bits of the same kind of scrap, which did not have to have the paper soaked off them, but are not big enough to make the blocky blocks (less than 3" wide). I really like the look of them too. I'm going to intersperse them among the little blocks. 

I'm not sure what its going to be in the end. I don't have enough fabric for it to be a full sized bed quilt, so maybe it'll be another play quilt for the Baby, or it'll be that couch throw I've been meaning to make, but have never quite gotten around to. Who knows. I'm trying not to be so focused on the finished product these days, but just enjoying the ride, as it were. 

 

snails

We've been having crazy weather lately, of the very hot and very sunny variety. Not that I'm complaining, with the memory of the February blah's still lurking around, I certainly appreciate the sun. But I'm not so good with the heat. Also, its hard to believe that its here to stay. I'm skeptical in a Canadian way about the weather. Like when its nice, I'm always thinking, in the back of my mind "oh, this can't last". And it is Ontario after all, so you get cold winter, blah gross late winter, two weeks of really nice spring, and then three months of sweltering humidity, followed by a very short nice fall, and then back to the nasty cold winter. Not that I'm complaining (she mutters in a sarcastically dry manner).

I took these pictures at the beginning of the month, and just never got around to posting them, but I found them tonight while I was sifting through my computer folders, and they are just too good to leave floating around on my desktop. It was before the weather got so hot, and it was a cool, rainy morning. What my mom would call 'a misty, moisty morning'.

 

It was a Saturday and we were out early, and it was dewy and misty and grey, and rather lovely. We went in search of Hubs, who was out in the old paddock cleaning up a bit before my dad came over with the tractor to do some mowing.

We always enjoy our time outside, there are hills to climb and run down screaming, sticks and rocks to find, dandelions to pick. And now and again there are new creatures to find. 

Despite the fact that I explained that a snail is at home anywhere, since he lives in the shell that he carries on his back, the little Dude insisted that this particular snail needed to come and live in his sandbox.

With great haste we headed off to the backyard.

As mentioned before the Little Dude loves bugs, slugs and all things creepy and crawley. He's not really squeamish about anything. See how far out Mr. Snail is sticking his neck, in order to ascertain why he was hurtling through the air in the hands of a giant child, no doubt. This didn't gross L.D. out at all. I, on the other hand, am a 'looker' not 'picker uppper'. Creepy crawlies don't make me recoil in horror, but at the same time, I'm not dying to carry around a handful of slugs. The Little Dude will pick up pretty much anything. And of course, he does not know his own toddler strength, so he has a tendency to over-squeeze, unless carefully supervised. We've had a number of disagreements over slugs vis a vis, how tightly they should be held, and at what point they should be put back down before the shuffle off this mortal coil. Ahem. Also, he's not really concerned about hygiene. For example, we went out the the sandbox the other day to find something white on one of his toy trucks. We disagreed about what that might be.

Him: Dat white stuff dere!

Me: Yes it is. That's bird poop, don't touch it please.

Him: Dat not bird poop!

Me: Yes it is.

Him: I want to touch dat!

Me: Please don't touch that. 

Him: Want to touch it!

Me: You can't.

Him: Why I not touch dat?

Me: Because its bird poop.

Him: Dat NOT bird poop.

Me: sigh.

No matter how I tried to tell him it was bird poop, he just wouldn't believe me. But I digress.

So he obviously was not shy about picking up this snail. And Mr Snail wasn't shy either. Though they were both a bit surprised.

  He did manage to make it safely (and unsqueezed) to his new home at the edge of the sandbox.

Isn't he pretty? Not flashy and colourful or anything like that, but so perfect and simple. 

 

As you can see in the video, he was closely, though somewhat briefly scrutinized. And even though L.D. went off in search of Daddy at the end of the clip, he did return several times over the next few minutes to mark the snail's progress along the sandbox's edge.

Which, interestingly enough was not as slow as you'd think. A snails pace is a pretty good clip, especially if you consider it proportionate to his size. If I was all maths-y and smart I'd go out on the next rainy day and time a snail as he slimed along and then do some fancy equations to figure out how fast he would be going if he were the size of an average person. Or if I had more time this evening I'd go and find that somewhere on the internet. But I should already be in bed, so I'll just have to live without knowing. Oh, and if you are a math-nerd nature lover check out this video that shows how mathematical equations and nature are related. Its quite lovely.

Goodbye mister snail.