In our own backyard

I'm so proud of Jensen. He's growing up, and he's reached a new developmental milestone: he's completely embarrassed by me. I'm an outcast. Awesome.

When I visit his classroom, I can see the excitement in his eyes. But he plays it cool, keeping his distance. He definitely doesn't want anyone else to know he's happy to see his mother. And public displays of affection have been completely outlawed. Yeah, it hurts, but it's okay; it's normal. And it gives me some power over him. When he gets a little uppity, I can put him in his place by whispering, "I love you." He immediately panics and dies a little inside and looks around to make sure none of his friends heard me.

In the confines of our home, though, he still lets himself be a little boy sometimes. Still needs hugs. Still wants to hold my hand. But only sometimes. We caught some of these increasingly-rare moments on film last week, but I had to promise not to show these photos to any of his friends. He's safe, as long as no eight-year-old boys read my blog (which would be very weird).

This kid-formerly-known-as-cuddly, he makes my heart sing.

In which I avoid all maternal sentimentality

Eight years ago yesterday, I got this:


Okay, I didn't just "get" him. My midwife had to drag him from my limp, spent body after 33 hours of labor and three and a half hours of pushing and swearing and punching my husband. Still, I couldn't have been happier if someone had just handed him to me with a pretty bow on his precious, slimy head.

Anyway. Yesterday, this was what he looked like:

Yeah, he's turning into a big kid. I can't say anything about this that hasn't been said before, so I'll spare you the over-the-top sentimentality (for today, anyway). Instead I'll share with you his oh-so-elaborate big-kid birthday wish list:

• An iPod Touch. As if.
• For me to be his "maid." Because, you know, I don't serve this function every other day of the year. But specifically, he wanted me to make his bed, clear his dishes from the table, and put his dirty clothes in the laundry hamper.
• Sugared cereal for breakfast.
• And an exotic birthday dinner consisting of grilled cheese, on white, with American cheese. (He's lived here long enough to know that if he doesn't specify he'll get cheddar on wheat and that is most definitely not birthday fare.) A side of fries. "The kind you buy in the freezer at the store and then put in the oven," he specified. "Oh, and we should probably have some vegetables with that," he continued. "How about broccoli?" Yeah, my kid asked for broccoli on his birthday. And he's apparently a pretty cheap date.

It pretty much goes without saying that there was no iPod. But he didn't mind. The Cocoa Krispies and mushy white bread more than made up for that. Maybe next year he'll go really crazy and ask for, like, a can of soup. Dream big, big boy.

Birds and bees and frogs

Ah, spring. Warmer air, longer days, green grass. And the incessant chirping of millions of horny frogs in our backyard.

Our yard backs a creek bed. Turns out the creek is a hotbed of amphibian lust. At the beginning of the week, we noticed a soft hum. It has now grown to a dull, annoying roar. While the frogs have impressive stamina, it's irritating.

Last night it was embarrassingly loud, leading to this brief discussion.

Jensen: "Hm. Frogs must be mating."
Me: "uh..." (Really, not a big deal. But it was the first time he had discussed "mating" with me and I was oh-so-briefly stunned.)
Me again: "I wonder what 'mating' means...." (Awesome recovery, huh? He thought, rightfully, that I was a total dork.)
Jensen: "It means they're trying to make babies, Mom." (Just a hint of an eye roll, combined with a ripple of shut-up-I-am-so-not-discussing-this-with-you-Mom.)

Okay, so he now knows what "mating" means, at least in a general sense. This is progress. It means his understanding of things reproductive and/or amorous has advanced beyond the Wheat Thins phase. Which is highly reassuring.

Perhaps I should thank the frogs for such a meaningful educational opportunity. Mostly, though, I just hope that they're all satisfied soon. Because the mental image of what's going on back there is just gross.

Tough stuff

"You know, I'm thinking about getting some piercings," Jensen announced at the dinner table on Saturday.

Specifically, he was thinking about his eyebrow, his nose, and his lip. And maybe his tongue.

He's seven. And, ever the optimist, he looked hopefully from Jeff to me.

This was easy, obvious. No. You can't [pierce, tattoo, smoke, swear, fill in the blank] until you're old enough to understand the consequences. Easy. And he accepted our answer without protest.

"That's okay. Maybe when I'm a teenager," he said, giving us a few years' reprieve.

