Are you t’ard of them ornery critters getting away from you while you’re trying to “hook-up” with that “carnie” at the swap meet or when you’re at the neighbors’ trailer buying your crystal meth? Have we got the product for you! This here is whut we like to call the “Critter Keeper 2000.”

And look! You can even “steer” them in the direction you want to go. So if you want to hide them while talking to baby-daddy #1&3″ (Cause DAMN! He’s lookin’ pretty good since he got d’em brown teef pulled) you can!

And it comes off fairly easily — you know,  so the critter can git ‘cha another beer or swat flies.

Call now and git two fer the price of one! Operators er standin’ by.

(No “critters” were harmed in this display. In fact, “the boy” seems to thrive on us messing with him in this way. Hey, you may call it “antagonizing”. We call it “attention.”)

(Dear DCFS — I joke about this because it is SO VERY, VERY FAR from the realm of my family’s suburban, white bread world. But in all honesty? He DOES thrive on the hasslin’!)

This past Thursday my son offhandedly mentioned he had proposed marriage to a little girl named Taylor at preschool that morning.

According to him, not only did she accept, but they put on their wedding clothes, and Seth’s friend Owen married them. Owen did double duty as the “picture taker” too.

I asked Seth if he and Taylor were going on a honeymoon. He said, “No we can’t right now. Cause we have to get home to the babies.”

“I’m a grandma?” I asked.

“Yup,” he answered in his very serious little boy way. “We have three boys and two girls.”

“Wow. You move fast,” I said. “Where are the babies now?”

“They’re with Taylor at her mom and dad’s house,” he replied.

Seth and I made a deal at that moment. I told him that he is allowed to grow up and get married — but only if he lives right next door to me. He told me that he’d like to live with us. He plans to buy the house next to us and tear it down so that he could have some land to farm. I’m not quite sure how he’ll raise cattle as well as grow corn and beans on a .25 acre lot. And I have no clue where he intends to situate his tractors but he’s pretty confident he can do it.

That night at bedtime, per usual, he asked me to lay by him for a few minutes…

“But Seth. You’re a married man,” I told him. “You’re officially too big to have your mommy lay by you.”

This resulted in some crying and the proclamation that he’d always be my little boy and that he NEEDED me to lay by him.

Of course I caved. It won’t be too long before some girl catches his eye and steals his heart. And I have a strong feeling that in a few short years, his plans of living next door to his momma will change.