Snips and Snails and Kittycat Tails

Oh kitten power. Wolfie brought over the newest member of his family yesterday, rescued from a future of hard knocks on the streets of Austin and tossed into a sumptuous new life complete with unconditional love and soft meats steeped in gravy.

He has an ongoing contest to decide the little hero's handle and my favorites so far are "Jimmy Cream", "Kidbones" and "Cell Phone." What is your best feline moniker? Ruby is set on naming him "Baby". (disappointing considering her own menagerie is peppered with awesome ones such as Bean, Daisy, Dinah, Sunny, Koko, Emerald, Gwalfo, Roscoe, Rose, Minty, Michi, Lavender, Little Girl Blue, yes-Kidbones and Hans)

This fuzzy guy was smothered in kisses and rough love until he passed out from exhaustion so we tumbled out of doors to exercise the neighbor pup and freshen the fig tree. Ruby was delighted to find a large sleeping snail and was desperate to wake him so we plopped him into a bowl of water and watched in fascination as his gooey highness slowly emerged.

At our last house we had a biblical plague of these same largish garden snails, I thought they were kinda kitschy at first, then when I couldn't play in the yard without the inevitable "POP!cruuuunch" underfoot I became enraged with disgust and spent an hour collecting a couple hundred of the buggers in a box and deposited them down the block in an empty lot. It didn't really help curb the population though and it still took me quite a few barefoot mollusk murders before I learned my lesson and started wearing shoes constantly.

What a boring story. The point was: after touching it's weird stem eyes and watching it slime around with rapt attention for 20 minutes I convinced them to release him so we could go inside and learn all about snails on the internet.

These particular ones are called Otala Lactea, or Milk Snails and are in fact, edible! Not kosher of course, but a delicacy in France and free in Texas. So, if you have a hankerin' for fresh escargot I have the hot foraging tip ya'll.

I have included below a strangely satisfying sped-up video of a milk snail eating lettuce. More fun snail facts here.

My favorite belt-the green one!

*we were joined by will and amber and shared goldfish crackers with wet hands. will rhodes (the cantaloupe kid) not pictured.

Keeping the Doctor Away

Hello. I appreciate your stopping by MamaStorms. I am currently away from my desk because I am too busy swimming in the river with my wondrous children, splashing around like a lumbering, drunken sea lion. Please enjoy this fractal series of them bursting with sweetness, then get away from your keyboard as fast as you can and go play in the sun. Thank you.

I heart summer

Oh Summertime, my grass is still green and you haven't reached 100 degrees yet. Flowers are peeking out from every corner and the river is full of cool water and laughing children. I know I will eat my words in a month when I'm peeling my sunburn and mourning the death of my burnt fig tree but right now I don't even hate you.

Pretty in Pink or the Dreadful Duchess?

We try to discourage princess culture in our house. Sure we have a couple of Disney movies featuring them, but most we watched once and returned to the thrift store. Cinderella is great at cleaning, and Belle comes from a poor family, right? Even without attending public school or watching tv Ruby manages to wish for royalty. Princess everything. Gross.

We tell her that princesses are boring and lazy. All they seem to do is sit around in cold stone houses wearing fancy dresses and bossing around the help. Sure there's the odd party but princessing is basically professional slothfulness. We try and re-route her love of fantasy and fluff more the direction of fairies, mermaids and ballerinas who don't base their worth on being the fairest in the land.

There is a great article by Rachael Combe about the ultra young sexualization of our girls here. She reinforces my belief that children thrive on praise and hugs and for girls the easiest way to garner compliments is by looking pretty. Once the chubby cute phase is over the next logical phase is sexy. Makes me want to move to a farm TOMORROW. However, we are not helpless! We can shower our girls with kisses and compliment them on their humor, their smarts, their drawing skills, dance moves, sister skills, singing voices, climbing powers, everything. Ask them what books they've been reading, what they want to be when they grow up, to teach you a song. They will glow under your praise and attention, focus on improving their rounded skills, and even manage to look beautiful while doing it.

Magnetic Personality

I saw these shiny beauties on a friend's fridge recently and promptly added them to my crafternoon list. So simple even simpletons say it is simply...ummm simple. Less Seuss, more coffee please.

I cranked these out in about an hour while Jeff Klein made us turkey stroganoff, and I only burned one finger.

What you'll need:

• a bag of those clear glass thingys that look like melted marbles (found in the floral section of the craft store)
• small round magnets (about the size of a thick dime)
  
• a couple of magazines ( I used National Geographic)
• a glue that dries clear (Modge Podge or acrylic gel)
• hot glue gun
• scissors

Flip through the magazine looking for small colorful patterns and cut out the ones that strike your fancy in circles just small enough to fit the flat side of the glass beads.
Use your clear glue to affix them face up and let dry for a few minutes.
Now stop howling at your kids to stay away from the hot glue gun and use it to attach the magnets to the underside of your beads-right onto the paper.
Admire your gemstone refrigerator and revel in your artistic prowess and supreme nerdiness.