Oy vey.

I just haven't had much to write about lately. Things happen, life goes on, and not all of it is blog-worthy.

This is why I love being a mom.

Reepicheep says to me this afternoon, "Mom, I'm just so tired." I asked her if she slept well last night. She says, "Yeah, but I think I'm just short on Vitamin D."

I told her to bundle up and go outside, for Pete's sake. There's still Vitamin D floating around out there in what little winter sunshine we're getting.

So she put on her outside clothes and made her way out the door. An hour later, we walked our friends out to their van, and there sat the Reepicheep, on the swing, messing around with the snow. Her brothers spotted her and got the brilliant idea to join her.

Two more kiddos, bundled up so well that they can't bend, out the door.

All was well and very well................................................until I heard the Pickle calling for his sister.

I thought it sounded a little weird, but he's the Pickle , after all, and known to use character voices from time to time. Heaven only knows where he got that, she typed in her very most proper English accent.

He really sounded a little muffled, and perhaps toward the edge of panic, so I had the Frog look out the window to see what was what. She hollered, "OH MY GOSH!!!"--and in rushed the Pickle. "You better rinse that off!" I heard the Frog saying behind him.

When he came through the door, I saw his face absolutely dripping with blood.

Good grief, I thought, he must have been hit in the mouth, and his braces tore through his lips. Or maybe he fell down and bit through his tongue. Or maybe he smashed his nose--he's rather prone to bloody noses.

No, no. None of those tragic things happened. Nothing quite so accidental as all that.

No, it became quickly evident that my son, the Pickle, one whom I love with all of my motherly heart, ate peanut-butter and stupid for lunch today. And I say this with all Christian charity. Really. There is no other explanation.

For what?

For the part where he licked a pole. It is 12 degrees outside. Twelve. That would be below freezing, for those of you not wanting to think when it's colder than 50. (I'm one of those, by the way.) You know, the kind of cold where if you were to be so silly as to lick something metal--like, perhaps a pole--your lips and/or tongue might perhaps just stick to the metal.

He licked a pole. He licked a pole. I have to keep typing it, because it's so incredibly boy that I can't even stand it, much less believe it. I took a peek out the window at the offending pole, and lo and behold, there is actually flesh remaining, adhered to the pole, frozen there like a little trophy. Little pieces of his lips, just stuck there to the pole. Because he licked it.

I instructed the boy to stick his mouth under the running faucet in the bathroom and rinse it until the bleeding stopped. Now he has a fat lip and a good story.

When I asked Reepicheep why she didn't lick the pole, she looked at me as if it were the silliest thing I had ever asked her (which, let's face it, it actually is), and she said, "Because that would have been foolish!"