Lice...what a nightmare!

When we were on our recent trip in PA, I noticed a little bug crawling in Alida's hair.  I pulled it out, looked closely at it, showed it to a few others and then assured myself (after a minuscule amount of online research) that it must be a book louse acquired through her reading lots of books that do not receive much attention anymore at the house.  That was the last I thought about it, until two nights ago.  Kali and I landed in the bathroom at the same time and on a whim I grabbed her brush and was redoing her braids. I just snag the opportunity when it comes, as it sometimes doesn't come around more than once every few days.  The light must have been just right because almost immediately I recognized the little nits right near her scalp.  Talk about a sinking feeling in my gut!  On closer examination, I saw the little bugs that looked just like what I had found in Alida's hair the weekend before.

I don't know if it was that I was still feeling too sick to think deeply about what I was seeing in PA or if there was some internal and unconscious denial that it could be lice.  Normally I second guess myself like crazy and can't let that kind of thing rest until I'm assured I've been thorough in figuring it out.  It truly was the farthest thing from my mind all week. I had combed both girls hair multiple times and hadn't noticed anything.  Boy did I miss a growing population!!  But we'll get to that.

Once I was pretty sure I had a solid diagnosis of what we were up against I went outside to break the news to Jason.  It had been yet another day where our to do list did not even come close to matching the hours available in the day. He was working hard on some weeding and was trying to get to a certain point before he quit for the evening so we could enjoy our last evening together with my niece and nephew who were staying with us from PA.  We had plans to make an outdoor fire and cook pizza pockets over it and relax!

I needed a good 10-15 minutes for a little "flip out" session where I vented about the bad timing of this, the unfairness of it, how I didn't want to have to deal with this, etc... This included a call to my mom for any tips she might remember from when I had it (multiple times), and no doubt a little desire for some sympathy.  It felt like a whole different thing to face this as a mother.  When I had it as a middle schooler it was horrible.  Being sent home from school is no fun.  But once home I just shampooed with what I was given, sat while my hair was combed and then went back to whatever I was doing.  Sadly, I have no memory of helping to clean, vacuum, do laundry, etc...  And I didn't have the quandary of what product to put on my child's scalp, what approach of all those out there to take to eradicate the little buggers!

And, I'll admit, that I've never thought that I should do some research into what we would do if/when one of our children brings lice home.  Never rose to the top of the priority list - actually never even entered my mind to get on the list.  So here I was feeling flustered, uncertain of what to do first, wanting to help the four kiddos in our care to have a good evening, thinking of the many people I needed to communicate with who had been with us over the past few weeks, and already feeling tired without even having started!

But after my mini-meltdown of "I can't do this," I (better said "we") did it!  And Jason and I make a pretty good team.  We got into action and spent much of the next 24 hours in high gear, and in the highest gear from about 7 p.m. that evening until 2:30 a.m. when we crashed for a bit of replenishing rest before continuing.  I have never done so much laundry in such a short amount of time and we used the dryer in one night more than we normally do in one year.  There were little side perks of the whole ordeal - for example, our car was vacuumed out for the first time in a long time.  Jason even commented on how impressed he was that I hadn't mentioned its grossness sooner.

We did take the time to make a fire and sit around it with the kids which was definitely the highlight of the evening.  That and my new food experiment that was a HIT!  I came up with the idea to try sliced polenta as the "bread" for pizza pockets in my desire to find a gluten-free option that is just as delicious.  Success!! I'm already eager to do it again.  We used our home grown brown flint corn which I ground and boiled and then solidify in a loaf pan.  Simple, able to grow it ourselves and delicious.  We'll be doing that again...

