It’s time for my annual blog tradition of angering my incontinent readers by revealing my scary Halloween jack-o-lantern!  Though I guess that now I’ve warned you, you really shouldn’t have any reason to be angry, right? Do what you need to do to ready yourself right now. I’ll wait.

Great! But before we get to this year’s effort, let’s take a peek back at the last three years:

2005, the metrosexual vampire jack-o-lantern. He’ll scare you by showing you his credit card statement after all the shopping he’s been doing! Boo!  Mani-pedis all around!

2006, the pirate skeleton and spider that looks suspiciously like a tick. The pirate skeleton may be my best effort to date.

2007, the ghost with a giggle so annoyingly cheerful, it’ll make you sick to your stomach in such a way that it will be indistinguishable from that feeling you get in your stomach right at the moment you’re being scared.

And finally… drumroll please… the Suburban Juggernaut jack-o-lantern for the twenty oh ate:

Happy Halloween, all. Be good to the kids, give out good candy. Don’t give out those nasty caramel cream things, unless the kid isn’t wearing a costume.

A couple of months ago, I included some audio of my boy singing the national anthem in this post. At least one of you demanded more. And from my perspective, if I can make a reader happy by letting my son come up with blog content for me, well, it’s win-win.

Here’s a little America (aka My Country ‘Tis of Thee):

And how about a little love for our friends north of the border?:

Next time: the Guyanese national anthem and “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

[Background: The boy and I went downstairs for breakfast a few mornings ago.  When we got to the kitchen, he noticed that the chairs were all pushed up against the wall, instead of being at the table. Additionally, we've been having a bit of a problem with utensils "falling" on the floor during meals.]

The boy: Why are the chairs like that?

Me: I mopped the floor last night.  Speaking of, let’s please make sure to keep all of our food and forks and spoons from ending up on the –

The boy: (directing his attention to one of his cups that has a picture of an elephant on it) Can I use my elephant cup for milk when I eat breakfast?

Me: Excuse me, I was talking!  I was saying that because the floor is clean, we need to try harder to keep –

The boy: May you please get me the elephant cup?

Me: I’m not getting you anything until you start listening.

The boy: I am listening!

Me: OK, then if you can tell me what I just said to you, you can use your elephant cup.

The boy: …

Me: (helping him along) … The floor is clean, soooooo…

The boy: I can put my food on it?

Then I immediately picked up the phone, called my mom, and apologized for my first 20 years.

I had intended to put up a 4th of July post, complete with the singing of our national anthem.  But then I didn’t have time. I could just outright tell you why, but that’s not my style.  Let’s make an impromptu game out of it.  One truth and a lie.  Everyone who used to say that my four truths and a lie posts were too hard, this one is just for you.  One story is true, one story is a lie so good that my name should be O.J.  (Mayo or Simpson, your choice.)

1) I bought a kiddie pool for the boy.  An inflatable kiddie pool.  I started blowing it up sometime on the morning of the 4th.  I remember feeling a little light headed while blowing it up, then next thing I knew, it was dark and fireworks were going off.  I’ve spent the last few days recovering.

2) In preparation for having this week off from work and having both kids home with me, I spent much of last week and weekend trying to figure out how I’m supposed to take care of two kids.  (I’ve never had to do it by myself for more than the amount of time between feedings.)

And since I already had the recording of the national anthem, I’ll give that to you as well.  I recorded this with my cell phone while we were in the car, so pardon the audio quality.  He messes up a little bit in this one, but in his defense, he sang it perfectly for the first take.  But his idiot dad accidentally pressed the record button twice, so it quickly started then stopped recording, and he had to sing it again.

Even as is, he’s at least as good as Roseanne or Carl Lewis, and he’s only three.

A few nights ago, the wife and I were in our room getting ready to go to bed.  I climbed into bed first.  As she pulled back the comforter to get in on her side, I noticed that she stopped abruptly and was trying to look closely at something.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Oh, I thought I saw something.”

I immediately went on high alert.  “Something like what?!”  I originally was thinking that it was a bug, and as I may have mentioned before, I hate bugs.  But then an even more horrifying thought came to mind.  “EW EW EW I just read a blog post [at Nancy's] about a lady who got stung by a scorpion and the scorpion stuck on her and came inside her house and was stinging her more and EW EW EW.”

Logically, I know that scorpions can’t survive way up here in the north.  But there is no logic when confronted with the possibility of a creature crawling in your bed on the very same day you read a blog post about a scorpion.  If you haven’t yet noticed, I’m not OK with the fact that scorpions exist.

The wife looked puzzled for a moment, then replied, “No, not a scorpion.  I thought I saw a dryer sheet fall to the bed when I lifted the covers.”