Mermaids are Magical

We had a tragedy on the farm on Monday. Monday is one of our Home Days and the girls were happily playing some imaginary game in the playroom, I was cleaning the house, the cats were sleeping and the chickens were roaming in the shady spots in the backyard. Francesca opened the door to go outside and ran back in, slamming the door and screaming, "The neighbor's chickens are in our backyard!!!" I ran outside to find feathers everywhere, Tornado, our rooster laying on his side, half dead with two dogs chewing on him. To my right was a dead black star chicken by the fence and another chicken seemingly dead by the garage. I was instantly sent into freak-out mode. I threw the dogs out the gate and ran around the yard to find the other chickens. Tornado jumped up, suddenly okay, but the black star was definitely dead. Sunburst was okay, but clearly seriously traumatized and Sippy Sippy Sophia was hidden on the other side of the house, frozen in fear in a corner. After herding them into the coop, the remaining three chickens went into the coop, not to come out much again. I took them to the vet and they were lucky. No major internal injuries, mostly just surface wounds, but they are totally traumatized. They are so skittish that we can barely come near them and they stay in the coop most of the time now. I'm hoping that after some rest, pain killers, antibiotics and more rest, they will eventually be okay.

Francesca and Cecilia took it better than I did, by far. They were scared while I was in freak out mode (running around the yard saying, "F*CK! SH*T! SH*T! and not knowing what to do,) but after I got a grip, they were calm and cool as cucumbers. Sometimes they forget that Sophia died and say, "Why are there only three chickens?" and sometimes when they're playing pretend, they say, "My neighbors dog killed my chicken," but other than that, they faired pretty well. I'm just glad they didn't kill all of them, or break wings or legs. Argh.

On a related topic, we had a play date the next day and the four boys were playing, "Pirates killing the bad pirates." We don't play kill games. Killing isn't nice, and is especially not nice in light of recent events, having seen our pet chicken killed for sport, in our own backyard. Our play reflects our reality, and in our reality, killing isn't nice. Eventually, the "game" made Francesca cry because she kept sweetly trying to redirect the game into something nicer, something she wanted to play, to no avail. And she was persistent, suggesting fishing games instead of swords, or Sparkly Mermaids Under the Sea which led to the pirates killing the mermaid and Francesca crying. Since I was the only mother without a son, the gist of the rhetoric was pretty much boys will be boys, and this is endlessly infuriating to me.

Because a boy child is a boy, it is necessary to foster bloodlust in them? Violence is part of mankind's history, yes, but its our job NOT to perpetuate it, unless we want our children growing up and joining the Army or something so they can kill for real! I don't know what my next baby will be, but wether its a boy or a girl, they will know the spirit of non-violence and feel the same sensitivity for killing that my girl children do. Not watching movies is probably THE reason that the girls ONLY play games about their experiences or their imagined experiences. Their experiences aren't Hollywood movies or hunting or killing 'bad guys,' because in their world, there are no bad guys and killing sucks. It sucked when our chicken was killed in our backyard, and it sucked when the mermaid was killed at the park. "You don't kill mermaids. Mermaids are magical! I know they are!"