Tuesdays With Mooch & Fuss: Owl Penis
MOOCH
I took Fuss to urgent care last night after dinner, and I left Hannibal with Mooch to finish up her homework and see that she made her lunch, showered, and got in the bed. When I got to Kaiser, there were full families with two parents three to five kids in each. I didn’t understand why they dragged all of their kids out to a sick environment and disrupted their schedules, when one parent could have stayed at home.
Well, imagine my dismay, when I got home to find a fully clothed, filthy Mooch at the table Googling “owl penis” instead of resting in bed, with a packed lunch in the fridge! It was like one of those scenes from The Cosby Show, where Cliff messes up and Clair goes on a rampage. Except it wasn’t a scene from The Cosby Show, because they didn’t say “owl penis” on The Cosby Show!!!
Mooch is doing a research project on owls for school. She, apparently, has typed, “Do owls have sex?” as one of her research questions. I, of course, am fine with this question. I don’t know how the rest of the parents in her class would respond to a presentation on Owl Sex. So she spent an hour with Hannibal looking for Google images of an owl penis. I came home and in two seconds researched that they technically don’t have one. It’s microscopic, and it’s called a “crevecum.” An owl climbs on top of his female and squirts sperm from his cloaca into hers. Most birds don’t have dicks. Ostriches and ducks are among the few that do. *Sigh* I should have just taken the whole family with me to the hospital.
FUSS
Fuss vomited on Sunday as we stepped into a restaurant, but I typically don’t do doctors for stuff like that. I figured it was something she ate or a stomach virus. I gave her some Temp-Assure and put her to bed. Unfortunately, on Monday, her fever persisted — reaching 104 degrees. I began to ask her if things hurt. For ears, she answered, “No.” Her throat looked fine. Then I remembered that she has been urinating more frequently — like twice per night. Normally, she sleeps through the night and doesn’t pee at all. I asked, “Does it hurt when you urinate?” She answered with an emphatic, “Yes!”
I packed her up and took her. She wouldn’t piss in the cup, because she didn’t have to go at that time. I gave her many chances and finally opted to have a catheter inserted. It was quick, and we got the urine we needed. The test came back negative. We went through a lot of rigamarole, but at least we ruled it out, and there are no antibiotics necessary. Now, I’m giving probiotics, and avoiding soy milk (which I think may be the real culprit). She’s so listless and cuddly and warm. It’s quite a contrast from her usual Tigger-esque nature.
Tuesdays With Mooch & Fuss: Be Gentle
I fell in love with an overweight girl named Portia. She is soft to the touch. Calm. She’s also disabled. Portia is a genetically modified turkey, who was rescued from Thanksgiving. The meat industry had every intention of fattening Portia up for someone’s plate, so now her body won’t stop growing, and her legs can no longer support her weight. Portia sits in a wagon all day now. She receives lots of love, healthy food, and water, but it’s too bad that she can’t run around.
Mooch and Fuss piled into a Subaru with me, my sister-in-law, and my brother this past Saturday to visit Gentle Barn in Santa Clarita. We all really enjoyed it! The girls brushed Buttercup, a cow rescued from a cruelty case when she was 8 months pregnant. Fuss was fascinated watching Crystal, a cow rescued from the dairy industry, urinate and take a dump. The girls fed carrots to numerous horses and a fun donkey, named Addison. There was even a beautiful peacock!
We listened to a brief presentation about the history of the barn and how to behave in the upper barn, where the turkeys, chickens, pigs, llama, sheep, and an emu, named Yoda lived. Fuss was timid at first, but soon she was feeding grass to goats, and laying on her favorite pig, Biscuit. Biscuit weighs nearly 1,000 pounds and soon he will have the same problem Portia does. There is, unfortunately, no way to slow down the weight gain once it has been expedited.
We didn’t have a sad time. On the contrary, the girls cuddled the animals and received an affectionate learning experience that no zoo could provide. They even got their faces painted for free at the end! It was awesome.
Tuesdays With Mooch & Fuss: Multiply It!
Fuss watering our roses.
FUSS
Letters? Boom! Sight words? Boom! Colors? Boom! Potty trained? A very long ago boom! Not shoving random children at parks and Pottery Barn Kids? Yeah … not so much. Fuss is all of two. Not just the cute, puppy-eyed, soft-skinned, lingering traces of baby smell two. She’s tantruming two, and screaming two, and ranting about how it’s “Mine. Mine! Mine!” two. January and February were rough. I often wished I was on “Who Wants to Be a Mommy,” so I could use a lifeline and ‘phone a friend’ to have them come rescue me until she’s eighteen.