He won't accept "no" so easily when he's seventeen.

Already, the questions are getting tougher. Some are philosophical, some are (um) mechanical, some are moral. Some are yes/no questions. Some require reference materials. But regardless of their nature, the things he thinks about are becoming more challenging, and he's thinking more critically about our answers. Gone are the days of, "How come my hair is curly?" or "Why is the grass green?"

Now it's this:

"Is God a person?"

"What is sexual maturity?"

And, sickeningly, after a recent local gang bust, when all the suspects' photos were published on the front page of the newspaper, "Why do so many people in gangs have brown skin?"

Our approach to the Big Questions has always been to give as much honest information as he seems to be ready for, to be open to further questions, to try to communicate our moral convictions. And to be honest when we don't know the answers.

It's worked. So far. But I'm not naive. His growing mind and his growing conscience are going to start pushing us more.

Truthfully, I think most of what we teach him will be passive, will occur in day-to-day life rather than in some grand pronouncements. But I like the Big Questions. I like the gray areas. I like having to resist the temptation to answer questions with overly simplistic black and white answers. There are times when black and white applies, of course. No hurting other people. No stealing. No piercings on a seven-year-old. Some things are wrong, and some things are right. But a lot of things are somewhere in between, and he's starting to venture into the gray.

And the questions are going to keep getting tougher. The innocence is ending. There are times when I'm not sure I'm up to the challenge, or if I will be in the years to come.

So, I'm looking for some input. What is the hardest question your growing kids have asked? How did you respond?

Rising to the Brussels sprouts challenge

This is what happens when my kids say to me (in the produce aisle): "Mom, what are those little cabbage-looking things?"

Really, they should know better. They've lived with me their entire lives. They should know that, before they know what hit them, those little cabbage-looking things will end up in our shopping cart. And they should also know that, before they can say "Ewwww," those little cabbage-looking things will be on their dinner plates. Because I will not back down from a challenge. They should know.

True to form, I met this challenge. Without further ado, my kids eating Brussels sprouts:

They loved them.

Evan had four helpings. Four. I had to tell him to leave some for the rest of us. Even Jensen (who was initially pretty sure I was trying to poison him) had, like, two and a half servings. I'm guessing it didn't hurt that I braised them in bacon fat and apple cider and garlic and thyme, but I figured I only had one chance to make a first impression. You do what you gotta do. The fact remains: my kids love Brussels sprouts.

Ladies and gentlemen, my work here is done. Now, if you'll excuse me, there's a little economic crisis that needs to be addressed, and then some heads need to be screwed on straight in Congress. And if I have some extra time, I may zip on over to the Middle East.

I'll be home in time for dinner.

Not wordless. But it is Wednesday.

This, I suppose, is filler.

I was going through old photos yesterday, looking for something else, but I kept coming across photos of Jensen. Insanely adorable photos of my first-born. Photos that I remember like they were yesterday. Photos that are almost eight years old.

How could I not share?

Plus I had to get yesterday's humiliating post about my undies off the front page.

Lovey Fail

Until recently, I was an unmitigated failure in the "lovey" department.

I guess I just assumed that all kids have loveys. A tattered baby blanket or a beat-up stuffed animal or something (anything!) that they take to bed with them every night and cuddle with when their little worlds spin out of control. Something that makes everything okay.

But not my kids. I've actually tried to encourage this kind of attachment, but I must have missed the chapter on self-comfort in the motherhood how-to manual.

Jensen sucked his fingers. He sucked his fingers so much that he had a chronic fungal infection in his fingernails. (Lovely.) He sucked them until he was five, by the way, but he doesn't anymore so I won't dwell on that. That's how he made himself happy. Every once in a while he would decide to take something to bed with him at night, but it was always something decidedly un-cuddly, like a toy tractor or a football. And it was never consistent. If things got overwhelming he just popped his fingers in his mouth and sucked away.

Evan never consented to be comforted by anything. Not his thumb, not a pacifier, not me, and certainly nothing as silly as a blanket or an animal. Nothing. He still doesn't find much of anything that consoles him if he's unhappy, and I'm here to tell you that all of our lives would be a little easier if something calmed him down. A stuffed animal, perhaps. Or cigarettes. Or Jim Beam.

But Caleb has recently shown some promise in the lovey department. He sucks his fingers, too. But if he's really unhappy, we've stumbled across something that he adores.

