roly poly stoly

first of all wikapedia says you spell roly poly as i just wrote it. i thought you spell this bug as rollie pollie. thank goodness for wika.

that anticipated question i get everyday, "mom, what are we going to do today?"

the elongated search of what is the best, most possible fun of funs that can be had is on the early morning agenda but in a five-year-old's mind, sometime a mother's rule can turn this pursuit of elation into complete and total failure.

i have this new rule: no food in the car. a vicism that my dad has been saying since i can remember, is "you drop one french fry, just one and your car will forever smell like mcdonalds."

so i have been trying to enforce this rule of no eating in the car. it's a lofty one i would say at best, but i remind him daily of it.

before we were leaving for a drive, i checked his little palms to see if they were clean and helped him up into his booster seat.... un-californians: did you know about this new law? eight! they have to sit in this booster until they are eight despite their weight. correct me if i'm wrong. i mean what if my kid was a giant and looked like he does in it, is this still okay? if i were a large seven-year-old, i wonder if i would be embarrassed? oh well. a law is a law. i digress quickly as you can tell... so i begin driving and hear the sound of small pebbles being poured into something. i look back and i see this:

first i notice the face, then how he is frozen, then his guilty hands! jack was collecting little roly polys prior to our car ride with our neighborhood friends. i see the once full cup of dirt, grass shavings, rocks and little bugs - empty, i asked him where the little roly polys went. his soft-spoken, no eye-contact response was, "i had 28 roly polys mom. i collected uncles, aunts, grandmas, grandpas, their brothers, their sisters, their babies, their moms, their dads, their cousins. you name it mom, i have all their family right here." pointing down to his seat. he poured them all into his booster seat's cup holder!

uncertain if this was defeat of my rule, also uncertain if i was mature since the smile on my face was hard to hide as well as the need to laugh, i asked him why he brought them into the car. he told me he wanted to show them where brady lived! ha! these adventurous roly poly's enjoyed discovering new places, eh? the sudden urge to want to pull over and throw them outside came across my mind and then after playing out that one visually, i had to go to plan B when i got to the part where he would cry. i had to choose the right and be fair. i pulled over and had him transfer them back into the cup. he scooped each one (except three that ended on their backs, wedged in between the middle seat, helpless) and the RP family was safe again in their plastic caboose.

i bargained with my grown-up child. the stipulations were he could bring them in the car as long as they all stayed in the cup and his hands stayed out of the cup. i look soon after and see this:

he is having his friends watch BUGS LIFE with him! oh my did i break my coolness then! he said they love this movie! of course they would. there are two roly poly's in this one from russia with thick eyebrows. duh.

we played at the park for hours and hours. razored our hearts out. we found out that sonic is still alive in popsicle stick form from the walking ice cream man! jack showed me new tricks while i did the mom thing and just thought the world of him all day long.