Framed.

Framing someone with a crime is easy. I've actually done it here, without even trying to. All you need to do is the set-up. Demonstrate that a person has motive and is capable of specific actions.

You all know John hates that damn White Sox gnome. (Motive -- check)
And you all know John threw him to the ground resulting in a broken gnome foot. (Capable of specific actions -- check check!)

After our fabulous nanny masterfully glued the gnome back together, somehow it ended up looking like this:

Now, whodunit??

All evidence points to John.

And John doesn't have an alibi (nor could he tell you one at this point).

Framed.

(The plot-twist confession: Mama did it.)

The pain of teaching

It's so incredible and rewarding when your child learns something new from you. We're now working on teaching John where his eyes, nose, mouth, ears, fingers, toes, etc are. We have books about loving all the parts of him and as we read, we point out his features ("inside" is a hard one to point out -- any suggestions? Don't want to confuse it with "mouth" or "tummy"...).

And he's got a few of them down. He'll grab his toes, point to his tummy. But as I've said before, he is not the most delicate with his movements. He'll say "eye" and poke you right in the eye.
And then last night, while we were rocking in his chair and getting ready for bed, I was pointing his nose, and he reached up, and scratched a perfect little nail mark right into the bridge of my nose. Yes, he drew blood. But he's learned "nose"! Success.

Johnny Rotten

Even before I was pregnant with John, Tom proclaimed he wanted to name his next son John. Not Johnathan, but John. I like the name John, but needed some rationale before I agreed completely to this name. Tom's reasons were 2-fold:

(1) His first son's name is 'Sean', which is 'John' in Gaelic and since Tom is 1/2 Irish he thought that was cool.
OK...this seemed like a good reason to me. Sean's awesome, so sharing his name is perfect. And the whole heritage aspect was pretty neat. (BTW, I'm part Irish as well...which I added silently to his rationale.)

(2) Tom always respected John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten), lead singer of the Sex Pistols.
Wow. Really? OK. How to deal...think...do not agree instantly...must learn more about this guy before I agreed to name my first born child after some random punk rock singer. I mean, come on, "Rotten" is in this guy's nickname! Is that really a mother's dream for her child?

So I read Johnny Rotten's biography (albeit quite skeptically at first, I admit), and I must say, he was a pretty cool guy. The type of guy who challenged authority not just because he didn't like rules, but he wouldn't accept rules if they didn't make sense. He dressed...well...uniquely.


He didn't like it when his fans imitated his style, but rather told them they should wear what they want to wear, not just copy him. I like that.

Our John Lydon may be well on his way to a music career as well. Not sure about the whole "punk rock" aspect...currently he's more of a "Stomp your feet, clap your hands, let's get ready for a barnyard dance" type of musician.

But you've seen the headband. So who knows!

Mean Toys, Part 2

You mess with the bull, you get the horns.
Bye bye, Mean Gnome.