i got chills, they're multiplying...

...and I'm losing control.

Of my bodily functions.

At least it seems as though I am.

Still with me? Good. I promise this won't be super gross.

So, remember that time I wrote about how I sometimes faked being sick when I was growing up because it was fun to hang out in my house alone and listen to records and do other things? I know it's been awhile, like three days ago, so let me refresh your memory.

What? I didn't mention what some of those other things were when I talked about singing along to my records? Use your imagination.

Anyway, did you get to the part in that entry where I said I tread the straight and narrow now? That I never fake, and that I never miss a day of work (I hear you, you with your "Big deal, big shot. You only work about 20 hours a week, Miss Fancy Pants/Sensible Shoes. You got plenty of other time in the week to be sick.")?

Well, guess what? I'm sick!! Full blown (literally!), hardcore sick! I think I was dancing on the edge of sickness when I finished that post last Friday, and that when I felt my stomach turn a bit when I wrote about my son throwing up, it was really my intestinal track saying, "Buckle up, baby, because in a few hours, you're going to be just like that lady in Kansas who became one with with her toilet. Enjoy your last few hours of freedom!"

Except it was my hands that graced the commode for several hours. I mean, for the most part, OK? I promised you, this wasn't going to get super gross.

Let me just say that having long hair rocks. Showers at 4:30 a.m., when you forget you have long hair and your husband has moved his sleeping efforts eslewhere and is unable to hold your hair back do not rock.

The last 48 hours I've been spinning in and out of a fever, coughing, expelling various science experiments and not sleeping. I am not a good sick person. I moan and groan a lot. There might have been some tears earlier tonight. I hope it's over soon before there's an IV drip and talk of "it's for your own good, dear," taking place.

So, about that perfect work attendance record I mentioned last week? I believe, with little doubt, that tomorrow it will get a mark in the 'absent' column, and I will stay home, curled up on the couch armed with blankets and buckets and the television remote. And what will I be doing on my little respite, you wonder? Well, hopefully I'll not be throwing up anymore, because I'd hate to miss a moment while watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off on WGN at 8 a.m. (seriously, I'm too weak to paw through the DVD cabinet for my copy, and this way, I can doze through the copious number of commercials on network television. Thanks for the heads up on this, backpacking dad!).

Now, before I somehow spread my germs onto you through some weird blog osmosis, I'm suggesting you leave before I have to get snooty.

Snooty?

Snotty.

Snotty?

Sigh. Ferris Bueller, you're my hero.

Even when I'm not faking the sickness.

'if i go for 10, i'm probably gonna have to barf up a lung'

As I was heading out the door to go to work Thursday morning, the nurse at my sons' school called to tell me that my youngest had thrown up and was down in her office, waiting for me to pick him up.

(Typing that - "had thrown up" - made my stomach turn a little bit, because I'm not a good nurse when it comes to my kids vomiting. Additionally, my imagination kicked in and I got a sensory recollection of that horrid stuff the janitor would sprinkle on the floor when a kid christened the hallway or classroom and I totally gagged. Blech.)

Twenty minutes later, my little ashen face boy was nestled on the couch, under strict orders to aim for the bucket placed near his head if he felt the urge to purge, and watching the Cartoon Network. During a commercial, I rubbed his back and asked how he was doing. His response?

"What's for lunch, Mama?"

It was 10 a.m., the kid had just tossed up his breakfast 30 minutes prior, and he was ready to score a peanut butter sandwich. Might ye be fakin' this malady, me wee little laddy?

He assured me he wasn't faking, but you can't fool a pro! It takes one to know one, and in my day, I was a master faker! I don't know whether to be proud of him that, at the tender age of six, my kindergartner pulled his first fake sick day on me (I waited until I got my thespian skills down hardcore in eighth grade), or dismayed that we could be in for a long and illustrious career of this.

