Thursday, September 19, 2013

Nothing says fall like a raccoon penis

Fall is here. All the telltale signs confirm it – leaves are turning, a slight chill is in the air, the days are getting shorter, Starbucks is pushing pumpkin spice lattes (a little too early if you ask me) and, probably most definitively, the kids are back to school. At my house, that meant jumping, with full enthusiasm, into 2nd grade. The first couple of weeks were all about who is in whose class and who has which teacher and all the cool new backpacks. Now we are into week 3, otherwise known as: The Week That Homework Begins.

Chester’s teacher sends homework in weekly packets on Mondays, which is great because I can plan our week around the inevitable soccer practices, music lessons, evening work commitments, and the nights I really just need to sit, semi-catatonic, drinking wine and watching my child “practice ninja skills” – which entails spreading Lego pieces across my bed and bouncing on it vigorously while simultaneously attempting to kick and light-saber the bouncing Lego bits into some other dimension.

This week’s homework packet included several math worksheets, a list of spelling words to learn, and, the most exciting part, an assignment to choose and research a nocturnal animal for an on-going project. Chester started strong with the math portion, completing it on Monday night. He was excited to move straight into nocturnal creature research, but, seeing as we are not nocturnal, we didn’t have time. I promised him we would be ALL OVER IT on Tuesday. Excitement was high. We talked at length about which creature he would choose. He was leaning towards the gliding gecko. I was lobbying hard for the raccoon. Why raccoon? I’m a sucker for several reasons:

1)      They are adorable. (Yes, I realize they are a pain in the ass, and can be mean, and are essentially like big, huge rats, but those little black masks! And the ringed, bushy tails!)

2)      They are fierce. (I love a critter that you just don’t mess with.)

3)      They are smart. (They can get into pretty much anything.)

4)      When my dad was a kid, he had a pet raccoon named Chucky. Chucky was orphaned and my dad bottled fed him and raised him to adulthood. My whole life, I heard stories about the bond between Chucky and my dad; the raccoon followed him around like a dog and even slept with him. It all ended tragically when my dad’s step-father decided Chucky had to be killed after biting a friend of my grandmother’s severely on the leg. (It should be noted that she stepped on him while he was sleeping on the front steps of the house. If you ask me, she had it coming.)

So there’s the family lore thing, but mostly it’s the adorable/fierce combo that draws me to raccoons. They are bad-asses and they look fantastic. Who doesn’t love that?

"I'm adorable and you don't want to mess with me."

We rushed home on Tuesday evening, quickly ate dinner, finished all our chores and got down to business. The first task was choosing the critter. This was harder than expected, as there are simply so many from which to choose. I thought Chester was pretty locked in on the gliding gecko of Southeast Asia, but by the time we got down to it, he felt he had already learned quite a bit about that creature and wanted to pick something different because “I like to learn new things, Mommy.” I couldn’t argue with that, so we pulled up a list. He was not interested in bats or cats of any type. After considering the aye-aye, bush rat, great gray slug, binturong, dwarf crocodile, Eastern woolly lemur, Panamian night monkey, and many others, we settled on . . . RACCOON! I did a silent, internal, happy-dance.

We learned a lot about raccoons as we searched for answers to the prompt questions posed by Chester’s teacher . . .

Where do raccoons live?
They are, as we expected, very adaptable and live pretty much everywhere. Forests are their original habitat, but now they also live in mountains, coastal marshes and urban areas.

How do they make their homes?
Turns out raccoons don’t so much make their own homes, as they simply commandeer existing places to hunker down, sleep, and have babies. They use places like tree hollows, rock crevices, and pre-owned burrows. (Raccoons are not only cute and tough, they are also efficient.)

What do they eat?
Raccoons aren’t picky eaters; they dine on pretty much everything. In fact, they are considered one of the most omnivorous animals in the world. Their diet consists of fruits, nuts, fish, eggs, insects, worms, and, as Chester accurately noted, “stuff they find when they knock over the trash.”

How do they protect themselves?
Raccoons are excellent runners and climbers, but, when worse comes to worse, they protect themselves with super sharp claws and teeth. (Remember, bad-asses.)

What are three interesting facts about your animal?
It was tough to choose, but these were Chester’s top picks:

1)      They have black fur around their eyes that looks like a robber’s mask. In Chester's words, "Don't ever take a raccoon to a bank. Ever." Probably good advice.

2)      Their best sense is touch - they have very sensitive paws. (Adorable, tough, AND sensitive! They just keep getting better.)

3)      They are extremely smart and able to understand abstract concepts. For example, in studies, they have been able to figure out not only how to undo a variety of locks and latches, but how to undo them quickly again, even after those locks and latches were reversed or flipped. (I’ve met PEOPLE who are unable to do this.)

And the most AWESOME fact of all in Chester’s opinion . . . Raccoons have an approximately 4 inch penis bone that is “strongly bent at the front end.” Anyone who has a boy, is a boy, or has spent any amount of time around boys, can attest to how fascinating, hilarious and utterly glee-inducing this fact is. A penis bone! That’s curved! It’s 4 inches! Good stuff.

 Chester desperately wanted to use the 4-inch, strongly-curved penis bone as one of his three interesting facts. I oscillated wildly about what to do . . . On one hand, I figured, “Hey, it’s a scientific fact and it’s interesting to him, so what the heck?” On the other hand, I imagined Chester presenting his research and the entire class melting down in chaos – boys in laughing fits blurting “penis, penis, penis!” over and over again, girls shrieking “Eeeew, gross!” I imagined Teacher Richard not appreciating this scene (even though, since he is a boy, he’d probably be laughing hysterically inside.) I ultimately decided it was probably better to keep the baculum (that’s fancy science talk for penis bone) off the actual written research. I assured Chester he could tell his friends about it though – perhaps on the playground. (Note to parents of Chester’s friends: You’re welcome.)


Baculum or “penis bone” – It is hilarious.

So, the first week of homework was a success, for the most part. Chester was proud to turn his assignments in early on Wednesday, which was a good thing because it made up for the crying meltdown over spelling words on the drive to school. Now I know that when my second grader is trying to learn how to spell “knight” and “night,” and remember which is which, homework veers less toward interesting and hilarious, and more toward stress-inducing. 


I’m just glad we’ll always have the raccoon penis bone to lighten the mood and cheer us up during times of homework stress. The baculum is now officially on my list of seasonal delights – fiery-colored leaves, cozy sweater weather, new clothes and shoes, and the raccoon penis. Don’t you just love fall?