11.13.2004 | 4:41 pm | Uncategorized, Daily Life, Gray Matters
As I stood at the kitchen sink this morning, I gazed absentmindedly out into the backyard. Our dog, Reagan, was lying sprawled out on the grass, soaking up what little sun was available on such a chilly, overcast day. Just a few feet from the deck, something on the ground caught my eye. “Why, that is so odd,” I thought to myself, “that looks just like a deer hoof.” I stared for a few moments, taking in the shape and color of the object. I ended up dismissing it as an odd bough of leaves. An easy thing to do, since our entire yard is carpeted in boughs of leaves ever since the Storm, as we’ve not yet had time to rake. So I went on with my morning business….fixing some cereal for Gray, getting him nursed and down for his nap….and all thoughts of the odd bough of leaves left my mind.
Fast forward to around 2pm. Getting Gray ready for his bath. A bath that was especially needed today, I might add. Heh-heh. At lunch, Philip gave him a piece of apple to eat, and it apparently was too big for the boy with the hair-trigger gag reflex. It got stuck on the back of his tongue, and the gag-fest began….ad nauseum….LOL. We puffed in his face, to no avail. UP came Gray’s lunch that he’d just finished a few minutes before. Sweet potatoes & corn, to be specific–and one piece of apple. The kid’s got great aim….it landed in a neat puddle on his high-chair tray, with just some overflow on his bib. Ah, but to make up for the cursed neatness, Gray quickly put his hands into the puddle of orange and began fingerpainting. Blehhhhhh.
Okay, so I got sidetracked….back to the bath….
As I was getting the sink cleared for Gray’s bath, I caught a glimpse of Reagan through the window. He was there by the deck, gnawing away at a bone. That’s funny, I didn’t think we’d given him any bones recently….WTF!?! THAT BONE HAS FUR!!! I stepped outside and got a closer look.
IT WAS A DEER’S LEG AND HOOF! I’m screaming now, and Philip comes out to see what is the reason. He confirms that yes, it IS some poor deer’s amputated leg. It was all bloody and gnawed at the top. I felt like fainting. Reagan is a monster. Well, okay, I don’t think HE killed a deer. Apparently someone else did, and then they discarded the unwanted pieces ‘n’ parts somewhere nearby, and Reagan–ever the scavenger–found himself a tasty….ehhh….deer leg….to bring back home and chew on. So it actually HAD been a deer’s hoof (and furry leg) that I’d spotted earlier. Sweet.
Today’s mood = nauseous. LOL!
**Photo below–taken the next day. Reagan had completely eaten all the meat off the top bone by the time I took the photo, so some of the effect is lost., though surely not all!
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11.7.2004 | 7:12 pm | Uncategorized, Daily Life, Gray Matters
We took our usual walk today to the bay & back. A good stretch of the trip is wooded area, and as we passed through, I noticed Monarch butterflies were fluttering all around us. So we stopped and I showed a couple to Gray. Ah, the joy of sharing the wonder of nature with a child! We were stopped by a ditch, and while Gray spied the butterflies, I leaned over and peeked down into the ditch (dunno why), and when I did, I instantly recognized the diamond-back markings of a Rattlesnake. !!!YOWZA!!!
It was a big’un, too.
There was very shallow water in the ditch, and the snake was stretched out in the water with its head poking up, apparently waiting for a frog (or some other poor creature) to show up and be its lunch. We didn’t want it to decide that we were interrupting or anything, so we high-tailed it away from there pretty quick-like.
I had the heebie-jeebies all the way home. Although it was quite warm, I kept breaking out in goosebumps everytime I remembered that big thick diamond-patterned back, so VERY nearby me & my precious little one. I know there are rattlesnakes all around here, but that’s the closest I’ve ever come to a live one, and it “rattled” me (heehee, pun intended). I had walked right up to it before I saw it. I just kept thinking how close I’d had Gray to the ditch, and you know how that goes. *shudder*
Philip debated whether he wanted to get the shotgun and come back to kill it (it’s the male in him). He decided not to, as he thought it might be risky to fire down into the water. I tend to agree.
Today’s mood = heebie-jeebied!
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11.1.2004 | 9:43 am | Daily Life, Gray Matters
Well we survived it.
Saturday night we let Gray stay up an extra half-hour. Which was easy to do, since that was trick-or-treat night, but more on that in a minute. So, he went to bed at 9:30. Then we turned back our clocks, stayed up to watch a little Headbanger’s Ball, and then we went to bed. He slept until 7:30 Sunday morning! Woohoo! He slept 11 hrs, and woke up only 30 mins before his usual wake time. Not too shabby. I however, was awake at 6:30….an hour earlier than usual. Then I lay there attempting to go back to sleep, but wasn’t able to b/c I was watching the minutes pass, wondering what time our little darling would decide to wake. I was really surprised that he went on to sleep 11 hrs, despite the time change.
So for Sunday, we went about our day as usual, and that night we put him to bed at his usual 9pm, and he woke the next morning just before 8am…..completely back on his normal sleep pattern.
WHEW! Philip had told me not to worry. He told me that the first night would be a little off, but after that it would be normal. He was right….again…..surely we are living in the last days.
Now, will someone please tell MY body to stop waking up an hour early??
Oh, I’ve got to describe Gray’s Halloween getup. A photo is posted below. He was an awesome punk rocker. I mixed black face paint with styling wax, and I put it in his hair, standing it up and turning it black. We put him in a Cure shirt (okay, not punk rock, but to most oblivious people it gives the “scary” look) and gave him black ponytail holders for “bracelets”. I put some of the black facepaint on his eyebrows, and I was going to use it to draw him some “tattoos” and an “earring”, but he was already ticked off about me running that sticky wax through his hair, so I thought I’d leave well enough alone. We took him for an evening walk around the ‘hood, and the other trick-or-treaters thought he was pretty cool. I was tempted to let him trick or treat, but since he can’t eat candy, I was afraid we’d get dirty looks. So we’ll wait till next year for that. We took him back home and he got to answer the door and help us hand out candy. He LOVED seeing all the trick-or-treaters….he grinned at them and made his explosion sound that he always makes as his “greeting” for people. Later on I gave him a bath and washed the wax out of his hair, which took forever, but that was okay since he was staying up a little later, anyway! It was a really fun night. The best part was that we had lots & lots of leftover candy…mmmmm….
Today’s mood = amazed, thankful, and tiiiiired
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That Bone has Fur! And other Stomach Churnings