Douglas Family Vocabulary: Rasters...

Friends and acquaintances of our family may be perplexed by our use of certain words...  For many reasons (one of which is my upbringing by a somewhat taciturn and emotionally stifled mother- sorry Mom, but it's true) any words referring to ANY parts of anatomy covered by a swimsuit or suggestive of having to do with the forbidden "s_ _" word were simply NOT MENTIONED!  I don't agree with this at all.  But let's face it; decades of brainwashing are very hard to overcome!  So, it comes down to this- I have a hard time saying the words "butt," "bottom," or anything of the kind.  Sooo...

When I was pregnant with Miss A, our first, I was working full time as a gardener.  I attended a landscape conference with a co-worker, Eric.  I attended all the fun classes about ornamental flowers and grasses, and he got to go to all the boring stuff about turf.  Afterwards, I had him brief me on the classes he attended.  Our conversation went something like this:

Eric:  Well, I learned that we can identify Japanese beetles by their raster markings.
Me:  What did you just say?
Eric:  We can tell if we have Japanese beetles by looking at their raster markings.
Me:  You totally just made that word up.
Eric:  No!  I didn't!  Look.

He then showed me an illustration similar to this:

And it's true, you can tell what kind of beetle you're in for by looking at the nasty white grubs' little slimy backsides.

So when little Miss A was born, a few weeks early (pre-eclampsia), and only weighing 5 pounds 14 ounces, her little hind end was so pointy and skinny that the term "raster" just seemed the only way to describe it!  (Although, thankfully, without any hair...)  And the word has stuck.  So, if you're ever at a playground and hear Miss R (age 2) fall down and cry out "I hurt mine raster!," you'll know what she's talking about...