When I would pull a fake sick day on my parents, I used to work out the plan a good two days in advance. If the intent was to take the entire school day off, then the night before, I'd start with a few quiet moans and a random complaint that my throat was scratchy. The next morning, I'd not respond immediately when my mother would wake me. Maybe toss in a cough here and there. Then I'd wait. Wait for one of my parents to ask if I thought I should stay home from school. Tell them "Oh, I think I ::cough, cough:: can make it. ::BIG COUGH::." Then smile proudly, yet covertly, when they'd call the school office and tell them I'd not be in that day.

An hour later, when I knew both parents were firmly entrenched at work, I'd call my friend Cameron, tell him if he wasn't at my house within 15 minutes, he could find himself a new best friend, then we'd dupe our nitwit principal, pull my girlfriend, Sloane, from class, and tool the streets of Chicago in a Ferrari that Cameron's dad loved more than Cameron. Danke Shoen, my little sausage kings. Danke Shoen.

The full sick days were rare, however. More often, I'd go at least a portion of the day, lest the guilt of my ruse truly did make me sick. At the designated time - usually before lunch - I'd ask to be excused to go to the office, place that call to my mom, then walk home. Two blocks later and away from school, I'd break into a grin and hustle on my way. Most fake days weren't taken to get out of a test or some unfinished homework assignment. Quite likely, it was to get out of gym (again, my stomach just turned a little bit at that). Other times, it was because I just wanted a moment's peace, and if I could get a few hours home alone, more the better.

When I got home, I kicked into gear. For starters, a snack that wouldn't make it appear obvious the sick girl had eaten. Then, being a former huge General Hospital fan (and because we didn't own a VCR when I was growing up because it was the olden days and we went to square dances and read by the light of one tiny candle and would go to bed early to build our endurance for fighting off locusts bent on destroying our crops in the summer), I'd kill an hour watching. Finally, it would be show time! I'd pull my 45s out, load the stereo in the living room, and sing, baby, sing! Quarterflash's Harden My Heart, the Motels' Shame (Tricia Thongs and Penchant for Panties has lurked within me for a long time!), and the John Lennon tracks off the Double Fantasy LP. Occasionally, and sadly, sometimes I would toss in Chicago's Hard To Say I'm Sorry as an ode to my high school crush. Good, good times. What I figured was, dancing around the living room, emoting to the classics, I'd work up a set of flushed cheeks and maybe a headache if the music had been playing loudly. Settled down and ready for my parents to walk in the house by 5:30 p.m., I could still pass for quasi-sick, and the next morning always dawned with a miraculous recovery!

As the day wore on, as my son downed his peanut butter sandwich, crackers and juice, then danced around the house in anticipation of his older brother arriving home from school so he could play - all while remaining vomit free, mind you - I browsed the Internet on faking it and discovered nearly 2 million entries on how to fake being sick (aka "pull a Ferris"). The world is filled with sneaky little bastards, and again I was left proud and a little dismayed.

Today I am a straight arrow and I don't fake squat. I've got perfect attendance at work, and I can't bring myself to lie to get out of a commitment. Trying to act sick makes me short of breath and break out in hives, which perhaps qualifies me as sick, but I like to think it's just me being lame.

Tomorrow, 24 hours without vomiting (shudder), my kindergartner (who, for the record, I don't think was actually faking...at least not for the entire day) will return to school. As for me, the pro? I'm actually a touch sick with a sore throat and cough I can't seem to shake, but I don't think that will stop me from staging a festival in my living room. I'm thinking Scandal's The Warrior to warm up, then onto the Go Gos' Vacation. It's the cure for whatever ails you, fake or not.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Before I go, XI Summit tagged me for a six word memoir. Being a wordy, wordy girl, I cranked out a blog entry last week where I dumped out several miniature biographies that summed me up in six words. However, XI dropped the gauntlet and wondered if I could sum up my life with just ONE six word summation.

So here goes:

Verbal mojo rages, pimping others' books.

Ta da!!

