The Great Outdoors

I'm starting with a somewhat pleasant picture because soon to follow is one I know I wouldn't continue on with after seeing.
We all know Katie is a bit more active than the other two. Is that an understatement? Today she successfully got herself into three mini-accidents within a ten minute time frame.
First, she was attempting to move a chair. That's all. But lacking the herculean strength she thinks she possesses, she managed to crush her toes with one of the the chair legs in the process.
Tears and hugs.

Then, one minute I'm glancing fondly at her while I make dinner as she intently watches the toaster oven while standing on a stool. Then suddenly she is no longer standing. She is falling to the ground. (cue slow- mo action of me dashing heroically to her rescue) Not being the Speedy Gonzales I know is inside of me, she still fell.

Tears again.

And the finale. I grabbed the toaster oven tray to carry to the counter and as I was turning, I clocked Katie in the head with it. (I couldn't see her!) Now it wouldn't be so bad if it was the flimsy metal tray that comes with the oven. No, it was the Pampered Chef STONEWARE tray. I swear I heard it BONG when it struck her head. She's ok, it really didn't hit her hard. I think it scared her more than hurt her. But I had visions of explaining to the ER staff that no, I don't intentionally break my kids' heads with various kitchen items. It really was an accident!!

More tears and hugs. Poor thing.

Since we live in the suburbs, we don't see much wildlife. When we venture out to the country (Avon/Livonia) and the kids see cows, it's exciting. Katie always crunches up her face and says "Wa dat fnell? Chows? Moo chows!" Although being in upstate NY, I'm sure that thrill will peter out pretty soon.
Today started out like every other.

Except I came down to the basement and discovered this fellow. I wanted to show how big he was but I was not about to get close enough to put any sort of point of reference in there. It was hard enough to take a picture with one leg curled up to my stomach while I squirmed and suspiciously eyeballed the ceiling and the walls for this guy's friends. I know they're out there. They don't appear to, but I know they travel in packs and they get revenge for their fallen brothers. Despite that knowledge, this picture marks his last moments and he was soon smushed with a binder onto part of the computer after being sprayed from a safe distance with bug killer. Someday when Tim cleans the computer he will find spider guts smeared into the hard drive because I'm not touchin' it. He's lucky I disposed of it and didn't drag him out of bed to ice it himself. I must have been feeling brave because that's always what I do. But I was afraid it would get away and I would be glancing over my shoulder like a paranoid freak for the next 5 months.

The spider was just the beginning of our visits from the animal kingdom today. This bunny has been hanging around for a couple of months, then he disappeared. Today he came back. It doesn't need to be said that I like him much better than his scary predecessor.

This was taken a few days ago but it sort of adds to the Mutual of Omaha feel I'm going for here.

Then tonight I look out the back window and see a gazillion birds feasting on what I hope were only worms in our backyard. This picture doesn't do the real image justice. I mean there was a scary number of birds which led me to wonder about the even more heebie jeebie-inducing image of what critters they were eating and that they were in the same yard we (not me) run around barefoot in.

Then I saw the chipmunk.

Then I was sure Walt Disney's ghost was playing a practical joke on me and tomorrow I would see the trailer for Enchanted II-Giselle's evil stepsister (me) gets eaten by killer backyard critters.

And this is just pathetic. Also proof of the aforementioned running around barefoot. Did I miss something? Do we live in the country? Because in my dreams of such a life, I am singing to all the cute cartoon animals and the dirt is actually powdered chocolate because we live in Willy Wonka land.

If we were to actually move to wide open spaces, I don't think I would last very long.