The Difference Between Girls and Boys

I was opening the back patio door to take the kids outside to play and I almost stepped on something yucky. I am not unaware that a disturbing number of my blog entries are about (or at least include) poop. This is an exception. For once my story has nothing to do with bodily functions. YAY! Nope, today I almost crunched a beetle on the steps. A huge, ugly, nasty beetle. Ew, it bothers me to even think of him. You don't understand. Think of a normal-sized beetle and then picture feeding it steroids. Then multiply that by 3. That's the kind of creature we were dealing with. Beetlesaurus...Godzillabeetle.

The difference between (my) boys and girls is: Sarah caught a glimpse of this intimidating insect and bolted across the yard, screaming like she was on fire. Patrick on the other hand, got very wide-eyed and slowly declared in awe, "NEEEEEAT!" He bent over, his little baby face nearly touching the bug, and studied the beautiful greens and blues on its shell. He watched it crawl around aimlessly and ultimately tumble down the step onto the grass. He followed behind it, creeping so slowly to see where it would go next. Then he tried to eat it. Sarah and I were huddled together on top of their plastic picnic table watching in horror. It was like slow-motion: NOOOOOO!!! Fortunately I got to him in time to avoid catastrophe. Unfortunately I had to make physical contact with the bug.

After much hand washing the kids are watching Tom & Jerry. I've had enough outdoors for today.