A 15-ounce bottle of Johnson's Baby Lotion.

Yep.

He cuddles it and snuggles it and talks to that stupid thing. He kisses it. He plays peek-a-boo with it, for God's sake.

My infant son is in love with a bottle of lotion.

I'm not sure this can be considered a success.

I dread the teenage years

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Evan is gonna give us a run for our money.

Jensen has an official Cub Scout t-shirt that he wears to school on meeting days. He's very proud of it.

Yesterday at breakfast he explained gravely to Evan and me, "It's Tuesday today, so I'm wearing my Cub Scout t-shirt to school. That's the rule, and it's serious. I can only ever wear it on Tuesday."

Without batting an eyelash, sweet Evan put down his spoon and said, thoughtfully and to no one in particular, "You know what I'd do if I had that shirt? I'd wear it on Saturday."

Then he turned back to his Raisin Bran.

If Jensen had an aneurysm anywhere in that curly head of his, it would have blown then and there. He had to physically restrain himself from knocking Evan's little block off.

Seriously. Evan's very life teeters in the balance some days and he doesn't even know it.

Vote for Pedro

This week could have been devastating.

If I were at all sensitive about my age, which I am (thankfully) not.

First of all, I got my very first gray hair ever in my entire life this week. I only noticed it because it was curly and wiry and the rest of my [insert pathetic adjective: thin, limp, stringy... whatever] hair just hangs sadly from my head despite every $60 volumizing product in the entire world. I don't think I would have noticed it otherwise, because let's face it, it's hard to distinguish gray from dishwater blonde. This gray hair, though? It sticks straight out like a corkscrew. I like it. It has some life to it.

Second of all, Jensen and I had another esteem-boosting "holy hell, Mom, you are old as dirt" discussion. It involved the song "Jukebox Hero" by Foreigner. He's always thought it was called "Juicebox Litterbug" and sings his little heart out to it. This song really speaks to a seven-year-old-rock-star-wanna-be, even if he doesn't know the correct words. The other day, though, it dawned on him that maybe he had the wrong lyrics and asked for some help. I corrected him, reluctantly. Personally I like his version better.



Then he wondered what a jukebox is.

Me: "A machine that plays records."
Jensen: "Um, what's a record?"
Me: "Oh, just something we used back in the days of the wooden Lite Brite peg."
Jensen: "Whoa. Was it fun to grow up in the Olden Days?"

Like I said, it could have been a rough week. Instead, a Juicebox Litterbug died and I began to go gray and it made me smile.

(Oh, the year on "Jukebox Hero?" 1981. I was in fifth grade, people. It is described as "vintage" on YouTube. Yep.)

(And perhaps this is a good time to start pimping my birthday, which is on the last day of this month and which I adore, even if it does make me almost almost forty.)

Sarcasm doesn't translate in e-mail or seven-year-olds

I've been more than a little neglectful of my little blog recently.

You know. Christmas.

Santa went high-tech this year. (I'll spare the gory details of how insanely sore I am from WiiFit. You'd be jealous, I know. "Can't blog! Must hula-hoop!") This led to a very thoughtful discussion with Jensen about gifts I got as a child. He's pretty sure I'm lucky I didn't die of boredom before my ninth birthday.

Jensen: "Did you ever get a Wii when you were a kid?"
Me: "Well, no, Wii hadn't been invented yet."
Jensen: "Oh. Well, what about a PS3?"
Me: "Um, no."
Jensen: "PS2?"
Me: blank stare
Jensen: "What about a flat-screen tv?"
Me: "No, but we did get a tv with a remote when I was 11."
Jensen: "Did you at least have computer games?!"
Me: "..."

I lacked the energy to explain the Apple IIe and Oregon Trail and Lemonade Stand all in amazing low-resolution graphics, which we didn't even get until I was 13.

This conversation got very old very quickly.

But they also got a Lite Brite, which almost kills me with nostalgia.

Jensen: "You did have a Lite Brite when you were a kid, right?"
Me: "Yes!!!" Success! My childhood didn't totally suck!
Jensen: "But did you have pegs for it?"
Me: "Well, they hadn't invented that part yet, so we had to whittle our own out of sticks from the backyard."

He believed me.

Now he looks at me with an air of admiration and absolute pity. I probably deserve both.

