Our Little Host

Noah hosted his first sleepover on Friday night. A few months ago we had done a sleepover exchange with Noah's oldest friend Nathan. Noah slept at Nathan's house and Nathan's sister Rachel slept over here with Lily. Everyone had a great time and it was our turn to host the boys.

Nathan and Noah are good for each other. Nathan is much bolder and adventurous than Noah, which is usually good. You may remember that back in the spring the boys were playing outside on a beautiful Saturday and decided to wander off. However, in general this is a good thing.

One of the first things they did was to climb up into Noah's top bunk with a flashlight and tell ghost stories. I can't imagine that they were the stuff of Poe or King, but they seemed to enjoy themselves. There was a very cute time when they decided that they weren't going to wear shirts, so we had two little boys running around the house in their shorts. Eventually, they did go to bed and they even managed to sleep in the top bunk all night. Noah's room was in bad shape Saturday night so I suggested he sleep on the top bunk rather than clean off his bed. He said that he'd try it and I left him up there. I checked in later and found him in the bottom. Good thing I cleared it off for him.

I got the boys some doughnuts for breakfast, which of course everyone enjoyed. They played together for a while as I started organizing our garage. You can actually walk through it now thanks to some new shelves, so that's an improvement. It wasn't much fun for the boys, but they seemed to find things to do all morning.

Overall, I'd say that the sleepover was a success. Noah is definitely maturing as a boy. By that I mean that he and Nathan entertained themselves with making armpit farts among other ways of reproducing bodily noises. I wonder if that is on the pediatrician's list of developmental milestones?

Closing a Chapter

  You may remember that we have had some encounters with not quite wild enough wildlife. On Sunday evening I took Oreo out for his final walk of the night and when I came back I thought I saw a log in the yard. We had a bonfire on Halloween and I thought maybe there was a stick that I missed, but I didn't remember leaving a big one in the yard like that. Then the stick picked its head up. It turns out it was Oreo's old friend the gray fox.

 

The fox was acting kind of strangely, almost like it was sleepy. It looked at Oreo, but didn't make any threatening moves or noises toward him. Of course, Oreo wanted to do battle. Oreo is nothing if not territorial about his yard and his people. I ushered him into the house and gave everyone the news. It seemed like the fox was just sleeping in our yard.

 

When I went out running Monday morning I found the fox just like in this photo, though it was still dark. I held out some hope that perhaps it had just gone into hibernation, but as the day warmed up it was clear that the fox had died. If you look at this photo closely you can see that it has its eyes open.

 

I wasn't sure what to do with this, but fortunately Cary has an animal control department for such things. I was all set to glove up and put this beast in a trash bag, but they are going to get it. They would have come yesterday, but it was a holiday for them too. The good news is that it is finally starting to feel atumnal here with highs in the high 50s and lows in the high 30s. I'm pretty sure that they will get this today, so we will be spared the stink.

 

Amanda wondered aloud why it came into our yard to die. I think it's because it has had a relationship with Oreo over the years. I'm glad that he emerged victorious. I suspect that there may be other foxes around, but I think that this is the one rabid one that has given us trouble.

 

It really was a very pretty animal, but I'm not sorry to see it go. I'm also glad that I never had to shoot it, though I was prepared.

Our Celebrity

First, a bit of background. The mascot for Northwoods Elementary is a koala bear. The goal for every child there is to be a "koalaty kid." Get it? Yeah, we think it's kind of corny too.

The school has a closed-circuit news show called KNN which stands for, you guessed it, the Koalaty News Network. I remember how we had students do announcements in middle school and high school. This is kind of like that, but with TV. Way higher-tech than I remember!

Last year they asked for volunteers for KNN and of course we suggested that Lily do it. She was a bit reluctant at first, but between our encouragement and the encouragement she received from her fourth grade teacher she eventually agreed to do it.

This has been her first month. She's doing weather, but I think that she will rotate to other positions as the year goes on. So far, so good. She was afraid of not reading well and stuttering on the air, but she has done a great job by all accounts.

Unfortunately, Lily inherited my tendency to fear the unknown. This is one of those times when we're glad that we pushed her a little bit. We're also glad for the support of Ms DuPree who encouraged her to do it. Good job to our weather girl!