Ingies n' Things

That is what the boy came in the house hollering at the top of his lungs the other day.

It took me a minute to tear myself away from the book in which I was engrossed because I felt relatively secure in the knowledge that it wouldn’t have taken my son alerting me to a national emergency if one were actually occurring on our doorstep.

I looked up to see a freckle-faced little boy whose dark brown eyes were resembling saucers beckoning me with his short little fingers.

“Come on, Mom. You gotta see this.” His voice and face were very solemn.

I followed him out the front door and this is what I found:

A poem about what little boys are made of comes to mind.

“Wow, G!” I’m sure overwhelming enthusiasm positively emanated from my being. G quickly shifted gears from serious to delighted.

“Look, Mom! Snail poop!” (Big laugh.)

(No close-up. Sorry. Try to contain your disappointment.)

G brought the snails food and said, “It’s a group hug, Mom!”

Prior to that moment I don’t think it ever occurred to me to put the words ‘snail’ and ‘hug’ in the same paragraph much less the same sentence.

“Awwww – a baby! Isn’t he cute?”

Ditto for cute and snail and sentences.

G was very proud of his collection.

His mamma was slightly repulsed but managed to kept it to herself.

Is it possible to be incredibly proud of your children and delight in their enthusiasm and be grossed-out at the same time? Because if the boy wants to study bugs I will do everything I can to keep my skin from crawling off my body and encourage him. This is evidenced by the fact that the snail collection ultimately wound up being stored in a yogurt container with a custom viewing port designed by our little malacologist . . . on the counter . . . in the kitchen.

Still trying to avoid passing my phobias on to my son,
D