The other day Chuck was engrossed in some Military show, on the Military Channel, when I walked in to have a word with him.  As I went on and on, I don't even remember about what, Chuck became increasingly aware of a constant noise in his ear making it hard to focus on the T.V.

Can you believe he, without even looking, picked up the Tivo remote and pointed it at me?  He was trying to PAUSE ME!

Although I gave him a hard time, it made me wonder if there would be a market for a subcutaneous microchip that would allow you to put the kids on "pause" when you want a little peace and quiet.

Just thinking....

Here's a little bit of trivia for you:  On September 18, 2005 the profession of Chiropractic, founded by Daniel Palmer (or was it Bartlett Joshua Palmer?), will celebrate its 110th birthday.

Our Chiropractor hosted a "birthday" party at his clinic on Thursday.  I had forgotten about the celebration but when we rolled in at 5:00 PM for our adjustments, the boys were immediately drawn in by the "moonwalk" set up in the parking lot and I knew we'd be there for awhile.

Also present was a clown, Mr. Dimples, hired to make balloon "sculptures" and paint the kids' faces.  Chris is still not very trusitng of anyone dressed in a clown suit, or anyone dressed as a life-sized stuffed animal, you may recall.  He was, however, willing to put aside his prejuidices to get a balloon hat. 

Mr. Dimples was kind enough to work his balloon magic and sculpt a rendition of the Pope's hat for Christopher. Alex wanted a Spider and was quite happy with his inflatable arachnid despite the fact that it had only six legs.

As we were driving home, Alex said "I think this looks more like an octopus.  I'm going to call it an octopus."

"But Alex," I began, "an octopus has 8 tentacles, yours would be called a...a...well, yours would be called a 6 tentacled octopus.  You're right."

Listen, there's no way I'm going to have my kid be the one in Sunday school asking "Wanna see my SEXTOPUS?"

Alex has become quite adept at sneaking up and scaring the tar out of me.  He's so good, that I don't always react with the jovial response that his little joke was meant to evoke.  The adrenaline reaction causes my arms to shoot up, like Frankenstein trying to snap his stiff arms into a Karate fighting stance, and I toss whatever I'm holding at the time into the next county.

Last fall, I found a wasp's "comb" inside the cover of one of our outdoor power outlets.  I had never seen one close up before, and wasn't even sure what it was.  The comb looked vacant, so I picked it up and brought it in the house to show Chuck.

You would think that scrubbing bathrooms, cooking dinners the kids don’t like and bleaching skid-marks out of boys’ underwear would satisfy anyone’s need for adventure.  You would think so, but I needed a new endeavor.  Something bold, something different, something that you don’t often see on a middle-aged Christian white lady.

I decided to go for dreadlocks.