So yeah, I'm a planner. A down-to-the-last detail, all-ducks-in-a-row planner. This include Holidays and birthdays, and truth be told, I'm behind this year. I just started my Christmas shopping. This time of year I'm usually at least half way done, but not this year. There's nothing I hate more than the packed stores and traffic come November/December, so I prefer to get the vast majority of it done was ahead of time. Easier on the wallet, too. I've just been lazy this year, apparently, since I'm just starting now.

A few weeks ago we helped a couple we were newly friends with pack up their UHaul for a big, interstate move. We helped them load up their stuff while my two younger kids, 5 and 7, and their 3 kids, 3, 5, and 8, ran amok all over the place. Everything was fine...until the drive home.

My son, 7 yo Sam, casually announces on the drive home that he's got a pocket of rabbit corpse. No, he's not a serial killer in the making, he's a little guy hell bent on becoming a Game Warden and therefore is extremely focused on all things wild. Where the hell did he get rabbit remains, you ask? Our new friends keep meat rabbits, and apparently there's a pile where they dispose of the bones on the edge of the woods. Sam thought it would be great to help himself to some dead rabbit parts, and also thought it wise to not mention it until we had already left the scene of the crime. Wise move, Samuel, because I never would have let you load up on rabbit corpse had I known that was your intention.

Fine. So we brought home a pocketful of rabbit bones. Then 5 yo Allie pipes up that my friend's pet rat bit her. I saw the rat, caged in the room the kids were playing video games in at one point, and mentioned for her to just look but keep her fingers away. I don't mind pet rats, I just know that they'll nip if your fingers smell like food. Sure enough, the kids decided to feed the rat while we were busy, and my daughter got nipped. Nothing major, but it broke the skin. She too decided not to mention it until we were headed home. I think she feared I would make them leave early. Again, wise move, offspring. I would've preferred to clean that sucker the moment it happened, not an hour or two later. But too late for that.

So we go home with our rabbit corpse parts and a fresh rat bite. Yeah, another day in paradise over here.

The rat bite healed up just fine with some neosporin and keeping an eye on it, and the rabbit bone incident led me to consider getting my son some animal skulls for Christmas this year. I know, I know, it's weird and macabre and not the usual sort of thing a kid likes to find under the tree, but the little bastard's riding home with a pocket full of rabbit parts. It's like a warning from above: 'Get the kid what he wants or he'll bring home something nastier next time!'.

I have an older brother in rural Maine. He's very outdoorsy and on occasion processes his own animal skulls. Naturally I begged him to keep his eyes open for an appropriate corpse for my son for the Holiday. You know, like all the other parents looking for that perfect animal corpse to go under the tree.

My brother texted me today-score! He's got a fox skull he'll clean and process so we can give it to Sam for Christmas.

Christmas prep is underway over here, folks. Perhaps my slacking will not bite me in the ass after all and I won't have to get out the Valium to hit the stores in a few months in search of the perfect gift for Sam. His uncle is processing what is sure to be a long-treasured gift as we speak.

If only the kid were into something a little more 'normal'! But we'll support him in his interests, mainstream or not, and support him for who he is, even if that requires a shelf or two of cleaned animal skulls in the future.