As the sun set, we decided it was time to start slathering all our heads with the oily goop I had found at Kroger (the one "pesticide free" option on the shelf that looked promising).  I got out the detailed instructions and found it sobering to read around 9 p.m. that one might expect to spend up to an hour combing hair that was longer than shoulder length.  Kali's now touches the chair when she sits AND it is thick AND she had it the worst.  Below that section of the instructions were some tips, including the use of movies to pass the time.  I felt very pleased with my stop by the library the day before our niece and nephew arrived to grab a few movies "just in case."  Thanks to Shaun the Sheep and Max & Ruby we survived the next few hours together in the bathroom and even all seemed to see the humor in finding ourselves with oil-filled heads having a movie party in our bathroom (I guess our huge bathroom is good for something - often feels like a lot of wasted floor space)..

By the end of the evening we had determined that Kali had a massive infestation (we are talking dozens and dozens of bugs), Alida had clearly gotten her fair share of them, and Jason and I had a few each.  Thankfully no sign of any on our niece or nephew and we aimed to keep it that way - load after load of towels, sheets, blankets, clothing, hats, baby carriers, etc...made their way into the washer.  Two black trash bags are in the garage with quarantined stuffed animals and other non-washable items.

I may actually be getting ahead of myself to even post this as it is not 100% certain we are out of the woods but it feels like we are on our way.  We did a comb through last evening and found no bugs, dead or alive, and only very dead/deflated looking nits on Kali and a few on Alida.  So fingers crossed we have licked them.

One of the hardest things was sending that "my child has lice" email to friends and family.  I like to give people I love nice things.  Lice is not on that list!  I've gotten only gracious and understanding responses, even from the one friend whose son can probably thank Kali for the nits they have found.  

I've thought a lot the last few days about maintaining perspective and accepting what comes our way and making the most of it.  It is not hard to get a quick and huge dose of perspective with the news flooding in from Gaza and the personal calls for help from alumni of the graduate program I work with.  It is heartbreaking and brings me up short when I find myself inclined to complain about the huge inconvenience this has been.  It was an inconvenience, but that and only that.  We are all safe, well fed, and comfortable (other than slightly itchy scalps).  So the title of this blog should probably be changed.  It felt in some ways like a nightmare but it is more accurately a bad dream, and a very short-lived one.  

The morning after being up until 2:30 a.m. I opened my email to find that the Peace on the Inside quote for the day was "Always fall in with what you're asked to accept. Take what is given, and make it over your way."  The recommended practice noted that "There is much in our lives that we can't determine, influence, or control.  Today I recognize that my task is not only to accept this, but to find ways to adapt, reframe, reshape, reimagine... to become an artist who uses disaster, discomfort, disappointment as a canvas upon which to express and create."

It's a recommended practice because they are not expecting we are all experts at it yet.  I'm certainly not, but I do feel that all of us have weathered this as well as could be expected.  The kids especially have been great sports about it.  I think a side benefit will be that Kali is unlikely to complain about "normal" hair brushings ever again!!

It felt good today to head outside and do some garden harvesting, to play in the kitchen making pasta with the girls, and to not put a single load of laundry in the washer!  

Alida is now up from her nap and it is time to start working on sauteing my third round of squash, garlic and onions of the day (this time for a potluck so those in our family that might be getting tired of squash can pick something else to enjoy!).  To end on a happy note, here is Kali with her fast growing "ducky!"

Pickles and more...

If there weren't pickles in the canner, I would be very inclined towards bed rather than blogging.  But, as it is, the canner is just about to boil so I've got a few minutes to do what will probably be a rather shoddy job of getting this blog up to date. Frankly, I'm not even sure where to start.  Since I last posted, it has been a whirlwind of social gatherings, visits from out of town friends and family, the never ending cycle of harvesting and processing food that defines this time of year, a few canning projects, my first experience of acupuncture, the worst bug I've been slammed with in years, a date night with Jason where we went to two movies at Court Square Theater (we started with the compelling and angering documentary Fed Up and ended with a feel good romantic comedy Words and Pictures), and finally a trip to PA and back.  Life has not been dull!  Is it ever?

