Keeping a closer eye on the baby.

Lately the kids seem to have hit a violent streak. Maybe it's the cold weather - there always seems to be an increase in violent (and really stupid) crimes during this time of year. I suppose I should have seen it coming with the discussion of the beheaded rabbit. But silly me, I thought things would stop with ONE dead animal.

And they had - until we were in the van on the way home from church one night. Aaron and I were discussing our separate Wednesday night activities, when all of a sudden Ben bursts forth with this story:

Him: "Me find a bwird and hit it's head off! Me hit it's head off wif a golff cwub!"
Us: "What!? Where did you find this dead bird?"
Him: "In Patty & Dave's yard! And fen me hit it's tail off, too!"

Wonderful. I was the one responsible for him having a golf club - kid-sized, but apparently still a good bludgeon - out in the snow. How was I to know that he would us it to decapitate a bird corpse? Usually Dave & Patty's yard would be off limits thanks to the fence, but since the snow now goes OVER the fence, it's pretty much fair game.

A few days later, I helped out a friend by watching her three kids: Miss M (Leah's age), Mr. P (a year younger than Ben), and Miss A (1 mo older than Adam). So basically I doubled my kids for the afternoon, and oh yeah! Aaron was out of town for the day. Of course I did what any mom trying to sane would do and kicked them all outside for awhile. Unfortunately, I hadn't done anything with that dead bird yet, and when I looked out the window a few minutes later, saw four kids on their bellies, circled around something in the snow. I'll give you two guesses what it was that they were studying so intently. I'm sure the neighbors thought my shrieking was great entertainment while they were making that Social Services phone call.

Shortly after this situation, Mr. P went down the slide and landed face first in the snowbank at the bottom, which cut his play time short. He came in to play with Ben's Hot Wheels. A while later I checked on the kids outside and saw this:

In case you can't figure out what's going on, that would be three kids, armed with plastic bats and a kid's snow shovel, trying to take the head off our snowman. Fortunately for the snowman, he had already thawed and frozen several times, so he was pretty icy. Persistence paid off, however, and eventually the head did indeed topple. And then Miss M sat on top of the body to really show it's who was boss.

What have we learned here? Tools sized for children's usage can only lead to evil.

How have you seen your kids' animal nature come out? Dare I ask? WHY are kids attracted to dead animals? Or is this just mine and I should start saving for the inevitable therapy?