Mom 2.0

Last week, I told James that I felt bad for D that Mal has so much better a mom. The immediate case in point was that Mal had wanted to go to McDonald's, and I took him. After two hours, we needed to leave because my phone had died, it was getting dark, I wasn't certain James was home yet, and I had no way to know for sure that someone would shut the chickens in for the night.

Mal cried and cried; he was so upset to leave. He wailed and complained about not wanting to take off. I started thinking out loud about when we could go back. In planning that, I realized: If D had done the same thing 13 years earlier, my response would have been very different. Something to the tune of, "You know, when you get so upset after I've done something you want, it makes me not super motivated to do anything you want, since you're just going to be sad instead of grateful." Ugh.

This past month has felt very fraught with "big feeling" days for Mal. It might be because his birthday is coming up and he's historically not wanted to get older? In the past three months or so, he's stopped insisting (after a whole year or so of no uncertain terms) that he will only ever be 5, and never get older than that. And now he actually seems pretty jazzed about everything. So who knows.

Tonight is Mal's birthday party. Here's a preview of the cake. I still have to add the "5" and "Happy Birthday" candles, but this is the general idea.

He requested the theme. I'm kind of surprised because he's seemed to be less interested in Cars and more into Minecraft and Star Wars recently. This was kind of a cool throw-back.

Mal's actual birthday is Tuesday; I'm taking him to Dallas for a couple of days, but he doesn't know it yet. I *did* tell him we were going to stay at a hotel, because he was so sad... actually, I think it was the McDonald's day. I was just trying to cheer him up on the drive home and told him we'd be staying at a hotel for his birthday. It'll actually be two nights. He's going to love it. It'll be a nice little treat for him; he would probably live in a hotel if we could take all of his toys and the pets.

Oh, speaking of pets: D wants a snake again. And one of our chickens disappeared. Like, no feathers. No shock on the part of the other five birds. Just... gone. A few days later, another one ended with a head covered in blood, and since we've seen that she probably got hung up on a cactus or some garbage out in the back property. But it looked TERRIBLE. I read that chicken's skin is thin and tears easily, and this is the all-white bird, so it was all very red and horrible. She seems to be healing up fine, though. If we had lost two birds in one week, I'd be seriously wondering about our ability to keep them safe and might consider finding a better home for them.

I'm glad we didn't have to think about that. And we found out something kind of fun when James and I spent several hours out in the forest behind the house, searching unsuccessfully for Halfy: There's a little natural bowl at the top of the grotto where rainwater pools, and the chickens are drinking out of that during the day. I'd wondered how they were making it through these hot, disgusting summer days without returning to the coop to stay hydrated. Now we know!

Mal wants me to play with him, so it's time go to!