Knotty Laundry, Naughty Squirrels, and Perfect Children

I'll start with the perfect children. Obviously I do not have perfect children, nor do my children have anything close to a perfect mother. But there are moments every now and then, that cause me to smile with the satisfaction of a mother who is witnessing something as close to perfect as I think I'll see this side of heaven.

This is The Oldest having a tea party picnic with his littlest sister and her Bitty Twins. The best part is that the whole thing was his idea. Instead of asking to play Wii or running up to his room to play Legos when he finished school today, he found Little One and asked her if she wanted him to play Bitty Twins with her. (Insert sappy mom smile). The real kicker- they cleaned everything up when they were finished, with no reminder. A little slice of perfection, right here in my living room- Friday, February 10.

Now for the knotty laundry.

This is a load of laundry after I took it out of the washing machine today. The usual yank and shake method of separating only made matters much worse. This was so tangled that it reminded me of one of those puzzles where there are pieces of metal all twisted together and you have to figure out how to get them all apart. I finally succeeded in separating the 14 pieces of laundry that had decided to become one during their spins in the washer. I love doing laundry- Friday, February 10.

And lastly, the naughty squirrels.

I must start this rant by saying I haven't always disliked squirrels. In fact, I was remembering that a roommate from college really liked squirrels and had numerous squirrel items in our room. I never thought twice about it, nor did I walk into our room and suddenly feel like throwing things at the stuffed animal squirrel on her bed. 

My recent dislike of squirrels actually started over Christmas. You see, we had the back deck all wrapped with lights for the holidays. I love Christmas lights. They make me happy. Except when a certain naughty squirrel decided to nibble on them for a Christmas snack. The first time it was kind of funny. Ha, ha, a squirrel was eating our Christmas lights. The second time that I had to restring half the deck because naughty squirrel always chewed on the strand right in the middle, causing it to short out, it wasn't really funny at all. The third time I caught him in the act, and if I had had something heavy to throw at him, I would have. Because I couldn't take out my anger on the naughty squirrel, I sent an irate email to my husband, who happened to be at a very boring class for work and proceeded to show the email to his equally bored co-workers, who now think I am insane.

 Here is naughty squirrel perched at his favorite spot to nibble, right in the middle of the middle strand of Christmas lights- Wednesday, December 7, 2011.

This is our deck after a visit from naughty squirrel. I finally gave up replacing the ruined lights and tried to enjoy a deck only half-decked out for the holidays- Wednesday, December 7, 2011.

After sending the email, I stewed for a while, but then realized my general anger about the squirrel would get me nowhere, so I decided to channel it and put it to good use. I started devising a plan to get rid of this squirrel once and for all. While I favored my first plan, which featured me dressed very similarly to Rambo, my husband intervened and persuaded me to go with plan B, which involved getting my Dad's box trap, filling it with peanut butter and bird seed, and waiting. Though I still regret not getting to wear the camouflage head band, I have to say I'm glad we went with the second option. The squirrel was in the trap less than an hour after setting it on our deck. Later that same day we dropped him off in a field along the edge of some woods a few miles from our house and peace and order was restored to the back yard.

Or was it? A few weeks after the relocation, I caught sight of this guy sheepishly peeking out from behind our neighbor's fence.

He was acting a little strange for my liking and wait a minute, where did that rip in his ear come from? Could it be from an afternoon spent in a box trap? Now, I have no way of proving that this is in fact the same naughty squirrel. But I do wonder if chewing on those Christmas lights might have given him some sort of mutant squirrel power that allowed him to track his way back home- Saturday, January 14.

So why the ranting about squirrels today? Good question. You have this guy to thank for my mini tirade.

He spent a good part of the morning trying to get some of the birdseed that had spilled on the deck when the girls somehow knocked down my bird feeder a few days ago. The best part of this whole thing is that Little One stood a faithful watch at the back door and ran outside yelling every time a squirrel paw hit the deck railing. If only she had a camouflage headband- Friday, February 10.

The attempted visits of the squirrel today caused me to step back and reflect on the naughtiness of squirrels as a whole. No, I do not like squirrels trying to steal the food I have set out for my lovely little birds, but as I thought, I was able to acknowledge that squirrels have to eat too. And when the bird seed is spilled all over the deck, practically shouting an invitation to all of our back yard wildlife to partake of its goodness, how can I really be angry? I guess what I realized is that I can't blame a squirrel for trying to fill his belly with some yummy food. And when it comes down to it, I guess I really don't mind having squirrels living in our back yard. Their acrobatic leaps from the swing set to the trees can be quite entertaining. But be warned, come December, if any squirrel so much as looks at my Christmas lights, I haven't forgotten plan A!