A Mother's Love

You will not believe what I did this morning--I captured a LIVE praying mantis in a jar for my children!! Blechhh! I hate bugs! But they were so excited about it and I decided it was a learning opportunity. That is just how nuts I am about my boys. NO ONE ELSE warrants such sacrifice and grit. Our specimen (of decent size) is now on the shelf in the garage where it can be inspected by all the neighborhood kids as well. Andy is hereby responsible for either feeding it or disposing of its corpse when that time comes.

In other news, Carson cracks me up. Okay, that's not really news. He is getting really funny to play with. I found some cowboy and Indian figurines at the dollar store, so we were playing with them the other day. There were bombs exploding and all kinds of violent happenings. My cowboy broke his leg in the blast, and the only sympathy he got was "You want a Bandaid--yes or no?" I hate to admit it, but I love to argue with Carson because he says, "Yes you didn't!" or "Yes I don't!"

Spencer is enjoying first grade. Here are the pics from his first day. (I honestly forgot to put them up until now.) He likes his teacher, though she is not quite as mothery and affectionate as his kindergarten teacher. It's been a big adjustment for all of us to have him at school all day. We had to make a new rule that he doesn't play with friends on school days because it just throws him over the edge. He gets so tired he can't even function! He is now eating lunch at school, too, which makes things strange around here. He claims he eats a peanut butter sandwich or pizza for lunch nearly every day, which I take with a grain of salt. I have access to the menus, so I know he has other choices. Anyway, he has a good teacher who seems very on top of things. She focuses a lot on reading, which I appreciate. If a kid is a good reader, everything else comes easier.

Lastly (this is not really news either), our dog is a big sissy!! When I bring her upstairs, Slippy usually keeps out of sight. The other day, though, she was feeling feisty. She sat at the top of the stairs and when Dakota came up, she stayed right there, hissing and growling. Dakota was on a leash, so Slippy could have escaped anywhere she wanted to. But no, she was in a crabby mood. Finally she stepped aside and my poor big baby put her head down and went behind me to my other side to avoid the 6 1/2 pound kitty! The next couple of days, Dakota would look around nervously, head down, to see if there would be another encounter! She is a sweetheart, but not the bravest dog I ever knew! (Which makes me love her even more!)