It's been hot here. Scorching hot. The type of hot that gives you few options for keeping your kids entertained. Indoors is always an option, but not always fun. You can only remind my kids not to put Barbie doll shoes in the toilet, not to eat play-doh, or to keep paint on the paper and not in each others hair so many times before you sound like a broken record. I save that stuff for rainy days. I'm more of an outdoors person. My kids are too. Unfortunately, it's been too hot for walks, playgrounds and picnics in the field. The typical stay at home mom strolls around the air conditioned mall get old too. Especially when they always include a visit to the second floor play place. Those visits, more often than not, result in tantrums when it's time to leave. The thought of wrestling my kids into their car seats in the 95+ degree weather . . . forget it . . . I don't even want to think about that. It's just too hot. We've been using the blow up pool and water table, all day, everyday, for I don't know how many days in a row. This does not get old. This $7 pool from Job Lots has been my savior. What can I say . . . we're living large. I set up my back deck every morning at 7:30 am with all their water toys for the day, and we are golden. They love it, and I do too.
This morning was different. I went out bright and early to set up shop, and much to my surprise, I was not alone. I heard some rustling in the leaves over by our woodpile about 15 feet away. I stopped what I was doing to get a closer look. Suddenly, a face peeked out of the bottom of the pile. It appeared to be a monstrous woodchuck, or a groundhog, or maybe a beaver of some sort. (Please excuse my inability to specify the exact species that hissed at me as I stood there, frightened, with my hose. I grew up in more of a city atmosphere. This stuff didn't exist in my backyard growing up.) As this plump, porcupine type creature is continuing to hiss at me, I'm thinking "Oh no, you are not going to ruin our pool day." I took a step forward with my hose in hand causing it to charge towards me. It was at that point that I thought I heard more of them. My first thought was this damn thing gave birth to a litter of baby porcuwoodchuckians in my woodpile. I ran inside. I had to keep my composure in front of my kids and calmly explain that there was a change of plans. We were not going to have a pool day, instead we were just going to stay cool inside with the AC and some fun arts and crafts or whatever.
My kids spent the day engaging in various forms of dramatic play. They pretty much kept each other entertained, while I spent a good amount of time staring out the window at the woodpile waiting for this beast to show its face again.
As the kids played, one of the conversations I overheard was as follows:
Lanie - "Let's play a game called you be Daddy and I'll be Mommy. This means you have to be the griller, cause you're Daddy. I have to be Mommy. This means I eat all the steak. This is just pretend though. I could never eat as much steak as Mommy. She's all steak, and some bones too."
Charlotte - "Okay. Yeah, steak and bones."
I can only imagine the rep I'm going to get when this kid starts preschool. Although, maybe it won't be so bad. I did witness that unidentified creature run off. I even went over to the woodpile and banged on it with one of my kid's toys. The coast was clear . . . the pool was open for the afternoon! Mom saves the day! If approaching a creature free woodpile with a plastic golf club counts . . .
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hahaha porcuwoodchuckians XD
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