BOOM!

You know how, in volcano movies, there's always a moment early on when something sort of...rumbles? Like, they're in a diner talking about local issues ("Lissen, Jack - Lurline needs to know her husband is a low-down dirty dog!"), and suddenly the plates rattle a bit. They pause, look around, and resume their lives.

The idea is: beware complacency. Soon enough, the inherent instability of their world becomes terrifyingly clear.

To whit, I present Iain. Who, tonight, pushed away his spinach, artichoke and cheese pastry twists, demanded "CYRL!!", refused to take a bath, hit me in the face, threw a huge tantrum at the foot of the stairs, and then proceeded to scream his way through a diaper change and clothing transfer. When Charles finally calmed him down enough for bedtime books, Iain rejected every book except Bear at Work, which he seemed to want to read over and over and over and over and...

We put his tiny hiney to bed. And he was asleep before we left the room. Charles looked at me and said, "Bugging!" Yup.