Feeding the Ducks

We went to the park the other day to feed the ducks. You can see here that they seemed quite happy to see us. They came flying across the pond for our crumbs of bread.






A couple of them went right for the morsels in Jonah's hand, which spawned a discussion about whether or not geese have teeth.

So we went to the less threatening side of birdville to visit the ducklings.

These babies, poor things, didn't know enough to be afraid of my boys.

Here, my little men are contemplating what to do with them:

Thankfully, Andy decided that walking like a duck would be entertainment enough, so he waddled after them toward the pond.




I think Andy's going to make a great missionary. See how he makes himself all things to all people...and fowl?
He didn't even mind kneeling in the duck poop. What a well-rounded kid.

Soccer Game

Jonah played his first soccer game of the season today. Here are the little munchkins warming up before the game. Jonah's coach is the lady in pink. He's on the blue team this week. The shirts are reversible and the two teams practice and play each other every week. It's a church league. Andy practiced his karate kid, I mean his kick, just off the sideline.The league is more concerned with sportsmanship than competition. Jonah's working on his sportsmanship but has pretty much mastered the competition thing, as can be seen here where he shoves Little Yellow out of the way to kick a goal... AGAINST HIS OWN TEAM! Luckily, the goalie is pretty good and saves Jonah from himself.Jonah likes to play goalie too. See how he owns the space?Here comes the ball... Here it comes... He got it!Then he looks to make sure we saw it.And just in case anyone missed that, here's another block on a kid kicking... AGAINST HIS OWN TEAM! Good save, Jonah!
And another look from the blocker.Yes, we saw it and we are proud.

Finally, the play of Jonah's career so far and our money-making shot, should he go pro.

Don't worry, he didn't actually kick the little girl in the teeth, but he did take it to her, didn't he? So what if half of the league are girls and the other half are boys smaller than him? It's good for his self-esteem. OK, so it's good for his parents' self-esteem too. We're proud of our boy. What's wrong with that?

My Children, the Snake Hunters

After we moved in last fall, we quickly discovered that our yard was doubling as Club Med for a garden snake population. Though harmless, I wasn't fond of coming upon them by surprise each day as I gardened. Besides, we're not talking about the little six-inch snakes that couldn't even fit your pinky in their mouths. No, these guys grow closer to three feet and could easily eat my thumb. They would hang out in the yard, sunning themselves, without a care in the world. Until we moved in, that is.

Here is a brazen little couple last spring, coming up out of the parking garage, headed for the spa. They never made it. That's right, we killed them. Then we taught our children to kill them.We killed twenty-four of them before it got so hot, the survivors decided to disappear into the ground to repopulate for cooler weather. Well, it's been cooling off a bit lately and we saw number twenty-five yesterday. My kids didn't miss a beat.

Here they are discovering the first intruder of the season.
Here they are holding it down. Notice how Jonah switched weapons halfway through the slaughter.
Oh, that must have been so he could secure it better while Andy beat the crud out of it.
Bye-bye number twenty-five. And don't send me hate mail or negative comments either. I was a vegetarian for ten years which probably saved some cows, so I believe I've earned the right to kill a few snakes. Besides, we sort of live in the city and my boys need some kind of masculine outlet.

What Jonah's Getting for Christmas

Jonah lost another tooth. This makes four. He didn't just lose it; it happened two weeks from this coming Sunday, but I couldn't take the picture the day of. He was a bit traumatized. He was jumping on the bed and knocked it out on the dismount. It was slightly loose already, but only slightly. There was blood and lots of screaming... Oh, the screaming.

Here he looks all cute with his toothless grin, but that's only because I asked him to smile nicely. This is how he preferred to pose, and it's about how he looked just before he knocked that tooth out.