Tuesday, May 26, 2015

The Velveteen All Night Cry Fest

So we just watched The Velveteen Rabbit, a version that I can't say I liked too much, though the kids loved it.  In this version, for whatever reason, they have the little boy's mother dead (at her funeral, actually), the father avoiding him, and the boy living with his mean grandmother--so it's off to a running start.  Then he switches to this wild cartoon pretend-world with lots of flying and singing and the kids thought it was great.

So I wasn't too worried about anything but my own boredom every time it switched to cartoon, until the little boy gets sick.  And the animals in cartoon world tell us he's dying, and in the cartoon tree house the lightening strikes the wood and it starts burning, and the bunny has to sacrifice himself to the flames for the little boy to be pushed off into the river below.  Very strange and disturbing.  At this point, Abigail was hysterical; had I known it was coming, we wouldn't have watched it.

So then the boy wakes up and then we really have problems.  Because the boy's father takes the bunny downstairs in a sack and immediately starts a bonfire (whatever happened to the gardener waiting until the next day and the fairy coming overnight to take the rabbit away?) and tosses the sack in.  And they actually let us watch the sack burn, it was unbelievable.  I didn't turn it off because I kept telling them it was going to get better and end happy, but it was a bit of a train wreck.

So there is a redemptive ending, in which the dad and now happy "Nana" play baseball with the boy, and a real rabbit watches, but we had trouble getting past the burn pile.

So I lose one of the boys to wild tears because the movie is so sad--and then he remembers his lost monkey from years ago that he periodically mourns (our best guess is that it was in the little storage container of his broken rider tractor that broke and got thrown out) and vows to go searching for in the dump.  So he came unglued for a good 15 minutes.

Then I lose the second one because he feels so bad for his brother that he can't stop crying.  And even though I read them the book so they'd know the real ending, I find that for some of us, The Velveteen Rabbit is just too sad.  And also, I'm a little jealous of daddy having to work tonight.

Sunday, May 24, 2015

Question after Church

Mom, at night does Jesus come to get the offering?

[Are we having tooth fairy confusion?]

Friday, May 22, 2015

Solving the Rooster Situation . . .

So, roosters have been an issue ever since we moved to our new house.  They generally start crowing at 5:00 in summer and 6:00 in winter--or sometimes if it rains or is unusually cool they are quiet.  But lately it has been hot and dry.  And my neighbor's roosters (which are constantly being sold and then replaced by new hatchlings) are early risers.  For the last three or four weeks they've been waking up around 3:00 each morning.  Needless to say, since I have sleep issues to begin with, it has not been ideal.

We had talked to our neighbor before about his roosters when they were waking us up before 5:00, but he insisted that his roosters sleep until 6:00--He laughed and offered to tape their mouths shut at night.  I was excited until Owen assured me he was being sarcastic.

So a few months passed and the early risers came.  There have been a lot of jokes about chicken soup and dead roosters at our house.  Micah took to lurking near them with a metal bat, hoping to kill them.  We thought of paying a rooster hit man to kill them for us (because honestly, we're too citified to do it).

A few weeks ago we met with the neighborhood association president and he assured us that rooster ownership was illegal and he'd be meeting with our neighbor.

Today when Owen called him back he told us that yesterday they'd elected a new president so he wasn't going to get involved, but that we could go to the ministry of environment about it.  Sounds promising.

So Owen went to talk to our neighbor once again and try to make him an offer he couldn't refuse.  But we aren't exactly tough guys.  And our neighbor seemed very surprised and skeptical at Owen's statement that it was illegal to have roosters in a residential area.  He had to be assured of this fact multiple times and wanted to know where Owen heard that.  Then he told Owen he'd make sure they didn't crow at night (although he'd already admitted that he doesn't hear them).

So the result of our talk was our neighbor telling us that these are valuable fighting roosters and the best he could do was sell them to us.  Owen said, "Well, are you just going to raise more?" and the neighbor assured him that he will raise no more roosters.  Owen told him his price seemed a little high, since he considered sleep more of a right than a privilege and tried to talk him down.  So the neighbor offered to sell us one at that price.  Owen said he'd talk to me and get back to him.

We decided to tell him we'd buy the two he has if he promises to stop raising roosters and to get rid of any of the chicks he has if they turn out to be roosters.  And he agreed.

He said we could make soup out of them.

Owen said we really don't want to deal with killing them, so he could do whatever he wanted, he could even sell them and get paid twice for all we care.  We just want them gone.

He said they'll be gone tomorrow.

I'll keep you posted . . .