Warning: Explicit Language

I’m not against swearing, far from it.  I’m a firm believer in freedom of speech and I think that at times, the ‘f’ word is an excellent sentence enhancer.  In fact at times I’ve launched into monologues that would surely make a sailor blush.   But I must say, I was quite taken aback a few weeks ago (it’s taken me that long to get over it) when the boys uttered their first four lettered words.

It happened like this.  We were about three and a half hours into a four hour journey to see my brother’s new baby.  Everyone was sick of the car.  We were in traffic and out of snacks.  Shane decided to do some singing which usually works to calm the troops.  On this occasion, he was told, in no uncertain terms, to ‘shut the eff (I just can’t bring myself to actually write it) up’.  In fact, that’s exactly what he was told.  The English teacher in me was pleased that he had used his new academic vocabulary in context; the parent in me was horrified.  We looked at each other to confirm that we hadn’t misheard.  Then we made a game plan.  It was our first real parenting dilemma.  Do we tackle it and tell him off?  or Ignore him and hope it never happens again?  While we were trying to work out what Dr Phil or Supernanny or any of the thousands of parenting experts on Facebook would do, Bede came up with his own version and could be heard shouting ‘shuck up’ very forcefully in the background.  And I have to admit, this was a little bit hilarious.

Now before I go any further, I’d just like to point out that even though I love a bit of colourful language from time to time, I don’t actually speak to the boys in this fashion but who knows what those characters on ABC Kids are up to these days!

After a few furious moments of whispering to each other about what to do, stifling laughter (because at times like these if you don’t laugh you’ll cry) we decided to ignore what they had said and hope it went away.  For the most part, that seems to have worked.  I haven’t heard the ‘f bomb’ dropped again and they seem to have reverted back to their much more innocent ‘dear oh dear oh dear’ when calamity strikes.  Phew.  Fingers crossed.  And just to be on the safe side, I’ve been especially careful to express frustration with the incredibly sophisticated phrases ‘far out brussell sprout’ or ‘geez whiz’.

 

CSI: Dimboola

We had an incident here last week.  An ugly, awful incident which resulted in a messy crime scene, a victim and a perp (as ‘they’ say). Thankfully for the sake of future potential victims, the perp was caught red handed.  It was less fortunate for me because I was the one who stumbled across the grisly scene.

Last Wednesday morning, the boys were playing happily outside, as is their wont.  They spend a great deal of time outside and are pretty au fait with the local bird life and the general sounds of neck of the woods.  But on this morning, there was a strange noise coming from just outside the fence, under the peppercorn tree.  “What’s that?” said the boys, complete with an upward inflection and their palms facing the sky to further illustrate their bewilderment.  By this stage, I too was intrigued.  As a very amateur but enthusiastic bird watcher I thought we could be on to something amazing.  But no.  When I peeked over the fence, I did not see a rare and unusual species or get a surprise sighting of the elusive Mallee Fowl.  Instead, I saw Sam attacking a chook.

Sam, enjoying the finer things in life.

Sweet little Sam, everybody’s favourite little brown and white dog.  Sam who is rapidly approaching his tenth birthday – what’s that in dog years? – who is still recovering from his second knee reconstruction and who is generally very well behaved.  But not on this day.  What the heck was I going to do?  Of course I cried.  Then I called Shane who told me that I should try to get Sam.  OK, I thought.  I can do this.

He likes to be friends with lizards but not chooks apparently.

Here’s some background information and geography to the situation because the court will probably need this in Sam’s trial:  Sam had evidently escaped from ‘his’ yard at the front of the house and found a chook.  I don’t even want to think about how he came to be where I found him but there he was, just outside the yard at the back of the house, under the peppercorn tree with this poor old chook.  Right, I thought, sort this out Hannah, you’ve handled worse than this.  Have I?  I don’t actually think I have.  I decided that the first thing I needed to do was secure the boys well away from the situation – the last thing I needed was them getting in on the action.  So I put them in the car.  This was a stroke of genius.  I grabbed Sam’s lead because I thought he’d come if he thought he was going for a walk.  He didn’t.  Instead, he grabbed the chook and headed further into the undergrowth of tree and I knew that this job was beyond me.

By this stage, I was somewhat hysterical.  I’m an absolute bleeding heart about lots of things, but particularly animals.  Shane says it is what he loves and finds most difficult about me in equal measures.  I called him again.  I would have called his parents to help but they were away and I didn’t know what else to do.  Because he knows me that well, Shane decided that he better come home.  I got in the car and drove around for a bit and tried not to think about what was happening.

His record is not entirely clean.

After an age, Shane came home and dealt with it.  I’ll save the detail for the trial  but it was horrific.  Turns out that since Sam has achieved his ‘goal weight’ (good for him!) he can now get out of his previously secure yard.  Sometimes it’s better to be a bit fat.

We are so lucky to have the best neighbours in the universe.  They were very kind, understanding and forgiving and Shane reckons that I was disproportionately upset about the whole ordeal and that may be so.  But I don’t want to be the kind of person who is not moved by such senseless loss of life, even if it was ‘just a chook’ as people keep telling me.  But that poor little chook had a will to live as strong as any being and it was a sad day.

Sam is currently under house arrest and has been placed on a good behaviour bond.  He reports to his parole officer several times a day and has not reoffended.  Yet.  Wish us luck in his rehabilitation.