Cute as a Duck

Remember when your pet duck was a wee little fluffy yellow duckling that loved being dried off with a hair dryer and would fall asleep on your chest?



Then, next thing you know, their adult pin feathers are all grown in?



Yep. Ellie turned four this week.

And her pin feathers are coming along nicely.


Related Note (ie T.A.I.*): 

All pools and lakes this summer should hand out hair dryers as people arrive! It'd be like a public service! Because, no matter how hot you think it is getting into the lake, the air is measurably 27 times colder when you get out. Seriously. And a hairdryer handed to each swimmer would say "We care about you and your future goose pimpled epidermis."  Plus, the ducks would completely benefit too. And the geese.

Now, I know what you're thinking, "Martha, you can't had out hair dryers at public swimming establishments! There'd be electrocuted bodies floating absolutely everywhere! Plus, have you seriously thought about how much chlorine would need to be added to the water to cover up the obvious smells that will follow such carnage?"

First, I don't think you're giving the collective scientific knowledge of the general public enough credit. Plus, we'd leave all those "DON'T USE IN A BATHTUB!!" stickers on the hairdryers, you know, for legal reasons. Aaaannnnd, the hairdryers couldn't plug in anyway. All those chords crisscrossing lake shores and pool decks? Total trip hazard. We'll hand out battery powered hairdryers instead. And, as everyone knows, you can't become electrocuted with batteries or they wouldn't be needed for all those toys four year olds receive at their birthday parties. Because good parents don't buy electrocution toys for their kids. I mean, dude, I've totally thought this through!

Except for that whole chlorine thing. You may have a point there.



*Totally Awesome Idea

You Know What They Say About Eavesdroppers....

According to a conversation I, um, unintentionally overheard, between some college students on the bus to the library with Katie and Ellie the other day, Motherhood is a competition. And I thought, "*snort* *eye roll* Whatever, dudes."

Then I had this conversation with Ellie:

Ellie: (skipping through the house, my Mother's Day card with the monkey's on it cradled in her small arms) Mommy! Mommy! Will you read your card to me again?

Me: (my heart warming, as I gently take the card from her breakfast of homemade pumpkin bread stickied fingers) Sure, I can do that. (opening card, reading, as Ellie's smile beams up at me) "1. You're LOTS of fun! 2. You take GREAT care of me. 3. You make my FAVORITE foods. 4. You teach me IMPORTANT stuff. 5. Your hugs are the BEST! There you go-FIVE reasons why you're the BEST MOTHER EVER! HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY! Love, Katie and Ellie".

Ellie: (Giggling, with the joy of unconditional love. Which sounds like butterfly wings, by the way.) I like that card!

Me: You do? Why?

Ellie: (Giggling. Even more. Those butterflies are beginning to sound ominous.) Yeah. It's funny! Because I really like Daddy best!

Me: (Defeatedly, to Ellie's back, as she skips out of the room, mother's day card forgotten, intent on drawing "Daddy the best picture ever".) Don't we all, kid. Don't we all.


And that's when I realized that the bus full of undergrads debating the qualities of what motherhood should epitomize were right. Motherhood is totally a competition.

And I'm losing.

To a man.