Author: Kris Baker

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May at My House

Well, it is the last day of May.  I didn’t write every day.  I didn’t even write every other day.  I didn’t write as much as I thought I would.  I have heard people say over and over that these are strange times and that nothing feels the same.  I kind of know what they mean.

The last few years when we did my Month of Me posts during the month of May, we had a lot of adventures to write about.  We went places.  We tried new things.  We met lots of new people. We could not do that this year.  We went to the park a few times, but that was it.  Mostly Mr. Guy, The Lady, and I have stayed at home.  I understand why we need to stay at home and I like having lots of time with Mr. Guy and The Lady, but we haven’t done much that I really wanted to write about.   Mostly I have had a lot of time to think.

This is what I learned while I was thinking…

I don’t like how the middle feels.

Here is what I mean.

When it is cold outside, I can put on a jacket and it makes me warm.  When it is hot, I can wear my shirt with no sleeves and it makes me cool.  When it is not hot and not cold, It feels in the middle and I don’t know what to wear.

When I’m sleepy, I can take a nap.  When I’m wide awake, I can play, play, play.  When I’m not sleepy and I’m not wide awake, I just sit and don’t know what to do.  I’m too awake to sleep and to sleepy to want to play.

When I am happy, I can laugh and smile and bounce around and have lots of fun.  When I am sad, I can crawl up in Mr. Guy or The Lady’s lap and get a great big hug and that makes my sads turn into happys.  When I’m not sad and I’m not really happy either, I don’t know what to feel.  That is how this month has been.  I’m not sad, but I’m not happy like I usually am.  The Lady says than I am feeling “meh.” I don’t really know what that means, but it sounds like a word that doesn’t know what it means, so maybe it is a good word to describe how I feel.

Maybe I need to read that story about Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  I think she thought the middle was just right.

Oh well.  May is over and tomorrow will be a new month.  I don’t know what will change other than the month’s name.  I hope I can have a new adventure or two soon.  And maybe a new T-shirt, too.  This is the first month of May where I have not gotten to go shopping for a new shirt.  Maybe that is why I feel “meh.”

Here are a few pictures from May at my house.

I read books…

and I drew some pictures.

I helped The Lady pick out some string so that she can make a blanket.

While she plays with her sticks and string, I play games on the iPad.

I took some naps outside in the sunshine.

And we went to the park on Memorial Day.

That’s all.

Good-bye May.

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Having A Ball!

I don’t know how we can be so busy when we can’t go anywhere!  Lots has been going on at our house.  Some of the stuff that was happening was a secret, so I couldn’t write about it until after it wasn’t a secret anymore!

The first secret thing was that Offspring No. 2’s little monster celebrated his first birthday.  Well, his birthday wasn’t a secret, but The Lady and I made some secret stuff to give to him since we couldn’t go to the store to shop for birthday presents.

We made him a big birthday card with paint.  Mr. Guy and The Lady also got him some Lego. We put all the secret stuff in a great big fancy bag.

We went to the Little Birthday Monster’s house to take him his presents, but we could not get close to him.  We still have to worry about that six feet thing and not spreading that virus.  I’m glad we got to go to his house, but I wish we could have played and eaten cake together.

The elephant is the card we made for him.

The next secret thing that happened was Mother’s Day.  Offspring No. 1 showed me the monster socks that she got The Lady as a present.

It sure does take a lot of secrets to give people presents!  I guess that is because presents are supposed to be a surprise.

Speaking of surprises, Mr. Guy and I went out to the garden and I saw little green balls all over one of his plants.  I know at Christmas time people hang balls on trees, but it is May.  And May is not Christmas time.  And at Christmas the balls on the trees are all different colors and festive.  This plant only had green balls and they did not look festive or not even like very pretty decorations.

Mr. Guy told me that they are tomatoes.  They didn’t look like tomatoes to me.  Tomatoes are supposed to be red.  Mr. Guy explained that as they grow and ripen, they will turn red.  Oh!  So when this plant looks like a Christmas tree with red balls, then the tomatoes will be ready for us to eat!

