~ ABOUT This Blogger
Me and the Critters
Ok, the Critters and I.
Being the mom of five active children on a farm somewhere in the boonies of MS, I’ve found more things to do with my time than I can squeeze into a 24 hour grid. So, I juggle, I bounce, I chop and I beg or borrow to make it all work. I drop the ball all the time then remind myself at least its still on the floor, pick the durn thing back up and put it in queue! Well at least I do after Dearest Botanist tells me the pity party called to cancel and I’ll just have to make other plans. ;’/
Dearest Botanist and I met in TX at university. It was one of those whirlwind romances that no one thinks will work out, but here 15 years later, we’re still at it. And if you haven’t already thought about it when I mentioned we have five children, YES, we know what causes that. He’s my best friend and I his. We can’t go to sleep at night without exhausting our brains of the day’s events to each other. I’ve never met anyone who was a better male nurse when I’ve been ill either. Really. I’ve had some doozies and he has ALWAYS been there. You won’t see any photos of him here either. He’s a private guy and shy of being anywhere but his farm.
I’ll introduce you to the critters, but watch out, I warn you, they’re my thing. I’m one of those obnoxious moms that you can’t shut up if you make the mistake of asking how her children are, and need I remind you, I have five. I hope you have a comfy couch type of chair.
Spartacus pensive on the Cairo
First we have Spartacus. Nearly 15, he is too big for his britches, literally and figuratively speaking. The monster grew 3 shoe sizes this year. I need one of those “Supoort This Blog” buttons, we need shoes. Spartacus spends any free time he has reading or playing an interesting game called Rome Total War with all these things called expansions. We don’t do the typical barrage of PlayStation and other mindnumbing outlets of entertainment, but yes, we let this. He’s learned quite a bit from it. Being a history buff, his thing is to critique its accuracy and expound for hours on how our lives would be so much better if we’d just take an interest in his interests…
Fanning herself with aromas of earthy essential oils from Annie
Then we have Chicki. She’s my domestic goddess. She can make a bed and decorate her room in ways her mama never showed her. She likes things neat and clean and just so. (I realized my deepest fear of a hospital baby switching must have final come to pass when she made my bed and laid out pretty flowers all over at age 6.) She loves a good tree to climb and is a fantastic dish washer though she’d not like to claim that award as much as she is forced to with a family of 7.
My girl YaYa is part tom-boy part Billy Graham and part Janice Joplin.
Yaya fording the crick (she's the one in the air, yeah and that's how we say it here.)
She does comedic improvs with such adeptness you wish you could peel your face off just to give it a rest from laughing so hard. I dare you, ask her to do Elvis. I have to mention too, her prayers at the dinner table will break your heart and open your eyes. But go ahead and ask her to do Elvis anyway.
Little Man
He really thinks his daddy is going to pull that tooth with those pliers! And he
is the stuff Grizzly Adams must have been made of. He’s tough and rough and its physically painful for this child to sit inside on a day when there is even bearable weather. He’d be happy to just live outside all the time, if his mama’d go with him. Despite his love for rough, he is sweet to me and gracious, he’s the best 5 year old back scratcher I’ve ever known.
LM's garden butterfly he stalked for 15 minutes
He loves my camera too. My kids love the camera almost as much as I do, almost. The boys seem to have picked up angles my eyes find interesting too or they have unconsciously picked up my style of photography, but I love seeing what a child sees through the lens of a camera. My poor camera is banged up more than I’d like but I’ve had some amazing photos come out of letting the kids take the camera out for a trek. That’s worth it to me, or I say so until I am out a camera and no money to replace it.
And lastly but not leastly is this little beastly, Z. He’s my little floor scrubber. Known to be a type of adornment to his siblings attire, he never misses an opportunity to have attention guided his way. He thinks his daddy is a walking snack machine too. He’ll follow that man to the ends of the farm for one cheeto.
Z Man, happy days as usual