RoyalMom

For some reason, I got it in my head that we needed some chickens. We still have to build a coop in the backyard but the baby chicks will be here next week! They stay inside, in their brooder box for the first 8 weeks, so we have plenty of time.

I think I will be spending entire days staring at these chicks. Ducks and geese have always fascinated me, in an old Farside comic way. I can just see them gossiping about the goings-on. And the bossy way the geese try and dominate a bridge or park bench at the park, cracks me up.

Although I would love to have my own flock of ducks in the backyard, I thought chickens might be a better start. I'm getting a couple Buff Orpingtons and a couple Red Star hens. Both breeds are fat birds with brown eggs.

Nothing much else going on. I think we finally completed all the enrollment requirements for the kindergarten at home. Being October now, I was beginning to think we were skipping K altogether!

Isaac is five! The big kindergardener...

Xander is two and 3/4...

Jason and I with our "mini-me." What will the the third baby look like??

17 week belly...

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I was hoping to be loving my four chickies by now, but had some fallout with my orders and still have six extras. They are running around the brooder box in our living room, having a great time. They love to kick all of the bedding into the water dish, the moment I clean it out.

Here's one little fella. My goal is to get some light in those beedy black eyes some day. But, this one is in a mini-studio on the kitchen table (aka, piece of paper with chicken on it). I should take a pic every week to share the progression from cute chick, to awkward "teenager," to full sized chicken.

A new search engine msdewey.com. She gets really impatient with your search request, and gives out some nice stingers for various search words. Jason and I got a kick out of her response to our "windows xp" search.

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Xander slipped and fell on the concrete, at the park. I saw him fall and it seemed he caught himself with his hands. He must have made contact with his face to the ground for a split second, and it was enough to fracture one of his front teeth in three places!

After telling me his tooth was broken, I saw what looked like two teeth. Like a second tooth was pushed out over his baby tooth. But it was his one tooth broken and rearranged with the impact (::::::shudder:::::::).

Here he is with his fractured tooth, too damaged for repair:

He was sedated and the broken tooth was pulled. He will have a gap, right in the front, for the next 3-4 years. My little guy. Its so weird to see this broken smile.

They had a sudden growth spurt, and are fly/jumping quite high in the box already. One perches herself on top of the feeder somehow. Now that some red feathers are poking out, I can see we mixed up the two breeds a bit. Oops!

This little one looks so different than all the rest, with the long, skinny white neck and head. And "he" is the most domestic. He runs for me, to be pet, when I put my hand in and he looks up for me when he hears my voice, as shown in the pic. None of the other chicks do this. Because he looks so different, I am wondering if we have a little rooster in the brood?

And here you can see the feathers growing out a little...

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Yep, we had the ultrasound and its another boy. Wowee, three boys. Even though it's what I was expecting, I am having a "pensive" day, instead of an excited day. Now throw in some Smiths, in my iTunes, and its really hitting me.

Every time I hear The Smiths, I fly back to 16, riding the city bus, with my walkman, to my pottery class at the community college. While I worked on my ceramic boxes and coil pots, others made bongs and nude sculptures. It was a fun group:D

In other news, I sold the extra chicks to a guy that works at the feed store, and we are down to the five we picked out for ourselves. It was supposed to be four, but Jason got soft and held back an extra chick while I was packing the extras to go. And he is at Home Depot right now, getting our coop supplies.

Now we have to think of a boy name. So far, I tossed around "River" (my mother groaned at, and that is why we didn't tell anyone last time!!!), But Jason vetoed it, and I just evened the score when I vetoed his "Ezra."

If anyone out there is having a girl and still looking for a name, I have one "Lotus" up for grabs.

Wednesday, we went to the pumpkin patch with the kids and their cousins, and the corn maze was HUGE and muddy! And the kids rode a cow train, squished together in one cow. Apparently, Xander cried during all the bumpy parts. Poor guy.

Later that night, Jason and I went to the Regina Spektor concert and it was FABULOUS! She is awesome. A great performance with her amazing voice, and excellent humor. The only bummer was the general admission, my short stature, our position in the back, my pregnant self, standing in one spot, no place to sit, and not able to drink. There you have it.

Our crew, leaving me in the dust...

It melts a mother's heart to see her two boys take care of each other. Isaac had his arm around his younger brother, for the ride.

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