On the garden front, we are enjoying our first pole beans, cucumbers and tomatoes.  We are enjoying the last of our sugar snap and snow peas and the wineberries and black raspberries are also winding down.  We continue to be surprised by the lovely kale we are enjoying (we've never been successful at spring kale).  I pull an occasional beet for Alida (who downs as many as I cook up for her).  There are herbs in abundance, mustard greens, lots of squash, onions and garlic.  We dug all our garlic recently and are happy to report that there will be no ping pong playing for some time now because the table is full and overflowing with garlic!  I'm using it by the bulb not by the clove and we are loving it!  We had a major garden scare when we got back from our weekend in PA.  Our fence charger had stopped working and we had purchased a new one but in the rush to get ready for our trip we had not gotten it charged and installed.  A deer got in our garden for the first time ever and possibly also a groundhog.  YIKES!!!  Jason was vigilant with liquid fence for the few days that it took to get the charger up and running and as of last evening the fence was once again giving a good shock to any creature (including Jason) that dared touch it.  And, yes, we did bait it with peanut butter to attract the critters to the garden fence for a little lesson about how they would be happier elsewhere.  So for now it seems the beans are safe, if we can keep up with the bean beetles!

I did get around to picking and making red & white currant jam.  Pretty stuff!!  More recently we enjoyed two evenings of wineberry picking (thanks to the generosity of the parents of some close friends) and made a large batch of wineberry jam, as well as freezing several gallons.  It is a good and bad sign that our stand up freezer is jammed full and the chest freezer is not all that far behind.  Good thing I don't need to freeze cucumbers!  I did freeze some grated trombone squash the other day and hope to give a little more space to more of that before the season ends.  The other thing we harvested the first of the other day was potatoes.  They were delicious and so beautiful.  When I was showing them off to my friend, she asked if I was going to take a picture for the blog.  She noted that it just looked like something that would show up on the blog.  Here it is!

It is often good for us to get away here and there during this time of year, because otherwise we have a really hard time slowing down.  The only other things that seem to do the trick for me are getting really sick or having a baby around.  Well, I got really sick and slowed to a grinding halt and then went to PA where there was a sweet baby that I couldn't hold for fear of passing my illness to her.  What a bummer that was!  But I enjoyed our niece from a distance and it was very special to initiate a quilt top made by Grammy Benner with cousins (thanks to Mom Myers and her sewing circle friends for knotting it)!

The highlight of the weekend for our kiddos was definitely pool time.  I'll end with a short video of the activity that Alida was not interested in discontinuing, even when her lips were purple!

Rain, rain and more rain!

What a June!  We were out weeding and getting beans planted right up until dark tonight and I commented how crazy it felt to be hand weeding without tools at this time of year.  The ground is chock full of moisture and the plants are responding!  Jason is tucking in trombone squash vines into the trellis at least once a day, and today twice.  Water, sun, soil, compost and seeds are a pretty amazing combination! I spent the first few hours of my day going out and in with tea, lettuce, spinach, kale, mustard greens, sugar snap peas, snow peas, lambsquarter, amaranth, basil, and parsley. I weeded as I went and Alida joined me for part of the time, picking some red currants in the kitchen garden.  So the morning was veggies and this afternoon after Alida's nap I worked on fruit but only got as far as the red raspberry patch (picking several quarts) since I got side tracked in the potato patch and ended up weeding the whole thing (giving what I found to the goats to keep them quiet) and picking off a good number of potato bugs! Thankfully Kali got inspired to pick black raspberries and found about a quart around our place.  Maybe tomorrow on the red and white currants?

It seems that around here our best laid plans must be held loosely.  Jason's last two work days have been exclusively work that was not on our radar when last we went over the project list.  And it has been hard and heavy work.  That rainstorm I mentioned in a previous post ended up dumping about 2.5 inches of rain in about an hour, after we had received an inch the night before.  It had no where to go and so it ran on the surface all over the place!!  Here's a smattering of pictures of what we found after the rain let up.  There was plenty of fun to be had and the duckling was quite impressed, but Jason has been rebuilding our driveway and still has a ways to go.  

Nora's garden retention pit was full to the top!

