My husband seems to feel that I left a crucial movie off of yesterday’s list. As I explained to him in the comments, while I cannot watch this movie, technically it doesn’t belong on the list because I have never seen it in its entirety. Semantics, I suppose. At any rate, I AM PETRIFIED of E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. There, I said it. I am terrified of a small, friendly movie alien from the early 1980s. I am almost as scared of E.T. as I am of cockroaches, and people, that is SAYING A LOT. I really can’t explain why he freaks me out so bad, or even how my phobia began. I was only 3 years old when the movie came out and I sincerely doubt my parents tried to take me to see it. Maybe I saw the TV commercials? Or maybe my fear didn’t begin until it came out on video and was brought into my home. I will have to ask my mom. ANYWAY, the funny thing (can there really be anything funny about that freaky-ass alien? Survey says, NO) is the fact that I had a stuffed E.T that was my very best friend. Someone gave it to me, I guess, and according to my parents I took that little guy everywhere. I’ve seen pictures of me at that age and sure enough, there’s E.T., front and center in almost all of the photos. In fact, word has it that I carried him around so much that the cheap vinyl-y “skin” rubbed off and E.T. had to be replaced. So how is it that I was (am) so terrified of the movie E.T., yet his small stuffed counterpart could be my constant companion? Probably because Stuffed E.T. didn’t have that VOICE. GAAAAAAAAAAAH.

Moving on! So, my son spit on another kid at school yesterday. This is completely uncharacteristic behavior for him (THANK GOD), and everyone I’ve told the story to has been completely shocked. As I’m sure I have mentioned before, he is very easy-going and doesn’t give us a lot of trouble so this came totally out of the blue. When I asked him why he spit on Nicole, he said she was mean and kept making him mad and finally he got so mad he spit on her. Now, I can kind of see his point, because Nicole is quite the dominant, bossy alpha female, and has a tendency to be kind of a bully. She’s also the only kid in the class that is taller than AE. I’m certainly not saying she deserved to be spit on but I can see how she might have pushed him to the end of his rope. Anyhow, last night we got to have a discussion on Behaving Appropriately in Public, subtitled Why We Do Not Spit On Our Friends. I have to admit, there are certain aspects of mothering that catch me totally off guard. I’m especially surprised because I didn’t think that AE possessed the necessary skills for projectile spitting – this is a kid who still has to use toddler toothpaste because he can’t be trusted to spit into the sink rather than swallow. So on the upside, at least he is mastering new skills.