The glass half-full: at least he still had his pants

Sometimes I like to think I remember what it's like to be a kid. And then something happens to remind me that I have absolutely no clue.

For instance, take Friday.

It's fair to say that Jensen had a bad Friday. Among other things:

• He didn't have a coat to wear to school (and it was pretty chilly) because he left it in Jeff's car the night before. Instead he wore a woefully inadequate sweatshirt.
• His teacher moved him to a different desk because he keeps getting in trouble for talking too much.
• He lost his hat and gloves. It was the second time he'd worn them.
• I had the nerve to make him call the bus barn to check the lost and found for said hat and gloves. This was mortifying for him. This may be one of those moments he relives in a therapy session in 17 years.

He doesn't like to screw up (usually) and by bedtime the weight of the day had crushed him. He was in tears, and my mommy heart kind of ached for him.

Oh, but wait. Turns out he had withheld the best part. Saturday morning he worked up the nerve to tell me that he also lost his shirt at school.

I'll let that sink in.

Yes, he misplaced what most would consider to be an essential article of clothing. Don't you hate it when that happens? He doesn't really remember where or why he took it off. "I think my top half got kind of hot," was the best explanation he could offer. Which makes sense, in a random sort of way. Still, questions abound.

So, like I said, things like this prove that I really have no insight into my kids' realities. But even if I could remember how overwhelming it sometimes is to be seven, I truly don't think that inexplicably ending up half-naked would be on my radar.

Can I just suspend his development now?

Jensen drew this picture of me this weekend. (And, yes, I did ask his permission to use it on my blog. I did not tell him what I was going to write about it. Whatever.)




I know, I know. There are a couple of problems with his rendering of moi. First: I have no hair. Second: what's going on with my nose? But those things pale in comparison with the real problem. Let's zoom in a bit:

Me: "Um, what's on my tummy?

Jensen: (all sly, wink, wink) "You know...."

Me: "Uh..." (I'm in a total panic, wondering if I'm pregnant again and my seven-year-old knows before I do. Once I decide that this is definitely not the case, I continue my query.)

Me: "No, I guess I really don't know what that is."

Jensen: (still sly, kind of pointing to his chest) "What do girls have that boys don't?"

Me: "..."

So tell me: what's more troubling? The fact that my kid drew my boobs, or the fact that they're on my abdomen? God, the truth hurts.

Maybe I'll enter another contest someday

I just won something!!!

The Blurb/Parent Bloggers Network Halloween photo contest, to be exact. Grand Prize, even.

I've been kind of waiting for the results, and was excited to the announcement in my reader this morning. I figured my best shot was at Best Handmade Costume. But my heart sank as I scrolled down, because when I saw the jellyfish that won that category, I knew I had been outdone.

"Better luck next time, me," I thought, and continued to scroll down to admire the remaining winners.

And I about passed out when I saw my little Jensen, all dressed up as a mummy, under "Grand Prize Winner." Shut. Up.

Seriously. I never enter contests, because I am shy and it feels like self-promotion to me, and I am the worst self-promoter in the entire world. If my life depended on me being a salesperson, I would die. No question.

But for some reason I entered the contest and now I have $75 toward publishing a Blurb book of my blog-- what better way to document my beginning ventures into this crazy blogging world?

Thanks a million to PBN and Blurb and their judges: Tracey of Mother May I and Shutter Sisters, Casey of Moosh in Indy, and Aimee of Greeblemonkey. Congratulations to the other winners with their amazing (seriously, the pink baby octupus? that is so cute it shouldn't be legal) costumes, and to all the entrants, who all had great costumes and great posts. And be sure to click through to see the winners here-- they're adorable!

Update: At breakfast, I told Jensen his picture won. "Isn't that exciting?!" I asked. He agreed that it was. Then, with all the seriousness a seven-year-old can muster, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, "But, Mom, remember not to brag." Buzzkill.

The National Association of Rubber Chickens for the Improvement of Public Education

I do not understand the power of the rubber chicken.

Jensen earned a prize at school the other day for meeting behavioral expectations. Woo-hoo! I guess he didn't bite anybody or pee on his desk or take a semi-automatic weapon to school. He damn well better not do those things, but according to his school, such remarkable behavior earned him a prize.

You know what he got? A friggin' rubber chicken. Public tax dollars at work.

But I should not belittle it. It's the best toy in the world.

