Jim took the older boys on a bike ride while Peter and I were at the grocery store. The second Jim, Avery and Mitchell came home Peter announced, “Mom got me a new pet!”
Peter told them to follow him to meet it.
Jim and boys walked into our backyard with Peter and Peter ran ahead and he continued right into the creek…THE CREEK that during certain times of the year is covered in an inch of bright green algae!!!! This was that time of year. Jim and the boys said Mitchell stopped breathing and could no longer speak he was so upset and Jim shouted, “What are you doing?!!!”as Peter bent over and reached right down under the pond scum with his hand and pulled out his clam!!!
Peter announced, “This is my new pet I saved from people eating at the grocery store!”
Jim asks, “How did you know where it was?!”
Peter replied, “That’s where I left him!”
Look closely…
You can see nothing during this algae bloom, despite putting raspberry blue (Jello looking) dye in the pond. I decided to read them all the flesh eating pond bacteria story I had read that day in the newspaper about the girl who’s arm they may have to cut off. I cannot yell all day long so I have adopted my mothers parenting tactic…horrific story and let them decide if they still want to do it.
I am beginning to doubt my mothers neighbor boy story who electrocuted himself (dead) at the breakfast table when he fished his bread out of a toaster with a knife. Every year I’m a mom, my own mom seems a little less crazy.
“Please, please mom can we get him?” -Peter
No, because if I said yes we would live in a zoo.” -me
Mr ButcherMan, you know who you are,
Your smiling and looking so amused at offering Peter the little clam he noticed was moving to take home as a pet. I could still smell that stinker in my Suburban a week later. Not funny.
If you like this story I’m guessing you will like “Aren’t you glad you only had to do that twice to get three kids?” that I posted in February. I am super new to sharing my writing. Follow me as I am trying to give something that is a fast read that makes you smile, laugh, think, love cry or cry laughing everyday. Hope that you will check in and see what we are up to while you are waiting in the school drop off/pick up line or on the side of a practice field or after you read the news and you need something to relate to that makes you smile.
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This is great stuff, I’m thoroughly enjoying it–and I love the pictures!! I just want to reach through the screen and pinch that little guy’s cheeks (gently)!
They are all sweet and only talk this way to me. They love to watch me squirm!
Very funny!! It is frightening (and hysterically funny) how we become like our Moms!
I become acutely aware when I see it in my own sister.
I grew up hearing a few of those “horrific stories” as well, and I’m a little ashamed to say that I’ve been tempted to use them on my kids a few times! My favorite one was my grandma’s cousin who choked on a half of a piece of gum while swinging on a tire swing – of course the reason we were never allowed to chew only half a piece of gum. Funny!
That sounds like something my husbands family would follow. Mine were so cynical that they would have reasoned that one out and find an anecdotal story that was far more gory. My Aunt just told me a story this week, (brought up when we were talking politics) about our great aunts first husband who was shot to death along with his father by his brother over who he and his dad were going to vote for. She doesn’t lie but she got her point across…don’t talk politics. I guess the whole group of us are story tellers. 🙂
I was looking at that picture and didn’t even realize there was a stream there. I thought your yard just kept going!! That is crazy.
The good news is it’s just duckweed blooming and it only lasts a little while. It feeds the little creatures that feed the bigger creatures so that is how I wrap my head around it. It doesn’t have an odor. I feel the need to post a picture of what it normally looks like. WIll add but holy moly I would not walk into it barefoot and I am a country kid.
Thanks for visiting Good Penmanship! Your clam story makes me glad that my urban environs, while presenting any number of gross things for the bunny to collect, is short on wildlife.
We actually live in one of those ridiculous planned communities. I said no way to the realtor until I saw that they didn’t plan the backyard. It’s all about little boys NOT being country club brats but still living the country club lifestyle. I’m doing that thing where you exhale on your knuckles and rub them on your chest. I claim success in my grand parenting plan when he jumped in the icky water. I am raising future men or as I like to call them, “my future daughter-in-laws husband”. I can’t hang out with a chick and let her raise my grand babies if she wanted to marry a man who didn’t want to get his hands dirty.
My kids still claim that in lieu of a bedtime story, I read them newspaper articles about kids getting maimed in unlikely and frightening ways–and then warning them not to do anything in the least way similar.
How else will they know they can’t play in storm drains? My voice yelling out the window to stop using a wheeled board as a means to go head first down a driveway at high speeds is like the sound of air conditioning units. A story about someone getting their head run over is far more effective for kids. 😉