Jackson and I had a couple of uncanny like-mother-like-son moments the other day. The first one happened at dinnertime when I asked him to scoop some kibble into the dogs' bowls. He opened the closet, scooped the food from the bin, walked into the kitchen, opened the garbage, and started to dump the kibble into the trash.

Fortunately, I asked him what the hell he was doing and he stopped. He was all, Oh my god, I totally forgot what I was doing in the middle of doing it.

It gets better because later, as I was helping him get dried off after his shower, I unwrapped the towel from around his shoulders and went, "Say AHHH." He opened his mouth and said AHHH. But what I really meant for him to do was lift up his arms so I could dry his ribcage and underneath his arms. It's like I wanted his armpits to say AHHH. He laughed at me for ten minutes after I got it all straightened out. Dog food absentmindedly into the garbage, armpits that say AHH. What could possibly be next?

Oh, I know! It's that our local florist seems to want us poor and dead. I can see no other reason for her having stuffed the front half of her store with Webkinz and then given us two out of what looked like a hundred praying mantis babies that had hatched from the store's praying mantis kit.

Our little predators now live in separate mason jars so they don't eat each other, and they stay on our kitchen counter where we can keep an eye on them. I'm not sure why we haven't named them yet, maybe because they're so small we can't see their vicious little compound eyes.

We're supposed to feed them fruit flies or ants. Yet praying mantis prey seems to be nearly impossible for us to find. Apparently, despite my slack housekeeping, we live a bug-free existence. To counteract the unconscionable lack of grime in our lives Jack left a rotten banana in a jar on the balcony. No fruit flies. He put the jar on the ground by the front steps. No ants.

Can't I just toss a tortilla chip in there? Everyone likes tortilla chips.