Friday, August 23, 2013

Moose Do Not Kick Logs: a proven fact

Part of parenting is knowing when to BS your kids. You just have to sometimes.  There is a lot of crap going on in the world that they don't need to know about, and sometimes just a lot going on period...and kids never stop with the questions. 

I am pretty up front with Wendy. I tell her most of the stuff she wants to know. Babies grow in the uterus. Why ice is bigger than water.  You know. Stuff.

But she's also a bit of a worrier, so I have to know when to put on the brakes. For example, after watching The Wizard of OZ when she was four, she became concerned about tornadoes. Concerned in a way that prompted a few questions:
1. Do we get twisters?
2. Does grandma get twisters?
3. How about Aunt Mimi and Eddie?
4. Are you sure we don't get twisters?
5. Is it windy enough right now?
6. How about now?
7. Does that cloud look a little twisty to you?
8. Shouldn't we get inside and get in our bathtub with pillows over our heads?
9. Why don't you care about twister safety?

So I have learned when not to tell her the explicit absolute truth. Mostly for my own sanity.

Tonight, through the open window, we heard the distant popping-booming sound that is either people shooting at an outdoor range a couple of miles away OR detonations at a quarry also a couple miles away-I have never figured out which.  We hear this often enough, and, rather than suffer a barrage of kid angst re: local people with guns and bombs, I have always told Wendy that it is a moose kicking a log.

This is how you have to dish the BS. Simple. Elegant. Difficult to disprove using the research skills of a four year old.

Well. Now shes six. I hand this moose-and-log line to Liam tonight, and I get this:

Wendy: Its definitely not a moose.
Me: how do you know?
Wendy: Moose don't kick logs.
Me: Sure they do. I know moose. They kick logs.
Wendy: How many?
Me: How many?
Wendy: How many do you know?
Me: Oh. Uh, six. Or seven. Yeah, seven.
Wendy: Well I know twenty. And none of them kick logs.
Me: Twenty? I didn't know there were so many around here.
Wendy: There are hundreds. I just know twenty. And if any of them kicked a log, it wouldn't sound like that anyway.
Me: Maybe they kick logs when you're not around.
Wendy: I asked my one moose friend to kick a log, and you could barely hear it. Plus, he really hurt himself doing it. I had to take him to the moose vet. So I know that moose wouldn't kick a log even if they wanted to.
Me: Maybe your moose friend has really wimpy hooves.
Wendy: No way. He runs moose races. He is like, a champion, first place moose runner.  Except not now, probably, after the log thing. I feel really bad about asking him to do that, you know?

So, now that I've been officially OWNED in the category of moose-related BS...I see that I am going to have to up my game.

Wednesday, August 07, 2013

It Was Inevitable: Why We Can't Have Nice Things (Again)

Tucker is a puppy of discriminating tastes.  When he is not enjoying the evening on the veranda in his favorite rocking chair,

 

he can usually be found annihilating various items around the house.

While Duke chewed a vast array of inexplicable things like The Drywall and Potatoes, Tucker's preferences run a bit more refined.  For example, when he utterly destroys paper products, he enjoys a nice National Geographic between the teeth.

He does relish a good global human interest story.  He was mesmerized by James Cameron's submarine dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.  Mesmerized to tiny, unreadable bits.


In the absence of thick glossy magazine paper, he goes for the lofty fluff of Cottonelle or the comforting touch of Kleenex.


He sometimes takes a break from paper to utterly demolish a nice hank of wool roving. I have to admit his good taste here, because out of all of the new hanks of wool roving to choose from, Tucker shredded and soaked with dog spit only my favorite colors, Dill and Amethyst.

 
 
Maybe I have it wrong here. Maybe it is not that he enjoys these things in themselves.  Maybe our dog is a bit of a Puritan, and does not approve of the decadence of worldly comforts. Perhaps he feels that people who read world adventure stories and use bottom-pampering toilet tissue are surely on the road to perdition.  Those who indulge in fiber art using bright colors are certainly going to hell.
Maybe we can't have nice things because our dog is concerned for our souls. 

This can only be the reason that this feather boa had to die.  Because we all know what feather boas lead to.


The calculated precision with which he made certain that no one would ever use this cord to charge a phone in the car again? Kind of chilling.  Perhaps this speaks to deep-seated malice for technology? Or resentment toward the attention payed to electronics and not to him?

 
 
I know that this phase shall pass.  Someday, our dog will move beyond his obsession/vendetta against these things, and we will once again be able to read while wearing feather boas, possibly whilst blowing our noses and preparing to wipe with fluffy TP.  We will be able to do these things without fearing THIS:
 


Yeah, OK.  That is cute, the way he piles up all of his things on his favorite spot du jour.  Notice my shoe under his butt.  My shoe is obviously now considered his thing, and clearly, is living on borrowed time.