And speaking of balls that we can eat…since we have to stay at home all the time, The Lady and Mr. Guy have been cooking a lot.  The Lady made these funny looking balls for dinner one night last week.  They were called felt awfuls.  Does that sound like something that you want to eat for dinner?

The felt awful balls were kind of green too.  I wondered if they were going to make me turn green and feel awful.  I told The Lady that I did not want to eat her felt awfuls.  She explained that the felt awful balls taste good and are good for me.  She said they were made from lots of  little brown balls called  garbage beans.  No wonder they are called felt awful balls, they are made from garbage!  I did not want to eat garbage!  Suddenly I had no appetite.

Then The Lady said that our dinner balls are falafel, not felt awful, and  were made from garbanzo beans, not garbage beans!  Once I knew that, I tried them and they tasted pretty good.

Some of the plants in our yard have pretty flowers instead of green balls.

The yellow flowers are more cheerful than the green tomatoes!

We finally went to the park again this weekend, but we stayed away from all of the people.

I like looking at the trees.  They are sooo tall!  I’m just a short little furry blue and orange monster.

We also watched the ducks.  I am still looking for a turtle to talk to about sheltering in place, but I haven’t found one yet.

Life sure seems weird right now.  I’m glad that I have Mr. Guy and The Lady to take good care of me.  I sure hope that each of you has ssomeone to be your friend and take care of you.

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Looking for Birds

I don’t have very many words today.  I was tired and The Lady was busy working all day.

Our job was to take a picture of a bird.  I sat outside for a little while this afternoon and looked for birds but I didn’t see any before I got too hot.  The little red line thing on our patio went up to a 9 and a 3.  That is very warm for a very furry little blue and orange monster!

So, I decided that I could make a pretend bird instead of finding a real one in the sky or in a tree.  Since The Lady makes a lot of things with her sticks and string, I thought maybe I could do that too.  I found one of her sticks and string picture books and it had a perfect bird…a blue and orange one!

I found some orange and some blue string in The Lady’s big plastic toy box and I found some of her sticks too.  Then I started looking at the sticks and string book.  It did not have real words in it.  It only used K’s and P’s with a few togs and slps.  It reminded me of my text tiles from yesterday when I could not find all the letters to make my words.  This book was missing a lot more than just T’s, though.

Then I thought maybe I could make my bird without using the words in the sticks and string book.  I was wrong.  All I could make was a pile of angry blue and orange snakes.  Boo.  Hiss.

If I knew how to make real things with sticks and string, I would have made this cool bird.  I don’t; so I didn’t.  And, it is the only bird I saw today.

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“T” is for…

Now that it is May, I ask the same questions every morning when I get up.  What are we having for breakfast?   What are we taking pictures of today?

This morning, Mr. Guy told me that we were having eggs and toast for breakfast and that today’s picture was going to be text tiles.  I was excited!  I like eggs and toast and I had the perfect idea for our picture because I have lots of text tiles.

Because I like words, Mr. Guy and The Lady gave me some text tiles to help me learn my letters.  I like the text tiles because I can play with them all by myself…unless I don’t know the letters in a word I want to make.  Then I have to ask for help.  After I ate my breakfast, I got my text tiles out and thought about our picture.

I know how to make the letters spell the words blue, and orange, and and, and monster.  Using my tiles to spell those words for my picture seemed like a perfect idea!

I made all of my words except for one.  I could not find a “T” for the word monster.

Just about the time I was getting very frustrated, Mr. Guy came and asked me what I was doing.  I explained that I was working on our text tile photo, but I could not find a “T.”  Isn’t it kind of funny that in something called Text Tlies there are no T’s?

Mr. Guy found me the T that I needed.

Now we could take our picture!

