still the same

me and Ethan at cub scout camp June 2011

I was talking to friend in Utah the other day when she mentioned that stories of Ethan in sacrament meeting and in the neighborhood have become something sort of a legend.  She told me a friend of hers, who moved in after I was gone, was bemoaning her sacrament meeting woes to a group of my old friends and they told her, "Oh, don't worry. Your kids are nothing compared to when the Moncurs lived here!"

We laughed because oh we were quite a sight. Especially once JaDee was in the bishopric while I was pregnant with Olivia.  We have always sat on the second row not to be a spectacle, but it proved to be the spot with the least amount of distractions as no one else with kids sat up there. So starting with Carter, who only wanted to play with his friends and eat their snacks (I guess someone else's goldfish taste better to a 2 year old), we have sat up front.

(I will have to tell you of the fits Carter threw before we made the switch to the front rows some other time...)

So I write this tale of Ethan for my Utah friends who can't believe that the relatively well behaved child that I praise on my blog (he is my favorite remember :) is the same one I chased in the choir seats, and literally tackled as he vaulted the stairs back down to the congregation, during the sacrament all those years ago.

Fortunatly this story does not take place at church, but if it did, it would have been a doozy!

Ethan comes to me with my kitchen tongs last week. "Can I use these?"

"Yes. Wait, for what," I asked, coming to my senses in the nick of time.

"I need it to hold a mouse," he casually explains.

"A mouse? What are you talking about?" I am afraid I actually do have an inkling at this point.  See my two cats are alive and well. And ever so affectionate with sharing the bounties of their nightly hunts.  Most of the mice (they are actually shrews, no mice here in Alaska!) are left intact and in high profile places of the garage floor.  One was actually placed at eye level for us on the roof of an almost 5 foot doll house that is currently waiting for some repairs.  However, another was recently disemboweled for me in front of the van door and I had to scrap the guts up to get in the car.

"I also need to get my knife." Ethan continues. With the earning of his whittling chip every year at cub scout camp, Ethan has been empowered as a master knife-wielder (I know, everyone in Perry is cringing with disbelief that the boy who once almost drowned in my front yard pond after falling through the ice after plummeting off the above retaining wall, has access to knives).

"For what?" I am asking a little more shrilly at this point.

"I want to chop the mouse's head off and dry out its skull to keep."

I promptly take away the tongs and firmly change my answer to, "No. Absolutely not."

"WhyYYYYYyyyy," whines my incredulous son. (I love that word: incredulous...I have been using it lately at my children when they are in trouble).

Really? How come boys even have to ask this question. As if of course I am going to say yes to you using my kitchen tongs (OK I only use them for corn on the cob and canning, both of which we don't really do here anymore [no farms in Alaska=very little produce to can] ) to hold a dead mouse while you saw off its head with your pocket knife.

And then let it hang somewhere in the house to dry out so you can save it alongside of your Lego's and clay pots from art class.

Ethan has also recently charged a toll on the road behind our house for driving over his dandelion chain.

That story goes like this:

When we first moved here, Ethan and his friend C, would make dandelion chains to see if they could get them across the road.  They did this over and over again.  So when another friend came over to play earlier this summer, and it was such a nice day I sent them out to do the same. However, my road is bigger and we have a standing rule of no playing in the street. I didn't specifically mention this rule when I sent them out to play and that would later be my downfall.

The windows were open and I could hear the boys happily making boy noises as they cooperated in this building project.  They were at it a while and I started hearing Ethan say, "That will be 50 cents please, for road repairs."  He says this a few times so thinking that they had added an imaginary element to their completed project I take a peak only to see Ethan at the driver side window of some strange car!

Ethan reaches his hand in the car and takes something and puts it in his pocket.

Did I just witness my 10 year old do a drug deal?  And maybe we better lay off the Bear Aware and have a refresher course of Stranger Danger.

"Ethan! What are you doing?" I shriek as only I can.

"We are collecting money to fix our road when they drive over the dandelions." They do indeed have a chain stretched across the road.

"Are people really paying you guys?" I ask, incredulous myself, this time.

"Yeah," except pronounced "duh."

"You can't do that!" I shriek again after he explains that he has been standing in the middle of the road with his hand out, stopping cars, and refusing to let them pass without a toll payment.

I could have crawled under a rock.  What kind of mother lets her child stop traffic and demand money!?!  Oh wait, I know. Most, as in 99.9% of all mothers, DON'T! But now it is his turn to look incredulous as I try to explain the dangers of being hit, or stolen, or just plain rude by doing this.

"How much did you get?" I ask, wondering.

"I don't know. Couple of bucks," he pulls out a big handful of change from his pocket.

He and his friend split the money since his friend was the work crew and really had no part in the coercing a ransom out of innocent drivers. They each walked away with just over a buck.

Not too shabby for a days work :)