The leftover grave site items. Read on to hear about this adventure....
So, raise your hand if you're ready for the kids to be home from school and the shenanigans that come with it???
Me? I'm slowly raising my hand this year and responding with a soft "yes I am!" since I've already gotten a taste of what summer could bring. Both tastes, as we'll call it, happened this past week. Both left me rolling my eyes, thinking 'wtf??' and laughing hysterically. This isn't even counting the dead baby bird that fell out of the tree, was stepped on, and then drawn a 'dead bird outline' in the driveway where it fell. This also doesn't count the dead baby bird that was in the backyard that the kids found and thought was a lizard. We went through an entire bottle of hand soap that morning....
The first taste happened one evening as the minis and co. were playing basketball. A ball rolled down the street (we live on a hill) and the kids asked if they could run down and get it. "Sure!" I said, probably too bubbly. They do a pretty decent job of remembering the rules: walk to get the ball in pairs, watch for cars, stop at the end of the street and look both ways, if the ball ends up in the stream (at the end of the street) just leave the ball and get a new one.
Apparently they failed the no running portion and the middle mini fell in the middle of the street. Neighbors were out conversing, daycare parents picking up kids, and many more neighbors were doing yard work. Everyone seemed to witness what is now known as "the street fall," but me. I was inside with other daycare kiddos, cooking dinner.
The middle mini came inside whimpering but with minimal scratches. Nothing a quick rinse and a few Band Aids wouldn't fix. However, upon inspection of my First Aid box, all of our Band Aids were gone (something the youngest mini sheepishly copped to when questioned--her dolls needed them apparently). No worries, no panicking. There's always butterfly bandages....nope, gone too (also the youngest). There's always gauze and medical tape.....nope, I forgot to buy more medical tape. So, I did what any quick thinking mom would do and I grabbed gauze and masking tape, kissed the tears, made sure all was okay, and sent him back out to play.
He played basketball for another hour with his bandaged up hand and arm. We sat down for dinner and he casually mentions, "oh yeah, all of the neighbors asked about my arm because they saw me fall."
"Uh-huh, we have nice neighbors," I replied.
"Yeah, I told them that we're pretty sure it's broken, but you used masking tape and told me to go play. Then they started asking me if I was okay and stuff."
"You told them WHAT??!?" I was all kinds of mortified and haven't seen any of our neighbors since to casually mention that his arm is indeed just fine and I really can be up for Mother of The Year award.
My awesome bandage job. For those curious, new Band Aids and medical tape were purchased within hours of this incident.
Until the second thing happened. The ball rolled down the sidewalk this time and I was asked if two of the kids could retrieve it. "Sure, but remember to walk," I warned this time. They came back a few minutes later, their eyes lit with stories and excitement.
"There's a dead mouse! It was right by the ball! It's dead! It doesn't have any hair and it looked like it just died."
"Don't touch it. Leave it alone okay," I said.
"We didn't," they replied. I dropped it. They didn't touch it. I obviously had no need to worry. For the next hour I didn't hear the ball being bounced, but I heard them talking and saw them on the front porch with the usual sidewalk chalk, sticks, dandelions. I didn't think twice about anything, nor did I pay attention to what they were talking about. There was no fighting or disagreements to referee, so I kept myself out of it.
At dinner the middle mini excitedly spoke of his dead mouse. I again posed the question "you didn't touch it, did you?" I was growing more unsure of this dead mouse.
The middle mini assured me again, "we didn't touch it mom." A full day goes by. One of the daycare moms informs me she's pretty sure we have a dead mouse somewhere because of what her child was saying.
"No, they found one down the street on the sidewalk, but they told me they didn't touch it." No more was thought of it.
That day I ordered pizza for lunch. Per the usual, the delivery guy brought the pizza to the front door and throughout the entire exchanged acted nervous and kept glancing down. Okay, for real, I'm used to tweaked out pizza delivery guys. I really didn't think much of it. Plus, he was questioning my large order of food, when I assured him I had a daycare full of hungry kids to feed. Sometimes the words kids and hungry puts people on edge. Who was I to judge this guy's fear of hungry children?
Later that same day, I kindly opened the front door for my husband to come through when I looked down at our little table next to the front door. On it I saw a brick, colored in bright sidewalk chalk, surrounded by little sticks and dandelions, with.....a dead mouse (actually we learned it was a vole) on top of the brick. The kids built a freaking funeral/grave for a dead rodent.
"Harrison! What is this?? I asked you if you touched it and you said no!!"
"We didn't mom!" he responded innocently.
"But you did! It's at our house, by our front door, not on the sidewalk anymore!" I said, trying to keep it cool, but seriously, looking at a dead rodent just inches from you is enough to make for high pitched shrieking.
"Well yeah, we brought it back. We didn't want it to get stepped on or rolled over by somebody's bike. But we didn't touch it. We used sticks and an empty bag we found....just like you did with the baby bird the other day," he replied.
He got me. I was asking all the wrong questions, said none of the correct instructions (instead of don't touch it, I clearly needed to say don't move it), and it was all right in front of my face. Suddenly the dandelion picking, uneasy pizza guy, and the mouse excitement at dinner was all making sense. Thankfully, my husband was home to deal with the dead rodent because I am not equipped to be dealing with such things. Obviously.
So, am I ready for summer? Sure. Am I ready to be outsmarted by school agers? Nope. Will there be some excellent stories and plenty of 'wft??!!' moments? Yep.