Mr. Guy was not as excited as I was.  I asked him what was wrong.  He said, “Well…I have a little bit of bad news.”  That is never a good thing to hear!  He said,  “Our picture is not supposed to be of text tiles that are two words.  It is supposed to be text tiles that are one word.”  I had no idea what he was talking about but I figured I would have to pick just one of the words I made with my text tiles.  That was easy.  I told Mr. Guy, “Okay.  We can just use monster since we made that one together.”  He said to me, “I’m sorry, but our picture isn’t supposed to be about words at all.”  Now I was really confused.

Mr. Guy explained that textiles, one word, are what our clothes and blankets and other soft stuff are made from.  I asked him if my t-shirts were textiles and he told me that they were.  OK.  So today would be just a t-shirt photo day.  Then The Lady said that I could wear my dress-up clothes if I wanted to because textiles can be more fancy than t-shirts.  That sounded more promising.  Then The Lady gave me her bad news.

Our photo had to be in black and white.

Yuck!  I do not like black and white pictures!  I am a furry little BLUE and ORANGE monster not a black and white monster.  Black and white are OK if those are your real colors.  What would people who are black and white think if I took pictures of them and made them blue and orange?  I bet they wouldn’t like it much.  Well, that is how I feel.

But, since we have a deal to all do this Month of May project together, I played along like a good little monster, at least on the outside.  My insides were not really being very good.

How do you like my textiles?

I just want to say that black and white will never be the new orange and blue!

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Fitness Day

It is only the second day of my May photo and writing adventure and already I’m not sure this is a good idea!  The Lady told me that today is National Fitness Day so our picture would have something today with that.  I had no idea what she meant, but was not worried about it.

I figured a fitness day was probably a good thing.  Maybe it had something to do with seeing how all my shirts fit me.  And if Mr. Guy and The Lady were checking to see how my shirts are fitting that must mean that maybe it is getting close to time that we can go shopping for new ones.  I started getting a little excited about this fitness day.

Then it came time to take some pictures…

Offspring No. 1 was there to help.  She said that I needed to have hand waits and a mat before The Lady could take the fitness pictures.  Why did I have to have a mat?  The Lady usually makes me brush my fur before I can be photographed because she says that having mats in my fur makes me look like nobody takes care of me.  I learned a long time ago to brush my fur everyday because it hurts to have the tangly mats brushed out.  I try not to cry if I get them, though, because The Lady says that she’ll have to cut the mats out of my fur if she can’t brush them out and I do not want to have holes in my fur!  It is just easier to never get a mat.  And now I am supposed to have one?  This is very confusing.

And hand waits, too.  I figured that must be part of the corona virus stuff.  Our hands have to wait to touch stuff so we don’t share germs.  I guess that means that my hands are going to have to wait to try on new shirts.  But what does that have to do with taking a picture today?

When I got outside, there was an orange rectangle on the ground.  It had big orange dog bones on it.  I thought maybe the orange rectangle was a dog bed since it had dog bones on it.  The Lady asked me to go lay on the mat.  I told her that I did not have a mat, that my fur was all brushed and not tangly.   I wanted to look nice for today’s picture.  She pointed to the orange dog bed and said that was the mat.  Weird.  It was smooth and didn’t have any fur that could get into a mat.

Then Offspring No. 1 explained that fitness day is about taking care of your body, about doing things that make your muscles strong and keep all of your body parts healthy.  This is what I was expecting, to hear. The hand waits are important because they mean I won’t touch things that might make me sick and then make my body not strong.

Offspring No. 1 told me to grab a wait.  I just looked at her.  Then she pointed to the dog bone and said it again, “grab a wait.”  I asked her if she wanted me to wait to grab a bone.  She looked at me like all of my fur was matted.  “A wait!  Pick up that hand wait right there!”  I think she was getting mad at me but I was so confused.  Finally she figure out why I didn’t understand.  “Not hand wait, hand w-e-I-g-h-t. Weight!  And it is not a dog bone!

I reached to pick up the hand w-e-I-g-h-t.  It was heavy!  Offspring No. 1 said that that was the point.  It had to be heavy because it was lifting the heavy w-e-I-g-h-t was how my muscles would get strong.  I learned that picking up heavy stuff is how you get fitnessed.

