A pinch of this, a dash of that

Just highlights today. Enjoy with coffee and your favorite high fat content snack.

Useful tips of the day:
Everyone who has ever ingested pool water is familiar with that unique and powerful belch that only chlorinated water can produce.

1~ If you hear that belch come from a toddler, move to the edge of the pool and get out immediately!

2~ Forget pool ettiquette, turn the toddler away from you. Trust me.

3~ I don't care what time the American Red Cross recommends waiting to enter the water after eating, M&M's do not digest properly in an hour and a half.

The Cryptographers:
We speak in code, as most parents do. Our code, however, has moved beyond spelling things out, speaking in Spanish, or even pig latin. All three codes are useless for our troops. (And while James and John can decipher things spelled out in pig latin, I cannot. So that experiment was short-lived.)

Out of a strong sense of self-preservation, and an inherent shame in being unable to outwit critters who can't tie their own shoes, we've taken to creating extravagant, convoluted descriptions of things. The end result of which often takes some decoding before even the intended recipient can reply. After supper, I suggested to Zorak, "Perhaps we ought to pursue the completion of the South American produce combinations?" Before Zorak could answer, John leapt from the table and said,

"Did you say we're eating chocolate covered bananas?"

How do they do that?

The "Real" Mowgli
We've picked up Rudyard Kipling's "All the Mowgli Stories" again for a family read aloud. I had begun shortly before the move, but nothing really stuck at that point - stories, habits, lessons. Now, we begin as if it's the first time. *weak smile* It is fun to read aloud with all of us together, including Zorak in the peanut gallery, tossing his few cents here and there. Like having my own personal MST3K guy in the kitchen.

James hadn't checked the book out before I hefted it from a box and began to read. I read "The Night Song of the Jungle", a poem at the start of Chapter 1, and James said, "Wow, that sounds just like Rudyard Kipling's poems!"

Here's where I insert my best Spicoli laugh and think, "Dude! That is, like, SO RAD, man! The little guy knows his stuff, man, and he's like, all smart and stuff." (Or perhaps that's my best Beavis impression. Truthfully, I don't do impressions well.) BUT, the point being that for a woman who could not identify many poets, and who has committed few poems to memory beyond the ones about that poor neurotic woman and her freaky dog and all those shopping trips... this is major! This is one of those, "Oh! Exposure! It works! Hallelujah! It's works!"

Pegs. I feel drawn to tell Susan Wise Bauer about this. But I can't get the board to load, so I'm telling you.

Meanwhile, John is starting to question Disney's motives and/or sanity. Why did he change the story from the book so much? Why did he only use the first chapter of the stories? Why is this so different? Why is Shere Khan lame? Why isn't there a snake yet? Why do you keep saying "MOW-glee" instead of "MOH-glee"? (Because it's in the pronunciation guide in the back like that, just so's ya know.) "Why didn't they eat him?" "Will they eat him?" "Would you eat him?" EW! No. Just listen, will ya? "Why did the book come first?" OH, LOOK - it's a poem! (I'm going to incorporate that into my distraction techniques now. If Wonderful Neighbor could yell, "LOOK! A Polar Bear!" then I think I might be able to get a few miles out of the poem. We'll see.)

And that is pretty much our day. We had steak. Zorak made mine "medium rare, closer to rare". That screams "lovin' devotion", in my mind. *happy sigh* We piled on the living room floor to watch Ben Hur and eat the remnants of the popcorn. Now the boys are in bed. Zorak is still (I say "still", but honestly he's flying through it) reading his book. I keep picking mine up to read (The Battle for God), but it's far more boring than what he's reading. So then I put mine back down and go pester him, "Where are they now? Have you seen so and so yet? Did you get to such and such a part yet?"

*awkward pause*

He's so patient.

I'm going to go play.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy