An Old Mystery... Solved!!

Enter... The Moth!! Timothy has been such a strange yet So welcome addition to our family. Sean is, as the last two letters highlight, very much like John and I. Timothy? Can't see either one of us in him. He's happy, athletic, and a schmoozer. Well, he does cuss like a sailor.

Like me.

And he's horrifically messy.

Like John.

So, I guess he is ours. Today, I was walking the boys up to get dee-dunts (Sean-ese for donuts) when an old cussing mystery was solved.

When Tim was in 2nd? 3rd? grade, I got a call from the Teacher on Bus Duty (god bless elementary teachers). Timothy had called his older brother a Very Bad Thing. Very Bad.

I never even heard what it was, but he found out what Ivory tasted like that afternoon (great, now CPS is gonna be at the aviary).

So, today, as we're walking, Sean said, "It's like that time you called me 'penis-breath.'" "Oh, yeah, I got in so much trouble. Mom made me taste soap. And Mrs. WaaWahhWaa didn't like me when I had her the next year."

Me (trying not to laugh), "Where on earth did you hear that?"

"It's all Granny and Poppy's fault. (yeah right, I have to hear this one...) They let us watch ET. And the little brother called the bigger brother penis breath and I thought that was funny so I saved it up."

I assured him, they said PEANUT breath, because the movie had reeses pieces in it... but boy was I wrong... So, it REALLY IS GRANNY'S FAULT! How often could that possibly be true? Like, never!!

Well, that's the Moth for you... and here he comes...

A Blessed Kwanzaa to All!

We hope that you all are coming together in celebration of the fruits in your lives.

Surely you’ve all heard by now that we’ve got a new one: Timothy Hewitt Rogers. No, it’s not that bad. (Not yet, at least). He is generally a good-natured boy who makes lizard sounds when he’s content. But he always seems to have a cold or infection, so he rarely is content. Sean calls him “Timoth,” which led to his nickname, The Moth^TM (an insect which is also mild mannered, somewhat destructive and – just like Tim - is fascinated by bright lights).

The Moth ^TM

We got him christened because we suspected that he was full of original sin and needed a good purging. At the party where we celebrated his new “sin free” self, Sean – whose patterns of sin are becoming well established - went up to the bar and yelled “I want a drink!” to the bartender. What a cutie-pie!

Unfortunately, Timothy’s sin was cast into a raccoon. Maddened with rage, the raccoon bounded out of the woods the next morning and attacked Titus the Dog. Physically, Titus was fine, but emotionally, he has never recovered. He is even terrified of small kittens. He’s taken to sleeping in the boys’ room, so that they will protect him from any scary men or bad raccoons.

Sean’s neuroses continue (and we don’t know where he gets them!). He is a compulsive hand washer, water waster, tissue user and toilet flusher. Of course, he loves to lecture everyone about the importance of not wasting water or paper. How charming. He beguiles listeners with well-worn stories, like the one about the “bad raccoon” that “got” Titus. That’s always a good conversation opener. He got all the kids in his class scared of water drains by telling them that clowns with scary teeth lived in them (inspired by Stephen King’s IT, which Betsy let him watch one afternoon). When his classmates avoided the toilet and reverted to pooping in their pants, the teachers at the Orwell Academy started sniffing around. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

The boys’ day care is run by PC Nazis, a gaggle of Nurse Ratcheds straining to hear the faintest sound of rebellion. There are certain words that aren’t used at the Orwell Academy. So the poor boy tortures the language to get his point across:

Sean: I don’t love Coffee Flower.

Dad: No, you say “I hate Cauliflower.” So what? Everyone hates Cauliflower. We only eat it because your mom makes us.

Sean: We don’t say that word.

Dad: They won’t let you say “hate?”

Sean: That is a bad word action, Daddy.

Dad: “Hate” is a great word! If you say “I hate Cauliflower,” you can have a cookie instead.

Sean: (giggling) I HATE Cauliflower.

If only the Orwell Academy spent less time banning words and more time making sure that acceptable words were properly pronounced. When Sean threatens others, he says “I'm gonna kick your butt.” But it comes out wrong - a "p" substituted for one critical "k," –and it lacks the same effect.

The Moth’s^TM sheer size can easily pin Sean, 

freeing Mom and Dad to do other things.

Still, it is threatening, though not in the way Sean intends.

You’d think from the content of this update so far that John and Betsy don’t have anything interesting in their lives outside of their children. In this assumption, you’d be correct.

Betsy continues to spend money lavishly, and this year had the added bonus of attempting to destroy the Outback with her reckless driving. She was not successful, but the insurance company is thinking of dropping us now.

John has managed to alienate half the neighborhood with his new hobby of annoying-bumper-sticker-collecting. One of his more prized specimens proclaims “Go Home Jersey Scum” while another extols the virtues of eating meat. It doesn’t help that the secretary of the Pennsylvania chapter of Fair Animal Rights Today lives across the street.

In what we believe to be related news, our house was Tofu-d at Halloween.

As you can see, our lives continue to be productive and fun filled. We hope the same for you. Only less so, if you know what we mean.