When Mother Nature Shows You Her Teats

We went to a farm over the weekend.

A very cool, kinda-trendy farm that some of you may recognize from Season 5 of Top Chef. It was the kind of place that made you want to compost and use homemade soap wrapped in wax paper with a wee bit of twine, it made you want to eat soft cheeses off a slate board and gather Zinnias to put in mason jars on your picnic table while you sipped wine and tried to pretend that you couldn't hear your children screaming in the background.

Ah the simple life.

It is a great place for families and to say that the day was gloooorious would be an understatement. We met some great friends and signed the kids up for some egg gathering.

Since I hate birds, QT and I stayed outside the fence while the Ladies and their dad gathered up some farm-fresh eggs. We had to pay $10 per person to gather the eggs from the hen house, however, we didn't get to keep any of the eggs. I am pretty sure that violates some sort of child labor law, but as long as I didn't have to actually share space with any of the birds, I was content to observe the Ladies clutching their father's shoulders as they timidly reached into the nest boxes, while I swatted away bugs and wondered why I thought wearing flip-flops to a farm was a good idea.

The thing about farms, like zoos, is that nature is just right in your face. And with that comes questions. Questions that can't always be answered by Jesus or Magic.

When I told the Lady that we would be doing some egg gathering, she asked me if the eggs had chicks in them. I mumbled something about how there were no chicks in the eggs and tried to change the subject. Note to self: Google before you go.

I was relieved when the farm hand (a sprite, young lady is super tight pants) told the kids that all the chickens were hens and that none of the eggs contained chicks, because they hadn't been fertilized by a rooster. I was also relieved when the Ladies didn't ask me what fertilization was. They are well versed on how babies get out of a body, (why yes, the Little Lady did ask me if babies come out of a vagina in the dressing room at our old friend Old Navy, laughter from adjacent stalls followed) they still have no clue on how they get in.

Moving on.

Since it was a warm day the farm hand invited us all to observe the pigs getting sprayed with water so they could wallow in the mud and cool off.

These pigs were pretty big and I was grateful for the electric fence that separated us. What I wasn't so grateful for was the show they were about to give.

I could try to describe to you what it is like to be standing 4 feet from a group of pigs, with four curious kids under 5, when one of the pigs starts to pee and another one starts to drink it directly from the source.


Or I could just show you a photo.

Want to see? Of course you do. What? I already had the camera out.

This is mother nature at her finest. Do they make Purell for eyes?


As I snapped away with my camera to bring you a clear photo, we were told that there were piglets down a path in the woods. No need to say more. We stopped at the wash station at the bottom of the hill and tried to sanitize the hen stank from the hands of our children and started walking.

Piglets are so cute. Do you know what isn't so cute? The momma pig, with her engorged breasts, fighting for a bit of room to get at her rutabaga. I feel for you momma pig, it is hard to focus on you when there are so many mouths to feed. I especially felt your pain when I saw how heavy your teats hung on one side while the other side was shriveled and small. Oh the milk duds! The milk duds! It isn't often that you get hit with the hard reality of your life in a pig pen on an organic farm.

The day ended like most fun-filled family trips to the farm, with a few minutes in the overpriced gift shop ogling handmade crafts, while we fought the clock to get back home so my husband could get to his softball tournament, and the Lady screamed in the backseat about wanting to stop and see sheep, even though she could clearly see them out the window. There was me finally noticing the poo on my feet and daydreaming about planting organic vegetables that my children would gather and we would prepare on easy, summer afternoons, in the gloaming where the sky is golden and there is only one hour until bedtime.

Oh Mother Nature, you can flash me anytime.

A Few Happenings with the Three Beans

I found this link about answering the top most common questions kids ask. I still think my answers work better though!


I am pretty sure that if the Lady ever asks me how much the earth weighs and I answer her by saying,

"Earth has a mass of 5.97 × 10^24 kilograms — the equivalent of one hundred million billion Titanics." 

that it is only going to open the door up to more questions.

Questions I will definitely not be able to answer because I never even saw Titanic. What? The boat sinks, he dies, she lives, why waste three hours of my life for that?

Anyway, I thought I would share just in case the whole magic/Jesus thing isn't working for you and you were looking for some "easy" answers.

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Since there hasn't been too much going on in the last few days to warrant a stand alone post. I will give you a quick synopsis of a few things that happened in and around my house (which is still currently for sale and at times, if only for a few moments, so breathtakingly clean it astounds me, even though I don't know where half our stuff is and am fully aware that nothing else can fit in the cabinet underneath the bathroom sink).

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First of all, I got some quality time with two of my lovely Loyola Ladies on Saturday night. We were missing one more due to the snow but I am super excited to try and plan our annual get together a little bit early this year because of the arrival of baby number three for my Brooklyn momma. Here's to hoping that six women, with 15 kids (and one on the way) between us, will be able to coordinate schedules and meet up for a weekend of relaxation, mindless magazine reading and a little recharging.

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The Little Lady

The Little Lady is up to her old tricks again. The other evening while QT dozed on his father's chest,  the Lady took a few moments to do some math on the iPad and I tried to get dinner on the table, the Little Lady had some free play in her room.

Now usually, I can track the Ladies when they are in their room, neither is light of foot and you can hear where they are and what they are doing just by listening to their footsteps clomp loudly, scurry across the floor. When things get quiet there is usually trouble.

So after a couple of minutes of not hearing any movement above me, I took a quick trip up the stairs. I was about halfway up when I heard "No mommy, don't see me, go downstairs." When I rounded the corner I saw the Little Lady sitting in her pretty pink, personalized, Pottery Barn club chair, covered in pretty pink nail polish. When I say covered, I mean painted. She had it all over her feet, her legs and her belly. Clearly, the Lady's "salon" had been raided.

Luckily, it was the non-toxic "piggy paint" nail polish Santa found at Buy Buy Baby. I am sure it is still chock-full o'chemicals but at least it wasn't dark red and it hadn't found its way onto her chair.  I will say it came off fairly easily in the bath, so at least there is that.

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The Lady

The Lady is really into art and she makes like 100 art projects a day. I know this because at the end of the week they all come home in her school bag. Well not all of them, the teachers told me at her conference that they keep a lot of the "good stuff" for the end of the year binder. This nugget of information has allowed me to bring myself to actually throw out some of these creations (mostly the ones with glitter), but only in the dead of night after the Lady is sleeping, because if she sees anything of hers in the garbage it is not good. She will pepper you with questions about why and how her art ended up in the trash. I, in turn, usually feign surprise about how this art injustice could have occurred, wipe off any stray bits of debris from said piece of glittery artwork and remove it from the trash.

The other day the Lady made a picture with only three people in it, me, her, and my husband. She informed me that it was a picture of us "before the Little Lady and QT were born." I am not sure if this means she looking for a little more attention from her parents or if she only had room to paint three bodies, either way she and I are in for some one on one time, just as soon as I fish out a few more pieces of her artwork from the trash.

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QT

QT has been battling an ear infection and RSV. He is also teething. All three of these factors have led to him refusing to take a bottle (also I changed the nipples on him to a faster flow--this probably didn't help, but the old ones were getting gross and he is 7 months old!) so let's make it four factors.

Did I mention he also refuses to nurse off the milk dud? That's right, not only is he not taking a bottle, but he is only nursing off of one boob. He also hates taking medicine and the fact that Seal and Heidi Klum's marriage broke up (well I might be reaching a bit on that last thing, but QT is all for "making it work").

What he does love is finally sitting up on his own and eating the remote control.

I think that does it for what we have been up to, perhaps tonight will bring something a bit more bloggable!