Warning:

The following entry is mostly disjointed and discusses lots of personal mundane stuff like pie, guns, and picnics. Nothing exciting here. I'll try to do better later. It's just so one of those days here.

I have no brain and I must think. What does a person do?

***

It's almost October, so, of course, when I wake Avadore in the morning to go to school it was dark outside.

Upon waking the first thing he said was, "Where are we going?"

"It's time to go to school," I said.

"Oh no. Not again," he said.

Well, it took two months in the spring, and now not quite three weeks, but school has finally lost its allure. It was bound to happen. And to be honest, when the alarm went off this morning, I had similar thoughts.

Last night one of my neighbors sent over another half of a banana squash. Evidently she has a ton of them, they're all HUGE, and she promises to continue to send them over until I scream, "No more!". That's right -- more pie. And I'm going to make some roasted red pepper soup, as well, I believe. (And no, I'm not using the squash to make the soup. I'll, appropriately enough, use red peppers.)

And tonight is the farmer's market, so I'll pop on over and see if anyone has anything good.

I love this time of year.

***

LD has been working on his speech again lately. It's been a few months, but lately he won't stop chattering; he's coming up with all sorts of new words. He also knows, "I don't know." I'll ask him where a toy is and he'll look at me, shrug, tilt his head and say, "I don't know," just like Avadore.

***

If any of you have had boys you've probably noticed their affection for guns, and their sort of ... innate knowledge of guns.

When Avadore was about six months old he made his fingers in the shape of a gun and said, "POW! POW! POW!" and totally blew my mind away.

At this point I had been around him for pretty much every moment of his life. He was always with me, except for the occasional run to the grocery store during the day where the J-Spot might watch him. We had turned off the TV because, well, that's a long discussion for another day. I have no idea where he got this, but I've had other parents tell me that their little boys somehow have this innate concept of guns. And no, I don't know how to explain this. Lots of theories, no answers. And yes, If I hadn't had little boys, especially Avadore because I can blame LD's gun knowledge on Avadore, I would think that "THEY JUST KNOW" is justification or an oversight, etc.

Though, come to think of it, I do seem to recall having a similar discussion in a linguistics seminar where we talked about people having this innate concept of things like chairs. They may not have them culturally, but they know them when they see them.

Anyway. The same thing seems to go for candy, and most types of food. Somehow they just know.

My stomach was pretty upset last night after dinner. The kids were asleep and I sat on the couch sucking on peppermints. I, stupidly, left one on the end table. LD got up this morning, and of course knowing exactly what it was, LD decided he needed it. Badly. Life and death situation here. And when I wouldn't let him have it, he told he in no uncertain terms that it was, in fact, the end of the whole bloody world as we now know it.

He seems to have gotten over it, and may survive.

***

A good day ahead of me: writing a letter to Kenny's grandma, taking pictures of the kids for her, reading, studying, writing, and cooking lovely things like pie and soup. And maybe a salad.

***

Speaking of grandmothers, mine turned 90 on Monday. She said, when I called her, that she never expected to get this old.

I only hope I get that old and am in as good condition as she is.

***

Avadore is now home from school. Today they had a teddy bear picnic. We need to discuss.


It seems Avadore didn't finish his picnic, and so his teacher took it from him to send it home with him, but the picnic never quite made it to his backpack. He's sad.

But he, too, will probably survive.