Dixie Chicks vs. Kool & the Gang

The guys won tonight. On our way home from the mall he said, "I wanna hear the 'high school' song." (That means, "Please play "Taking the Long Way" by The Dixie Chicks.) So I put it in as usual. And then he said, "No, I'd rather hear 'Get Down'." (That means, "Please play 'Get Down On It' by Kool and the Gang.") So of course I complied and stuck in K&G's greatest hits.

"Celebration" is first. I thought I could fool him. Then I hear, "Not that song. The other one. The 'get down' one." Luckily his new school has music class on Fridays.



Here he is safe in the cocoon of "Dadda's banky." One morning he got up and stripped (his usual routine). After procuring his apple juice, he demanded the Backyardigans video. Which was fine until the combination of cold A.J. and nudity rendered him chilled. I suggested clothes. He counter-suggested "Dadda's banky." He won.

Next ...

He pooped in the potty again yesterday after an incident wherein his father made him change his own stinky self. The director of his new school told me that they'll change him the first time, but any subsequent poopy pants are the responsibility of The Pooper. So Husband decided it might be good to get him used to that idea/practice at home. And after that he pooped in the potty one more time. But today there was nothing (neither pants nor pot), so who knows?

As you know, the first time he did it, he promptly said, "Now I can play soccer." As if we were gonna immediately fax an APB to all the local preschool soccer leagues. We don't have a fax machine. We don't even have fast internet. But earlier this week Brian did call the closest preschool soccer league and -- to his dismay -- discovered that it's already full. Tears, people. And not from John. Fortunately, he's not actually old enough, so it ends up not being our fault for waiting so late ... he has to be ALREADY three and thus, spring soccer it is.

Otherwise, it's just hot. Have I ever announced publicly how much I hate the month of August? I was once 9 months pregnant in August. But that was easy. It's so hot here that cicadas drop dead out of the trees. There are so many bugs inside and outside of this house that entomologists would PAY to live here this month. And truth be told, I don't mind insects (or arachnids). I really don't. I can deal with the spiders in the laundry room and on top of the hot water heater and the cobwebs in between the bannister and the stairs. I just taught an annotated version of Kafka's The Metamorphosis for crying out loud. And as a side note ... don't hot water heaters seem so ridiculous during 104 degree weather?

It's the wasps. I'm just never gonna get over my absolute terror about wasps. Sometimes we'll be walking in from the car and Brian'll say, "Please don't scream and flap your arms and then hide under my shirt." And I'll say, "Don't you think that if I had any control, I would refrain?" I mean, I realize that it's not exactly attractive. It's not a matter of realizing it's ridiculous and just willing myself to do better. It really is a phobia (though self diagnosed). It's called spheksophobia. It ruins my crazy drive to garden. I stand out there with the hose in one hand and a can of foaming wasp and hornet spray in another, praying that The Goose doesn't inadvertently walk in front of me and get doused. Because that has happened.

Now he just says, "Why you screaming?" And I try to play it off: "Oh, it's just mama being silly about those silly wasps. It's so silly for Mama to scream about those silly bugs. They won't bother me if I don't bother them. It's just silly. Silly." And he'll just look at me and say, "Where's my sprayer?" So I give him the water bottle sprayer that Brian uses when he makes bread. And he sprays everything in sight. Dirt dobbers, fireflies, moths, drainage pipes, zinnias, capri pants. And even though I'm standing there watching him spray water directly on bright red stinging insects and watching them just fly away without even thinking twice about stinging, I still cannot deal. I see one, spray poison wildly into the air, and then run -- arms flailing, screaming -- into the house where I hide behind the screen door. Because you can still shoot that stuff through a screen door. And it really will go quite a few feet (though not as far as the bottle claims).

In other news ...

We're here 'til Halloween and then FAST INTERNET BABY! Actually, that was one of the perks of the hotel-room-sized studio apartment awaiting us in Istanbul. It had wireless. But for every pang of "OH NO!" that I feel, I get 20 times more, "PHEW!" emotions.

And I think that's a good sign that I made the right decision.

So that's about it for tonight. Thank the Lord for guilty, indoor-with-AC pleasures like spill-proof bubbles in a carpeted room.





Goodnight.