Kind of Like an Egg Hunt

Scenario: It's 6:30 a.m. and already the kids toilet is backed up.

"Who wants to help me fix the toilet?" I say with a hint of excitement in my voice. Three hands shoot up as the kids simultaneously shout, "Me! Me!"

It's too bad I can't seem to get the same reaction when it is time to eat green vegetables or pick up a Mt. Everest of toys in the middle of the room. But, taking advantage of the moment, I let each child try to plunge the toilet once before I finish the job and then enthusiastically announce, "Ok, let's clean the bathroom, too."

"Yay!" the kids shout. Seriously. They are still like that. They all take turns spraying the Clorox Clean-Up (yeah, yeah, we're all gonna die a terrible, "un-green" death) and then they all attempt to scrub down the toilet. Have I mentioned how much I love my kids? Who else would so eagerly clean the scum (and other stuff) in the bathroom WITHOUT GETTING PAID? Aidan even went as far as to make MY bed for me one day. Rock on! I just knew there would be perks to this kid thing...

So, later today I thought maybe I oughta give the cleaning thing another go while we're on a roll. I pull out a huge trash bag, find the girls playing on the patio and announce we are going on a trash hunt, which is kind of like an egg hunt but not really. "Yippee!" the girls cheer. I look down and Madeline is holding a huge black caterpillar that she is making "play" with her Fisher Price Little People.

"Is it dead?" I ask.

"Oh no mommy. It's not dead," Madeline answers. "It just doesn't walk anymore." And she took great care to secure her highly crippled, not-breathing friend in her fist so as not to lose him while we are searching for things to get rid of.

Fortunately, our neighbor was out, (same guy who buried the rabbit) and Madeline wanted to introduce him to her furry, still and slightly stiff friend. Afterwards, I ask her if maybe we should bury the little guy.

"Yeah!" she screeches. "He needs to be buried! Mr. Richard, do you know how to bury things?"

So, he buried her caterpillar right then and there. And I heard a sweet little song in the back of my head: "Oh caterpillar, dear caterpillar. You are dead. You won't turn into a butterfly. La la la..."

We continued our trash pick-up and pretty soon we arrived at our pathetic little garden. We had tried our hand this year at planting edible items in a little 5 ft by 3 ft patch of dirt. Having noticed that the rabbits and snails were not interested in waiting until harvest time to munch, I had sprayed all our plants with a mixture of water, dish soap, baking powder and garlic. I couldn't help but snicker as I now saw the naked stems of our zucchini plants poking out of the ground. My neighbor asked what was funny and I told him to be on the lookout for bubble burping bunnies because I had mistakenly sprayed down my garden with Mr. Rabbit's favorite dressing. So much for going "organic"...Maybe I ought to have tried spraying the plants down with the Clorox instead....it seems to keep things from eating our toilets anyway. :)