Animal Books

Favorite pastime for the last week of summer break:
The kids have been getting these just-for-kids wildlife magazines for the past couple of years as a gift from Scott's grandma. The old already-read issues have been sitting on a shelf pretty much since we moved here, until last week when out of nowhere they gained new life. Emma started it all by finding a so-cute photo of some baby animal and showed it to the rest of the kids. She announced she was going to cut it out and tape it on her bedroom wall. Instantaneously every single past copy of those magazines was on the kitchen table. All four big kids pouring through them armed with scissors. Lydia was just cutting randomly, but Emma, Ben and Josh were focused. There was almost a feeling of frenzied competition and unbearable anxiety that someone else might get to all the good pictures first. Soon their cut-out-animal-picture-piles were growing. Ten, twenty, now bragging about who has the most, thirty, now bargaining for rights to the next lemur anyone found, forty. I didn't really want them to stick that many magazine cutouts on their walls (is that wrong?) so I supplied them each with a brand spanking new notebook full of blank paper (thanks, Grammy!) and a glue sticks instead. Say hello to 'Animals of the World', 'Animals of the Land and Sea and Sky' and 'Animals of the Land, Sea and Sky'! ("Josh, you can't copy my title!" "But I want to name it that!" "Mom!") This occupation has kept them thoroughly entertained far longer than I thought it would. It got even better when Emma started adding humorous captions to some of her cutouts:Once again Emma had hit on a winner and Ben got busy writing in his own comments in his book. I went through Josh's book with him as he dictated what I should write. I very quickly noticed a theme. By the picture of a skunk, "Don't make me spray you!" By the picture of a crab, "Don't make me pinch you!" By the picture of a rabbit, "Don't make me hop on you!" I wondered why every animal was issuing threats and who they were being made to, but I did not get a chance to ask because as the threats got more and more weird I was laughing so hard it was difficult to even write.

[Don't make me sneak up in the night and eat all your garbage!]