Now, before I add more (because I want to, and it's hard for me to stop...), I'm going to spell check and publish. So many of you graciously shared some really great memoirs in comments with me last week (and everyone I know has been tagged!), so I'm going rebel and tagging no one. I'll just read all of you out there.

hot dogs and afternoon delights

We met at lunch. He wasn't supposed to be my dining companion, but I noticed him leaning back on the bench to stare at me. When I'd smile, he'd act nonchalant until, finally, he caved and grinned back. A few moments later, we found ourselves together in a darkened room.

"I don't normally do this kind of thing," I whispered. "It's the middle of the afternoon, and we should be doing other things. With other people. People who love us. It's because I love someone else that I came here in the first place!" As my words trailed off, he nestled his head in my lap and smiled - a lopsided and contented grin just barely discernible in the shadows. The smile was designed to distract me, but I had to confess.

"I don't know when I'll get back here again," I said. "Also, and I hate to admit this, but I don't remember your name."

Accepting my fickle absentmindedness, he responded with a pleasantry offered just a little too loudly. "I like you. You smell good! Like cookies! You smell like cookies! I like you! And I like Optimus Prime, too. He's cool! I have an Optimus Prime action figure. Do you like the Transformers? Do you have any Transformer action figures? I love the Transformers. Have you seen this Transformers shirt I'm wearing? My grandma is coming over tonight and my Mom and Dad are packing their bags and leaving."

And just like that, the noise of the 45 other five and six year olds in the room started to swell and compete with the episode of "Between the Lions" airing on the classroom television, and drug me back to reality. Also, my child, the one I'd come to school to share lunch with, tapped me on the shoulder, flicked his thumb at my young paramour - head still in my lap, still picturing me as a robot in disguise - and said, "Jamie's the one who cut my Superman shirt with his scissors, Mom." Clearly, having smitten my family with school supplies (and my heart with his freckled nose), the brief love Jamie and I shared with each other (and chocolate chip cookies), was doomed to die.

In my defense, I was left vulnerable to Jamie's charms from the moment I arrived at my son's kindergarten class. Excited to have me join him for a delicacy of hot dogs, baked beans and a sherbet cup, I planned to be the ideal lunch date for my son. Pondered the perfect outfit. Spritzed on the perfume, fluffed the hair, and showed up with a huge smile. As soon as I entered his classroom, the whispering started. "You're mom's here. You're mom's here." You're like Gulliver traveling Lilliput when you enter the wondrous realm of a kindergarten classroom. Maybe you're not bound and ventured upon (well, I mean, Jamie stopped short of bindings), but there's lots of little people pointing at the new big person in the room. A lot of pointing.

Lots.

Like, if I weren't comfortable in the person I am now as a full blown grown up, I'd have thought this gang of five and six year olds were ganging up on me, and preparing to go all John Bender smack talk on me. And, OK, maybe that possibility gave me a little gut ache and I wondered how I'd keep my upcoming hot dog down, and the teacher may have had to step in and put the kibosh on the pointing.

Despite the warning, I still watched by back as we walked down the hall to the lunchroom. That march is like the grand entrance of the clowns in the Ringling Brothers Circus. It's virtually impossible, I learned, for kids to not touch, jump, burp and chirp, which, I wonder, where is the turning point when it becomes not as hilarious to do this as an adult? And when might my dear husband hit it?

Once crammed into tables with our tray of food, lunch room aids circled me and patted me on the back, thanking me for coming, like i was in some gourmet restaurant. I talked to the lunch room aids more than my own child, who dug that I was there, but dug it smugly and with zero conversation for me. His silence left me susceptible to the wiley Jamie. I feel our relationship was predestined. Finding out he was a cutter was my "of course" moment. I have a soft spot for the damaged souls, it would seem, even if the extent of the angst was taken out on my kid's Superman shirt.

Forty-five minutes later, my brief dalliance with Jamie was over as the class ventured back to their room for a math lesson. I hope he misses me. I can't help it. I hope he knows I miss him a little bit, too. The bad boys have always done it for me.