I can’t complain, though. She’s gotten a lot better. She’s more compassionate. She listens (as long as she’s well-fed, well-rested, the sun is in a specific position and the stars align correctly), and she uses her words often. When she’s frustrated, however, her attempts to get her point across can be likened to that of a customer cheated out of their money during a Macy’s transaction. We’re working on it.
Her new sleep schedule is based on a forty-eight hour slot instead of a twenty-four hour day. Don’t Google it. I made it up. I studied her behavior in conjunction with her ability to fall asleep easily at night and realized that a nap every single day was too much for her. What I do is have her nap every other day, with the daytime sleep being from 12-2pm. On days when she naps, her bedtime is 7:30pm. When she doesn’t nap, her bedtime is 6:45pm. Don’t ask me why this works. It just does. She puts herself to sleep at naptime and bedtime with ease by singing or chatting quietly with her doll.
To learn more about the homeschooling that I do with Fuss, please visit Teaching Fuss.
MOOCH
My eldest is reading Hugo Cabret. Actually, by the time you finish reading this blog, she will have finished all 532 pages of it. This morning she was on page five hundred. I never read books that size at her age. Even in college, I stuck to excerpts. Her patience with stories amazes me. She loves stories so much, that I found a story method to teach her the multiplication tables. I’m so excited about it, that I have to share it with you. I found it on Amazon after researching different ways to help children retain the times tables. I knew this way would work for Mooch.
Mooch learning her times tables
The book assigns a word for each number. For example, three is represented by “tree” and four is represented by “door.” Stories are then told on the left page with a corresponding picture (for memory) on the right page. The “tree” and “door” story talks about a tree with a little door in it. Inside the door lives an “elf.” At the bottom of the page, it reads, “Tree x Door = Elf,” which translates, of course, to “3×4=12.” She learned her threes through nines in one day! This book is amazing. We’re working on twelves this weekend. She already knew 1s, 2s, 5s, 10s, and 11s, because those have easy tricks. After this week, it’ll just be drilling from here on out to get them into her long-term memory. What fun!
Here is a link to the book: Multiplication in a Flash
Mooch cheesing at homeschool
Tuesdays With Mooch & Fuss: “Foul Spoken Coward”
Spring break is no break at all! These kids are driving me batty. Fuss’ language skills are so advanced that they argue like peers! If I’m directing an activity or they’re doing mat time, it’s fine. The second it’s free time, all hell breaks loose. Fuss usually provokes Mooch, but sometimes it’s the other way around. Today Mooch went sledding in Wrightwood with her friend, so it’s sort of back to normal. I have to program the rest of the week a little better, though, or none of us will make it through it.
Mooch warming up before the show
Mooch did very will in her performance this weekend. We were all proud. When she performed her theatre pieces, she projected, enunciated, and delivered her lines with clear objectives. She also sang Abbey Lincoln’s “All Africa” solo with student accompaniment on percussion and guitar. Her remake of “Freedom Day” with the following lyrics was hilarious.
Stretch it, pull it
Twirl it, Swirl it
Doesn’t feel like felt
Rice cheese, Daiya
Soy cheese, almond
Can it really melt?
My mouth waters
Eyes get wider
Brings me to my knees
On my sandwich
On my taco
This is vegan cheeseVegan cheese
It’s vegan cheese
No more cheddar or gouda please
Every Whole Foods grocery store
They just sell me more and more
Please don’t ask me why my child always writes about food. The audience cracked up laughing, though.
Tuesdays With Mooch & Fuss: Co-ops and Performances
With coarse pigtails flying into the wind and airplane arms spanning about three feet, Fuss took off from her comfortable spot near my arm today. We visited a pre-school for her, because after drop-in daycare during Mooch’s commercial shoot Monday, she didn’t want to return to homeschool. I want to do what is best for her, and if that’s allowing her to hug other children until they fall on the floor together, then so be it. Mooch thrived at home. Fuss thrives at home — but only academically. She’ll likely start going two to three days per week in July, so she’ll still be homeschooled part-time. I may choose a co-op, or I may resume schooling a couple of extra kids at my home. That would give her what she needs, and also earn me some more cheese. 
That’s not all. The past couple of weeks, she has emerged from her stranger danger shy shell. If you remember November through February, she would scream bloody murder at anyone who said hello or even looked at her. Now she serves up the salutations and even walks away with certain people. Hopefully the tantrum phase ends as quickly as the bashful one did.
Mooch is all Shakespearean in preparation for her show this Saturday. She’ll be singing “All Africa” by Abbey Lincoln, and she’ll be performing excerpts from various plays. This is a video of her practicing:
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