Ben, what did you get into? You stink!

While traveling on business today, I took the opportunity to call home during a lull. Rachel answered the phone. "Hi, how are you, I love you, I called to talk to mom." Rachel tells me that mom is busy cleaning up a mess that Ben and Jeremy made. They poured a bucket of pee on the air conditioner. Oh, I say, I'll call back later tonight!

So, about half an hour later Lisa calls me back at the desk (apparently caller ID worked), to which Randy (the guy I'm working with) says "Oh yeah, he's here, and he smells of pee." Hands me the phone.

Apparently, Ben came in complaining he got something in his eye. Yeah, when you pour liquid on a blowing AC unit, it blows the liquid around! Apparently, after teasing the story out, Jeremy and Ben thought it would be cool if they didn't take the time out of their busy outdoor life to come inside and go to the bathroom. So, they found a convenient play bucket, and have been collecting pee for a while.

I guess they eventually found a cool thing to do with it - pour it on the AC! Lisa, welcome to raising boys. But why do they do that? When I was a kid, I did innocent things like burning insects and writings into wood with a magnifying glass, blowing up things I found around the neighborhood with fire crackers, playing war with little 2x4 blocks of wood as guns, etc. Jeesh, what kids are like these days!

I hope they grow out of this pee phase real soon!

Do you want some beef turkey?

"Dad, are you eating beef turkey?" asks Ben. Yep, I made the jerky myself!

Don't eat Superman...and Batman...hey, not Green Lantern!

As a reprise of my earlier post, here Ben is 4 1/2 years old, and during those moments when he is fussy and doesn't want to eat, guess what still works? Yep - pretend each bite of the food is a superhero. We go through the Justice League. Superman is out for a fly, going to fight Lex Luthor, when suddenly - he gets swallowed by a kid! Batman hears about it and comes to his aid, but he is swallowed too!! Oh, no - who will protect the world from this new threat? Wonder Woman? No, her invisible jet and all. Hawk Girl? No way. The Martian? Gone. Aquaman? He's just seafood. Good thing the Justice League is so big - it's usually enough to finish the plate.

Dad, he's my Skunk Double

Just before school let out for the summer, we parents were invited to come in and see what our first-graders had been working on all year. We waded through a folder packed with math quizzes, writing assignments, spelling words, and art projects. We sat through a PowerPoint presentation the teachers had done, showing a picture slideshow set to music of those adorable kids at work. This had been an eventful year - the local news station had done a TV broadcast a few weeks before, because one of his classmate's community service project had been to adopt a unit in Iraq and send letters and care packages. At the end, my son drags on my hand, and wants to show me what he made on his locker. It's a trace cutout of his whole body, decorated in a 7-year-old's crayon creativity, and named with a silly relettering of his name. "Dad, he's my Skunk Double," he says. I could not hold back my smile, but it was all I could do to hold back my laughter. "What is he?" I asked, just to hear it again. He obliged. "Oh, that is a beautiful Skunk Double," I said in a voice shaking from suppressed laughter. Jeremy, you're the best!!!

A tomato is coming!

A couple of weeks ago, the skies were getting dark, and it started raining. Ben and Jeremy came running in from outside. Ben says "A tomato is coming!" all excited like. I smiled. He hates tomatoes! Well, the kind he was talking about, so do I - I had heard just a few minutes before there was a tornado watch for Oakland County.

I'm Batman

Elliott Emmanuel Imerman, born April 27, 2009 at 10:52 AM.  When we told big brother Benjamin, he said:

Ben: "I don't like the name Elliott."

Dan: "So what do you want to call him?"

Ben: "Um...Batman."

Dad: "OK, you can call him Batman."