We have a pond (and hand dug one!)

Yes, a little pleased!

Ducky is enjoying a swim...

and dabbling for food.

Bonus picture: the butterfly weed in Nora's garden is exquisite right now and the bees love it - see how many you can spot in this picture!

Homemade peppermint patties!

It may have to be a "two post night" as this one must stand on its own.

The other week while Jason was in his SPI class, the girls spent a day here at home with Rachelle.  Kali must have picked up my "pesto bug" (it tends to hit me about this time each year), and she suggested they make peppermint pesto.  Sounds a little weird right?  Looking online only got them savory recipes and they were thinking sweet.  So they took matters into their own hands and made up a recipe.  Here it is (sorry, we haven't done it enough times to have refined the recipe enough to include amounts):

Lots of fresh peppermint leaves picked off the stems

Fair trade organic almonds from the Friendly City Food Co-op

Local honey

Vanilla made by Rachelle

Coconut oil that has been warmed enough to be liquefied

Puree in a blender or whatever you might use to make pesto. 

Well, what is one going to do once the pesto is made? When blended it is a little runny and so in order to do much with it, other than eat it by the spoonful which is not a bad idea, you might wish to harden it up a bit in the fridge.  It is kind of like a breath mint straight, but it was begging for chocolate.  So that first round we made some into little balls, froze them to harden the coconut oil and then coated them with dark fair trade organic melted chocolate wafers.  Quite tolerable!  They didn't last very long at all and I was already thinking of ways to improve the final product - like making round disks of the pesto so you have more surface area for chocolate.

So today I made a batch of pesto with the girls for the first time and we have our very own homemade peppermint patties hardening in the fridge to be shared at tomorrow's Tangly Woods community meal.  I will admit to being pretty impressed with Kali's invention and pretty pleased with myself for making a homemade version of a candy favorite in the Benner household.  It almost borders on healthy!

YUM!

Family night & a garden paradise

I'm typing with the sound of rain pounding on our roof and thunder rumbling in the background.  The mountain is almost completely obscured from my vision.  Alida is napping, the duckling is quiet (for once) and Kali and Jason are in the garage refurbishing the pet chicken coop to be ready for a duck!

This weekend feels like a gift - none of us will get in a car for over 48 hours (a truly Sabbath weekend!).  I'm treasuring the hours at home together.  For a number of reasons (not the least of which is some lingering health concerns that are to date unresolved), I feel like I'm not only needing this time here at home focused on our family life together but also savoring it all the way to my core!  We kicked off the weekend last evening with a fun family night.

On our way home from an only very moderately successful trip into town, Jason and I chuckled about the fact that even when we try to be a "normal" family we fail miserably.  You see the girls have these "free Friday wrist bands" from the library's summer reading program and last evening they could each play a round of mini-golf at Mulligan's for free.   Most of our Fridays coming up are already spoken for and this was at the top of Kali's list anyway.  So off we set shortly after 7 p.m.  On our way to the car, I felt the first drop of rain and the feeling in the air "was not good" for a family set out to go mini-golfing!  By the time we were on our way down 11 South it was raining.  Plan B.  We would just fork over the money and go bowling.  Jason went in, confirmed it was open to the public and came out to fetch us. I was proud of my foresight when grabbing socks for those of us with sandals on (just in case).  We soon learned from the staff person at the desk that the only option available to us was Cosmic bowling, which was $10/person for a 2 hour block.  That started at 8 and it was about 7:40 p.m.  We asked if we could just play one regular game. No, because we wouldn't be done by 8.  We asked if just the girls could play a regular game.  No, the manager had said no one on the lanes before 8.  

We deliberated for all of 5 seconds before heading out.  Plan C.  We stopped at Sharp Shopper right before closing, picked up some special snacks and headed home.  We set up our own duck pin bowling (complete with duck) and had a grand time, ending the family evening with a game of Upwords!  The girls were amazingly flexible, not complaining at all when what they had been looking forward to doing was no longer possible, and in the end I think we had way more fun than we would have at either Plan A or B.   

