Introducing the Scorpion Longtongue

SchmoopyBoy first told me about the Scorpion Longtongue a few days ago. He had made a sculpture of it at preschool. Since I was unfamiliar with such a beast, I asked him about it. Here are a few details:

• The scorpion longtongue is a big bug that eats scorpions.
• It has no teeth.
• It gets the scorpions with its long, sticky tongue.
• Its tongue is as big as an elephant.
• It makes a sound effect when it eats a scorpion that I cannot reproduce on this blog.

I finally got to see a model Scorpion Longtongue today when I picked SchmoopyBoy up from preschool. Exhibit:

You might be wondering, how does he know about scorpions? Well, we've found two of the little suckers in our yard over the past month or so. (Eeek!!! Those things freak me out more than the black widow spiders that like to take up residence in these parts!) Pest control has been called. Unfortunately, their arsenal does not include any natural predators such as the dread Scorpion Longtongue.

Wordless Wednesday - Brothers Playing

Just ignore the mess in the background, please?

Cucumber 'Fish Scales'

I've been having a bit of fun using slices of cucumber as fish scales. Here are a couple of fun meals I've made for SchmoopBoy over the past few weeks.

Mermaid (or is it Medusa with that hair? ;)

The mermaid's head and body is a freehand cutout from a slice of toast. Carrots make her top, as well as her hair. For the face there are raisin eyes, a red bell pepper mouth, and a small toast triangle nose. The tail, of course, is sliced cucumber.

Tropical Fish

The fish body is a large slice off an apple, almost a half. The fins and tail are each thirds of a cheese quesadilla. A carrot slice is the eye, and a grape tomato cut in half forms the mouth. I only made cucumber scales for the tail this time.

Earmaggedon

It is Earmaggedon over at Chez Schmoopy at the moment. Poor Lil' Schmoo has the ear infection to end all ear infections and he is one miserable little schmoo. Complete with fever of 103, three hours of nonstop inconsolable crying with refusal to nurse yesterday, and virtually no daytime naps for the past 3 days. Night time is not even worth describing. Oh, and did I mention he also has two teeth cutting through at the moment?

The one saving grace is that no one else in the house is sick, although I'm sure the moment I hit "Publish" SchmoopyBoy and the husband will both come down with the flu.

How am I? Haven't slept in 3 days. Haven't showered in 5 days. Barely ate today. But, I'm still standing (well, ok, at the moment I'm actually sitting). Feeling a bit sucked dry, but I just keep repeating to myself "This too shall end."  

Going to bed now, since it's about time for the little guy to wake up again. Plus I have a big meeting tomorrow for which I need to appear presentable and functional (ha ha). Wish me luck!

Entertaining ourselves...

...with self portraits. SchmopyBoy has been really into taking pictures lately. Here are some self portraits I've taken of myself with him and Lil' Schmoo over the last week.

It's planting season

So far we've planted carrots and chard. We've still got several more planters, and I think we'll be putting in some spinach, broccoli, and cauliflower. Hopefully our crop will turn out a little better than last year's. Probably the soil we had was not quite right - everything sprouted, but then it just stopped growing after a while.

Quesadilla Butterfly

This is so easy to make and made SchmoopyBoy happy. I just cut a cheese quesadilla in half, and then cut the two halves into sections for the wings  - about two thirds for the top wing and about one third for the bottom wing. Cut the peel off a slice of cucumber in two pieces for the antennae. The peeled slice of cucumber can then be used, along with slices of carrot, to decorate the wings. One more baby carrot for the body and voila! You could get fancy and make a face on the butterfly. I'll try that next time.