I picked up those weights a few times and then my arms started to hurt.  They hurt more than having my fur mats brushed out

Offspring No. 1 tried to show me how to use these hand weight things.  She is very fitnessed.

I was just tired.

The Lady told me that when Offspring No. 1 was little like me, she had lots of hairs and her hairs would get into a mat because she didn’t like to brush them.  And when The Lady would try to brush Offspring No. 1’s hairs for her, she would cry because it hurt.  Maybe Offspring No. 1 and I have some things in common.  Maybe one day I will have muscles as strong as hers.

But even if I do make my muscles big and strong, they will never show because my fur covers them up.  And I am going to keep my fur because I brush it and don’t have to make holes in it cutting out any mats!

I think that we are all good at different things.  Offspring No. 1 is good at fitness day and hand weights and I am good at brushhing my fur.   I can celebrate No Mat Day.  I think we should just leave it this way.

I wonder if there is a No Mat Day.

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It’s May Day

May I wish you all a Happy May Day?!

May is my favorite month of the year because it is the month when The Lady takes a picture of me every single day and I write something here every single day.  Also, when it is May, I know that school is almost over and summer break is about to begin.  But, some things are different about this May.

For the last couple years, on May 1st, Mr. Guy and The Lady have taken me shopping for a few new t-shirts for my May blog posts.  Remember, I like to collect t-shirts.  This year, though, we are not going to do that because of that corona virus thing and social distant singing.  Mr. Guy told me that if we went shopping, I would have to wear a mask and do social distant singing..  Hmm…Mr. Guy doesn’t sing and I don’t sing…even distantly!  And, a mask?  It is not even Halloween.  And come to think of it, I don’t even wear a mask a Halloween.  I trick or treat dressed like the furry little blue and orange monster that I am and say “thank you” to all of the people who say to me, “Cute costume!”  Singing and masks made shopping sound like a theatre production.  I wasn’t sure I wanted any part of that.

Then I started thinking, maybe it would be fun to wear a mask now since I don’t wear one any other time…as long as I didn’t have to do social distant singing too.  Mr. Guy told meThat I definitely did not have to sing.  He also said that he didn’t think that I would like wearing a mask, but he would let me try one on.  The Lady made two different kinds of masks.  Some have elastic and some have ties.  Well, I could only try on the tie kind because the elastic kind have to hook on to your hears…and I don’t have any hears.  I only have horns.  If I hook the elastic on my horns, the mask covers my eyes.  I asked Mr. Guy if he could cut holes in the elastic mask like they do for the masks at Halloween.  He told me that cutting holes in the mask would mean that germs could climb in and out of the holes and that is what we didn’t want to happen.  So it is a tie mask for me.


I think we look like we are dressed up like happy bank robbers!

All that to say that I did not get any new shirts today.

I looked through my closet and found one that I think is perfect.  I am sad that I didn’t get to go shopping, but I have lots of other things to be thankful for.  I am thankful that I live with Mr. Guy and The Lady.  I am thankful that we are all healthy and that we have have masks to keep us healthy if we have to go shopping for stuff that is more important than new shirts for me.  I am thankful that it makes me happy to look at all the shirts I have and remember that I got them when I visited some really cool places.  I also had some big smiles remembering special friends who have given me shirts as gifts.  I’m sure glad that I don’t grow much and my shirts keep fitting me!

Since we couldn’t go anywhere special, Mr. Guy, The Lady, and I took a walk around our yard and looked for blue and orange flowers because blue and orange are my favorites!  I found some!

Even though today was not the day I had hoped for, I still have lots of things to be thankful for.

And now I am going to go eat tacos for dinner and be thankful some more!