Here was one of the creative uses we have found for our duck pins.  Make sure to have the volume turned up to catch Alida's belly laugh!  Kali tried her hardest to get the duckling to follow her down the "lane" and knock down the "pins" but the best she got was the duckling nibbling on one and knocking it over that way.

Since we are on the subject of the duckling, I'll share two additional videos. Please know that I'm using restraint (there are a lot more where these came from)! It's kind of like a new baby in the household.  Everything it does (except its constant peeping when it hears Kali's voice and it is not with her) is pretty cute.  

It now can move quite quickly but can't yet keep up with Kali on our slippery floors.  But it sure tries!!

This little video gives a glimpse into what was a common scene in our back kitchen for a day or two earlier this week.  The girls would play next to the duckling's basin so they could play in peace (or I could cook in peace).  And the duckling got to try out Legos too. 

It really loves nothing more than to be snuggled up with Kali while she is reading. It seems to like to find its way behind her hair on the back of her neck (under its mama's feathers I guess).  I'm not sure how the transition will go with it moving to its own pen outdoors but we have a little while before we have to cross that bridge. In the meantime, we are all enjoying its presence indoors.  Kali takes it out for little adventures - to eat ants on the front walk or down to the little pond Jason is digging to splash around.  Once Alida wakes and this downpour stops, I have a feeling the girls will head out with the duckling to the fire ring for a swim as it is completely flooded several inches of water.  

Even though the weather prediction this morning looked less like rain than when I checked yesterday, it seems like we are getting rain when they call for a small chance of showers.  It was saying "cloudy" for today when I checked after lunch and it sure is cloudy right now but it is also dumping rain down at a very fast clip.  We got an inch last night and I'm guessing we have already gotten more than that in the time I've been typing. Jason just waddled into the house completely drenched.  He sheepishly informed me that he had forgotten that the goats were tethered out.  Apparently he found Oreo standing with his ears dripping water looking pretty pathetic and Cookie Dough huddled by the wall of the composting chicken coop as far out of the rain as he could get and NOT on his leash.  We have no idea how he managed that but he wasn't going anywhere very fast. They were very glad to get back to their little refurbished washing machine house.

Anyway, due to the possible rain predictions, I headed out first thing with Kali and some bowls and baskets to do some harvesting. It's one of my favorite morning activities right now. The air is cool and the bugs are still moving slowly.  This photo is what I got on my first round out with Alida.  The tea is now steeping on the stove (we have been going through about 2 gallons of mint tea daily).  The oregano has been made into pesto and deemed quite edible at lunch.  The parsley was also made into pesto and got the same affirmation.  The lettuce and kale are washed and in the fridge waiting for us to be able to fit more green stuff into our bellies.  The last of the garlic scapes were used promptly with some snow peas for a saute to go with our breakfast (which was closer to brunch by the time we got around to it).  I stringed the sugar snap peas and we are snacking on them whenever the urge hits us.  I've frozen gallons of snow peas and sugar snap peas for the first time ever!  

Before lunch, the girls and I walked up the hill to deliver some peas to our neighbors and on the way were reminded of all the fruit coming ripe!  We ate black raspberries as we meandered up the hill and upon our return I got containers for all three of us.  The girls went up and down the driveway and got a nice little mess of black raspberries.  I checked out our red raspberry patch and in about 10 minutes had filled my quart container, and wasn't nearly done.  That, along with the first blueberries we picked next door yesterday, made for a wonderful lunchtime treat!  While we were picking berries, Jason picked the hull peas (probably the last major picking before we pull the vines and plant green beans), which are waiting for me to shell and freeze.   I think I'll move to that next, as there is really nothing more enjoyable than shelling peas during a rainstorm.

Turtles part two

I, Jason, was sorry to realize the morning after having written the last post that I had failed to include what is arguably the most important turtle sighting, and its attendant ruminations.

