Cooties

Boys have cooties. They just do. We learned this quick fact in grade school, and would have been rendered useless except for the cure. Ya know...circle, circle, dot, dot. Yeah, you know.

I love being a mom of boys and being married to their overgrown-boy-man dad. Our house is constant wrestling, tackling, climbing. And breaking. Oh, the breaking. We break furniture. We break toys. Once Kaden even broke the top of Parker's head with a baseball trophy. There is never a dull (read: quiet) moment. And really, I like it. Really. I like the soccer, and the football, and the baseball, and the dirt. Not so fond of all of the equipment and additional laundry, but as a great philosopher once said, "You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have..."

The fall is especially boy-y around here. The boys are all full of being outside, sports are in full swing, and there is that other little thing. What was it? Oh, yeah...hunting.

As a teacher, my new year cycles from August to August. I know there is a holiday after Christmas that tells me to start writing different numbers on the top of my checks, but really it all starts with the school supplies. The issue is that Brad runs his year beginning in October. He starts in April saying, "Ya know, it is only a few months til opening weekend." Yes, honey. But more months left than those since you last hunted. But carry on.

So from here until mid-December I am flying solo. I don't mind. Brad is a get-out-and-go kinda guy, and I loves the books in my p.j.s. But along with blissfully uneventful weekends, come the wife of deerslayer duties. Not for the faint of heart....go ahead and stop reading now. Bye.

Yesterday Brad was hunting behind the house, trying to get the pet that has been eating under our oak tree all summer long. Because, ya know, someone is going to shoot the pet, so it might as well be him. Whatev.

Dark-ish I get a call to come help load the deer. Me. So off I go with 3 kids in tow. We get back in the pasture to see this hugemongous buck that I am supposed to help hoist. hmmmm. We get to heaving and hoing, and feel this long slimy streak down my leg.

Because I am loading the head. And a dead deer sticks his bloody tongue out. And it licked me.

Don't say I didn't warn you...you were supposed to stop!

I start screaming like a girl, hands in the air, doing the deer-lick dance around the field. Parker is gagging and threatening to throw up, and Kaden is crying, afraid the deer is going to lick him. All in all, we were a hot-mess of mass chaos.

And that is something no Operation Cootie Shot can clear up.