Fear and Fearlessness

Because the nanny got out a little early yesterday, I took the boys to feed the ducks that congregate around one of the nearby lakes.  In addition to the boys, I took along roughly nine bags of sad little bread ends that had been sitting on the top of the fridge.

G. hates to throw things away and neither of us like the end pieces of bread loaves.

The lake is pretty, with a nice little boardwalk surrounding it, and gets a lot of foot traffic during the evenings and weekends.  As a result, the lake ducks aren't only fearless, they're downright aggressive.  Truth be told, I'm a little afraid of these over-fed, angry ducks.

With the boys in the stoller, we wheeled out onto the boardwalk.  I took the boys out and gave them each some bread for the ducks.  I showed them how to break it into pieces and fling it out. 

It didn't take long for the ducks to find us.

Out from the lake they came, swiftly waddling, and intent.

Hen-Bug flung out his bread ends as a piece, laughing as the ducks congregated around the prizes, ripping them to shreds.  Ty, on the other hand, tore his bread into pieces, but instead of giving it to the ducks, stuffed the nasty, hard, probably moldy bread into his own mouth.

Seeing this as a one-way street, the ducks didn't pay Ty much attention until he finally dropped a piece. They advanced on the piece, two of them.

"ACKKK" went one of the ducks, warning Ty to get back. 

Ty didn't budge.  Instead, he opened his mouth and squared his shoulders.

"ACKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!," Ty said.

He bent down and, right in front of the advancing ducks, picked up the nasty, wet piece of bread from ground and ate it.

It made me feel better.

I don't know why.  I wrote this piece in the morning and spent most of the rest of the day trying to extract some meaning from it, but I honestly can't tie this one up in a little bow.  All I know is while fear can be good, even protective sometimes, that it can also be smothering and dangerous.  I know that escaping from it feels like, and probably is, freedom.

Schools and Sick

I think one of the reasons why I continue to blog, even after having the twins, is that it helps me to know that I'm not neurotic about some of my worries.  It seems that pretty much everyone worries about schools, although I don't know whether that speaks more toward individual neuroses than to the sorry state of public schools.  Perhaps a little of both.

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In the middle of this worry about schools, we got hit by some sort of sickness that looks like bronchitis, feels like bronchitis, but which isn't bronchitis.  This is our first major sickness since March.  Don't you just feel a little betrayed when fever and coughing comes at you in the middle of the summer?  In the middle of one of a pretty damn hot summer?  Sickness belongs in the winter, when all you want to do is cuddle on the couch with a mug of hot chocolate anyway.  A fever on top of 102 degrees in the shade is just wrong.

Summer or not, G. is sick.  I am sick. Hen-bug is sick and Ty-baby is sick.

We can all tell that Ty-baby is sick because he's taken to moaning to himself, sounding like nothing so much as a little owl:  "whooo...whoooo....whooo....whooo."  The likeness is so remarkable that he's attracted an actual owl, which sits on a nearby tree branch at dusk and sings back to Ty-baby.  I think that this is sad and beautiful.  G. believes that the owl might just be horny.

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It's also been a little frustrating over here of late because I can't seem to comment on Blogger.  Every time I try to comment, the textbox just refreshes over and over and over again.  If you're on Blogger and thinking that I just dropped off the planet earth, please know otherwise. 

This, and I've been trying to find someone who can work on my Typepad template, but nobody I've contacted through the internet will return my emails.  Does anyone know of anyone who can work with a Typepad template for cold, hard cash?  I'm really tired of seeing this admittedly beautiful template and would very much like another one.