There was a movie shown during one SPI lunch break called, as I understand it, Turtle Island.  "Turtle Island" is the name many native american groups used for the north american continent.  I've never heard an explanation of what the significance of this naming is...I suppose the time has come to find out.  The presence of the first human inhabitants of this land is never far from my mind, and their universal name for this continent was one of the first things I associated with the turtle theme that I saw emerging as the class developed.

It's been only in recent years that I learned that my family may have a fairly direct connection with the abuse of native american cultures and groups:  my great-grandparents were among the first settlers of the shores of Lake Superior, and helped to found the town of Bayfield, Wisconsin.  Their habitation of that land came not long after the removal of the native inhabitants, probably at least partly by force if it followed the typical pattern of american settlement by Europeans.  I don't really know anything about their relationship with the local native folk except for the following clue:  Part of the way they made their living at one time was to host on their farm, campground style, euro-american tourists who had come to observe the ceremonies at the nearby reservation.  I'm withholding judgment on principle, but so far this does not sound too good.  It's time I learned more about that, too.

Anyway, Turtle Island (the movie) is about particularly one aspect of the genocide of native groups perpetrated by the eurocentric government, religion, and culture of the United States: the history and legacy of boarding schools for native children.  I won't go into much detail about the film, but will simply recommend to everyone that they see if they can't get an opportunity to watch it (being aware that some graphic subject matter may make it less appropriate for young children).  We really shouldn't go on any longer as a culture without facing up to the unbelievable cruelty these communities have undergone.  I was grateful to the creators of the film and to those whose stories are detailed there that they are willing to put forth the effort and endure the vulnerability required to bring this history to light.

Though we can't find any reference to the film on the website, it was put out by this organization: www.whitebison.org.  This is an excellent source of information about efforts native folk are putting forth to bring healing to their lives and communities.  One thing they are especially trying for currently is to extract an official apology for this legacy from the Obama administration.  I believe instructions might be somewhere on the site for how to help with this campaign.

For the purposes of the design project and the class, then, I found myself thinking a lot (before and after viewing the film) about how the presence of native folk could be felt in the design of a new peace center at EMU.  Or perhaps even more to the point, how we could, with a new building, take the opportunity to make a break with certain aspects of the history of our culture and forge a new path that reflects our most deeply cherished values with integrity.  I see implications for sourcing of energy and materials, building function, flow planning, spacial aesthetics, artistic statement, and stylistic cultural associations.

I realize, as I indicated in the last post, that this is a bit of a stretch for many folks.  You may find yourself thinking, 'It's just a building...get over it!  What matters is what goes on inside the building.'  I have two responses to that.  One is that I have always known intuitively that what goes on inside the building is affected strongly by the shape and design of the building (I'm not alone in this), and I've been exposed to snippets of scholarship along these lines in the past.  This class, of course, constituted a huge advance in that understanding.  The other is a series of questions:  If it's just a building, then why did Saddam Hussein build one of his palaces on the ruins of King Nebuchadnezzar's?  Why do courthouses in western cultures nearly all give off the same ethos of power and intimidation?  Why are dungeons dark, and thrones high?  What of the McMansion?  I say there is no such thing as "just a building."  Every construction is in some way a communication from the assembly of people who made the decisions associated with it.  Don't you think we ought to pay attention to what we're saying?

Think about the words associated with architectural styles:  Colonial, Victorian, Modern, Jeffersonian...all of these have deep and specific history and assumptions associated with them.  It's not as cut and dried as, "If you build a Colonial style building then you are saying you affirm the practice of colonialism."  However.  It's worth asking the question of whether the typical ignorance about the sources and meanings of architectural styles is associated in any way with an apathetic or even aversive reluctance to examining the ways in which cultural/moral assumptions connected to those styles might persist in the present (even in our very selves...yikes!).  Furthermore, we may be dismayed to realize the ways in which the families and communities and categories of people to which we may belong have benefited or continue to benefit from the unethical and abusive systems of power literally housed in those brick-and-mortar structures.  Can we face this?  Do we have the insight?  Can we summon the courage?

