The Scorpion Chronicles

I hate spiders and bugs and all kinds of creepy crawlers. One winter when I was younger (some middle school year, I think) I grew so tired of all the little mountain wood spiders that found refuge in the warmth and comfort of our house that I made a goal, a New Year's Resolution if I remember correctly, to kill 100 spiders. I thought it might take a while to reach that goal, but I was surprised and a little disturbed when it was accomplished within the month.

In our Littleton house, we didn't ever have too many spiders. It would have easily taken me a year to kill 100. In fact, I'm not sure I killed 100 spiders in the 5 years we lived there. The ones I did kill were much bigger than the little black spiders in Bailey, and much more creepy. I squealed and jumped when I saw them, but I maintained my youthful vendetta against arachnids and killed them as well.

In our 3378 rental house, Patrice thought he killed the biggest spider I have personally ever seen, but it seems the bigger they are the stronger they are, and this particular spider survived an apparent squishing and flushing and only reached its demise on the second flush. Only one spider in 6 months at that house, not too bad. I killed one spider in our new house too. Spiders don't haunt me here in Tucson. Even though they are big, I haven't seen too many. (Knock-knock...that's me, knocking on wood)

It's those darn scorpions! eesh, blech, eewww! I found another one today. That makes four in just two months, three in the last week. The good news is that they were all dead (or nearly dead) when I found them. The bad news is that they exist! I really hope I don't find 100 scorpions.

The World Cup So Far: How Bad is Bad?

• We were embarrassed and ashamed of the antics of the French national bunch of prima donnas, and not really sorry to see them go.
• We were pleased to see Italy get eliminated.
• We were a little disappointed, but not surprised, that the US team got eliminated.
• We were REALLY happy to see the mexicans lose.
• Nicco wants to know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are in each game. When I told him the mexicans were the bad guys, he asked "How bad? Pick a number." I picked 100, and he said "Whoa. That IS bad!"
• Today we want Chile to win and Brazil to lose, which is not going to happen. Nicco told me to pick a number for how bad the bad guys are. I picked 10. He said "That's not too bad, so they're a little good."
• I think I'm going to vote for Spain to win the whole thing. I may or may not change my mind.

Shoo Fly and Booger Pie

In a very determined and ongoing effort to teach Nicco that boogers are disgusting and eating boogers is especially so, we frequently suggest having booger sandwiches or booger cookies or booger pie for dinner or dessert. Invariably, Nicco responds (usually screaming) that boogers are gross and only gross people eat them and eating boogers will make us sick. I have never seen Nicco eat a booger. He frequently picks them and hands them to me, but he always washes his hands with "magic lotion" and he never eats them. Mission accomplished, I'd say.

This evening, we went outside to enjoy the relative cool and watch the sun go down on our beautiful mountains. A pesky gnat was buzzing around Nicco's head, you know how they do sometimes, one little pest will hang around your ear with that incessant drone that drives you completely mad...This gnat made Nicco Crazy (capital C). He was running around like a madman, swinging his American flag around his head yelling "Shoo, fly! Get out of here! Go away forever! DUDE! Leave me alone!" He ended up under the patio table, hiding from the fly, convinced it would not find him there. After a minute or so under the table, he hollered "And why don't you have a booger pie when you go home!"

I guess the ultimate insult worked, as he is now happily playing moon sand as the mountains turn pink.

Air, Water and Gravity; AKA Nicco's Observations on Physics

Water...It's like drinking wet air.

Gravity makes things fall. There's no gravity in space and sometimes there's no gravity in water, see...I float.

It's Official

I'm having a little freak-out!

After Nicco's earlier scorpion sighting, I got to work vaccuming nooks and crannies. Look what I found:

This one was dead for sure and quickly vaccumed up, but ugh! This one was also bigger and a different color. I know that most scorpion stings are not fatal, but there is one type, the Arizona Bark Scorpion, that has venom potent enough to kill a person. Patrice's bug guy is spraying the Boss' house tomorrow and he's going to send them to our house afterwards.

