Blank Stare.

*Here's a random story from my upcoming memoir... your welcome! :)

I’m putting Kanen to bed, and he says “Mama, tonight can you tell me a story from when you were a little girl?” I rack my brain for something kid appropriate. And then I have it “This is a cute story” I begin; he turns toward me on the bed listening intently.

So I tell him of the time my little brother Josiah went out to the hen house where our mama duck had just hatched a batch of baby chicks who were swimming in a canning pot for lack of a pond. When I’d gone to check on them, I found the lid on and my brother sitting in the dirt, waiting as if it was pop-corn and the lid would magically pop-up on its own. I raised the lid to find all the duckies floating face down in the water.

“What!?” Kanen says. “He killed the duckies!” “Oh you’re right.  I guess that wasn’t a funny story, let me think of something else.”

           So then I tell him about our goat Cloudy who had gotten into a burlap sack of uncooked brown rice.   And how Josiah thought it was hilarious when the goat tried to eat the peanut butter he was also feeding him.  Tong sticking to the roof of his mouth, but still begging for more.  In his defense, he was only like five, and it was hilarious.  Until an hour later we found the goat on its side, tummy inflated like a hot-air balloon, dead as a door nail.

“What?!” Kanen gives a half horrified laugh.

“Well, we had a lot of animals die when I was a kid.” I tell him.  “It’s the casualty of living in the country. More dead dogs then I can shake a stick at.” He’s not impressed.  

I’m realizing these stories could scar my son, so I quickly tell him the happiest story I can remember from my childhood.  The night of the magical Christmas tree, the night I got the only toy I'd ever owned, my beloved boy doll Josh.  He looks relieved, until he asks “so what happened to Josh?”

“I left him in the sun, and his face melted off”.

He looks at me, blank stare. “Mama, can you not tell me stories about when you were a little girl anymore.”

I see his point.

~Written by: Sarah Centrella for Thoughts.Stories.Life.
 *This is an interactive blog please leave your comments and thoughts, I will respond :)