A snippet of my daily life

Yesterday was my husband's birthday. I called him as I was leaving work to find out if he wanted anything special for dinner. When he answered the phone, he said, "Erin, I think we have a problem here," and proceeded to relay this story:

"As I was shaving this morning (remember, this is my husband's story, not mine), I glanced out the window and saw the biggest pile of dog poop ever (we have a yellow lab with a hefty appetite). As I turned back to the mirror, however, it moved! I looked again, and realized that it was a turtle. So I rushed outside to get it and put it in a shoe box so I could show the boys when they got home. The trouble is, I just got home, and the shoe box is still here on the bookcase where I left it, but the turtle is nowhere to be found!"

I had to laugh as I first pictured my city-boy husband handling a turtle (turns out, he armed himself with leather gardening gloves), and then his horror when he thought that it could be ANYWHERE in the house. He found it before I arrived home with the boys - it had crossed the living room and was hiding in a corner behind the furniture. You will see from these photos that there were some dust bunnies in that corner; I'm pretty sure that I've shared before that I am not a model housekeeper. It looks like the poor little guy has whiskers!



Obviously, the kids were thrilled with this discovery. After that excitement died down and they reluctantly put him in the garden (might as well, nothing is growing in there anyway), I directed Jason's attention to the mail he had received - squishy mail! I was so covetous! One of the lovely ladies on this blog saw that he had won a ribbon in the quilt show and sent him some fabric to start his stash. You can't tell how thrilled he was in this picture because I caught him in mid-sentence, but THANK YOU, KIM!!! You made his week!



He told me that he needed a place to keep his stash. Eventually, I'll probably just get him a little plastic chest of drawers (I told him he could just add it to my stash, but he didn't fall for it!), but in the meantime, there was a box in the car that he could use. He dashed out to get it, then carefully folded all his fabric into the box.

Fast forward to this morning. After seeing the turtle covered in dust from my floors, I got up early to sweep and mop the downstairs before work. As I wandered into the kitchen for a glass of water to fortify me, I noticed that my passenger side car door was open. I knew in an instant that it had been open all night. It also rained all night. I am always fussing at the boys to close the car doors when they get out, and apparently, I forgot to close my door when I got out my purse yesterday. It is a perfect teachable moment, right? As the kids and I were driving to work and the entire inside of the car was moist and smelling a bit like cat (I found one of them on Donald's car seat when I went out to close the door), I told them what I had done and that even grown-ups make mistakes. After all, I want them to be able to own up to their mistakes. After a few seconds, Jason spoke up. "Actually, Mom, remember I came out and got that box for my fabric last night? The box was on that seat. The car door was closed when I came out here, but I don't think I closed it when I went back inside." Huh? Well, lesson learned, I guess.

I love my kids.