"Three" Funny.

Out Takes:

• Hearing this a  LOT lately:  "Oh, Kim, you are too funny!"  I want to respond, "That's cool. My personal best is three-funny and but I think I can make it to five-funny by next week if I really work at it."

• Recently, at a certain much-loathed (by me) restaurant, Josh swiped my sandwich and "ate it all gone".  I told him I'd let it slid this time, but the next time he swiped my sandwich, I'd throw the book at him. "No, Mommy. That would hurt."

• My question to Josh, "How does your first banana pepper taste?" His answer, "Like a bee."

• I was dropping Josh off at Mom's for a recent visit.  We hadn't been in the driveway fifteen minutes when he said that I needed to go back home.  When I was still talking to Mom half an hour later, he handed me my coat, and began pulling me towards the door, telling me that I was "wasting his time and cramping his style."

I'mma gonna seriously kick me some groundhog-buttocks.  What in the unholy hemorrhoids of hell was that last February? And seriously, why would someone give that much power to a rodent with anger-management issues, anyway?!!!  Jon stopped counting inches of snow, and merely looked out the window, moaned in agony and more-or-less called off work the entire month.  (And he still has vacation days!!!)  Thankfully, the power stayed on, and we managed to remain healthy and warm through this last ice age.  Josh, of course, was outside every single second, making a gazillion snow angels, and a half dozen snowmen...all of whom wore a frighteningly p.o.'d expression on their faces -- a look not helped by the flaming neon yellow and orange golf balls G.U. Harry used for their eyes.  Not that I can fault G.U. Harry. The man is eighty(-ish) and started traipsing about on our roof with a snowshovel when the snowdams on our eves back up and the water began leaking into our living room window.  Superman's got nothing on Harry, for no sooner had the frantic call gone out than he leaped into action, whipping that shovel around like a ninja -- Hwaa, Wahhhh! and our roof came back to its senses immediately and hasn't dared to leak since. 

We've had a new arrival in our house.  Josh's first imaginary friend, Huuwanna the dragon, has appeared.  I'll let Josh tell you about him: "He has 68 brothers and sisters, and is the youngest."  He started out at 34 years old and seems to age down.  "He has a mother and grandmother (the grandmother is 37 years old)" and they may or may not be dead (now) - don't ask me why. "He is yellow, and brown, and red, and orange...he's about two feet long and is a real dragon.  He has feet, and he'll just fly over you if he wants to." His teachers have been darling about the whole thing, and have said that as long as Huuwanna follows the rules and plays nicely with the other kids, that they are just fine having an extra student each day.  So far, Huuwanna has been declared the most polite dragon anyone has ever "met", and as long as Huuwanna gets to join the party, Josh is only too happy to show him the ropes and teach him the ways of the world, and as a added bonus, Huuwanna gets to sleep on Josh's cot, so Josh is quieter at nap times so he won't wake his little friend (dragons apparently need a lot of sleep, it seems).

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I have to admit that I may be getting old...okay, okay "old-ish"...I'm now taking pills the size of my head on a daily basis (when I remember).  Well, Jon calls them vitamins and the cannisters call them all vitamins, but darned if they don't look like gel cannonballs.  Maybe they are "family-style" vitamins.  Maybe they are actually escape pods.  No matter how you look at it, even my big mouth seems tiny by comparison.

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I woke up one morning to hear my peeper frogs chirping at full-speed.  For some reason, I didn't think they'd be back already.  I mean, it may be March, but it's also been so cold and weird lately.  They caught me by surprise.  Their return does coincide with a rise in the river...I've lived in this house for years, and I still feel vaguely uneasy when the waters rise.  It still feels like it's watching and waiting. On the other hand,  Josh isn't phased at all.  In fact, he just found out that his school has tadpoles...not just tadpoles, but bullfrog tadpoles, and that they are going to watch them grow and then release them back out when they become adult frogs.  I'm so jealous.  If you've never seen a bullfrog tadpole, it looks like some baby version of the Loch Ness Monster, all green slime and staring yellow eyes (no wonder the book THE MYSTERIOUS TADPOLE was written).  I'm going to have to take pictures with my cell phone, because there seems to be a problem with my camera's memory card. Gack and double gack.  I had a full card (I know, I know) but this is irksome.

