Po-tay-to Po-tah-to (annoying how there's not really a good way to write that.)

It’s spring(ish) when a young man’s fancy to thoughts of bugs. Yes, it’s a magical time, a time when Maggie and Aidan delight in playing in the yard, in riding their bikes up and down the street, and in pulling up my paving stones and the rock edges of my flower beds, leaving them strewn haphazardly about the yard, and finding potato bugs.

When I was a kid we called them roly-polies. I’m not sure if the difference is a location thing or a timing issue (probably location, I also drink soda, not pop. Well, I don't drink either but that's not the point) But I looked them up (what would I do without google and wikipedia?) and found out that they’re actually woodlice.

Let me tell you how stoked I am to have my children bringing lice of any kind into my home.

Not very.

Actually I’m not sure if they’re technically woodlice or pill millipedes, having not checked whether they have two sets of legs per body segment (millipede) or just one (woodlouse). Now that I think about it, given the sheer volume of discovered, and captured, insect life, we probably have both.

We also have worms.

Now, I’m not particularly squeamish, although now that I’ve put the woodlice name on the potato bugs I find that I like them a lot less, (a woodlouse by any other name...) but I did finally have to banish the bugs, the “new pets,” outside (as I would any real pet) when I caught the kids taking them out of the jar and letting them crawl up their arms.



And dropping them.

I don’t really need them crawling around my living room.

On a completely unrelated note, today Maggie informed Aidan that Hannah Montana was the “most famous pop-star.” Oy vey.