If you're out there Jamie, I'm a Megatron girl, and I'm giving you my cookies next time I come for lunch.

today's lesson: "don't put all your eggs in one basket"

Check out my family's super rad Easter eggs! Aren't they pretty? Aren't they beautifully pastel? Maybe pastel-ish? Somewhere out there, on a free-range farm or a bucket of KFC (extra crispy, if you please), is a hen strutting around, all cocky with glee that she could sacrifice her non-fertilized efforts for the benefit of my future egg salad sandwiches and/or protein rich, hard boiled egg breakfast.

Did you catch that last part? It's a key element to my story, so tuck it away and follow along.

I left my Tool Man and our little bolts home alone this afternoon to color eggs (after we'd been to our town Easter egg hunt, which, btw, if your kid is 10 years old, fellow Moms and Dads, you do not need to hustle out there with them to get the goods, alright?! Sheesh. The only exception to this rule is as follows: if - and only if - you see a giant Reece's Peanut Butter Egg on the ground and your 10 year old has dashed by it in hopes of snagging that lame stick of Laffy Taffy. Then, by all means, knock out the kid zeroing in on your chocolate and peanut butter, throw your body over the treat, then remind your kid when he comes back with his bucket of crappy bubblegum and assorted jawbreakers that you talked about the good stuff strategy and you damn well expect better out of him next year).

Anyway, after the world's longest parenthetical remark, my husband volunteered to help the kids color eggs while I hopped like a bunny to Target to pick up some Easter goodies (because hello!? my kid was all, "Pffft. Whatever, giant Reece's Peanut Butter Egg that I know my mom would enjoy."). Normally, we do this holiday tradition as a family unit, but because I was running behind, I thanked him, and told him that he'd see the carton of eggs meant for coloring in the fridge, all hard boiled and ready to dye. Mwa ha ha!

When I returned a bit later, my artists in residence were all gathered around the kitchen table, oohing and awing over the magic that a tablet of food coloring and a couple tablespoons of distilled vinegar creates. I joined in, commending them on their use of purples and oranges and the message they were trying to convey with the random swirls of green, then went on my way to hide the bags of Hershey's chocolate eggs I'd picked up so the Tool Man wouldn't eat them all before Sunday mornings.

About an hour later, we gathered in the kitchen again for lunch. As the boys ate their peanut butter sandwiches (Oh, NOW you like peanut butter, eh 10 year old son?!), and my husband concocted whatever weird sandwich he was making out of salami and pickle slices and mustard (oh my!), I peered into the fridge, where my eyes came to rest on the eggs my boys had colored. The ones my husband had returned to their carton so the Easter bunny would have an easy time of finding them Sunday morning.

"Huh. Wonder what those are doing on the second shelf. In the spot where we keep the eggs. The regular eggs. The ones not typically hard boiled and primed for dying," I wondered, as my eyes traveled around the remaining items in the fridge and landed on the other carton of eggs on the bottom shelf. Where we don't normally store eggs. Where we'd store eggs meant for hard boiling and primed for dying.

Lest you think my husband could be so easily confused by the overabundance of eggs in our fridge that his mind would be momentarily scrambled, leaving him confused as to what to do without me nearby to guide him, trust that I thought I had made this job incredibly easy for him. Want to know how? Let me show you. Take a peek over there to the right. Notice the distinct directives? The "Hard Boiled" and "Use These"? Yeah, those notes were written all over the carton.

All over it.

In black Sharpie.

In a penmanship style I believed my husband would easily be able to read, and not my cursive style of writing, which he claims looks like the rambling manifesto of a whacked out Kool Aid drinker waiting for the spaceship to land.

Or like this blog entry is getting to be, if I were writing it freehand and you were all forced to take it in that way.

The Tool Man's excuse for coloring the wrong eggs? "I didn't see the hard boiled ones." Allow me to direct you again to the photograph just above you and to the right.

These boys of mine colored a dozen raw eggs, all the while filling the kitchen with excited chatter about where the Easter Bunny would hide each one for them to find before we go to church Sunday morning. Instead, the Easter Bunny better make me an omelet, because now my kids - not all that interested in collecting 12 plain old white eggs - really can't put all their eggs in one basket.

