Pigeons, paper towels, and caterpillars

I certainly need to apologize for this week's anti-motherhood complaining session. I really DO love my kids and I really AM having the time of my life. Sometimes I just get moody, you know. I'm really sorry if I've been driving anyone to rethink the idea of raising toddlers or to re-examine the worst in their own toddlers! Two-year-olds really can be fun. Let me show you.

Yesterday morning when Kate woke up, she called, "Mommy!" from her room, followed by, "Happy Mother's Day!" Hm, she was only four days late!

Today I took Kate and Brooklyn to the slide, and as we were walking there, Kate suddenly stopped dead in her tracks and whispered reverently, "DUCKS!" I looked and saw a pair of pigeons poking around under a tree.
M: Actually those aren't ducks. They're pigeons.
K: How did they get on the ground? Down from the tree?
M: Well... they probably used their wings and flew down.
K: Like THIS??? (And she began flapping her arms wildly and bobbing her head around, well, like a pigeon.) I could hardly keep from laughing. It was just so precious.

Then when we came to the slide, we were disappointed to find a little puddle of rainwater still standing on the bottom of the slide. It had been sunny all morning, so there was hardly any left, and it was clean, so I thought I'd just brush it away and Kate could still slide. She thought about it for a long time and even reflected, "These are my new jeans..." And finally she informed me that we would have to go home and get a towel ("towlo" in Kate's words) and come back. So we trekked back home, armed ourselves with one paper towlo each, and went back to clean the slide. I'm sure our neighbors would be thinking, "What a bunch of GIRLS!" Well, yes we are.

When we returned home, we saw not one, but FOUR caterpillars climbing the wall outside our door. One even appeared to be spinning a cocoon. (That or else he was stuck in a spider web, doomed for certain death, and we did not rescue him. I don't really know anything about caterpillars or cocoons.) We watched them for a few minutes, and later when Kate lay down for her nap, she began to ponder the nature of caterpillars. "Where did the caterpillars come from, Mommy?" I was really tired and plus I don't know where caterpillars come from, so I said, "From outside."
"But WHERE outside? From the tree?"
"Yes probably from the trees."
"They want to come in the house!"
Oh I hope not.
Her musings continued; I didn't catch much more but left her alone with her deep thoughts.
Because that is what naptime is for, right?

Okay, and I am no longer the only one trying to use our poor camera after it has officially kicked the bucket! I came home this afternoon to find that Travis had been taking pictures WITHOUT the lens at all! He could only take really really close-ups though. Still, I thought a couple of these were not bad! All things considered. Can you tell we are anxious for our new camera to come??? It's supposed to arrive TODAAAYYYYY!!!!

Can you guess whose eyes these are??? Kind of SPOOOOKY!!!

Um... this is probably a little more up-close-and-personal than you'd ever hoped to get with the Lundells...

And can you guess what these are? It's like a game!...