Breeder’s Corner – Page 28

I know where they can put that chainsaw

Breeder's Corner, Geek Wannabe, General Comments Off

Dec 302003

The kids didn’t sleep late yesterday. Seems my neighbor has decided to have a couple of trees cut down, so the crew was out there at 8:30 in the morning. Between the snarling chainsaws and the house-shuddering whump whenever a chunk of tree hit the ground, there was no way anyone could sleep.

So naturally today they’re a bit groggy. Sprog #2 was so tired he actually went and voluntarily lay down for a while. Ten minutes later the chainsaws started up again—now they’re working on the stumps.

I know kids have a radar that makes them feel most active and rambunctious whenever a parent is just settling down for a break. Apparently loud work crews have a similar radar that attracts them to sleeping children.

Evil Ice Cream Truck

Breeder's Corner, General 1 Response »

Aug 082003

There’s an ice cream truck that prowls our neighborhood. I’ve never actually seen the beast, but I can hear it—an eerie musical trill passing up and down unseen streets to the north and west. Where the ice-cream-truck music I remember from childhood was cheerful and lilting, this one has a mournful tune in a minor key that makes me think of the horrible circus in Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes.

Today its wistful siren song approached while my son and I were in the driveway. Apparently the tune doesn’t sound sinister to him; he ran in excitedly to get his allowance money so he could buy ice cream. But we couldn’t figure out which way the music was coming from, and the truck never comes down our street. It seems to go awfully fast, too. How does it expect short legs to catch up to it if it’s never within earshot for more than twenty seconds?

We stood on the sidewalk for a few minutes, listening, trying to pin down the direction, but it was no good. The truck teases small children with the idea of ice cream, but passes too quickly for them to actually find it. Truly, it is evil.

This Is Why Mothers Have Grey Hair

Breeder's Corner, General Comments Off

Jun 032003

My children have learned a new trick. They were just dying to show me.

We have a rope swing in our back yard—one of those loooong ropes with a flat disc at the end for the kid to sit on.

Nearby we have a little playhouse/treehouse combination, snuggled up to the trunk of the same tree the rope swing hangs from.

“Mommy, look at me!” exclaimed son #1. Grabbing the swing, he ran up the slide of the playhouse, then leapt onto the swing and whoooshed out across the yard.

“I can do it, too!” declared son #2, half his size and utterly fearless, and proceeded to perform the stunt as well.

“Wow, that’s great!” I told them, and then went inside to have a quiet heart attack.

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