Less than Twelve Parsecs

This year, we chose our Halloween theme to match our surroundings:  Spiders and their Webs. We've seen so many around the house that: the usual practice is to scream first, then handle the situation with calm and a smile, AND we bought specialized guns [ see bottom of post ] which make it possible to do the after-scream smiling. We also discovered something absolutely hilarious , according to Gaius (click the link to get straight to it). Our yard is taken over by spider webs. Ignore the fully-dead grass, it's a severe drought around here so lawn took the first hit. Resident [Evil] Spider One particular spider has a hobby of setting up his web exactly where Elena will be walking the next day, usually at face level for extra scream points. He's had his web between the van and the bushes, between the fence and the house on the walkway, between the recycling bin and the doorway etc. Greg refuses to kill it:  "He's this big because he's succe

Our two-year old daughter is making more and more fun statements ( see the last post on this same topic  if this seems fun). The correlations and causations implied are interesting, moreover when they are slightly off. Here's some of that. Episode 1 - Comparisons During dinner. Mara: Mara is eating kale like a bunny at the farm. Reference photo: Episode 2 - Can't even... Part of the night time routine when Mara is teething is giving her a cup of crushed ice to chew on, in the dark.  This night, Mara asked daddy to put the cup of ice on her back. Then, she said: "Oh my gosh there's a cup of ice on Mara's back!" Episode 3 - VerbING The -ing form of the verb is easy to use, right? "Daddy, are you needing a spoon? Are you needing a spoon, Daddy?" Episode 4 - Excited statements "It's morning time! That means it's time to go downstairs! " Episode 5 - Actually She says this word in the c