the sleppys

Pingu is a bad word in Maida Rodriguez’s homeland. But in the United States of America (that’s where we live), Pingu is a comical, gentle children’s show about a claymated penguin, his mom, and their intense and caring relationship. Ms. Rodriguez called her cable company along with PBS Kids (the cable channel that airs Pingu) to complain that the teleivion show is causing her daughter to say bad words.

Do you know where the OFF button is?

We are all sick. Daddy isn’t, but the kids and I are all stuffy and snotty. On the upside, we are all sick at the same time. Usually, the colds come on one at a time where Ty is sick and gets Kyle sick who then gets Taylor sick, then I’m sick, then Ty, and it’s a nasty cycle that lasts two or three weeks. But this time, because we all got sick together, it may last only a few days (hopefully). We have a recital coming up for the piano students on Saturday. I hope we’ll all be healthy enough to go.

Last year, I threw my back out saving my kids from some grackels whose babies fell out of their nest. The birds kept dive-bombing us, so I carried my kids from the car to the front door while feeling grackels’ claws on the top of my head! This was days before the recital. Now this year, I hurt my back again, just in time for the recital. Great. I was pulling weeds and wanted to get the tough ones out before the heavy rains came, which soak the earth and make it impossible to pull the suckers out. I had been working on them for a few days and finished the last ones yesterday, after it had rained some. Later, I went inside the house to wipe the mucus off of Taylor’s upper lip. I bent down, and I felt my muscles tighten. Then I was in pain!

See how the psoas (silent “p”) connects to the vertebrae and the hip. In the Army, it’s called the “hip-flexor muscle,” and it helps when doing sit-ups. Obviously, I haven’t done a sit-up since I left the Army.

Ty is the sickest of all. He usually is. He is lethargic, watery-eyed, and breathing heavily. But his colds get better and less symptomatic as he gets older. Kyle seems to have gotten over his cold in a matter of hours. He is already pulling Ty’s hair and taking Ty’s food. Taylor doesn’t get much sleep at night but makes up for it by napping all day.

Ty has been on a dinosaur kick for a few weeks. About a year ago, he saw Disney’s Fantasia and saw the T. Rex and Stegosaurus fight. “Mommy, all the dinosaurs are dead, right?” he asked me worriedly.

“Yes, Ty. The dinosaurs died when an asteroid hit the Earth,” I responded. And that was the end of that… then.

Just after Easter, Ty asked me to tell him the story of the asteroid that hit the Earth. I was afraid that such an intense story would give him nightmares or make him worry that another asteroid would hit the Earth again. But he was interested in knowing more about the dead dinosaurs.

He makes a fist and throws it into his palm to demonstrate the force of the rock’s landing when he tells the story. We borrowed some library books on the asteroid impact. He learned how big the asteroid was, the damage a smaller asteroid would make, and the fact that it wasn’t the actual impact but the aftermath that killed most of the dinosaurs. So he isn’t worried too much about the dead dinosaurs anymore. He has asked if some “new dinosaurs” were going to live on Earth, and I assured him that it is highly improbable. And it doesn’t bother him at all that an asteroid hit the Earth. He seems pretty grateful, actually. “The dinosaurs died so new animals can come.”