Practice Makes Perfect

photo: Jonathan's "world famous" pancakes

I tape things to the insides of my cupboards sometimes. Phone #s, of course, and grain cooking instructions and the occasional recipe, but also inspirational tidbits that I need front and center to remind me to get back to center when I'm being a cad. Which used to be frightfully often, but is now growing rarer, thanks to mindful work and surrounding myself with all the right people.

Most of the tidbits are gone, or have been replaced gradually with workout schedules or phone trees or ingredient lists, but one faded bit of wisdom remains. I guess because every time I look at it, which isn't so often anymore, it is just too spot-on to take down.

It was posted by a mom on the Continuum-Concept parenting e-list, which I unsubbed from many moons ago (not because I didn't benefit from it, or subscribe to the philosophy, but simply because my path moved me along to a greater focus on unschooling).

It read:

I was baking cookies with my daughter Kelsey the other day. We were busy putting our dough on cookie sheets, when Kelsey announced that it is "really hard to bake cookies with your mom!"

I responded, "Oh, why?"

"Because they always want to help and it's much better to practice."

It is much better to practice. Jonathan reminded me of this today, as he was making frozen pizza. He popped it in the oven and paced the floor waiting for it to cook, crazy with hunger. When the timer went off, I got up, grabbed pot-holders, and prepared to take the hot pizza out of the oven. Jonathan said, "I'll do it - I'll do it - I'LL DO IT." I started giving him reasons why I ought to do it, one being that he was in his underwear and had bare legs hanging out all over the place, ripe conditions for a leg burn. But he countered with this:

"How am I ever going to be a chef if you never let me take out my own pizza?"

Good point. That made me laugh and relinquish the pot-holders, with one last admonishment to watch his bare legs. As he struggled a bit to get the drippy pizza out, he carried on...

"I'll be in my restaurant kitchen and I'll say I can't get the pizza out because my mom never let me practice!"

Ok, I gotcha.

"All the other chefs will laugh at me!"

Um, I said I get your point.

"See mom? I can do it!"

Just slice it up and dish it out, wouldja? I'm sorry!

"Can you do it? I don't like cutting the pizza."

Snapper!

Jonathan and I found this snapping turtle crossing
our road today!

We were driving home from Theatre Camp when I spotted this big ol' bugger. I pulled over and told Jonathan to quickly get out of the van. "What? What?!" he was saying, until he saw it - "Can I take it home? Pleeeease?!?" Um, sorry, no.


I told him we're supposed to get him to the side of the road and point him in the direction he was headed, according to wildlife rehabbers who urge against taking home wild pets. We don't want him to get hit by a car. (Though one might wager the car getting the worse end of the deal if it struck this big'un!)

Once I did take a wild turtle home - just for the afternoon. That one was in the middle of a highway, hiding in its shell, probably wondering how in the hell he'd gotten himself into such a spot. On impulse, I pulled over, nabbed him, and brought him home to surprise the kids. Jonathan especially, who sometimes volunteers for Critter Camp, wanted to keep it. It had long claws, too, just like this one and was much faster than I expected as it zipped around our house, looking for a place to hide or escape. We looked it up on the computer (we think it was a mud turtle), played with it for a while, and then returned it to where we'd found it, but across the road, deep in the ditch, pointed the way it had been heading.

Today, Jonathan petted this turtle for a while as I snapped photos before we realized it was a snapping turtle. After this shot, Jonathan walked in front of it and out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw it lurch forward. I said I bet it's a snapper and told Jonathan to stick his foot out and see if it would reach for it. Next thing we know, the snapper has clamped its jaws onto Jonathan's shoe! It caught Jonathan by surprise and he jumped and screamed and shook the turtle off. We were laughing hysterically when a neighbor girl showed up on her bike to see what all the fuss was about. (The poor girl - she thought we'd hit her dog on the road, as we were stopped in front of their lane and crouched over something.)

We told the girl about it snapping Jonathan's foot and she came closer to let the turtle snap at her bike tire, which it obligingly did. We got a video of it! There's a creek that runs under our road there and these neighbors have a newly built pond in their front yard (it must be pond season 'round here, but HER dad owns an excavating business so their pond is a big one!) and the girl told us that same snapper had been in their yard this past weekend. Either that, or it has large kin.

This guy was huge and we enjoyed visiting with it. We're grateful we left with all limbs intact, despite Jonathan's need to touch it over and over.