Everett has started sharing with us his opinion on many subjects. His comments are sometimes summarized with statements like “That’s silly!”, “That’s ridiculous!” or “That’s impossible!”. We note that we are not allowed to use certain words like “impossible” in his presence without being immediately informed “Hey, that’s my line!” Also, certain words like stupid are off limits for everyone, including strangers and movie characters, who are told “We don’t say stupid!”

On a related subject, Everett recently received some silly putty as a gift. We showed him some fun tricks you can do with it like sticking it to things or using it to pickup newsprint. As we have mentioned many times, he is a collector, and he began taking the silly putty everywhere with him. A few days later we discovered that he was leaving bits of silly putty behind as well, which is why on one recent afternoon Chris got some WD40, rubbing alcohol and dish soap in an attempt to remove silly putty that had been ground into several blankets, clothes and lamby. Lamby is one current member of the menagerie of “babies” that Everett carries around with him everywhere in the house. Other members are: the twin baby nightgowns (formerly Melissa’s); whale; ducky; piggy; an ornamental pillow from Gabby and Grandaddy’s house with a Buff over it (a Buff is sort of a tube shaped bandanna). Of these, piggy, ducky and lamby go with him to school most days and it’s always interesting to hear how their experience differs from his. Anyway, lamby has deep shag fur and was by far the most difficult silly putty removal. By the time Chris finished there was a small hole in lamby’s head, which Everett noticed immediately because, like his Mom, he is a “noticer”. So we got out a needle and thread, sewed lamby up, and now you can’t even tell he had silly putty or a soft tissue injury.