I maybe should have put the second one in the jar with the first in case the bug guy could help me identify and distinguish deadly/not deadly scorpions. Although I am sufficiently freaked out by the nasty little guys that I will find a way to kill them if I see them, regardless of the potency of their venom.

Maybe someday seeing scorpions won't be shocking to me, but I'm still new to their enviroment and they freak me out! I promise no more pictures of scorpions today.

Scorpions and Lucha Libre

This morning while I was working, Nicco casually and matter of factly stated "That's an e-scorpion." My heart/stomach promptly jumped to my throat and I turned around and saw this:
To quote Sawyer, "Son of a..." okay, I won't quote Sawyer, you get the idea. The little stinker was almost dead, but not quite. I grabbed the nearest shoe and squished and squished and squished. The photo above is post-squishing. The nasty little buggers don't squish. I watched him squirm until I was sure he was dead because I really don't want to pick up a still squirming scorpion, even through the protection of an entire roll of toilet paper. Once I was sure he was dead, I was ready to flush him, but Nicco wanted to leave him there so Daddy could see him. I am not sure the Daddy cares to see our scorpion, he's seen his fair share, but the kid was pretty excited about his disturbing discovery.

So we put him in a jar with a nice tight lid. I want to be sure he really is dead and can't escape.

Gross. They are so creepy! {{shudders}}

I'm glad I have El Monstruo to protect and defend.

Random Thoughts

• Nicco blames his dad for his first sunburn. (In case anyone wonders, I do not. I blame the sun.) The first thing he said to Patrice this morning when he came in for a snuggle was "Are you sorry for burning me?"
• If you make the shape of an L with your finger and your thumb, it can mean Loser, Lame, or Later, as in "all I have to do is flash my L and you will understand that I mean to say we'll play Mario Later."
• Toy Story 3 is the best of the 3Toy Story films. I laughed a little. I cried *ahem* a little. I also wanted to squish my boy into a tiny ball so he can't grow up.
• In case any racists out there are tired of the prominence of spanish in our culture and are bothered that Buzz speaks spanish for a while in the new film, that was Castillian Spanish, as in SPANISH spanish, from Spain, not mexican spanish.
• One of the lines in the movie that struck me as particularly giggle-worthy was when Ken (of Sunnyside Daycare) said "Take him to the Liberry."
• My paranoia/fear of scorpions was renewed last night when Patrice reported hearing the ticka-ticka of insect legs scurrying across the garage floor, then seeing one of the little stinkers scurrying across the floor. He did NOT report squishing it.

Father's Day

The little poem on Nicco's school Father's Day project says:

Here's my little footprint

One day it will fit your shoe;

I watch what you are doing

Because Daddy, I want to be like you.

My favorite things about Patrice as a Daddy are how patient he is in teaching Nicco things like working with power tools and kitchen tools, how he just can't resist Nicco's sweet pleas to play games with him, and the best of all, the thing that shows what a great Daddy he is to his little boy, is how Nicco's voice goes up an octave out of pure joy and excitement when Patrice is around.

I just asked Nicco his favorite thing about Daddy, and he said "He plays Mario with me."

The Patio Project

Our patio is a work in progress. We added a nice outdoor rug and I made curtains for the dining area:

Curtains closed

Curtains open

In the sitting are of the patio, we plan to eventually add some comfy furniture something like this:

but Patrice plans to build it himself, and probably have the sofa sections go all the way around a fully circular ottoman.

So far so good, I think! I like the curtains. I just need to find/make a tie-back so they don't float and fly all over in the slightest breeze.

