Mia had a hard time getting to sleep last night. She had had a bad dream the night before and she was afraid that it was going to come back if she went to sleep. As Mia tells it, "There was this evil puffball. His name was Fluffy. And he kept tricking me into his evil traps." What the hell? What kind of nightmare is that? You know, she used to be terrified of a singing puppet from Teletubbies. She saw it once and had nightmares about it for years. It was this bizarre little puppet guy with a bun on his head that went from window to window in a computer animated pink house singing a horrible little song. She saw the guy once for maybe 10 seconds and the image haunted her for, literally, three years. She even knew his name (although I'm certain he was nameless on Teletubbies). She called him Ihavin. I have a kid who is terrified of puffballs and singing puppets. What's up with that?

In other kid news, we ended up talking about Latin American while we were sitting around the dinner table last night. As you may or may not know, we have an exchange student from Germany living with us right now. Jenny (that's her) is taking, among other things, Latin American Studies at Austin High, which led to the following conversation. . .
Zoe: What's Latin American Studies?
Jenny: Well, do you know what Latin American is?
Zoe: Nope.
Me: Latin America is a bunch of countries to the south of the United States where the people mostly speak Spanish.
Zoe: Oh, like Mexico?
Me: That's right. And Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, etc.
Mia: Oh yeah. And India.
Zoe: No, silly. They don't speak Spanish in India. They speak Curry.

Oh my. So much for multiculturally-sensitive parenting. . .