Trouble on Many Fronts, and a Nice Outing

We’ve been having girl trouble. The little girl next door has recently shown a precocious interest in showing and being shown certain assets which we are trying to teach our children are private. T. is not particularly curious in that department, being blessed with a little sister who regards clothing as highly optional, but our young neighbor has only a baby sister, and, perhaps, modest parents. According to our small but extremely reliable spy, T. was not the instigator of the incident, but he is still grounded from playing with her for the foreseeable future for failing to use good judgment. Somehow, I hadn’t expected to deal with this kind of thing for a few more years.

Last night, after a different indiscretion, Ed told T. that he was going to have to start showing more respect (stop snickering, Mom!). He jokingly suggested that maybe we would tattoo the word on T., to help him remember. T. said he’d rather we didn’t. K. immediately piped up, saying She wanted a tattoo! Ed told her that ladies don’t get tattoos. She said she wanted one. He conceded that, actually, some women did get them. I jumped in at that point, to say that, if she did get one, would she please always wear gloves so I wouldn’t have to see the tattoo (she planned to get it on her hand). She asked why. I explained that it would break my heart to imagine all those thousands of little needles jabbing into my little girl’s skin, injecting horrible dyes. She asked why. I told her that that is how tattoos are made. There was a long pause. I thought she was thinking about all those needles, and deciding that she would never, ever get a tattoo. Finally, she said, “Okay, I’ll wear gloves.” Aaargh!

Once again this weekend, we failed to sell our house. It was, briefly, really clean, but our lookers didn’t bite. Inexplicable. Actually, Ed and I have begun to think that our sales “patter” may leave something to be desired. When there are long pauses in the conversation, we have a tendency to say the darndest things. Yesterday, for no apparent reason, Ed started talking about how there isn’t much traffic on our road, so we don’t get a lot of dust from being on a dirt road. He went on and on about it, and I couldn’t think of any discreet way to shut him up. Between the two of us, we’ve told people that we live across from a cow pasture (intending to suggest what a peaceful location it is, but it probably just conjures up images of cow patties and flies), that there is a single mom living next door (to soothe the worries of a woman whose husband travels a lot, but I probably sounded as though I thought her marriage might be over soon, or at least that there was an endless procession of gentlemen callers next door), about the big air conditioner condenser we put in when we turned our screened porch into a den (which is a good thing because the condenser is new and energy efficient, but might worry those who think additions to the original structure aren’t the thing). Anyway, we’re thinking that maybe we should ask Ed’s mom to show the house for us. Sure she’s old and frail, but she is one tough cookie. She doesn’t take “no” for an answer, and perhaps she could intimidate someone into buying our house.

We went to the pool after lunch today. It was just beautiful out, and, again, we had the pool entirely to ourselves. Work has picked up, and I’ve been pretty busy, but it is wonderful to be able to take an hour to play with the kids outside on a gorgeous day!