The minute he touches it, he gets this smarmy look on his face and thinks he has been instantly transformed into The Funniest Person In The World.

The weird thing is, it has the same eerie power over the rest of us. The mere sight of it sends Evan into fits of giggles. Just talking about it cracks us up. "Jensen, take your chicken off the counter." "Your chicken smells bad." "No, you may not take your chicken to Cub Scouts." It's all too stupid. Jeff hid it in the bushes last night. A massive chicken hunt ensued. The kids collapsed with the sheer hilarity of it all. (I don't get it, either.)

So he got a prize for doing what we expect him to do. I'm not at all sure that sticker charts are going to counter the personal and societal demons that many kids wrestle-- the kids who do bite and bring weapons to school and other sad and scary things. Quite probably, rewards from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes are not going to provide enough incentive to motivate long-term success. But if they make day-to-day classroom management a bit easier, then so be it.

Now. I'm going to carefully back down off my soap box, go locate this chicken, and rig it up in a stock pot on the stovetop. That'll kill him.

And this is how road rage starts

Jensen got kind of bored during that week he was quarantined and missed 157 days of school. In order to keep him from passing time by tattooing "love" and "hate" on his knuckles, we allowed him to play some video games.

So, there he sat, playing some kind of driving game. (Harrowing, by the way. Based on this demonstration, he may be allowed to drive when he's, like, 31.) He was wearing plastic Halloween vampire teeth, because what self-respecting seven-year-old boy doesn't wear vampire dentures while playing video games? I don't remember what I was doing, but for the sake of argument, let's say I was cleaning. Or pretending to clean. Whatever.

Oh, and before I go any further, let me just offer some self-defense: I have never (I don't think) dropped an F-bomb on another driver. Maybe some other charming stuff, but not that. At least not with kids in the car.

So, Jensen, driving like a maniac, suddenly cut loose with an explosive "Buck you!" Remember, vampire teeth: the "B" was pretty fuzzy. Not unlike an "F."

This, understandably, caught my attention. "Excuse me?" I politely inquired.

Jensen repeated, "Buck you!" Again with the fuzzy "B."

I icily asked to whom he was speaking.

"That other car! Buck you!"

Because I thought good parenting skills would dictate that I clarify before yelling, I asked, "Would you kindly remove the teeth and spell that?"

He removed the prosthetic teeth. And with enormous eye-rolling and sighing and condescension implying that I was quite possibly the stupidest creature to ever take in air, he enunciated:
"B. U. C. K. Y. O. U."

"Oh," I said, my mind temporarily dulled by his dramatically anticlimactic answer.

"What did you think I said, Mom? Gee-eez."

When he uses questionable vocabularial (?!) acquisitions, I'm usually pretty quick to go into full Boring Mom Mode: do you know what that means, is that really what you want to say, respect, blah, blah, blahhh-ahh-ahhh....

But I totally copped out on this one. Because: 1) I didn't really know what this meant; and 2) after the whole Wheat Thins Incident, I wasn't really sure I wanted to get into it.

When creme brulee goes bad

Having survived Halloween and CNN's totally stupid holographic coverage of the election, I can get back to writing about significant, news-worthy issues. Like vomit.

I cannot stand throw-up. It makes me limp and quivery. With division of labor, I'm the poop-parent, and Jeff's the puke-parent. He takes care of any mess that comes out the top end, and I take care of the bottom-end disasters.

Most of the time.

Sunday night, we were safely tucked into bed and I was peacefully not having nightmares about Sarah Palin being our president, but was awakened by the creepy feeling that someone was watching me.

Jensen was hovering over me. "Mom, my stomach hurts." Great. Evan had been throwing up (so. many. times.) for 24 hours, so this only made sense. And with a silent, decisive nod, he clapped his hand over his mouth, turned and bolted into our bathroom. Then, just as abruptly, he stopped running. And I heard a loud splat.

Jeff (who had also awakened by now) yelled, "Run!!!" So Jensen recommenced running to our toilet to finish the job.

Jeff took him upstairs to clean up, and I just lay in bed and waited for Jeff to return and clean up the carnage. But he didn't come back. For ages.

Finally, because I couldn't stand the stench anymore, I ventured into the bathroom to survey the damage. Jensen had puked creme brulee from Jeff's birthday dinner all over the place. Floor, toilet, walls, bathtub, door: everywhere.

Holy hell.