Or any basket, for that matter.

Next year, apparently, I need to write directions on every damn egg. Additionally, my kid better hook me up with the giant Reece's Peanut Butter Egg at the town egg hunt. The Easter Bunny doesn't take kindly to "I didn't see it" excuses. Seriously.

Happy Easter, though! May all your eggs be hard!

short? sweet? to the point? ha!

Prompted by boredom, inspired by books,
my coworkers and I wrote biographies
limited to six words (What? Six?!)
last night and it raised thoughts:
"I've got no ideas. I'll share."
Thinking "Hey! I'll then ask others!"
I discovered there's no original ideas.
This one rolls through the blogosphere
as a meme at this moment.

"Drats! Why am I always behind?
I've got nothing else to write!
This was supposed to be mine!"
Resigned to being one step behind,
I decided "Whatever. Seriously. No ideas."

The following words are my life story,
reigned at six words, no more:

"Wordy girl wondering if anyone hears."

"Rock star touring in a minivan."

"Developed early, the rack has dominated."

"Fueled by lust, driven by reality."

"Play one in real life? Ha!"

"Some days dictated by good hair."

"Waiting for someone to yell, 'Psych!'"

"Reigning slug bug champion of I-80."

"Never seen 'Die Hard'. Husband dismayed."

"She is supremely kick ass! Yeah!"

"Double Ds reign, bras and Duran."

So there you go, my story.
The intent I had was noble.
The plan? Shortest post ever!
But note that very first biography.
It's virtually impossible. I am verbose!

Now the challenge rests with you.
Can you sum up your life?
Tell your story of lust in brief?
Share yours with me in comments.

'and these are the hands we're given...'

i·ro·ny - [ahy-ruh-nee, ahy-er-] – noun, plural -nies: an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected.

• That my period starts on the first day of spring break. Two kids + one loaner dog + 10 days + three letters that provoke fear in my house = lots of deep breaths and perhaps explaining why Mama is crying. Again.
• That my period also starts on the first date day I've had with my husband in six months. Really, biology? Really? Add the lack of lucky to the above equation and God help anyone who crosses my path for the next four to six days.
• That the first date day I've had with my husband in six months involved him doing our taxes. "Hey, baby. Wanna get it on? No? Can't? Then I think I'll look up my federal lover." In seduction, IRS always trumps PMS. Always.

My week has barely started and it already feels like it's come full circle.

Which is like a period.

Which, seriously? Over spring break?

Deep breath...deep breath...

why we can't decide if we should have another baby...

The following conversation randomly transpired between my husband and me last week as we were enjoying a child-free Friday afternoon. Pull up a chair and listen in...

Him: "I wonder what Dennis DeYoung is up to."
Me: "What?" (as in "What? Are you serious?")
Him: "I said I'm curious what Dennis DeYoung is up to."
Me: "Do you mean Dennis DeYoung as in the former lead singer of Styx or Dennis DeYoung as in someone you work with who just happens to have the same name as the former lead singer of Styx?"
Him: "Dennis DeYoung as in the former lead singer of Styx."
Me, while thinking that, aside from in his own home, this may be the most times Dennis DeYoung's name has been spoken aloud since 1984: "Is Dennis DeYoung a friend of yours? Does he owe you money? Are you thinking of childhood friends and the dreams you had? Why do you care?"
Him: "I'm just curious! I hope he's doing OK these days."
Me: "I bet Dennis DeYoung would be happy to know that you care so much. Also, somewhere tonight, I'm sure Richard Marx and Sheena Easton will sleep peacefully knowing you're out there."

(Scarily, the next day, I was reading the upcoming concert listings published in our newspaper and who do you think is slated to play here this summer? Dennis freakin' DeYoung! Hello, big time! I was a bit creeped out when I saw that because now I wonder if my husband isn't some kind of modern day Nostrodamus. If so, he probably sees us standing in the crowd this July, rocking' the Paradise, singing Come Sail Away. Good times.)



