Pecos Horatio

Horatio suddenly and thoroughly entered the "why" phase a couple of weeks ago. Virginia has started saying "not fair!" to pretty much everything she doesn't like (sorry, Sugar). And then, just recently, they've picked up each other's speaking habits, so both of them say both of these charming things to a maddening extent.

My response, of course, is to tell them I'm going to turn them loose to be raised by coyotes.

You know that song, "Rock-a-bye Baby"? Listen to the lyrics. It is about a baby falling out of a tree and crashing to the ground. Sometimes parents talk (or sing) about doing slightly crazy things with their children. It helps you blow off steam and prevents you from actually doing anything crazy.

So, I tell my kids they will be raised by coyotes. This started when we were living in Norcross. Because what came to my mind first was that they could be raised by wolves (like Romulus and Remus). But we didn't have wolves in Norcross, we had coyotes. Which is actually even more perfect, because one of my favorite stories when I was growing up was Pecos Bill. He was raised by coyotes and he turned out just fine.

I'm not sure what sort of possibly maternal wildlife we have living around us now, but we're pretty committed to the coyote fantasy at this point.

With Horatio flexing his two-and-a-half year old negotiation muscles more an more, I may have threatened to give him to the coyotes too many times in the last week.

First, he looked genuinely frightened, like he believed me. Then, he apparently decided, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Howling at the moon