cluck cluck

yes, we are getting new "pets". alex has been working on the old chicken house for about a month. it had stacks of old tires taller than he is, old supplies, holes in the walls, and was needing new chicken wire. he has been over there everyday, after school, on the weekends. i don't think i have ever seen him this excited about anything. yesturday, jeff, nathan smith, my brother-in-law, and my father-in-law, helped the boys (and morgan and haley) finish up what needed to be done. today is the day they are getting the chickens. jeff is so not thrilled. all i have heard from him is "why on earth would he want those? they are smelly, nasty, disgusting". ok, maybe they are. when i was a kid i wanted chickens pretty bad. saved my money, drew up plans for a coop, even got magazines about chickens. my parents never got them for me. i know, i'm just doing this for the kids because it was something i wanted as a kid. it's true. i will admit it. but i didn't put the idea in their heads. they came up with it on their own. jeff's problem is the kids don't want the stuff he wanted as a kid. but he gets it for them anyway. then he complains because they don't take care of it/play with it. i can give you a few examples: a go-cart, airhockey table, foozball table, golden tee arcade game. these are just a few. these weren't cheap games, he spent way more money on this crap that they kids don't want, than was spent on getting the chicken house going. he brings up the dog we have to usually yell at the kids to take care of. i love the dog, but my kids didn't want a dog. my sister-in-law decided alex needed a dog at the ripe old age of 7. boys need dogs. did i mention she doesn't have any kids of her own? so how can i count this against the kids when they didn't ask for her. they didn't put any work into getting her. i guess that has been my litmus test for getting things for the kids. how much work did they put into getting it? has it proved they are committed to the responsibility? alex is going to be 11 in a couple of months. i think it is time to give him the benefit of the doubt. and if it doesn't work out, we go from there. but we have to give him the chance. i am not going to limit his possibilities at 11. he has been wanting to join 4H. i figured this would give him a chance to see how much work this may be. then we can go from there. with 4H, he can raise poultry, sheep, pigs, cows, whatever. if he is really wanting to do this, i am fine with it. jeff doesn't want the work. he had to do it as a kid. he didn't want to, he hated it. i wanted to, but wasn't given the chance.
it's amazing we ever got together. i have always been an animal person. he is definately not. (although he loved gimpy our cat. gimpy had something wrong with him. he couldn't walk right. when he tried to run he usually fell over or did a cartwheel. but he was a major fighter. he would be out there with 20 other cats at jeff's mom and dad's house, and fight them all off for a scrap of food. totally won my heart, then jeff's)
anyway, soon i will have chicken stories for you. i know how the bunny stories made everyone's day.