Halloween raccoons

Happy Halloween from our incredibly furry, hard-to-photograph and even-harder-to-keep-track-of-at-night raccoons! We're proud to call them ours.
 

So, raccoons? That's interesting.

Yes, yes, it is.

It all started last winter. The kids and I were at the zoo one Friday, and while we were looking at the giraffes, Mary Clare asked me, "Mom, did you know that raccoons are 'octurnal? That means they don't sleep at night."

It turned out they were studying nocturnal animals that week at school. Kids these days.

She then went on to tell me that next Halloween, she wanted to be a raccoon, and she would pull Charlie around in a trash can behind her. And by golly, if she didn't once waver about what she wanted to be. When I asked her a few months ago what she wanted to be for Halloween, she looked at me like I was crazy and said, "A raccoon, remember?"

No Frozen fever for this girl.

Charlie was on board, as was Nana* and voila, we have two raccoons on our hands.

*Saint Mary killed it again this year. Luckily she did not kill me because this fur, it sheds. Like non stop. She said it makes the shedding from Hunter, Holly and Buddy combined look harmless.

Savior, baked good ... it's all good

The other morning after dropping off Mary Clare, Charlie and I took Buddy to his biannual exam. As we were cruising down Manchester Road through the heart of Maplewood, Charlie suddenly exclaimed, "There's Jesus Christ!" 

"What? You saw Jesus?" I asked, scanning the street for some church that had magically appeared amid the row of shops and restaurants. "Where?" 

"Never mind," he responded. "It was a cupcake." 

"Oh," I said. "I can see how you might be confused." 

Sadly, the sarcasm was lost on him. 

And really, I don't know what he saw. I don't ask. I just enjoy him. 

These two, part two

Remember when I talked about all of the sweet, hilarious and yes, sometimes tender, moments between these two? That was so last month. Now it's like they spend their time trying to figure out the best way to irritate one another. They taunt, tattle and even make up fibs trying to get each other in trouble. The good news is that like their mother, they are terrible liars. They also tend to tell on themselves more often than not. 

I do know that they are having their moments of getting along and playing well, but really, right now it's the whining and the ridiculous fights that seem to stick out the most. 

So on Sunday when we went to the park for lunch, I considered our outing a success because they made it through the entire (read: 10-minute) lunch without fighting over their shared lemonade. 

The expectations, they are low this week. And the kids, they are ridiculous. But cute. So we'll keep them.