Discovering Things

This past weekend brought us gorgeous, cool,  fall like weather.  I very happily opened up the windows to let the fresh,  crisp air in, and just as happily kicked the kids outside before they had a chance to fight about anything.

The nasty hot summer had them stuck inside far more than they are used to, so I was determined for them to soak in as much outside time as possible.  With the windows open, we could hear them excitedly talking as they followed the trails of butterflies or hopped around after a large grasshopper.

Bubbles were blown, drawing were made with chalk, they played on the swing set, they even made discoveries.

Abe and I were inside feeding the two little ones, when we hear Matt and Bella very excitedly talking about their great “discovery”.  They had been digging around and were talking about discovering fossils, so I assumed they found a rock that they decided to pretend was some sort of dinosaur bone, or whatever.

They started talking louder, getting more excited as they tried to decide what creature they found and what they should do with it.  When Bella suggested burying it, well, my brain started imagining what they possibly could have found.

When they declared that it had sharp claws, okay, game over.

Bella was coming up the front stairs when she opened the door to make her announcement.

“Mom, I have good news and some not so good news.  The good news is our dig was successful.  Too successful.  We found a dead creature with very long, sharp claws!”

Oh dear baby Jeebus.

“Did you touch it?!”  Ick factor to the max!  I sent Abe outside to see what they had found and sent them to scrubbing their hands clean from the dead “creature” cooties.

Abe said it was probably a mouse as he headed outside, to which they adamantly disagreed.

“No!  It can’t be a mouse, it has long sharp claws!”

Well, I don’t know what they thought they found, and I certainly don’t know what part of their brains were thinking it would be awesome to play with a dead anything.  But here it is, in all of its icky glory:

 

Doesn’t that look like an awesomely fun thing to play with?!  Blech.  And yes, it’s definitely a mouse, probably the remains of some stray cat’s snack.

They came inside and played video games after they used up all the soap washing their grody little hands.  They did make the day interesting, I’ll give them that.