1. On Sunday, Grandpa let the boys bring home a pumpkin from his garden. Believe me, I wanted to wait until Halloween to carve it. I really did. It's just that I wanted to stop the whining more. So we cut it. Or, as Harvey would say, we cucked it. We cucked it just like Jack the Pumpkin King. And the boys were thrilled. They carried it around the house for two days. Two days which also happened to be very intense potty training days. You can see where this is going.. I walked into the living room on Tuesday morning to find that Grey had removed the lid from the Jack-O-Lantern, and was sitting, nekkid, on the admittedly-very-toiletesque-pumpkin hole, doing his thing. And do you know what that little rugrat did? He jumped up as fast as he could, gave me a very serious look, pointed inside the pumpkin and said, "Harvey naughty."

2. This morning the preschool called me and told me that if Harvey didn't have his immunizations up-to-date by tomorrow, the school district wouldn't let him come to preschool. It's perfectly rational, I know. I have nothing against immunizations. I'm grateful for them, even. I understand about the schools getting fined if they have un-immunized children. (Except maybe it was a little extreme to say that he wouldn't be able to go back to preschool, when this was the first time they had even mentioned it to me.) I admit I'd been procrastinating both boys immunizations, because the last time Harvey had to have a shot he was so combative he somehow managed to bend the needle to a ninety degree angle while it was still in his thigh. When the nurse finally got it out it out we were all a little traumatized, and Harvey had a big horrible bruise and a bright red, bleeding needle track mark all the way down his thigh.
I promised the secretary I would take him to get his shots today, as soon as he got off the bus, and called his doctor to make the appointment. After spending thirty minutes in the waiting room with two active little boys, they pulled us back into the exam room, where we waited another ten minutes only to find out they were all out of the Hep-A vaccine. Which, incidentally, was the only one Harvey really needed right away. The nurse was kind enough to call the Health Department, and a nurse there actually agreed to wait for us even though it was nearly closing time. So nice. We got there, and I am happy to say that after months (ahem: a lot of months) of procrastination and an entire day of stomach-sickening dread, the shots went off without a hitch. Harvey had 5 (five!) and is all set until he gets to Jr. High. Grey had 3, and is all set until kindergarten.

Side note: While we were in the health department waiting room, the boys and I were sitting on one side of a play table, playing with another sweet boy who was sitting across from us. The kids were having a good time, giggling and laughing and probably sneezing all over each other, like kids do, and then the little boy came over to our side of the table and I saw that he had THE FREAKIEST, MOST HORRIBLE, ULCERATED, SCABBY, PAPULAR, PROBABLY-SMALLPOX RASH all over the back of his neck and ears. Awesome.