Freeze-Frame: Lumberjack

Tadhg has a handful of shows he's allowed to watch on occasion. Animal shows are almost without exception too scary, but he has a deep affinity for an old British show with five installments on YouTube   (Here Comes a Tractor and Here Comes a Digger being the big winners there) and another show with a paltry number of episodes called Tractor Ted. Both are really educational for a wee man who loves machines. His Favorite of All Favorites is called "Tractor Ted: Timber Machines." It features down-to-earth farmers doing exciting things on the land with thrilling machines.

Anyway, he has clearly been inspired by his foray into Youtube.

He came downstairs this morning, ready to get bundled up to go outside with me. In his hand was a nondescript metal tool he had found, probably some sort of bike tool. As we descended the stairs together,  he proclaimed, "Cut down trees. Make fence posts."

And with a bit of imagination, that's just what he did.

Eleven Months of Pippin

What a fast-flying month of teeth-brushing, stair-climbing, proper crawling, peach-fuzz-hope-of-hair-growing, outdoor-exploring, car-vrooming, and lightswitch-operating. Sprinkle in a good bit of personality, and you can imagine what a fun month we've had. Pippin is a wonderful puzzle, as all people are. He's quiet and observant and thoughtful and a bit reserved, but somehow he's managing to convince me that he's going to have a sizable dose of class clown in him. He's been such a goofball this month, cracking himself and everybody else up and then being delighted with his own wit. Combine his great zeal for making people laugh with his lack of body awareness and his physical recklessness, and I think we have a recipe for future disaster. Blood, broken bones, what-have-you. I'm not looking forward to it.

What I am looking forward to, though, is getting to know who you are more and more, little man. Our quiet bloomer--you grow without fanfare, and your presence doesn't demand attention. But I'm here to watch.

The monthiversary photo-dump is all from his actual monthiversary this time around (impressively, I still managed to include a ridiculous number of snapshots). I've been spending so much time outside that I haven't been organizing and loading photos and all that good stuff, and then we had company last night. All the candids will come later when I carve out a sufficient chunk of time to post them.

A blurry one, because Real Life.

** Note--a couple of photos have the monthiversary tag upside down. Yep. I've descended that low. Enjoy.

He has no interest in binkies for himself, but he does love stealing Tadhg's.

Oh, Pip. You can be so wonderfully funny-looking sometimes.

This right here is a classic Pippin face. Intent.

Freeze-Frame: The Making of a Man

Tadhg has had an ambivalent relationship with our chickens for many months now. They're interesting, alright, but a rooster's crow is an offense worthy of loud caterwauling. Looking up from unsuspecting play to find fowl surrounding you is enough to give a boy nightmares. And being henpecked is as bad as it sounds.

All of this set the stage for what happened a week or so ago. Rundy was pruning our grapevines, and after a busy day of trying to reduce our "flower" beds from a state of jungle frenzy to mere unkemptness I was sitting on the hill near him in the grass with the boys. I scooped up first one hen, then another, to sit in my lap. Pippin was eager to pet the hens (defining petting loosely, as babies do). Even Tadhg with his checkered past with fowl was interested in petting them. The last of the bunch I brought up to sit with us was Marigold, a beautiful Buff Orpington who is the most meek, spineless chicken I've ever met. I'm her only friend in the world. She brings out the vilest, most bestial nature a chicken possesses, and the rest of our flock gangs up on her and harries her mercilessly. Chickens have no respect for the lily-livered of their own kind.

When I first placed her in my lap and Pippin started to reach for her, Tadhg--ever vigilant--said, "No! Peck." I explained that she was a very nice chicken and that she wasn't the pecking sort. I went on to tell the sad story of how she suffers at the brutal hands (beaks? claws? etc.) of the South Street Chicken Gang. He listened wide-eyed, then rejoined, "Ma'gode come inside?"

A soft-hearted solution, yes. But, alas, this Mama's heart isn't that soft.

We let Marigold go and wandered back down the hill to the house. Just then, Tadhg got to witness the flock in bloodthirsty action going after poor, hapless, witless (but sweet!) Marigold.

And what did that boy do but gird up his chicken-fearing loins and start trotting off after them all on his stocky little legs, tremulously--heartbreakingly--calling, "Ma'gode!! Ma'gode!!"

Nothing like a damsel in distress to make a boy a man.