this child o' mine

Daniel 's not even four but on some days I think he's, like, fifteen or something, based on his proximity to the remote control, and conversations such as these:

Me: "Brush your teeth please, mate. We're leaving soon bla bla etc"
him, in exasperation: "oh, alRIGHT" and then he practically rolls his eyes as he stomps off like some poor put upon child slave.

My favorite is when he says "are you coming, mum, or WHAT?' when I'm futzing around too slowly for his majesty.

He's got a bike at Easter, a real one, all green with a honking horn rather than a bell and it's a freakin' GIANT.


And soon he'll be driving and then he'll have a girlfriend, get married, and LEAVE HOME.

I can barely stand thinking about kindergarten, much less, you know, the rest of my LIFE yawning ahead of me with Daniel off with some other woman.

Yes.

to continue.

Now ask me if I've done anything about kindergarten.

...

No. Of course not.

But!

Daniel been taking swimming lessons since, ooh, April? At this age, they're more Not Sinking Like A Rock lessons, even though even after four months of this he still does-and it's not like he's not adept, it's just that lessons these days aren't about survival skills, they're about stroke acquisition, which I think is pretty ridiculous. I mean, they're THREE, how about some dog paddle? I dunno. Daniel, thank god, has loved his lessons pretty much from Lesson 1, which IS a bonus because for some of the kids, they might as well be called Screaming Lessons for the first few weeks.

Daniel's biggest trick when he's in the pool is to yell "WATCH ME!!" and bob under the water....


...and then bob back up again and shouting "DID YOU SEE THAT DO YOU WANT TO SEE IT AGAIN?" and then doing it all over again, repeat.

We're at home right now, and have been for six seven. stinking. days of me coughing up goob and trying to remember if life ever came without the Headache Option included, and Daniel has been excellent company, and I'm not even kidding. You'd think by now we'd be stir crazy, but we're not. Me because I'm too sick to care, and him because he really IS that awesome. Having said that, he right now this second asked me "WHERE ARE WE GOING??", and dealt with the "Nowhere, kiddo. We're staying right here again today *coughsplutterUNCLE*" rather well ie he said "okay!", and went and got the remote control and his Night Garden blanket and snuggled up next to me on the sofa, aaaand, it looks like we're watching some more Thomas The Tank Engine episodes.

He just kind of....adapts, I guess. Like, remember how he broke his collar bone a couple of weeks ago? He lasted about two and a half weeks with the sling until it broke irreparably after being McGyvered repeatedly with safety pins and bread ties for at least two of those weeks, because he was all doing the down dog, running around, and generally freaking me out with his broken collar bone antics, because while he was REALLY good about keeping his arm in the sling, he kept using his arm anyway, the little freak.

I guess if it hurt, he didn't do it, but he handled that whole time so well I kept thinking we must have got someone else's x-ray because NO WAY could THAT collarbone be broken.


Then we got a new x-ray maybe three weeks after the first to check on its healing bizzo and there it was, a FULL THICKNESS FRACTURE ie he'd snapped his collarbone is HALF, which was easier to see when it had started healing because I have no idea why. Increased bone density at the fracture site or some shit. ANYWAY, it's healed now, and he's got a nice little bump where the fracture was, and an another x-ray due in a few weeks, and that should be that.

right side, demonstrating how the left side SHOULD look

POINT BEING. Dude just rolled with it, I think is the point.

In other news, we've been collecting and recollecting (the same fucking) caterpillars for over a week now, and Daniel would like you to know "IT'S A BABY CATERPILLAR LOOK IT'S A BABY A BAYBEE". So look,

It's a baby caterpillar.

I've been trying to upload a video of caterpillars because I KNOW you all want to see that too, but for some reason, it won't upload. Cue collective moan of disappointment, I KNOW.

So we catch catepillars every morning, which is to say, Daniel points at but refuses to touch the them, and I pick them up and put the in the Caterpillar Containment Device. Then they eat the living shit out of the selected grasses and weeds we've chosen for them based on their particular palate, and when Daniel's asleep, I release them to the wilds ie I dump them on the lawn again.

I've learned that caterpillars are NOT migratory creatures because we generally find all but one again the next day - We have one lone caterpillar left in the containment device as I type, and we started out with twelve. We've seen butterflies as caterpillars though, and I like to think they're OUR caterpillars, transformed! and that none of OUR caterpillars have become bird food, because that would NEVER EVER happen.

Daniel loves Hollie too has no problems with picking her up and carrying her around. The end.