Boil Em, Mash Em, Stick Em in a Stew

This is the scene we were welcomed home to yesterday:













No, we don't normally leave potatoes laying in the floor. This was the handiwork of our baby boy.













It seems Pippin had an issue with our bag of potatoes. And he had a mission, and he channeled his inner hobbit and if he had been able I am fully convinced he would have boiled em, mashed em and stuck em in a stew. But since he couldn't he just ripped the bag apart, scattered them all over the kitchen floor, ate the rotten one and mashed its remains on the floor. Nice. For the last couple of days we had noticed him walking over to the bag, giving it a sniff and a lick and then walking off. But if you've ever met Pippin this really isn't peculiar. He gives most everything - living, dead, edible, or not - a sniff, a lick, and usually a hump in the face. So we didn't pick up on the warning sign as we should have. But we've gotten it now, loud and clear. Rotten potatoes will not be tolerated in this house so long as they are kept in a bag outside the pantry.

And the funny thing is he KNOWS what he did was wrong. I had to drag him into the kitchen to point at it and reprimand him. And he knew he was in time out when he wasn't allowed to play in the yard all night. He knows, but sometimes that inner hobbit spirit just takes over and potatoes end up all over the floor. The other part of his punishment was listening to the boil em/mash em song several times last night while we poked at him.

But that was just one day, and here are my boys on a different day chilling in the kitchen, best buddies. Next week is Pippin's 4th birthday, a week from today! I really need to order his cake tomorrow so it will be here in time.












I'd also like to get him another firehose toy like Barb and Mike brought him from Chicago. He has loved that toy and played with it just about every day since they were here at the end of April. It took him no time to get squeaker #1 out, but several weeks went by before squeaker #2 surrendered. He has then proceeded to pull it apart, string by string. This is all that's left of it, and I took this pic last week so there's even less of it now, though I am scooping quite a bit of red string out in the yard. I'm not sure if it had some "Phog smell" to it or not, but hopefully I can find one on the 'net somewhere since none of our pet stores seem to carry anything similar.









That's it for now! Good luck to everyone racing and training this weekend! I am hoping to get a 10 mile run and a 20 mile ride in. I got 700 awkward meters in at the pool tonight, go me! Have a great Friday!

Rae