RATS!

Beauty, Creativity, Imagination, Wonder…

Those are words we have been thinking about and believe are particularly important in shaping our children’s hearts and minds. With our tarnished and reality-affected adult brains, Scott and I rely of course heavily on rich children’s literature to nurture these concepts in our boys’ lives. Hence we have found Beatrix Potter and her animal friends to be regular visitors during story time. They are adventurous, witty and from them we (Scott and I included) have learned the word “soporific”! We desperately hope that the stories themselves will have a soporific effect on the boys as we approach bedtime…

However, Potter’s Tale Of Mr. Samuel Whiskers has had the exact opposite effect. Not long after meeting him and his wife Anna Maria, we found that he has moved in with us!

He has a long tail and red head and rearranged (emptied) my pots&pans-cabinet to make space for himself and his loot.
Had his plunder not included one brother’s well-loved puppy and the other’s sippy cup, he may have lived undisturbed in his hole. But he was discovered and attracted two more rats.
Now, the only rat with a tail is Mr. Samuel Devan Whiskers. And a most inviting tail it is! The other 2 rats care nothing to have their own if only they can step on or steal the very delicately attached Samuel Whisker’s tale!
Oh the romp that follows when the tail is snatched… it usually ends up in a very aggravated Mr. Whiskers threatening to make Roly Poly Pudding out of the offender.

And so, stepping over pots and pans in the kitchen, trying my best not to get my (then) very Roly Poly Pregnant Self tripped and sprawled on the floor or bumped over by a rat, I wonder about the whole imagination thing… it would indeed be beautiful if I was not the one who’d have to put away the pots and search for the hidden pillage some boy is bound to cry over when bedtime approaches. If only my creativity was as unsullied and natural as theirs I would have those rats employed in all sorts of advantageous (to me) yet seemingly (to them) pleasurable ways! But alas, to only keep my head somewhat clear and my feet fairly grounded requires all the creativity and imagination I can presently manage. (Indeed advantageous for the rats.)


Oh may I just continue to benefit from their imagination and unblemished sense of wonder… May I even come to enjoy the scattered pots and pans for the beauty of the story it tells.

PS: See that picture of Potter's Samuel Whiskers and Anna Maria making Roly Poly pudding? I feel like it's me being rolled in the dough most days! If not my body, then my frazzled mind... and let me tell you, after Martin's birth it has not gotten any better. If only it could be blamed this time on fun words like beauty, creativity, imagination and wonder... Unfortunately reality has stepped in with plumbing problems, an overflowing washing maschine, a broken microwave, kitchen and bathroom faucet issues, a leak in the roof which we just discovered resulted in a rotting window frame, unsolicited germs and virusses in the older boys, and worst of all - we ran out of coffee one day this week! If you know Scott, you'll understand: that was a BIG problem. The rats have been a welcome source of humor in the midsts of all that :-)