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Recently, Josh cashed in his  "Good Boy Star Points" ...for 134, he got a MAJOR SPECIAL DAY...buck a bag o'books at the big library, Kanji Japanese steak house in N'rk -- and I have give some major props to our cook, a young fellow who's tips depend on his showmanship, but who took josh's fears of noise and fire into consideration and toned down his routine substantially (oh hell, yeah, he got a big tip!) -- then, we were off to Toy's R Us for a stash of toys.  After that, it was Magic Mountain, where Josh rode the bumper cars, and flirted with little pixie-girls by smashing into them, and then he was off to the ball-pit where he played and played and played for a full hour. We finished the day by checking out Half-Price Books, and then we dashed home with a little boy who was too tired to know he was supposed to drop...and kept buzzing around and around until he finally couldn't move anymore.

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Last weekend, we took Josh to his first "audience" show at the big library...Pirates of Penzance done by a traveling troupe of  4 players from Opera Columbus On The Go.  Josh behaved well, and the show was very nice...though all of us agreed "Maybel" was used to singing in larger rooms than the itty bitty library auditorium...the young lady had a voice that could knock you back a few feet.  I wasn't certain how four people could pull off a show that traditionally has so many players and harmony requirements, but they managed. Still, their pirate king was not my pirate king.  There really can be only one, and if you haven't seen the rapturous joy of a baby Kevin Kline cavorting in nose-high leather boots and a flippy shirt, then you have missed out on one of the great happy-s of life.

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And now to our last adventure this month.  We stopped at Josh's school to view a special exhibition of Dr. Insecta , expounder-upon-er of Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches, Scorpions and assorted crawling heebie-jeebies.  Harry came along with us, and I think Josh spent most of his time with his head buried in Harry's neck (this after weeks of build up where Josh couldn't WAIT to see all of Dr. Insecta's mult-legged little buddies).  Now, before we even got in the door, we were met by a sign saying, "Warning, this building has been exposed to Conjunctivitis, please wash hands frequently."  But it was Dr. Insecta, and I couldn't keep Josh from seeing Dr. Insecta, not after all of the hype and getting him all worked up to see the show...and it seemed that I wasn't the only one who couldn't back out for a lousy reason like Pink-Eye...Dr. Insecta's room was packed with kids, absolutely packed with kids (though, not surprisingly, I saw far fewer kids there when Josh got dropped off today).

Even with the heads up, because we had turned the furnace off and the fans on this last Saturday evening, Josh's eyes got all watery and he was sniffly.  I held out hope that it was only allergy issues. Still, to make sure, we planned to take the Small Boy up to Urgent Care the next morning so that if he did have the gunk, we could have antibiotics in him before school started.  When morning came, so did more congestion, more eye issues, and the usual stomach issues.  We got him in, found out that he had double-conjunctivitis, double ear-infection, and his chest was wheezy enough that they gave us an inhaler for him, along with the other clear-it-up medication.  Oh, and I've got pink-eye, too.   The fun part is really just trying to give Josh his eye drops...the new kind that they are trying happen to sting.  So, of course, just trying to get him to hold still while he's getting dosed and is screaming and thrashing becomes a lesson in strategy, diplomacy, and balance....and then again, it's a lesson in not-so-much.  Yesterday, I tried to do the dosing at his pace, let him ease into the idea and he ended up dodging me for two hours.  Today, I gave him a heads up that I had to give him his drops in 30 minutes, and I still ended up having to restrain him to dose him.  When I blew on his eyes a moment later,  so that the sting would settle down, he was fine in seconds. But before that, drama, drama, drama.  Why can't all kid's medicine be the pink stuff? All of them love the pink stuff.  You don't have to chase them to take it, they come straight to you and practically thank you for it.  "Oh, Mummy. Best and Most Wonderful Mummy in the Whole Wide World. I am deeply in your debt for looking out for my physical well-being. Where would I be without you, oh Mummy, oh Mummy that I love."  Y-eahhhh...that's a bit thick, even for me.  I'd settle for kid medicine that doesn't require a parent to perform unreasonable feats of contortion to A) avoid being clobbered by the sick sprog and B) get the dose into the sick sprog.

Last night, the second I had dosed Josh and blown into his eyes, Jon came in from visiting his parents.  Of course, Josh gave Jon the reception usually reserved for, oh, Ceasar Augustus...and I was immediately sloughed into the evil queen category.  I'm glad somebody got the hugs and cuteness, but since we're stuck with the drops for the rest of the week, I suppose I'm also stuck polishing my apples and cackling.

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Oh, and one more thing.  I've sent my Hum A Few Bars manuscript to the critiquers. Once I hear back from them, I'm on my way to the next stage...and maybe, just maybe, this baby will come out to play after all. Fingers crossed, everyone. Fingers crossed.