Nail Polish & Turtles

"If you instill in your child a love of the outdoors and an appreciation of nature, you will have given him a treasure no one can take away."
Ted Trueblood

Wahooooo!! Schools out for Summer!!

I am not sure who was more excited for the last day of school, me or my children. No more dragging them out of bed, tossing them in the shower, arguing about the clothes they choose. No more screaming a hundred times to get to bed, shut the light off. And No more Homework battles! Now, watch for my update in 3 months when I am doing the count down of how many days before school starts because I have had enough summer.

The last day of school was a bit rough on me. I dropped TanMan off with his teacher and had tears in my eyes. My baby is growing up and kindergarten days are over. This was obvious as my lil TanMan quickly escaped my side to blend in with his buddies, pretending to not know me. My boys are smart. They know when Mom is about to lose it and they want no part of that scene. I walked alone back to my car crying, looking around wondering; am I the only Mom crying here?

Our first day of summer started with the dog finding a turtle crawling through our yard. The boys were pumped and ran off to find a container to keep the poor thing captive. Later, I was chatting away on the telephone and in they rushed looking for something. Not paying much attention I kept on chatting. After a while I stepped outside to see how the turtle was surviving and was speechless.

Back when I was very young, summer meant running wild and occasionally getting involved with our school summer program. What we never missed was the turtle racing event. We would go find a turtle by a creek somewhere. Funny to think of all the turtles that were found for this. Once we found the turtle we would grab our fingernail polish and paint a number on its back so we could identify our turtle in the race. I don't remember any of the actual races or if my turtles ever won. At some time in my two boys short little lives I must have told the turtle racing stories.

So yesterday when I stepped out my door and looked in the gray tub, filled with rocks, mud, water and a rather large turtle with its whole shell painted bright toenail color pink I was shocked?
ME:"You painted the whole shell?"
TDog: "Kind of but we didn't mean to"
Me: "well the poor thing is flaming pink"
TanMan: "It looked cool Mom"
TDog: "It was a cool design Mom"
TanMan: "Til Janey got it" (Janey is our hunting dog)
TDog: "Janey hit it with her paw and flipped it over so the design I made got all smudged"
Me: "Ahh well that explains it but I told you I only painted a number on my turtles back"
TDog: "Yeah, but this looked cool"
Me: "do you remember why turtles have a shell and why they are the color they are?"
TDog and TanMan: (silence, but I see they are thinking - if they know anything at all my boys know about camouflage)
TanMan: "Well they live in the water Mom, won't it just wash off."
Me: "Does it wash off my toenails when I take a shower?"
TDog: (with a look of 'oh crap') "will it ever wear off??"
Me: "I don't know, maybe-hopefully"
TanMan: "I called Dad, he said they eat fish-we gotta get it some fish Mom"
Me: "just feed it some lettuce and grapes-it will be fine"
TDog : "No Dad says fish!"
Me: "Yes. well Dad isn't home and where in the world am I supposed to get fish??"

And so we were off to the bait store. The 3 older gentlemen sitting on the porch of the bait store and the clerk at the store are probably still talking about us. The lady and her two kids buying minnows for a turtle. Lucky for me they hadn't seen the poor turtle. We spent a day and a half with that turtle in captivity. The boys had great fun holding a minnow in front of that turtle as it chomped the head off. TanMan kept running in the house to show me bloody headless minnows.

So I am guessing the boys are learning something here but when that turtle wasn't munching on minnow heads it was scratching on the side of the plastic tub, trying to escape. I called a meeting.

Me: "OK boys, does that bother you that he hates being in that tub?"
Boys: (more thinking)
Me: "Would you want to be caged like that?
TanMan: "I wouldn't fit in there Mom"
Me: "I know, but what if I made you sit in a little space all day long instead of out running around?"
Boys: (thinking going on...I know it...(Lord please let them think this through)

Phone rings...it is their Dad. I explain the situation and that they don't want to let it go. He says; "tell them it is mean to keep it, let the damn thing go-beside, it is nesting time, it could have laid eggs somewhere or is going to". I relay that message and then go back inside. I watch as TDog talks to TanMan a little then he picks the turtle up and off they run.
Later when I look in the tub, it is empty. Then I wonder how long would I have tried to persuade them to let that thing go if the Mad Sci hadn't called.

Ahhh summer....turtles, baseball and little boys!


"One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries."
—A.A. Milne