I'm still here...

It's me again. I haven't gone anywhere. Just up. I am getting pretty tall. Every now and then I'll come eye to chin with my mom and she'll get this weepy look on her face. Although, as this is being typed, I am standing naked in the dining room holding a bug catcher and asking who made up the the "F" word. So all is still good in the world.

Of course we went to Idaho this past summer… and of course it was awesome. On my second day there I was introduced to a BB gun at Man Camp. We (the gun and me) became inseparable. I took it everywhere I went. I'd strap it to the four wheeler and if I had to change four wheelers, I'd unhitch it and strap it to my new one. It was an aesthetic thing. A man needs to be seen with his gun. I started with a tin can target and quickly moved to ground squirrels. I was obsessed. And in a moment of complete lack of judgement, my mom told me that if I shot one I could take it back to Portland and have it stuffed! RAD!!!! Never mind the fact that we had no other freezer than the tiny one in the house! Come hell or high water, I was going to have a stuffed squirrel in my bedroom. So you can imagine the horror on my mom's face when she heard a frantic commotion in the breezeway and came out just in time to see me stick the barrel of my gun into the firewood log pile and pull the trigger. Silence. I was panting and my mom was holding her breath. And then… a very audible whimpering came from inside the log pile! It wouldn't stop!! I dropped to my knees and started to cry. I wanted to dismantle the whole log pile and help it. But since nobody would let me, I set my gun down and walked away. A cease fire ensued for two days. Eventually I returned to tin cans. But don't even think about wearing a fur coat in my presence.

Not long after we returned from Idaho, I started at my new school. I was really nervous on my first day but I got an A+ in holding back tears. By the time my mom picked me up I had a giant smile on my face. I had survived. When we got home I had to fill out a sheet of paper telling my new teacher, Mrs. Johnson, all about me. One of the questions asked me to list 5 adjectives that would describe me. For one of the words I picked "good." My mom said, "Good at what?" And I said, "Just good, Mom. I'm a good guy." !!! (Yes you are, little bug!! Yes you are!!)