The Wonderful Adventures of Nils and Other Assorted Things

I found Nils wearing one of Carolena's hats. I thought he looked so cute that I snapped a picture. I have tried like 800 times to upload the photos here, and it just isn't happening. The computer goes haywire (haywire? who says that?!) every damn time. Perhaps it is a message from Future Nils who has some kind of 2030 computer device that is blocking my ability to upload them. Considering the story behind the photos is that I found him wearing a big pink straw hat and took a picture and he insisted that I take about twenty-seven more, yeah, I would say Future Nils is happy they aren't getting posted. He heard the "click" of the camera, turned, posed and said, "Again! Cheeeese!" so I took another one and then smiled and got up to walk away.
And he screamed, "Again! Again! Cheeeeeese!!!"
So I laughed, he struck a pose, I took another photo, and got up to walk away.
And he screamed, "Again! Cheeeese!!!"
This went on for quite sometime eventually ending in a tantrum and fifty million photos of Nils in various pageant poses. And I do mean pageant poses.
What are they teaching this kid at school?

Aw, speaking of Nils at school... poor Nils pet an asp yesterday at school. Does that just break your heart or what? That sweet little guy. He saw one of those fuzzy little devils walking by and reached out his pointer finger to pet it. That just breaks my heart in both that my poor Nils was hurt and in its sad innocent cuteness. Evidently in addition to the pain of an asp, his feelings were pretty hurt as well. He told Carolena and me all about it when we picked him up that afternoon. Oh, sweet Nils.
If you've never been stung by an asp before, then chances are you are reading this from somewhere north of the land of anoles, asps, and humid Halloweens. Asps are venomous caterpillars. Yes, really. And you only purposely touch one of those dudes once. They're like crazy mini-porcupines (Casey science, not real science) who have quills instead of fuzz (Casey science) so when you touch them the venomous fuzz gets stuck in your skin and someone has to get it out (real science). Yikes!

Yeah, Future Nils is definitely using some sort of fancy technology to ensure Present Day Casey can't post embarrassing photos. Look, that cute pumpkin one uploaded in a cinch.

Blog updates: 
Reading: I finished Into the Wild (which turned out to be almost too fast of a read) and started The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin which is going to be fabulous. The prologue was so good that I read the whole thing aloud to Chris. I then settled in to start reading chapter one and promptly fell asleep (it was 920... waaay past my bedtime).

Caffeine: I remembered the big container of 1/2 caff and this morning drank plenty of coffee but far less caffeine... so that's good... except that I had four scoops and now I'm about to get up and go make some REAL coffee. Hmph. That didn't work. 
Also, I've been thinking about how I have memories of my grandfather Clyde's (aka "Pop") coffee mug burned into my brain. The fact that all of my memories of Pop involve him with a brown coffee mug (which I wish I now owned) with the dredges of a cup of coffee in it, combined with my father's, sister's, and brother's, and my coffee... ummm shall we say "habits" (aka horrible life controlling addiction) is making me think there is something coffee related in the gene pool. Perhaps that's where the Rush name came from in the first place? I'm beginning to think someone overly caffeinated just got dubbed "Rush" somewhere back in our family history when humans were doling out last names. 
*Also, for those of you who think I'm just obsessing... you've just forgotten that I looovvvee coffee and my neurologist doesn't think unlimited pots is a good thing. So there is a legitimate medical reason for the obsession. Otherwise I would cease to drink water unless it had dripped through beans. And also I like to obsess about things. That's also in the gene pool *cough*jimmers*cough* AND also it's my blog so I do what I want. Start your own blog and talk about boring non-coffee related things. 

Hey, speaking of obsession and non-coffee related things, anyone want to talk about polar exploration?!

Tarantula holes in the front yard count: numerous. 
Number of tarantulas I'm excited to have living around our yard: all of them. That's one fuzzy bug! Those suckers eat roaches, y'all. Bring on the arachnids!

After asps and tarantulas who else is going to spend the rest of the day saying over and over, "that is one fuzzy bug!"? Well, if you clicked on that then you are now...

The Very Thirsty Butterfly

The Very Thirsty Butterfly
A sequel

Once upon a time there was a very hungry caterpillar. She ate and ate and ate until she turned into a chrysalis and yadda yadda yadda.

Then the beautiful butterfly had some caterpillar babies and that is where this tale begins.

The very thirsty butterfly was now a mother. And thus, her life was crazy. And that was what transformed her from a butterfly... into a very thirsty butterfly. She changed diapers and did laundry and fed those very very hungry caterpillars. So, she drank coffee. She cleaned the house (sometimes) and did more laundry and fed those very hungry caterpillars some more. Then she reheated yesterday's old cup of joe. She went grocery shopping and ran errands and did more laundry. She drank coffee by the gallon.

Night came and the very thirsty butterfly fed hungry caterpillars and bathed them and tucked them in. Then the very thirsty butterfly settled down on the couch with hopes of getting up for a glass of wine after just "resting her eyes for a minute..." but awoke a few hours later to find it was time for her to peel herself off the couch, take out her contacts, and get in bed.

Morning came and the very thirsty butterfly brewed another pot.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Other Assorted Miracles

One of the types of plants residing in our backyard is a caterpillar's veritable feast. And feast they do. Soon after planting our flower beds we discovered caterpillars galore! They move slowly it would seem but devour every single leaf in mere days. They quickly grow from the tiniest almost unnoticeable little inchwormy caterpillars to giant squishy overstuffed monster caterpillars. And then... they stay!

They drag their grotesquely obese caterpillar selves to our deck and find a place to reside for the next weeks. Close observation last week showed that once an ideal (or in my opinion sometimes less than ideal) location is determined they attached their rears to that spot, hang upside down, and slowly pulsate. It was mesmerizing.

Our deck is frequently covered in chrysalises. Bright green, golden speckled, goo containing chrysalises.

And then the butterflies emerge. And stretch their new wings. And fly.

Sometimes they come back home to say hello. But for the most part we are their nest, and a bird butterfly has to leave the nest someday.

Very hungry caterpillars transforming into butterflies. Miracles occur in this nest everywhere I look.

Nils has two new teeth! Fangs, in fact. They are adorable and just in time for Halloween. What a sweetie.

Nils had his first official playdate when his friend came to play just with Nils. Carolena was at school and the babies got to play together without the tyranny of their older sisters. They had a blast and, as per the usual with these two, spent an enormous amount of time trading pacifiers.

Nils is growing and growing. With all of the crawling and tasting inanimate objects,he appears to be stretching out. My sweet Stay Puft Marshmallow Man better not lose those arm rolls before Friday. He has a costume to don!

Carolena's school carnival was on Saturday. Nils was feeling under the weather so the boys stayed home for football and naps while the girls headed to school. Not surprisingly, she had a blast.

She spent an amazing amount of time glancing around looking for friends and familiar faces. As soon as she found a girl in her class, she was off! I think she'd imagined I would hand her a roll of tickets and tell her to meet me at home later. In fact, I know that's what she thought was going to happen because she told me. Fern gets to do that in Charlotte's Web, so, duh. Luckily, the other girl was also part of a mother/daughter duo so we stuck with them and let the girls do activities on their own.

It was awesome to see Carolena at the carnival. Glancing over my shoulder as she slurped a blue snocone and looked for a friend, riding a pony, chatting with teachers. Everyone seemed to know Carolena. What was once my newborn girl trying to lift her head from my chest in the hospital and see what else was happening is now the girl about whom other moms say, "Oh this is Carolena! We hear so much about her at home!"

Very hungry caterpillars transforming into butterflies.