Baby Ducks

They finally came! Our baby ducks hatched on Sunday morning, sorry no white ducks, Joel. Gwen and I found them all huddled in the nest on our way to church. When we got home Mama Duck was trying to lead them to the nearby pond. Unfortunately, she picked a bad time to head out - everyone was driving home from church. She got scared and headed back to her nest only three of the seven babies got stuck in the gutter and couldn't climb up the curb. I don't know how long they were there and it was really hot that day. It was near 90 degrees and probably a lot hotter on the pavement. Anyway, I saw them stuck there and quickly grabbed them and put them back near mom and the others. One didn't look too good though. He was having a hard time even standing. If you look hard you can see his poor little feet up in the air at the back of the bunch in the picture. After lunch I went back outside to check on them and he had gotten stuck in the gutter again and died. It was sad. We went to the ponds to see if we could find our little duck family today. Do you know how hard it is to tell ducks apart? We did see a family with some little babies, so that might be them. I hope they got there without any more problems.

It was fun to have had this experience. I wish the babies would have stuck around for a day or so. It was a little bit of nature happening in my tiny backyard. Now I finally get to clean up the weeds and her old nest. There's four or so duck eggs that didn't hatch. I'm going to toss them before they go bad.
On another note, I bought some cute summer clothes for Gwen today. They're all 3T and fit her great. My kid is so big. I also let her choose her new sandals. It was super cute because then everywhere we went today she would run up to people and hold up her foot saying "shoes". It's so fun to watch her pick up new concepts and I'm always surprised at how much she understands. She's really not a baby anymore.