(I post this with nothing but respect for Dennis DeYoung. I just don't worry about him as much as my husband. So no need to bust my chops like when I questioned the power of Weird Al. Or for using a phrase like "bust my chops." Finally, while my husband may carry Dennis DeYoung in his heart, it's Tommy Shaw I'm worried about. If you have news on how he's doing these days, please let me know.)

boy II man

My oldest son, who now appears out of nowhere to remind me that he's 10 1/2 years old and not 10 when I'm asked by friends and the random stranger interested in perhaps abducting him how old he is, completed a week long puberty class last Friday.

The note about the class came home for my signature a few days prior. Seeing it made me think a couple of things. First, when is it that I became the mother of a 10 1/2 year old kid? Second, when did they start calling the "penis and period" class "puberty class"?

Answers:

A) Remember that time during the winter of 1996, when you'd been married a couple of years and you kept rubbing up on your husband and telling him you thought he'd make a really great daddy? That's how. Duh! Didn't you go to penis and puberty class, girl?

B) Probably shortly after the kids in my fifth grade class called it the "penis and puberty" class, then giggled uproariously at how our clever brains operated, believing that surely no one ever had thought of anything quite as hilarious.

Granted, it's been a few years, but I don't recall bringing home a note for my parents to sign, allowing me to sit in the empty lunchroom and find out about how I should shower regularly and not mess with my zits because that would just make them worse. I wonder if I had, they would have talked to me about that special time in my life when I was blossoming into a woman. Nah! I didn't even get so much as a book about puberty from them. Instead, I gathered insight into the female reproductive realm via the stick figure illustrations in the pamphlet our school guidance counselor passed out, the same ones we'd then draw genitalia on and giggle about when said guidance counselor turned out the lights for our very important film strip titled "March of the Menses," or something like that. Not the kind I'd later sneak to watch late at night on Cinemax that helped teach more so much more. In a softcore, apparently all it takes is BOOBS! to turn someone on kind of way, that is.

Anyway, note signed and pat on the back shared with my 10 1/2 year old, I sent him to school one morning as a boy and expected him to come home a man. Upon his return to the tribe as a brave and mighty warrior, I could see from the gleam in his eye that he had exciting things about growing up to share with me. After tossing out words like "testicles," "pubic hair," and "sperm" (which, for some reason, he said with that skin shivering, "This is disgusting" reaction that I reserve for words like "human creepshow" and "murder") he approached me with his hands cupping something small that he'd hidden behind his back.

"Guess what we got in puberty class today!!" he asked.

First, my internal dialogue kicked in. "I'm pretty sure the note didn't talk about distributing condoms. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but come on! It's fifth grade here. Please don't make it be a condom. Don't make it be a condom..."

Me: "Is it something small?"

Son: "Yep!"

Me: "Is it in a wrapper?"

Son: "Yep!"

Me: "Is it something you know you can talk to me about as your parent and a trusted adult, but perhaps would like to wait until your Dad is home so you can share this with him?"

Son: "Mom. Just guess."

A couple random guesses later, the child brandished a blue plastic bag, ripped it open and yanked out a package of Old Spice Pro Strength deodorant. Today's puberty is brought to you by Old Spice. Clinically proven to fight odor and wetness AND make you smell like my Grandpa!

(sidebar - how freaking cool is it you can manscape a virtual man on the Old Spice website!?! Go kill an hour. I did!)

The deodorant came packaged with a thorough, Old Spice-approved pamphlet containing information about stinky armpits, changing voices, out of whack feelings - and the parts that would make me giggle like a fifth grader - nocturnal emissions and erections.

Actually, sometimes, those last two things make me giggle still.

Following his third day of puberty class (the second was spent talking about feelings and changing emotions, blah, blah, blah, which makes me think, huh, I must go through puberty every couple of hours), my son came home with a perplexed expression upon his face. He grimaced when I asked what his lesson had been that day. Reaching into his backpack, he pulled out a diagram of the female reproductive system, unwrinkled it, put it up to my face and announced, "This is GROSSSSSSSS!!"

