"Kid, this is it."

One morning last week I was hustling about -- running late as usual -- pawing through shoes in my closet, upending the house in search of my cell phone. Martin was handling "cram" mode with the kids: cramming breakfast down their throats, shoving socks and shoes on their feet, and pushing them out the door.

As I bolted up and down the stairs, I caught snippets of conversation -- about the baby and whether it would be a boy or a girl. And that's when I heard Martin sternly say, "No Cayden, this is the last baby. There's isn't going to be another one. This is it."

When I came down the stairs, I couldn't help but ask the Boy, "Do you want a brother or a sister?"

He grinned and triumphantly displayed his best Nixon-victory pose. "I want two more brothers and two more sisters," he announced.

As if such an order were normal. Like selecting donuts from the bakery.

Yea, 4 more kids. I'll get right on that.

Clearly, Cayden has not tapped his jealousy gene.

And he thinks we're Catholic.

I tried to set him straight, as Martin did. Boy or girl, Hoffa's it!

Pioneer kids

After a near week of being snowed in, I've often wondered how the pioneer families did it. How did they tackle chores -- feeding livestock, birthing calves, loading carts -- with the burden of children? I think I've found the answer.

They left them alone.

I'm not equating our rural property with a Little House on the Prairie western outpost. But certain tasks -- chaining and towing a vehicle, prying open a frozen barn door, and heaving hay and water over snow drifts -- are two-person jobs.

Fortunately, we have something that Ma and Pa Ingalls lacked: a Tivo-ed arsenal of Dora and Diego episodes.

When possible, Martin and I plan our excursions during the kids' should-be-napping time. Then we employ a backup system: usually a breadcrumb trail of Ritz crackers that leads to the TV. In most cases it stops them in their tracks and keeps them out of the knife drawer (see photo of toddlers captured in natural habitat after parental absence). Worst case scenario to date: a half-naked Hadley emerges outside in search of us.

Tonight, after my first full day at work and a dreadful commute home, the Big Rig got stuck in the frozen drive -- a normally straight path now plowed in the shape of an "S" around two snow drifts. The truck got stuck uphill, in the belly of the S.

I summoned Martin, who was in the house with the kids. In the dark we debated hitching Chitty and possibly entrapping both trucks. Or fixing the tractor's blown hydraulic hose and using it as the tow vehicle.

Ultimately, Martin miraculously unwedged Big Rig and it dropped to the bottom of the drive like a pinball in a machine. We left it there, where presumably our neighbors can squeeze by and try their luck with the S.

What were the kids doing in our absence? I don't know but I'm pretty sure it involved a nerf gun and a battery-deprived Star Wars light saber. At least they weren't wielding knives.

I'm sure this blog post disqualifies me for any Parent of the Year award. And it probably flags me for a visit from Child Protective Services. Well bring it on, CPS.

Good luck getting up the driveway!

Sheet search

After last weekend's painful bed assembly, I never thought that sheet shopping would pose a bigger challenge. But alas, I'm a duvet girl living in a bed spread country.

Sure, I grew up like every other red-blooded American, with a quilted bedspread. Mine? Reversible... neon yellow on one side, and lime green on the other.

But in Australia I discovered the doona -- better known in Europe as the duvet.

The duvet serves the same purpose as the bed spread but it invites messiness. There are no corners to fit, no wrinkles to smooth out. A puffy, lumpy, rumpled duvet is completely acceptable. Which is why I wanted duvets for the kids' beds.

But Americans are wedding to the quilt, the comforter, the bed-in-a-bag. And as I visited store after store, I found only a few duvets in the sea of bed spreads.

And what I found was too hotel-like:
too busy and floral:

or too... hideous:

or nauseatingly juvenile:

I couldn't believe the number of lunch breaks I wasted traipsing through stores and the evenings spent trolling the internet. For kids' bedding, of all things! Nearly a week sapped on sheets! In desperation I nearly fell into the Pottery Barn pit, but I couldn't stand paying that much for bedding that the kids would snot on, drool on, and god-knows-what-else-on. Hell, Martin and I don't pee in our bed and we don't have expensive bed linens.

Finally when all hope was lost, I discovered normal sheets in basic blue and pink with duvet covers. And at a snot-worthy price. They don't match the rest of the room, but what does?

Redneck conversion complete

Any vestiges of my Yuppie upbringing have officially disappeared. I've been asked to turn in my Nordstrom's card, avert my eyes when a beemer drives by, and stay up-county where I belong. We are, in a word, redneck-a-fied.

