Well, I called the local university Extension Office to ask about the strange creature on my porch, and they rolled their eyes at me (I could hear the cornea rattling over the phone) and told me it was obviously a hybrid Cacomistle-Binturong with mutated ears and nose. Its presence in my area is a sure sign of high levels of radiation in the water, or else a crazed Photoshopper in the hiz-ouse.

What? Who, me? I resemble that remark!

The funny thing is not that I actually managed to trick a small handful of people this year, but who it was that I tricked. My mom was flipped out, of course, but also my dad, a veteran Terminix exterminator who came up against every kind of critter imaginable in his career there. (Wisconsin isn't that remote a place, Dad; the creatures aren't that foreign! Hee!)

Eric, still in parts remote, got taken in by a frantic phone call telling him that we were stranded in the church parking lot, where the tow truck driver and AAA man were telling me that since we had just replaced a battery, there was obviously something very wrong with the Saturn, and it would likely cost more than the car is worth to repair. Eric was starting to get very upset and anxious when I finally sighed and concluded, "and it's so hard to get good auto service on the first day of April!" You'd think my own husband would be onto my tricks by now, wouldn't you?

Randomly...

The boys and I watched the season premiere of Doctor Who Saturday night, and Sam's (and my own) infatuation is renewed. He loved the new alien race they introduced. Gabe just liked the funny noises they made. It's so funny to me to see the kids embracing a show with such history to it; I can vividly picture them talking to their kids and grandkids about it, laughing about how the Cybermen made them jump and shiver. (Not the Daleks, though; they're the perennial favorites around here.)

The next day, we found some kid-sized generic red Converse-style trainers on sale, just like the ones the Doctor is wearing this season, and Sam just had to have them. They make him giggle, and he spent a good amount of time yesterday running around in them, waving a toy screwdriver around at everything. ("It's a sonic screwdriver!")

Gabe seems a little confused sometimes at the imagination games. He knows, of course, that they're only pretending to be Daleks when they run around waving rods and yelling "Exterminate!" On the other hand, he looked at me this morning with a puzzled face and asked, "Sammy is Doctor?" I think my "not really" wasn't sufficient to settle his mind.

My playgroup within the family club sort of collapsed when several of the boys started preschool recently. I think I'll try to start a new one, only instead of being age-delineated (which strikes me as weird sometimes, anyway), I want to see if we can get a plot in a community garden and tend it together through the warm weather. I think some of the kids might enjoy that a lot, even if the younger ones spend more time playing in the dirt than doing any actual gardening.

Along those lines, Sam is interested in doing his own science fair project this year, even though his class is already entering an igloo they made out of milk jugs. We're growing some plants at home already, so maybe we can do a project about plants and growing. The flowers are sprouting, so we're taking pictures, and he can pot a few of his very own. It's sad that the gourds we're growing (snake and dipper varieties) will be nowhere near ready in time for the science fair.

I think the love of trifold cardboard may be a genetic trait. I had to put my foot down about buying one prematurely; kept too long in this house, it would be a Gabe-accident waiting to happen.

Last night, I got the kids ready for bed, then had to dash downstairs for a minute. When I came back, they were in my room, having closed the door behind them, and were jumping and roughhousing on my bed. I started to get upset, but stopped myself; I quietly opened the door a crack, snaked in a hand, and turned off the light. Silence was immediate. After a second, I heard Sam whisper, "It's okay, Gabe. We'll go find Mommy." They both crept out of the room into the dark hallway, right past where I was standing to the side. When they were both past me, I jumped out behind them and roared loudly. They freaked. It was a thing of beauty, especially once they calmed down and Gabe had his fill of saying, "No scare us, Mama!"

Now, now; we can't be the only family out there who does that sort of thing to each other on a regular basis, I'm sure. Sam, when he was but a wee tot, would hide behind doors and curtains, giggling madly until one of us walked close enough to him that he could jump out and roar. We'd stumble and flail, and he would be in heaven. Gabe, for some reason, gets rather upset when Eric scares him, but he allows me to do it regularly; maybe I'm just less "threatening" with my ploys. Sam, of course, is always allowed to jump out at him; Gabe will squeal dutifully, even though it's obvious that he's just humoring Sam in an effort to have him do it again.

Scaring each other, playing practical jokes - it's all part of a healthy sort of dynamic, I think, where we balance that with gentler enjoyment of familial togetherness. I remember hearing a memoir once in which the author spoke of how his mother was an unrepentant joker, playing tricks on everybody who happened into her life. When he talked about how she drew him into her antics, I remember wishing for that sort of fun around me every day. I hope Sam and Gabe feel the same way!

Dinner tonight: pork burgers. Gabe finished his in about ten seconds, then spent the rest of dinner begging for Sam's. Sam was really generous, giving Gabe bites even after I told him he didn't have to (I offered Gabe some of mine, but as I'd already put chili sauce on it, he was less than eager). I wish I could have gotten him to eat anything else - say, his vegetables - instead of crying for "meat, meat!" but it wasn't in the cards. (Also wish it wasn't a foregone conclusion that if I'd ground up and hidden anything green in the burgers, he'd have turned up his nose at all of dinner.)