 

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Making New Friends

It has been more than a month and we still can’t go anywhere because of the corona virus.  Since we are all stuck at home, I thought that The Lady would have lots of time to do stuff with me; but, all she does is work all day long.  I sit in the den with my books and my toys and watch her work.  Don’t tell her I said this, but when she went to school everyday and said that she was very busy, I didn’t believe her.  Now I do!  By the time she is done with her work and we have dinner and clean up the kitchen, it is time for this little monster to go to bed.  This Safer At Home stuff may indeed be safe, but it is not a very fun time for me.

I did learn something yesterday that made me happy, though.  I know that after I go to bed at night, The Lady sits in her chair and plays with her sticks and string.  I know this because when I get up in the morning, there is string everywhere.  Sometimes it’s little pieces.  Sometimes it is big balls.  She has a basket with lots of colors of string in it..and all of .her string colors don’t match very well.  I have never been sure if she makes real useful stuff with her sticks and string or if she just ties lots of knots.  Then yesterday, she posted on Facebook that she had made a new friend.  Apparently she made this new friend with her sticks and string at night while I was sleeping.  I had not met this new friend of hers before and was kind of surprised.  It made me happy, though,  that lots of people on Facebook were concerned about my feelings about this new friend of hers.

His name is Louis.  Louis and I have some things in common and some things not in common.  Louis is made of gray and white string.  I am made of blue and orange fur.  Louis’s clothes are also made of string.  My clothes are made of t-shirts.  Well, most of them.   I do have one sweater made of string that my friend Ms. Joni made for me with her sticks and string.  My sweater is orange just like Louis’s sweater.  I am much bigger than Louis, though,  so I won’t have to worry about him borrowing my t-shirts.  That makes me happy.  I don’t mind sharing…well…maybe I do mind just a little.  My shirts are all very special to me.  They wouldn’t be special to him.

Another thing that Louis and I have in common is that we both have horns.  His are tiny gray horns compared to my big orange ones.  I guess that makes sense since the rest of me is also bigger tham him.

Louis and I talked today.  I told him about my adventures with Mr. Guy and The Lady.  He said that he was not interested in that kind of adventure.  He likes to sleep during the daytime and stay up all night.  That seems strange to me. Maybe that is because The Lady made him at night.   If he sleeps during the day and I sleep during the night, Louis and I will not see each other very much.  That might be OK with me.  I kind of like having Mr. Guy and The Lady all to myself when we go on adventurers.  Does this make me a selfish furry little blue and orange monster?  I hope not.  I don’t want to be selfish.  But I was here first.  I sure hope Mr. Guy and The Lady don’t ever think about getting another monster that likes to be awake during the daytime and to go on adventures!!!

 

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Six Feet

This car on a iris, I mean carona virus, is a strange thing.  We are still supposed to be sheltering in place and I am still curious about how turtles do this.  I asked Mr. Guy if he would take me to the park so that I could ask a turtle about just how turtles do shelter in place.  Mr. Guy said he could take me, but that we would have to practice “social distancing measures.”  I told Mr. Guy that I would be happy to do that if I had any idea what he was talking about.

Mr. Guy explained to mean that “social distancing” means that we have to stay six feet away from other people.  Six feet?  I don’t have six feet.  How will I know if I am to close?  Mr. Guy and The Lady don’t have six feet.  The only thing I know about that has six feet is a beetle.  So I figured that social distancing must mean that I have to stay a beetle’s length away from other people.  Beetle’s feet aren’t very big so I was sure I could do that.  I was a little worried at first.   If I had to stay six of Mr. Guy’s feet away or six of a big tall basketball player’s feet away I might be a little scared.  I’m just a little monster and I don’t like to get too far away from Mr. Guy and The Lady.  I told Mr. Guy that I thought that I could do well with social distancing, that I promised to stay a beetle’s length away from other people, even him!

Mr. Guy looked very confused.  “A beetle’s length away?” he said.  I explained to him that he had told me about staying six feet away from other people and the only thing that I knew about with six feet were beetles!  He told me that he was not talking about the six feet on a beetle.   He was talking about feet like on a ruler.  A ruler?  A ruler like a king?  I have met lots of people, but ( have never met a king.  And even if I had, I don’t think I would know how big their feet are!  This social distancing thing was getting way too complicated for this little blue and orange furry monster!  Maybe I didn’t really want to go to the park after all!

