Stages of juvenality

Juvenality. Is that even a word? It is now, suckas.

Down here in bird land, we're all suffering through different states of juvenality.

I believe that John and I are firmly entrenched in our stage - potty humor and, in my case, a sailor's mouth that increases exponentially as the school year goes on.

It'll be interesting to see where our children land.

The Moth is still in the land of "if you hear something you don't quite understand, make it make sense." This is quite humorous when it comes to song lyrics (the song "some nights" by fun., last spring's hit for Mothman, had the strange lyrics: "some nights I stay up crashing in my bathtub..." Actual words? "some nights I stay up cashing in my bad luck..."). So the other day, he was playing with his various lego/plastic/whatever dudes, and one of them got fatally shot. As he died, Tim mimicked him falling over and plassing flatus. I said, "yo, tim, what just happened to that guy?"

"Mom, that was his last gas."

I believe I remember reading that corpses are actually full of foul air as they decompose, so if you roll them, they do pass some horrendous gas. I do not, however, believe this was Tim's meaning. I think he heard/read the phrase "last gasp" and this is what he decided it was.

Stinky has finally taken up reading. I always knew he would, but he's been too impatient for it so far. He's into what you'd expect: Michael Crichton, Tom Clancy, Tess Tosterone, you get my drift. He's also gone back to drawing, though all his stuff is stick figures. They've come a long way. If they weren't all depicting battle (usually gruesome), I'd almost admire his cartooning ability.

It wasn't something to admire when he drew them on the back of the pew insert for the season's mass music, though. Oops. If only I had my eraser. But Stinks doesn't like my eraser anymore. Why not? Well, he brings it to me the other morning and says quietly, "Mom, why is this eraser covered with Trojans?"

Somehow, perhaps from the horrified look in his eye, I know he's moved on to the non-bellicose version of the Trojan in his mind. There's no gift horse here... just a teenaged boy's embarrassment. My answer was, "Well, you know in England they call erasers rubbers, right? Maybe that's the same in Germany."

I don't believe that helped him and his distaste for this eraser. He had, when I first purchased said rubber, looked upon it with avarice. No longer.

I had to prove to my employers that these children are mine, again, this year. Our budget crunch has lead to the completely logical step of hiring expen$ive consultants to check every recipient of school district insurance. If only those consultants would take one look at the Rogers boys? No question. From the crap hair to the crap attitude, they're mine.

And I couldn't be any happier about that.

(*)>