As I was mulling over these things the other day, a metaphor from Christian scripture popped into my head that may help illuminate this thinking for some:  New wineskins for new wine.  According to Jesus, when you put new wine into an old wineskin, the old wineskin will burst and both will be ruined.  So if we've made the leap to realizing that there were and are serious problems with the status quo of power and human social systems, and we've dreamed new dreams and visions of how we might work and play together in peace, then is it not only reasonable that we realize also the need for inventiveness with regard to physical structures we create to house this new way of being in the world?  I hope you might agree with me that it is so.

This one has "pet" written all over it!

So Kali's ducklings were scheduled to hatch yesterday.  Sunday there were no pips.  I was secretly a little worried as often our chicks start hatching a good day or two before hatch date.  But we told Kali to save her worry for the next day.  Maybe the power outage had slowed their development down a bit (hopefully it wasn't their demise).  By Monday morning, one pip.  By Monday evening, one duckling and no additional pips.  To date there are no more pips.  Kali started with a dozen eggs, was down to ten by the last candling, and only one hatched.  Not considered a good hatch by any calculation and sad because we expect to find mostly formed ducklings in all the other eggs.  We aren't sure what happened and, of course, are more and more fond of using broody hens when possible (they are so much more reliable than electricity).  But, in the end, this might be an opportunity of a lifetime for Kali.  Without other little ducklings around, it is getting all the attention and due to that seems to have imprinted onto Kali.

The little thing peeps constantly if Kali is not close by.  It seems somewhat calmed by Alida too.  As last evening wore along, we weren't sure how this was all going to shake out.  Were any of us going to get any sleep?  The heat lamp also made it bright so it didn't seem to give it the clear communication that it was time to sleep.  It would be calm and happy in Kali's hands and the moment she put it under the lamp, it peeped and peeped until she returned.  I find the sound much more endearing than that of the goats, but still not desirable to listen to all night long.  It didn't seem like having the duckling in her bed was a great idea.  Of course Jason came through with the plan!

Before getting to that, I should mention that it made a guest appearance at our family meeting last night.  Kali had a bit of a harder time concentrating than normal. Understandably so!  She had a pretty good distraction:



Kali put the duckling back partway through our meeting so she could eat her popcorn and it wasn't impressed.  She also had a hard time brushing her teeth.  See how the duckling feels about being separated from her for even short periods of time:



Kali and Alida were both trying to assure it that it was okay without them.  It clearly didn't agree with that assessment.  It was soon after that we started exploring sleeping options that involved the duckling being close to Kali:



Jason suggested that Kali could put it in a shoe box with good air holes and tape it shut and put it inside her sleeping bag with her right next to it.  So before long, the little duckling was laying on a rag in the little shoe box acquired this week when Alida got new sandals. I helped Kali make her bed on the floor of her bedroom and soon they were tucked in side by side and all was quiet. I was worried about it smothering but Jason assured me he was 100% sure it was safe.

I woke up around 6:30 and happily realized I didn't have to go to work and could even go back to sleep for a little bit.  Then I remembered the duckling and was completely awake in an instant. I heard nothing. I went into Kali's room and was relieved to see that the sleeping bag was not completely covering the box (so the duckling should be getting sufficient air).  I jostled the box and still heard nothing. I went to brush my teeth and try to assure myself it was fine.  I got a flashlight and went back in.  This time Kali roused and sleepily told me that it was shuffling around and peeped some in the middle of the night. I am assuming it was the sound of her voice that roused the duckling and I was relieved to hear shuffling and little tiny contented noises.  Phew!!

So after a good night's sleep, the duckling got in on some new adventures.  Here it is taking its first swim.



Kali also took the duckling out for some ants.  Now Kali is curled up on her beanbag reading beside the duckling's metal basin. The duckling is not always so sure that she is close enough, but it seems to calm when she talks to it.  It doesn't look like Kali will be getting to her garden weeding anytime soon!