Mr. Guy tried again to explain to me about the six feet.  He told me that one foot is twelve inches, the length of the kind of ruler we use to draw straight lines, and that makes six rulers equal to six feet, or seventy-two inches.  I had to stay seventy-two inches away from people?!  I’m not sure that this little monster can count that high all by myself.  Mr. Guy finally told me not to worry.  He said that he knew how far six feet or seventy-two inches is; so, if he carried me in the park all I had to worry about was looking for a turtle  He would worry about proper social distancing.  This made me very happy!

The part of the park where we went was not crowded so no one had to worry about beetle feet, or kings feet, or seventy-two inches.  That was a relief!  Mr. Guy said that he would show me how to use his camera so that I could take a picture of my turtle friends…from six feet away…when I found them.

Once I knew which buttons to push, we were off to look for a turtle.

We looked…and looked…and looked.

Apparently turtles don’t shelter in place at the park.  Or maybe they too are confused about this six feet thing!

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Finding Your Happy Heart

Has there ever been something that you really loved to do and then all of the sudden it didn’t seem fun anymore?  That is how I felt about writing my stories.  It seemed like a lot of work and I stopped doing it.   I’m not sure why.  The Lady went on a few trips and I didn’t want to go with her.  When she came home, she said that people had asked about me, that they were disappointed that they didn’t get to meet me.  Then I felt sad.  I have been a confused little blue and orange furry monster about whether to write or not to write.

This week The Lady has not been going to school, but she has been working at home.  That seemed strange to me.  I thought maybe she got tired of teaching like I got tired of writing.  The Lady told me that that was not the case; she is working at home because we are supposed to all stay at home because of a car on a iris. 

Hmm… Why would we have to stay at home because of a car on an iris?   

I know that irises are pretty flowers.  We have some in our yard.  But I couldn’t figure out why an iris in the road meant that The Lady couldn’t go to school.  I went outside to check on the ones in our yard.  Sure enough, one of the flowers had fallen off of its stem and the car was on it.  

That was sad, but I still wasn’t sure why this meant we had to stay home.  Then I thought maybe the iris had thorns on it and it had flattened the tire.  

Nope.  There were no thorns on the irises and the tire was fine.

The Lady said that we have to Shelter in Place and that means we can’t go out and be around other people because the car on an iris can make people very sick and we want to stay healthy.  Then I got scared because I had just been outside looking at the car on an iris.  I don’t want to be a sick little monster!

I was upset and The Lady knew it.  She explained to me that it is not a car on an iris that makes people sick, it is germs call Coronavirus.  She also told me that she was pretty sure that little monsters could not get the virus.  The only thing that might happen is that I might get the bad germs in my fur if we go out around lots of people and then I could share them with Mr. Guy and The Lady.  That’s why we have to do the Shelter in Place.  I was relieved.  I can do that.  I can stay home.  This little monster doesn’t want to make anyone sick!

The Lady told me that not being able to go to school or to church or out to eat with her friends feels very weird.  She said that sometimes you don’t realize how important something is until you don’t have it.  I knew exactly what she meant.  I told her that is how I feel.  I realize that I miss writing my stories.  

The Lady said that I could fix that.  All I had to do was start writing them again.  I was excited for a minute.  Then I remembered that we can’t go anywhere or do anything so I won’t have any stories to tell.  The Lady reminded me that I am a creative little monster.  She said that she was sure that I could think of something to write about.  And if not, I could tell some of the stories about things that I have done in the last year when I wasn’t writing.  

My little monster heart is happy. 

 I guess I had to not do something to realize how much I love doing that thing.  I wonder if all the people who are doing shelter in place right now will think about what things they miss and what things they don’t.

I think I’ll write a story about what shelter in place means to a turtle.