i'm used to four seasons, california's got but one

i should be cleaning up the chili mess that is smeared and flung about the kitchen. but my hands smell like baby soap and i can't bring myself to make them smell of anything else. i love boys in the bath and just out of the bath, the after-bath. they giggle and shiver into jammies with feet, then jump to cuddle under newly cleaned quilts and down comforter. jude snores away his teething grumps. henry has seen "prince of egypt" and is obsessed with the young moses nearly as much as he is with the boy david. he's watching a tamer version of the story (i hate the prince of egypt's vivid heiroglyphics of the babies being thrown to the crocodiles) in which, sad to say, the mother of moses looks like a man.

at long last ernie has come home to us. the boys spent sunday afternoon leaping over him and showing him old toys and new tricks. a man of surprises, ernie showered us with gifts, henry's favorite being a whoopie cushion. he laughs hysterically and blows it up again. who would have known -- he's only three!

"i have a whoopie cushion in the car!" henry tells the near-snoozing man in the chair at borders.

"you do?" says the man, chuckling, literally, and looking at me, a mom who certainly doesn't look like an encourager of whoopie cushions.

"yes. do you need a whoopie cushion?" henry asks, seriously pondering.

"no, i really don't." says the man.

"whoopie cushion!" henry exclaims, elongating the "oo" as if shouting a hooray, trotting off to the next thing.

on saturday my mom took us to mt. pisgah to see indian teepees and to eat fair-type food. it was good but terrible. a sure sign that i'm old -- i felt sick saturday night from grease and onions! i'm so sad. henry, the ever observant, said of the midget (is it okay to call him a midget? is there a better term? little person?), "LOOK at that LITTLE MAN! he's so LITTLE!" and of the extremely obsese man, "LOOK at that fat man in the blue pants and red shirt -- he's REALLY, REALLY FAT!" it was terrible. it was worse to shush him, really. i'm really at a loss as to how to teach him not to blurt out observations pertaining to stature and size.



well, moses is trudging through the desert and henry is leaping from the coffee table to the couch shouting, "let my people go!" in an altogether too loud manner. ernie rehearses with the good doctor and i've a few new things to read waiting for done-dishes and perking coffee.