Creme brulee: heavy cream, egg yolks, sugar. (Definitely not for those with weak coronary-artery constitutions. But sooo good.) It was like cleaning up an oil slick (thankfully, there were no waterfowl in our bathroom, because it would have been an enormous pain to get them cleaned up). I used an entire roll of paper towels, and a lot of chemicals (I had to use something to cut the fat), but I got it done. I weakly made my way into the laundry room, where, to my happy surprise, a mountain of stinking bed linens awaited me. Gawd.

When Jeff had gone upstairs to help Jensen clean up, he found Evan in a dead sleep, entirely encrusted in dried vomit. He had thrown up in his sleep. And then Jensen threw up again. So I was forced to wash out two beds' worth of disgusting sheets. I cannot describe the depth of my disappointment. Between the bathroom and the chunky sheets, it took an hour and a half to clean up.

We threw open the windows, scrubbed grout, and cleaned floors multiple times. After about 36 hours, the nose-hair-singeing, lingering reek of vomit no longer permeated the air and our bathroom floor was no longer slippery and greasy. And while I'm tempted to say we've emerged from the puke-ocalypse, I really don't want to jinx anything.

And I think it's safe to say it'll be a while before I eat creme brulee again.

This will have to do

Because I know myself too well, I realize I might have this year's Halloween pics posted by, oh, Easter. So, to hold you over, this is last year. Note: only two children.

It's the Really Ugly Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

We took the "tough love" approach to pumpkin-carving last night.

Jensen has, in his seven and a half years, never placed his hand inside a pumpkin. He's always convinced us to do his dirty work. But not this year. "No scooping, no carving," we said. It worked. After several minutes of pouting, cajoling, and fake barfing, he sucked it up and scooped. And did a fair job. Fair.

Then it was time to carve. You know those carving kits they sell now? With all the (very useful, by the way) little saws and hundreds of completely impractical patterns so you can have your own "original" pumpkin? He wanted to one of those designs. If you're a parent, you know exactly where this is going. {groan}

(This, by the way, prompted all kinds of "when I was a kid" comments from his parents: "...we never needed any pattern to carve our pumpkins," and "...I don't see what's wrong with just doing a face with triangle eyes," and that sort of thing. We were only partly joking.)

He chose a spider. And worked hard on it for about seven minutes. During which time I helped Evan. Evan, you will recall, is four. And very prone to self-injury. He's not allowed within six feet of a carving utensil. So he dictated to me what he wanted on his tiny pumpkin: a t-rex (?!), frontal view, with nose holes. And boogers.

As soon as I finished that work of art, and it truly is something to behold, I got manipulated into finishing Jensen's spider. Yeah, so much for tough love.

When I finished, about 45 minutes later, Jensen was in bed, Evan and Caleb were crying, and Jeff was begging for beer. I was in a lovely mood.

We have the lamest pumpkins in the world this year. Maybe tonight I'll manage to find some candles so we can bask in the glow of their mediocrity.

When science goes bad

Second grade has been good to Jensen so far, thanks in no small part to science class. His sole stated reason for wanting to attend school has always been, "For science class." (I think he wants to learn how to blow things up, but maybe I'm wrong.) Sadly, it appears that our public education system does not trust five- and six-year-olds with bunsen burners or frog carcasses.

This year is different, though. They're doing experiments, and in his mind it's PhD-caliber stuff. Yesterday he came home with his first "lab sheet." They timed how long it took to melt ice. Here's the transcript (emphasis added):

1. Describe how you melted your ice. I put it in my armpit, my shoo [sic], my shirt, and down my pants. I rubbed it in my hands and on my back.
2. How long did it take your ice cube to melt? 13 minutes

Right. I was a science geek, and I'll admit it to anybody. My favorite college class? Organic chemistry. I went to Science Nerd Camp and was even a runner-up for a national science symposium. But I'm pretty sure I never put any experimental object down my pants. I hope he loses this urge before he moves into the realm of hydrochloric acid....

A bazillion words

This is a stegosaurus. At night (note the black sky). Oh, and it has toenails.

This is a football game. Missouri vs. Oklahoma State. Please observe the facemasks. Jensen's been perfecting the facemasks lately.

This morning I found a piece of paper on the kitchen table. Evan had drawn the above dinosaur on one side. Jensen had drawn the football game on the other. I don't think I could create a better metaphor.