Things Right on Top of Our Nose

In this week's installment I have to post about one of the cutest, itty bitty, tiny things you can imagine. At first I wasn't even sure they were there.... I peered closer in the bathtub thinking it was just dirt. So I scrubbed harder but, no, they did not disappear.

I'm talking, of course, about Small Fry's freckles.

It seems that all this outdoor time with baseball has caused a smattering of brown dust to bloom across his nose. Small Fry is not as overcome about this as I am. His response was "will they eat me?"


Freckles aren't the only things coming out now that the days are longer and warmer. Round here we are experiencing the beginning of the 13 year cicadas. For the next four weeks these critters will be underfoot and smeared on windshields. They've waited 13 years underground to finally emerge, leave their husks behind, fall madly in love, consummate said love, and then die (presumably they were not planning on the windshield part.) This is Small Fry's first cicada invasion and he's smitten. So far we have collected half a dozen husks, bringing them home carefully in the car by hooking their little husk pod legs into the car's upholstery. Yesterday the Fry picked up a live one for the first time. Actually it picked him. In a flurry of wings and eyes it buzzed up and landed on his hand. It gazed at Fry for moment with its weird, red, lazy eye stare - then it was gone.

"Ewww, cool," said Fry, "will it eat me?"


Fortunately it turns out cicadas are just as harmless as freckles.