Me: "That's not gross, honey! That's a beautiful thing! Did you learn that babies develop and grow there?"

Son: "Mom! This is where you pee from!!"

Not wanting to stifle the learning, I asked if he'd also learned about the "Miracle of Menstruation" (starring Russell Crowe and Kate Winslet). His rolling eyes, which in between rolls glanced around the room as if to assure himself that we were not being listened in on by anyone he knew, indicated they had.

Me: "Well...do you have any questions about that? About a female's menstrual period?"

Son: ::silence::

Me: "Let me just ask you this, then. You know Mom doesn't mean it when she gets all out of control and threatens to, oh, I don't know, set your Dad's head ablaze every few weeks, right?"

Timid Son: "Yes..."

Me: "Good! Now you know why that is, right?"

Son, now a tiny bit scared, thus ignoring me: "You know when the baby is growing up there it's attached and when it's born, they have to cut that wire, right?"

Me: "Wire?"

Son: "You know! The wire! The thing the baby gets it's food from until it's born!"

Me: "Honey, that's called an umbilical chord. Were you listening in class today, or drawing things on stick figures in the margins of your pamphlet?"

Son: "Can I maybe just have a cupcake now?"

Mom: "You may have a cupcake, which I'm sure you're glad you can eat without it having to be fed to you via a wire connecting me to you!"

Thankfully, btw, giving birth to a child isn't like having to get a Fisher Price Little People barnyard set out of the box at Christmas, what with all the wires, clips, and fasteners they use to secure toys in boxes these days. The last thing I'd want to see is a rechargeable screwdriver coming at my GROSSSSSSSS parts!

Later that night, as we were trapped in the mini while running errands, he mentioned that the teacher had also provided them a diagram of the male reproductive system. A system, it should be noted, that my son thinks rocks (his word, which was enhanced by a few unseen but quite obvious exclamation points, and perhaps a few fireworks plus a motorcyclist jumping a gorge while being encouraged by buxom cheerleaders. Cheerleaders my son actually doesn't really care for much at this point because, case in point based on the previously noted uterus, girls suck, thank you very much).

"Do you think it rocks?" he asked me. I masked my affinity for the male reproductive system with an answer I felt he could relate to.

"Well, it is where you pee from," I said, all crinkly nosed and 'blech' faced in the rearview mirror for him to see.

"Whatever. I think it rocks!" he responded "All except for all the other stuff about it."

Me: "What other stuff?"

Son: "Stuff. Just stuff."

Me, flipping the light bulb on: "Ohhh! Stuff stuff! Did your teacher talk to you about erections?"

Son: "Directions?"

Me: "Not directions! Erections. EEEE-WRECK-SHUNS! Erections!" (I like to say it a lot in hopes of curbing the giggling)

Son: "We don't need directions. We're going to Target. We go there all the time!"

In his defense, the music in the mini at the time was a bit loud. That, or he really knew what I was saying and simply didn't wish to speak to me - a nosy female AND his mother - about erections. I can't blame him. I just hope we get through his actual puberty as easily, and with as straightforward directions.

Also? Seriously, too much erection talk does make me giggle a bit.

'that's just who I am this week...'

In continuing with the great tradition of Friday posts filled with lists, I give you a random sampling of things I love. At the end, feel free to share something you love. If you say you love me, I'll blush a little bit, and then probably ruin the illusion of your passion when I share with you that this week, I've been sick and blowing things out of my nose that, I'm not kidding you, look like they should be the villain in an old school John Carpenter horror movie.

If you tell me you love me more after that bit of disclosure, then we should get married, post-haste.