Ignore the fact that Martin considers clean cargo pants evening attire.

Or that I took the kid to a party without any shoes.

Or that I've got a baseball cap permanently attached to my head.

That a weekend jaunt to the dump and Tractor Supply constitutes a road trip.

That entertainment is watching the kids play naked in a pothole after a rainstorm.

That I wear spurs when I shop for groceries.

Or that we're a two pickup family.

That people identify our house simply as "the one with the sheep."


Shove aside all those facts. The brief exchange I had with my barefoot 3-year-old sums it up.

We were at a friend's house when Cayden waved his hand down around his knees. With wonder he asked:

"Mom, what is this air blowing out of the wall?"

me: "That would be air conditioning."


Okay, so our house isn't jacked up on wheels. But we're gittin a little close to double wide livin, y'all.

young Redneckius Americanus photographed in their natural habitat

Road Kill Envy

Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's dead animals. Isn't that one of the 10 commandments? If so, I've violated that tenet twice.

I don't remember exactly when I first spied the stuffed foxes poised in Liz and John's living room but I think it was after their house was renovated. (It's a 19th century Victorian clapboard, perfectly appointed in hunt-country decor... which is flat-out irritating!).

Anyway, there were these two cute foxes, one sitting and the other caught in mid-stride. They looked like museum pieces.

"Oh yea, they're road kill," Liz explained. Her husband John witnessed one freshly struck by a car and he scooped up the carcass in a trash bag, and tied it to the roof. "The other one I just found by the road," she said. "So I stuck him in the fridge and we took him to the taxadermy place in town."

It sounded so easy. Recyleable road kill becomes lovely conversation piece. I immediately wanted one for our bar/carriage house.

"Just don't try to pick one up in the summer," Liz warned. "My friend found a good one and put it in the back of her SUV. When she got home she noticed that the carpet in the trunk was moving... because thousands of ticks had jumped ship from the fox. It took her ages and tons of vacuuming to get rid of them."

Yikes, good advice, I thought as I reserved my carcass hunt for winter months. Most of the dead foxes on the road were pretty mangled. But one day I whizzed past one when Martin happened to be a mile behind in the truck. I grabbed my cell phone.

"Hey, there's a good-looking dead fox on the road just at the bend. Can you grab it for me?"

martin: "What? You want me to pick up a dead animal? I'm dressed for a meeting... I don't even have any gloves."

me: "Come on, just do it. For the good of the bar!"

I stayed on the phone until he found the fox, then he left the phone on the bumper while he scooped it up. Even from a distance I heard the yelling. "Jesus Christ!!"

"What? What's wrong?" I shouted, waiting for him to pick up. What if the fox was still alive and it jumped up and bit him? There's no way. It was dead as a door nail...

Then I hear Martin, panting a bit. "I picked it up and turned it over. It's full of maggots," he said. "I'm going to meeting and now I've got maggots on me."

"That sucks," I said. (damn, that thing looked good on the outside...) "Oh well, just leave it then. Thanks!"

Since then I've seen a few other candidates. But Martin has not been keen on retrieval.

In the meantime, the Boy and I have been searching for some nice deer remains ever since we eyed up "Fred," the little skull and antlers that sits in front the neighbor's barn. Liz (a different Liz), found the skull years ago while trail riding. I'm not so attached to it but Cayden was instantly intrigued.

"fred"

About a week ago, I rode past deer bones, picked clean, and scattered across a hayfield. I brought the Boy back later, but seeing ribs, a spine, and a furry leg with a hoof still attached was a little too real for him. Instead, we christened these dinosaur bones -- likely a deerasaurus or a deerodactyl.

I retrieved the skull, which was picked beetle-clean. For now it sits amongst our weedy whiskey barrels and greets visitors to the barn.

beware all ye who enter....

Country time living, old school fun

You know that Country Time Lemonade commercial that uses iconic scenes of summer to push its powdered drink? It's the TV ad that shows a kid coasting over a river in a tire swing, twins walking through a field of flowers, a couple strolling down a winding, stone-walled path in the setting sun?

It's kind of like that. Only it's March and it's a mud puddle.

Who needs TV -- or a glass of sugar-laden lemonade, for that matter -- when you have a pothole filled with murky water and a muddy driveway full of rocks? Spring never smelled so sweet.