Two in a Row

This evening, Patrice told me to choose a night, either tomorrow night or Saturday night, and he will take me out for sushi to celebrate. I looked at him curiously and asked "Celebrate what?" Celebrate what, he said. I thought that maybe since I'm not working (much) he wanted to pay for his own father's day gift, and because regardless of what I might get for him, he will be paying for it anyway...I kind of assumed that he was choosing a nice dinner for his father's day gift. So I said "Father's Day?" Father's day, pffft, he said.

Then it hit me ("it" being my palm on my forehead.) Our anniversary...you know, one of the single most memorable days in your life? The day you commit to spend your life with your one true love? The day that changes the course of your life forever? Yeah. That day. The day I have now forgotten two years in a row.

In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, D'oh!

Snips and Snails and ...Butterflies?

We want to get a clock with a thermometer for outside. I mentioned going to Target to look for one and Nicco said he wants a clock so that he will know what time to get up. I asked him what kind of clock he wants and he told me "A boy's one. You know, like a butterfly or something."

Thesaurus

Main entry: Shiverbumps

Part of speech: noun

Definition: Raised bumps on skin

Synonyms: goose bumps, goose flesh, goose pimples, cold creeps, cold shivers.

Used in context: "I'm cold so I need my blankie. See? I have shiverbumps. {{brrr}}"

Who needs Google?

I have a budding cartographer in my house! This is a map.
Among the many destinations on the map are our house, our pool, Daddy's working house, the mountains, Nicco's school, Nicco's swim school pool, and the airport. Nicco made one for himself, me, and his daddy because "we have a lot of places to go and we might want to know how to get there."

Evil

Question of the Day:
"Mommy, why is President Obama evil?"

How do I explain that one to a 4 year old? I told him that he is destroying our country by taking power away from the people, that he wants all the power and glory for himself, and that is evil. He said "That is only a little evil. He's not as evil as Doofenschmirtz." Maybe he would have understood if I told him that Obama is building a "Destroy-America-inator!!!"

UPDATE: Nicco just said "President Obama is evil. Who is a good American President?" I showed him pictures of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Ronald Reagan.

UPDATE #2: If you ask Nicco what he thinks about Obama, he says "He is eeeevil!" If you have seen So I Married an Axe Murderer, Nicco says "evil" a lot like Mike Meyers does...evil, like the fru-its of the devil.

I should probably stop asking him what he thinks of Obama and laughing at his response. Or not.

Waterslide

The Boss was gone this weekend so Patrice took his turn to watch the dog while they were out of town. We convinced Nicco to go down the waterslide by saying he couldn't do it. (Don't tell me what I can't do!") Once he tried it, he didn't want to stop.

He loves going to the Boss' house because their pool is cooler (meaning better, not cooler. It is actually warmer than ours.) and because he loves the dog.

Kids' Workshop

We went to the Home Depot last week for a few odds and ends and one of the workers gave us a small notice announcing the kids' workshop they hold the first Saturday of each month. I remember going with Nae when Madsen was little. I think Madsen had fun, since he pointed out all the "Home Depos" signs from the car. Today's project was a mini foosball game.
Nicco loves using tools like his Daddy, and he only hammered my thumb once.

He was very pleased with his game, but he hates his orange apron. I think it is cute, and the only way I could get him to put it on for a picture was by telling him that orange was Duncan's favorite color when he was Nicco's age.

Four Going on Fourteen

The other day in the car, some pop-song that Nicco recognized (probably from Disney Channel)came on the radio and he said "Hey! I like this song! Turn it up, mom!"

Today when we got out of the pool, Nicco left one of his coins (poker chips that he drops in the water to dive after) in the pool. I told him to go get it and he said "I forgot. My bad."

For some reason, "turn it up, mom" and "my bad" felt like teenager things to say.

Also, he wanted me to lift him up so he could check out the young lady sunning herself in her back yard below us.

Just Curious...

...what the driver of the sassy little BMW convertible I saw on the way to Nicco's school this morning with the vanity plate "NIXTHIS" on a specialty "Honor Fallen Heroes" license plate REALLY thinks about fallen heroes.