As always, warmer weather brings out the adventurer in all of my children, but this spring has opened my eyes to Mary a little bit more.
Mary is the kind of girl who loves to dress up. Loves accessories, loves sparkles, chap stick, big sunglasses, fingernail polish, big earrings, and fun shoes.
She also loves to dig...in the dirt. Not only does she love to dig, but she somehow finds bones, and lots of them. Instead of squealing that they are gross, or walking away, Mary will get even more curious and continue to dig.
I wish I had pictures of everything, but to be honest, I am so grossed out by what she brings home, I don't think to get a picture of it.
A month ago, it was the full skeleton of a badger. She not only dug up the skeleton, which she somehow found. She taped each individual bone to paper, labeled them the best she could and then brought it into the house to show me.
I did my best to praise her for her hard work, and tell her to keep it outside at the same time. I later found our front porch had turned into a badger bone display. Blah!
Two weeks ago, she and Sam went on a bike ride. Mary came home with an entire deer head. She was so excited she could hardly speak, and was begging to come back with the rest of the body. She had rode the entire way home with this.
I took the picture, at Mary's insistence, let her show all of her friends, and then I threw it away later that night, without her knowing.
The next day, Mary came in the house covered in paint (which was also in the garbage) and her precious deer head. Dang. She is smart.
She wanted me to take another picture, but this time with the decomposing skin showing. I choked down the bile rising in my throat, and took another picture.
She asked me the other day if we could please dig up our baby guinea pig, so she could see what phase of decomposition it was in. She was met with a very stern no...and maybe a little cringe as well.
There is a dead cat at the kids bus stop. Great spot, I know. All of the kids squirm and squeal every single day when they see it. The parents keep saying someone should move it, but of course no one does.
Mary, on the other hand, LOVES it. I get the report everyday. "Today it's fur is starting to come off, and the flies at one eyeball."
or
"Today it was so cool mom! You can see the leg bone, and the other eye was eaten by a bug, so now you can see some of it's skull and brain."
And yes, she never takes note that I may be eating something at the moment, or possibly petting our cat, Penny, at the time.
She has begged me numerous time to bring the dead cat home, or to let her walk the 1/2 mile from the bus stop with it in her backpack. She is always met with a firm no, and another talk about germs and diseases, but I just have a hunch that the dead "bus stop cat" will end up in our garage at Mary's "lab table" one of these days.
Aside from the full skeleton, she is constantly bringing random bones home that she finds. Dead bugs also seem to be catching her attention, and she loves to pin them to paper and label them.
I am not sure what exactly this will all amount to. I guess I am glad she is interested in stuff after they are dead, instead of the actual killing. That would be disturbing for sure. But this is uncharted territory for me.
It is pretty funny when Mary comes bursting through the door, completely covered in dirt from head to toe, all excited about the newest discovery, so maybe I will just leave it at that,
and stock up on a LOT more soap and hand sanitizer.
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