Mom and Kids in the road...

The other day I was taking my son back to school from a doctor's appointment. There was starting to be a big back up in a major intersection, but I was able to get a view as to what was happening. Apparently a young mother had become disoriented and was wandering about in the intersection, in traffic, with about seven young children in tow. It was creating quite a problem, but fortunately most drivers were aware and taking action not to hit them. A couple of people got out of their cars to stop traffic and get the mom and children out of harms way. Hopefully they are still doing well and got to where they were going. Hopefully the return trip was less eventful. The mother in this case was a Duck, and the children were her clutch of ducklings.

Spring produces so many teachable moments for our own children. Thank goodness my son is rather oblivious to the various pairing and mating rituals of the many animals around the neighborhood here.

This morning my son says "Dad, our bird sounds just like a smoke detector." Me, "No, that is the smoke detector." For some odd reason the ones I use just start chirping for no readily apparent reason. Not alarming, but chirping. New batteries do not help, however I think I solved the mystery. They may have a timer that makes them chirp every couple of months so that you TEST them. Once I tested them and endured their piercing high decimal wail, all seems fine. If I had been smart I would have used them to wake up my son this morning.... :-) Not really, but it wouldn't have worked anyway. I basically have to pull him out of bed, stand him upright, and play puppet master to get him into the bathroom where the light and the promise of hot water normally starts to wake him up.