Bird Poop Ad Infinitum and Other Important Subjects

(If this topic doesn't interest you, feel free to skip it and go on over to my friend Angela's blog for a look at her little girl's adventure in a bowl.)

We have this fabulous tree out front - super shady, with one of those long, thick, outreaching branches that just begs to be climbed upon. The unfortunate thing is that the branch (and most of the rest of the tree) is over our assigned parking space. And lots of birds like to fly and sit in the tree with the cool branch that hangs over our assigned parking place. They also like to poop while they are flying and sitting there. I have washed the car more in the few months we have lived in this house than in the few years before, combined. That reflects my general neglect of all things car-related, but it's also a comment on the bird poop situation.

But actually, I'm not sure if I wash the car more because of the bird poop itself, or because of the toddler who zealously chants, "Bud-poop-window, bud-poop-window, bud-poop-window," every time we get in the car to go anywhere. The chant continues for several minutes and is only sometimes concluded either by the three-year-old, who invariably says, "Mom, can we go to the car wash? A bird pooped on Henry's window again," or else by me getting into the line at the car wash before we continue with other errands. There's just nothing else to be done about the poop or the chant but wash the car.

Well, I guess we could cover the car with a tarp every time we get out of it, and uncover it every time we want to go somewhere, like the guy next door who just bought a shpanky new porsche (he's a bachelor with three roommates to share the rent - we don't live in a naturally shpanky neighborhood, I promise). But the diaper bag, two car seats, and the handfuls of rocks that are collected between the front door and the car every time we exit is already more than I can handle. A tarp to contend with would put me in the loony bin for sure. Besides, the car wash doubles as ten minutes of entertainment for the engineer in Calvin.

Here are a few other conversations from today:

First thing this morning, Calvin told me his tummy really hurt. He looked uncomfortable, so I asked if it hurt like he was going to throw up? No...Does it feel like you just need to go potty? No...Well, do you think it hurts because you are hungry? And then he said, "No, I think it's just tired of running." To which I said, "But you just got up. You haven't been running at all yet today." And he said, "I know I haven't, but my tummy has been running a lot, and I think it's just tired of it." I guess you're never too young to feel some days like parts of your body must just be tired of operating...

I'm not really very adept today at figuring out my children's ailments, apparently. Henry tried to "escape" from some play equipment at the park by going down the firemen's pole. (If the six-year-olds can do it, why can't he? is what he thinks). He fell, of course. It was a short pole, thankfully, but he landed pretty hard and had some measure of wounded pride, I think. I didn't see what he hit on the way down, and I ran over to him. He laid his head on my shoulder as I asked, "Oh, Henry, what did you hurt?" He lifted up his head, and looked at me incredulously, with big crocodile tears, and wailed, "MMEEEEEEEE!"

But my favorite comment was today while driving down the road, when Calvin said, completely out of the blue,"Mom, our house is only big enough for ONE thing, and that's...all of us!"

Sometimes I wish for more profound things to talk about each day, but other times, my boys get it just about right. I generally like life in our house that's just big enough for all of us, bird-poop inviting tree and all.