God Bless Kurt

Have you ever been naming off a list of people and know that you have forgotten someone, but you can't remember who? I do that with my students all the time if I am trying to think of them all, it is inevitable that I will leave one of them off. I call this the "God bless Kurt effect" and if you can't figure out why, well, I'm not sure that we can be friends! :)

The Sound of Music is one of my all time favorites. In the movie, Maria is the governess to seven children. On her first night with the Von Trapp family she is praying for each of the seven children, but she forgets one and she can't remember who it is. So, to end her prayer she says, "Oh, God bless what's his name." Later one when the children rush into her room, scared from the thunderstorm, and she is reminded of who she left off, she screams "God Bless Kurt!"

Well, the the other day I decided to name the two black ducks, the two largest ones, Friedrich and Kurt. I have to admit, I'm not totally sure why, except for the fact that there are two of them (like the only two boys in the Von Trapp family), and that they eat a lot ("It got caught... in Friedrich's teeth."). Friedrich has a little yellow on his stomach, so I can tell them apart that way.

Well the other day, I was talking to my dad and I told him the names that I had given to these two. I asked him if he knew where the names came from and he said, "Well, Friedrich is from the Sound of Music, but I don't remember Kurt." Ironic? And today, when I came home, I greeted the little ones at my back door and counted them, as I often do, to find only 14 and that Kurt was missing! It's ok, he ended up just being asleep in the corner a few feet off, but still, he seems to be living up to his name somehow!

As I sit here in the backyard typing, 9 of the babies are crowded around the end of the hose in a perfect circle, all pecking at the end of the hose at heaven knows what - the water is turned off!

I believe they are three weeks old today...