Kids Are So Encouraging

There is a mystery in the trailer. We think that it's aliens but the bite marks are definately mammalian.  Our fruit has been coming up missing.  Two weeks ago "Lonnie" was outside and when he came in there was apple carnage strewn throughout the trailer.  Nothing left but four measely apple cores, and a fifth found later under the bed. We dusted for fingerprints and came up blank. Last week, again during a time when the kitchen area was ignored, an empty blackberry container was found on the table.  A true massacre of mastication of so precious a fruit!!  At this point, we were starting to wonder if the neighbors were playing tricks on us, but no, it couldn't be.  This past weekend, we finally discovered the culprits after finding every one of the strawberries, still in the carton, each with a single bite taken out.  The offenders were caught hovering over their prey like lions.  Our kids, the ferral ones, have been getting into the fridge when we aren't looking and desimating entire populations of fruit at one sitting!!  I mean, come on, one bite out of every strawberry??  I suppose we should be happy that it's fruit and not chocolate or Borax.  At least the mystery is solved and we don't have to report the findings to Area 51.

In this bitter cold Alabama winter (not) there are some days when people feel down or blue.  It's usually those days or moments when your kids do something so incredibly cute it just lifts your spirit for hours.  If they are our kids, they do something tremendously destructive involving an urgent care visit.  And while this also lifts me out of the doledrums long enough to supervise explain things to the doctor, the high is not nearly as much fun.  Recently, however, the kids have been emminently supportive of many of my endeavors.  Why, just last week I was wiping down the kitchen table before breakfast and Ayla, watching me, starting cheering "Go, go, go, Mommy, go!" as if I was sprinting the last half of a desperate housewives marathon and barely beating Susie Homemaker for the win.  I had no idea that cheerleading had spread to the domestic arena.  Her cheering did come in handy in a recent Mardi Gras race we did as a family.  And by family I mean that "Lonnie" ran an 8K by himself and I ran a 5K with Orion strapped to my back AND I was pushing the other two in the stroller.  At about the 2 mile point was a large hill and I was tired.  About halfway up I hear "Go Mommy, go, go, Mommy, go, go!"  Little Ayla was cheering me up the hill.  If I hadn't been using my heart to provide my body oxygen at that moment, it might have melted. 

On the flip side are the boys.  They are adorable, surely, but definately not as supportive.  Tonight, after Kai went to bed, I was humming while doing some reading.  I'm about 3 bars in and I hear an abrupt and slightly annoyed, "Mommy, what are you doing?" followed immediately by "Mommy, stop that."  I explain that Mommy is humming and apologize through smiling lips that I woke him.  "Lonnie" can tell me all he wants that I can't sing, but normally the kids prefer my donkey bray to his nails-on-chalkboard.  About 10 minutes later I forget and start humming again.  "Mommy, why are you doing that?"  Apparently he's not asleep yet.