More scatology

Where do they learn this stuff?

Wild Thing, sitting down to breakfast: "This yogurt tastes like .... a GIANT ... HAIRY .... POOP!"

Um, yuk. Hairy?

Input, Output

Today at the farmers market, we were enjoying our meals (Ethiopian veggies, a salmon burger, and rice with peanut sauce--guess who ordered what?) when Wild Thing put down his bottle of water and offered the following public service announcement:

(Putting down a bottle of water.) "I'm drinking water. AND, I have water coming out of my penis! I'm intending to pee!"

There's nothing one can really say to that.( I suppose I could have pointed out that he was using the verb "intending" incorrectly, but that didn't seem to address the real issue, somehow.)

I should note that this "intention" in no way seems to imply any related intention to actually use the toilet with any regularity.

Basic anatomy

Yesterday I tried to explain to Wild Thing what was going on inside his head. (Not that I understand it myself.) "Wild Thing, what's inside your head?"

WT: I don't know.

Me: Well, you have bones inside your head. And inside the bones ...

WT, interrupting: Daddy, I know YOU are inside my heart!

(I know, it's a little Hallmarkish, and he's just repeating something he picked up somewhere, but it still bought him a pretty big hug.)

Science Notes: Bubbles

Wild Thing's bath time lately is almost entirely devoted to experiments with air pressure. He doesn't know that's what it's called--not yet!--but his favorite pastime is to hold a sippy cup under the water and watch the bubbles come out. "They're filled with air!" he says, quite pleased with himself. He pulls the lid of the cup off. "Where did all the air go?" he asks with a sly grin.

But is it art?

This gallery needs no comment.

(Via the marvelous 3 Quarks Daily.)

Friday Random Ten: Lucky, Sane, and Patient Edition

1. "Cocody Rock"--Alpha Blondy, Best of. I still remember hearing this song blasting from a cheap stereo at a sidewalk restaurant in Dakar in 1994.

2. "Focus on Sanity"--Ornette Coleman, The Shape of Jazz to Come. Good advice.

3. "Patience Like Job"--Sunnyland Slim, Sunnyland Train. I don't think it was this song that he was playing when I stumbled upon him doing a show in the student center back in college. Still, memories.

4. "Duck Walk"--Ada C. Washington, Aunty K n'Em(tm) in Pigsburgh(tm). Hmm. More up Wild Thing's alley.

5. "Heartbeat," Angela Desveaux, Wandering Eyes. Memo to self: buy this album.

6. "Lucky Ball and Chain"--They Might Be Giants, Flood.

7. "Who'd Stop the Rain"--Dressy Bessy, Electrified.

8. "Little Johnny Brown"--The Reeltime Travelers, Reeltime Oldtime String Band Music. I have no idea where this came from. But it's pretty good stuff if you like music that sounds just like you would think it would sound based on the name of this album.

9. "Before My Time"--Johnny Cash, American III: Solitary Man.

10. "Lucky"--Radiohead, OK Computer.

No substitutions

Wild Thing is holding his small Pooh doll with one hand and pretending to slice him apart with the other. "Slice, slice, slice, slice."

A bit concerned about this seemingly violent behavior, I ask calmly, "Wild Thing, why are you slicing Pooh?"

"Because he's a pizza."

Oh.

The dilemma

So, if Wild Thing takes a nap at his child care center, he is an absolute delight all evening, but he doesn't get to sleep until late. As in, like, ten. This is inconvenient.

If he skips his nap at the center, he is, conveniently, in bed by 7:30 or so. However, he is an absolute monster for the three hours between pickup and bedtime. This is not delightful.

So, in this as in so many things, we can't win.

Friday Random Ten: I Feel a Draft Edition

Another chapter draft going off to advisors. This is the last one that needed large-scale revisions--or at least I hope so. So, we start off, aptly, with ...

1. "My Life is Right"--Big Star, # 1 Record.
2."Going Up to the Country, Paint My Mailbox Blue"--Taj Mahal, The Essential.
3. "Romance Without Finance"--Charlie Parker, Boss Bird.
4. "Spanish Bombs"--The Clash, London Calling.
5. "For All We Know"--Ray Charles and Betty Carter, Ray Charles and Betty Carter.
6. "Old College Try"--The Mountain Goats, Tallahassee.
7. "Jail-House Blues," Bessie Smith, Complete Recordings Vol. 1.
8. "The Irish Rover"--The Clancy Brothers, Greatest Hits. Hmm, I don't seem to have erased this from the hard drive yet. Not sure why.
9."I See a Darkness"--Johnny Cash with Will Oldham, American III: Solitary Man. Uh oh--a tonal shift.

10. "Cardboard"--Charlie Parker, Parker's Mood.

Reading update

Wild Thing got an Easter card in the mail today from his (maternal) aunt and uncle. He startled me by reading the card's message to me, almost in its entirety (including the word "springtime"). Yoiks!

Friday Random Ten: "I Got Them King Lear Blues" Edition

1. "Cousin Mary"--John Coltrane, Giant Steps.
2. "Coming in From the Cold"--Bob Marley and the Wailers, Uprising.
3. "Side of the Road"--Lucinda WIlliams, Lucinda Williams.
4. "Gilton"--Boozoo Chavis, Boozoo Chavis. A Louisiana double-whammy!
5. "The Fisherman"--Leo Kottke, 6- and 12-String Guitar.
6. "I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every Day"--The Pogues, Rum Sodomy & the Lash.
7. "Careless"--Drive By Truckers, Decoration Day.
8. "Never Too Far"--Tim Hardin, Person to Person.
9. "You're the Kind of Girl"--Mixel Pixel, Music for Plants.
10. "Bees"--Laura Cantrell, Humming by the Flowered Vine.

Teaching note

Teaching a class of 70 students is, it turns out, qualitatively different from teaching a class of 30 students. More on this later.

Energy crisis

We've been trying to coax Wild Thing into eating in a more focused way by explaining to him that food has energy in it, and that his stomach turns the food into energy, and all that stuff. He also knows, though, that poop comes out of the general vicinity of his stomach, and that it has some connection to eating, since we are always talking about how blueberries turn his poop blue, for instance.

(I hope no one is eating this while eating lunch--if so, many apologies!)

This, then, is the background for interpreting his recent comment during a potty sit, during which he exclaimed, half-jokingly, as he successfully excreted into the toilet: "Oh no! My energy is falling into the potty!"

We may have to do a better job coordinating our potty-training and dinner-eating regimens.

Wild Life

Two bald eagles in the city park this morning.