STMML - Raccoon Story

I love a good laugh.  Some days that is what gets me through.  We laugh a lot in our family, but we have a very 'sophisticated' humor that is dry and sometimes sarcastic.  One of my favorite memories always makes me chuckle.  It's the Raccoon Story.

The RacDad and I lived on my family farm for the first 4 years of our marriage.  When SweetPea was about 2 years old, we had a lot of wild animals that liked to come onto our acreage; deer, woodchucks, opossums, and raccoons, to name a few.  Our farmhouse sat on about an acre with a driveway that circled it and a 1 stall garage near the house.  The larger buildings and our 2 car garage sat on the other side of the driveway.  And we kept our garbage cans under the safety light on the other side of the drive from the house.

Parenting Joys.

Oh the joys of parenthood.  Those times where the simple pleasures can tickle our funny bones.  I want to share with you some of the little things that have been happening around our house the last few weeks.

Little Man

* He has been getting mischievous lately.  His favorite thing is squeezing around the ottoman to get his little fingers onto the keyboard of our laptop or playing with the buttons on the TV.  He gets this wide eyed look, his mouth is a wide open smile and he does this breathy pant.  Then he watches us to see how we are going to react.  It's a fun cat and mouse game.

* He has been enjoying play time with Big Sister.  He knows when this is going to occur because she gives him a funny look and he gets so excited that his arms flail and he shrieks with joy.
*  He is teething again.  So this time he has decided that there is no more need for socks on your feet.  Instead, as soon as he is set down, his socks come off his feet and straight into his mouth where they stay while he crawls and plays on the floor.  I figure that he can't hurt anything and they are never on his feet long enough to become dirty.

*  We had my parent's dog stay with us the last 12 days.  She is a Border Collie/German Shepard mix.  She was a very sweet dog to have around.  Sean got so comfortable with her around that if she was laying on the floor and he wanted to get around her....he'd just climb right over her!  She didn't mind at all because she didn't have to get up to get out of his way.  They had a mutual understanding.

Sweet Pea

*  My little lady is three quarters of the way through her 3rd Grade year.  She is learning the finer points of socialization.  While sitting around the dinner table one night she starts talking like a 'Val Gal'..."Like, that is, like, SO cool Mom!".  I looked at her and asked what she was doing.  She told me it was the new thing to do at school.  So I replied (in my Val Gal style), "Ugh, gag me with a spoon...that is SO, like, 1980's!"  Her mouth dropped open and she was perplexed that I was able to respond.  She asked where I learned to do that because it was the 'new thing' at school.

*  She has been excited because she just saw the Star Wars saga.  There was a little boy in her class who has been shy all year, but when he found out, he was enjoying talking to her about the movies.  So, she came home one day asking me what it meant to have a 'boyfriend'.  I guess the other kids in her class were teasing them because they sat together at lunch and talked Star Wars one day.  So after our chat, she decided that it was better to just have 'guy friends'.  Hahaha.
*  I love how she really allows my husband and I to entertain ourselves.  We have an ongoing inside joke about the Jonas brothers and their long lost brother, Scrappy Doo.  This came about when her godfather was giving her a hard time about liking the Jonas brothers.  So now there is a whole story about what Scrappy Doo Jonas is up to these days.  I love hearing about the different situations he finds himself in.  She's very creative.

I just love the little ways that our kids brighten our days.  If you want to hear more about the adventures of Little Man and Sweet Pea; check out The Raconteur Daddy.