Seven Alexanders: September 2008

There are many things to talk about, but I only want to talk about Phil! Tyler missed Districts by two golf strokes! Phil is evil! TJ got to play wide receiver the entire game Friday night and played much better! I'm glad Phil wasn't there! Dane almost got a personal foul at his football game. If you really knew Dane, you'd know why that makes me proud! Too bad Phil wasn't there to get the brunt of his frustration! Phil! Let me tell you about him!

I had a rough Saturday morning as I was facing some realities of living in a world that STILL struggles with racism. I spent most of the morning in and out of tears trying to determine how to best be a white mom to an African American son who is has some unfortunate things come his way. Okay, that's another post..back to Phil. I was headed out to the back yard to enjoy a cup of coffee and I caught a glimpse of Phil running under the small deck off of our sliding glass doors! He was huge! It makes sense that he would be huge, becaude my recent research on Groundhogs shed light on the fact that they are preparing to hibernate for the winter and that hibernation starts sometime in October...thus the reason for him being so fat! We had a huge windstorm two weeks ago that made me put some thing under the window overhang to keep things from blowing away. I even put the slide to the swingset under it. Well, Phil was peaking out from that slide looking at me as if I was invading his territory!

Tom came around the corner with the girls and Phil disppeared. You can imagine our surprise when we moved the slide we found quite a large hole that went deep down alongside the cinderblock wall! Phil was in there! My farmer husband grew up shooting them with a shotgun, but we live in the city and that is unnacceptable...against the law. So, he grabbed a shovel!

For some reason he filled in the hole. He then rethought the thing and dug it out hoping to get to him. Tyler then through something in the hole that was on fire. That made me nervous since the house has this special stuff alongside the wall underground that I thought would catch fire. Tyler then got the hose and started filling the hole. I had the camera running, hoping to get Phil on video...no luck.

Well, Ohio State was beginnng the game so we filled the hole and went inside knowing we'd get Phil when he borrowed himself out. I checked the spot and noticed dirt moving so I knew that Phil was on his way. But then nothing happened so we went back in to watch the game. Tom and I were hearing this noise...a knocking noise. It was near the sliding glass doors, but it wasn't outside, it was beneath us! Half of our house is a basement. Under our 20'x20' family room as a crawl space. It is really high...the girls can walk in it. Anyway, Tom went to the basement to explore.

You can imagine our surprise to find Phil sitting in the corner of our crawl space! To the right was another familiar looking deep, round hole! That animal borrowed his way under the foundation of our house and up into the crawl space!

Tom had it cornered with the shovel. We no longer had the fear that a neighbor would report us for being cruel to animals...yes, our police officer friend/neighbor said that has been done. This was our house and he was in it....he deserved death! But, Tom missed him! He took off back down his hole. I ran outside, but I never saw him. His hole was opened again though so I'm guessing he ran like a torpedo and right through the dirt we put in that hole! What next?

TJ came home and started to get out his bow....again...not permitted within city limits! He then lit two firecrackers and threw them into the hole from inside the crawl space. Tom and I watched the smoke come out from the outside part of his home...but nothing living came out. I had done some internet research so we soaked a rag in ammonia and tossed ti down the hole from inside the crawl space. We filled the outside hole again and then Tyler came out with the outside remedy. Shoulders back, strutting as if on a mission, Tyler came caring a large mason jar half filled with his urine. I was a bit concerned that he had that much urine in his bladder! Tyler then poured the urine all around that hole saying with a deep voice, "That groundhog will never come this way again. My urine will intimidate him and make him run as far away as possible. We haven't seen Phil since.

Tom said I needed a little diversion from my intense thoughts. Maybe so. Too bad I couldn't just take Tyler's pee and throw it on all of those people with racists thoughts in hopes that they would go far, far away.

The first day of gymnastics!

Sarah with her teacher, Mrs. Kennedy. (I didn't get a photo of Lily with Mrs. Ferro. Oops!)

Sarah at her cubby.

I just showed Sarah this photo and said, "You are a fish." She corrected me, "I am a FABULOUS fish!"

Lily at her cubby.

Lily is in the "Darling Ducks" classroom.

At the front door of school.

The traditional "at the front door first day of school" photo!

Daddy and his girls on the first day of Preschool!

Sarah took this!

Lily took this!

The girls started Preschool last week. I ended up putting them in different classes...you would have thought I was having to choose between Harvard and Yale! I want them to have a different experience and yet it is hard when one is excited about something in particular and the other didn't get to experience it with her. If all goes according to plan, both girls will start kindergarten together next year.

The girls also started gymnastics last week. It is just a beginning class at the YMCA. They had a blast! Although, Lily would much rather take ballet. We'll see about that!