Now, without further suspense:

• matinees
• U2's Joshua Tree cd, specifically, the opening 2 minutes of "Where The Streets Have No Name"
• Cormac McCarthy's The Road
• Cool Whip
• Red hair
• dolphins
• a good ugly cry
• goatees
• the way my 6 year old says "Actually," "By the way," and "As a matter of fact."
• fresh batteries
• manicures and dark fingernail polish
• the smell of gasoline
• naps
• Robocop
• irony
• tuna fish sandwiches
• all the personal time I reclaimed last fall
• brownies
• shifts with my work boyfriend
• VH1 Classics
• New panties
• The Evil Dead, Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness
• singing loudly and thrashing around during my drives to and from work
• laughing so hard I snort
• people who make me laugh so hard I snort
• Chuck Norris facts
• purple, red and green
• being unexpectedly called "gorgeous"
• rolling my eyes and responding "sure" when being unexpectedly called "gorgeous"
• pastries
• "Please Read The Letter" as performed by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss
• watching my 10 year old search for me in the stands as he throws his fist triumphantly in the air after sinking a basket
• sprawling out to sleep in the middle of the bed
• coloring
• Fiber One chocolate chip bars
• my glasses
• nuclear hot french fries

Your turn. I have to go blow my nose now.

confucius say "make it good one"

Fortune cookies.

One moment they're all "Oh, baby, I love you! You're so very pretty! How 'bout you bite me, baby?" Then they're telling you blatant lies.

But now!? Now it seems fortune cookies want to pimp me out! Nice, stale fortune cookie that tasted like a soggy saltine cracker. Real nice.

Alas, because I put all my stock in fortune cookies and my horoscope, I'm disappointed that a week after getting this fortune, I'm still waiting for a proposition to accept! If you've got one for me, feel free to drop it here. Creativity is three-fourths of your grade.

(Also, if you could maybe toss in a side of hot and sour soup and a crab rangoon along with it, I just may accept before you're even done propositioning me.)

won't you take me to...hell...

Sunday morning, the boys and I strap into the mini and hit the highway en route to church. The soundtrack for our adventure? Queen's classic turned stadium staple, "We Are The Champions," followed by "Funkytown."

...ah, Lipps Inc., we hardly knew ya...

Anyway, I love these songs. But I love them as performed by their original artists. What I heard on this glorious Sunday morning weren't the classics. No. The former was performed by Crazy Frog, the latter by Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Haven't heard them? Go take a listen. I'll wait.

OK. Glad you're back. What did you think? As an aside, the first one of you who can tell me what that little nubbin of nubbiness is between Crazy Frog's legs wins my 45 single of Funkytown, because the little I can recall from middle school biology? Frogs don't have external nubbins.

My kids think they love this stuff. When I tried to school them on the catchy greatness of the originals (along with the charms of "I Want Candy," "Walkin' On Sunshine," and "Double Dutch Bus" as performed the way nature intended, which wasn't by random child artists, as they were when they were part of the song set on this day), they were all, "You just don't get it, old lady. It's about the music, man!"

Over the "ding a dang dong" chorus of Crazy Frog's "We Are The Champions," I look in the rear view mirror and see my youngest son tossing up the rock hands and thrashing his head along the sides of his booster seat throne, and my oldest encouraging him by lighting up my cell phone and waving it skyward, eyes closed and swaying.

I probably don't "get it," because when I was their age, I was listening to some of the artists I still listen to today. I pray that when my children have children, they don't find themselves in a mini on a Sunday morning, rolling their eyes at some wacky amphibian's musical gold (Nor trying to hide the fact that they are dancing in their seats just a little bit to Alvin and the Chipmunk's Funkytown, which I may or may not have been doing, but whatever, because who are you to judge me, eh?! Tell me right now you're not all "Got a make a move to a town that's right for me...." in your head this very instant!).

While I had no great thoughts about the songs, I did think it was a good thing we were on our way to spend some time with God, because that moment was what I imagine hell to be like.

Hell is a fiery pit of despair, filled with sinners screaming and clawing atop the other, you say? Oh, no. It's a sold out coliseum show headlined by Hannah Montana. Which, OK, I could live with, because I'm not ashamed to say I know the words to G.N.O., which also came on the radio during the trip to church, and if hell is, indeed, a girl's night out, then sign me up. I need one. That right there is the best of both worlds.

Strike that. The best world would be one minus that weird nubbined crazy frog. That, and actually living in Funkytown.