Another Adventure with A Boy

I seem to have a lot of "adventures" (to put it kindly) with James and Ben that leave me shaking my head. I quietly often think, "I'm sure I'll laugh about this one day." Generally I'm not laughing at the moment, which is exactly why I blog about them - so I can remember to laugh one day!

This morning, the kids were out in the down-pour to do their chores; that's the rough part about farm animals, they require feeding no matter how bad the weather is. So, all the kids that needed to go out put on rain boots and a rain coat, except for James who headed out without either, then came back in to complain in the middle of his chores that he was wet. But that's not the adventure...

I happened to be at the front door, trying to talk Elijah into wearing his rain-boots instead of the black church shoes he was determined to wear out the door. (Guess who won? Some things aren't worth the fight and the shoes are almost dry on the edge of the bathtub!) Anyway, Elijah and I were at the door when Ben discovered a box turtle sitting in the drive-way. Everyone admired him for a minute, then I pointed to the area of trees near the drive-way and told them to put him there and finish their chores. So, about an hour later, Alyssa tells me that James took the turtle and put him in a box. I immediately call James who admits that he didn't want to let the turtle carry on a humane life, so he stuck him in a box and was planning on coming back to give him food, blah, blah, blah, but he forgot. Of course, I commenced with lecture #2,002 titled, "What Did I Tell You To Do AND What Did You Do." James is very familiar with the content of this lecture, so for the life of me, I can't figure out why he still requires it. Anyway, during the lecture, in walks Ben. Ben has this interesting ability of "handling" things without calling for assistance that would have the average child screaming for back-up. So, Ben calmly explains that the box that James decided to stow the turtle in was actually the treasure box from his birthday party and in that box were little, green army men. For some crazy reason, the turtle decided to eat one of the army men and had it lodged in it's little mouth. Ben was down-stairs, (that's right, until this part of the story I actually assumed that James kept the turtle box outside, but NO, it was in his room) so, Ben was trying to pry the turtle's mouth open to remove the army man. When he couldn't hold his grip on the army man, he used his teeth to pull it out of the turtle's mouth. Can anyone say SALMONELLA? So, mind you, Ben never called for any help, but he saved the turtle! The army man was in two pieces, and I'm not sure who's teeth did that, but the turtle was alive and well upon release.

So, one more day of raising boys!

Since I didn't think to take a picture of James and his turtle during my lecture, I'll post this one of Elijah doing Spanish with Moriah. He and Julia both enjoy doing French and Spanish with the girls, which I find amusing. And, just for clarification - yes, our office is generally this messy.

Tomorrow I am going on a women's retreat for the weekend; it's the first time I've left Elijah over night, but I have no dount that he'll be just fine.