The Things They Say

Sometimes my girls come out with some things that are just off the wall or incredibly funny.  We can go days or weeks without one of these little gems and then out of nowhere we might get a two or three in rapid succession.

Last night before heading out to Madeline's soccer practice and a very long board meeting for the soccer club, Bryan was playing with Oscar.  He had the dog submit to him and Madeline made some comment asking why Oscar gets on his back and shows his belly.  Bryan explained that it was because he's the dog's master and Oscar was submitting to him.  I can't recall what exactly Madeline said to him after that, but she followed up with something along the lines of asking him if I get on my back and show him my belly to submit to him.  It was one of those moments where I swear time stood still.  Bryan asked why she was asking that and she made some comment about him being the "master of the house."  Umm..no, Madeline, your father doesn't ask me to submit to him the way the dog does.  Did you really ask that question?  Were you serious?   I don't chew on my hind quarters either in case you wanted to know.  So odd.  There is certainly a difference between a dog submitting to his master and a wife submitting to her husband.

After we left Mass this morning Madeline was talking about Shark Week.  Somehow Ellie started asking whether or not fish have teeth because she didn't understand how fish hooks worked.  So we're discussing that and it segued into a discussion of fish stinking.  That's when Ellie tells us that on the shark show she and Madeline watched the other day they were talking about ex-stinking some fish and she was wondering why.  She thought they were essentially trying to de-odorize certain types of fish and didn't realize that they were talking about them going extinct.  Madeline and I thought it was pretty funny.  Personally, I think it would be great if they could find a way to ex-stink marine life.  I'm not a fan of smelly fish.

So there you have it. Two oddly funny conversations in less than 24 hours.

Ellie on maiden names

A week ago Ellie came home with a family tree paper that had to be filled out for a project they are working on at school.  The teacher requested the names of the grandparents, parents and the student's siblings.  I assumed that the teacher wanted last names but Ellie insisted that we only needed the first names.  Fine.  I'm not going to argue with her since she's digging in her heels over the idea of having to write last names.

Yesterday the teacher sent out an email to the parents letting us know that she needed the maiden names of the mothers and grandmothers.  Ellie brought home the paper and I told her we should include the last names of her father and grandfathers, too.  She kept insisting that we make sure we put everyone's maiden name on the form.  Sure thing.

She already knew that my maiden name and my father's last name were the same.  I was actually impressed that she knew it.  Then she asked me for Bryan's maiden name.  I told her and she got angry with me.  I clearly didn't understand.  She didn't need his married last name.  She needed his unmarried last name.  So I repeated our last name again.  She shook her head and told me as she wrote it that "My teacher isn't going to believe this.  She's going to think I'm lying."  By this time Madeline and I were laughing.  Ellie was getting angry.  Then she moved on to my father-in-law's name.  "What's Pop's maiden name?"  she asked.  "It's the same as Daddy's." I replied.  She wasn't buying it.

Madeline and I both explained to her that men keep their last names forever, and that women typically take their husband's last name when they get married.  She didn't believe us.  So then I pointed out that her uncles have the same last name as their dad and their dad's dad and so on.  This, I'm told, is weird.  I also pointed out to her that if she ever has a baby brother that his last name would be the same as Bryan's and that it would always be that even if he got married.

From yesterday afternoon until she got on the bus this morning she told us many times that her teacher isn't going to believe what she wrote on the form.  I did give the teacher a heads up this morning when I sent her a text letting her know that Ellie is certain that she will think we made it all up.  I imagine she probably got a laugh out of it.

Finding Arrested Development in the Past

Lately Bryan's sister has been texting him different pictures from when they were kids.  Most of these pictures are hilarious.  There are pictures of Bryan wearing a blue leisure suit as a baby and lots of other equally funny pictures.  To date, my favorite childhood pictures of Bryan are of him proudly sporting a white bunny suit for a school play.  The bunny pictures are something that he wishes would go away.  I have them safely hidden so that he won't burn the evidence.

This morning Bryan got another picture from his sister.  This time it was Bryan as a toddler on a bike with his dad.  Bryan showed it to me and says "Arrested Development."  If you have ever watched the show then you might be familiar with the term "never nude."

When the Comic Strip is About Me

My dad has an uncanny knack for seeing his loved ones in the comic strips.  For years he has been clipping comics that he thinks are about me, my mother or my brothers.  He will show it to people and ask "Who does this remind you of?"  About two years ago he found a funny one which I now have laminated and hanging on my fridge where a dog is at the psychiatrist talking about how when he gets upset with her that he'll have an "accident" and instantly my dad thought of Oscar and me.  Everyone who sees it knows it's Oscar and when I look at it my feelings that he pees in the house on purpose are validated.

Today my parents came up to visit and watch Katie for a little bit this morning so I could get out of the house and run some errands.  We're trying to keep her at home while she recovers from the pneumonia so she can get better and not pick up anything else along the way.  She's doing much better, too, but you can tell she lost weight.  Losing close to two pounds when you only weighed about twenty two pounds makes a big difference.

Anyway, back to the comic strip.  My dad pulled out a comic that I had never heard of called Rhymes with Orange [No, we don't get the paper.  And yes, I do live under a rock.] and asked me who it reminded me of.  I knew within seconds that it was about me.  He had showed it to my mom and my brother yesterday and they all had a good laugh over it at dinner.

When Madeline and Ellie came home from school today they saw it on the dining room table.  Instantly Madeline says to me "Hey, Mom, this dragon is just like you!"  Then Ellie took a look and confirmed it.  I trimmed it up so I can laminate it and hang it on the fridge.  I know Bryan will be amused by it when he sees it.  What can I say.  I just don't like my food to touch.  And, yes, I do look that upset when my food touches.  I feel for that poor fictional dragon.  Poor thing.  Now those people are just going to taste funny.

I can't make up stuff like this...

I think it's pretty well established that I review a lot of stuff, right?  One of the places I review items for is the Amazon Vine program.  Last week I picked a bottle of hot sauce off the list since Bryan likes to use hot sauce in a lot of the dishes he makes for himself.

So I'm standing in the kitchen a few minutes ago eating a pack of peanut butter crackers and surveying the contents of the pantry.  Then I noticed there was something written on the hot sauce label.  I wasn't really doing anything other than eating a quick snack so I decided to read the label.

I did a double take. I laughed. Then I thought about how it seemed like way too much information.  Next I started to think that people would think I was like Uncle Si on Duck Dynasty with his outlandish stories if I wrote about this bottle of hot sauce and it's stranger than fiction label.  So I snapped a picture and brought the bottle of hot sauce down to Bryan and asked him to read the label.

Take a look for yourself.  I've never seen anything so bizarre on food packaging until today.

Today's Earworm

Bryan likes to watch a lot of bad 80s movies that he says are awesome and I think are awful.So we'll sit and watch them and I'll make fun of them or him for watching them.  One of the movies that he says is great is Wildcats. I'll only partially agree with him on this bad 80's movie because I find the U.G.L.Y cheer to be pretty funny.  Its one of those songs that I get stuck in my head.  Even the girls like singing it.  I had the song stuck in my head all day so for your viewing and listening pleasure I have found the clip on YouTube.  Happy Festivus a day early!

Madeline-isms

Madeline never ceases to amuse us with some of her little sound bytes.  She comes out with some statements that make us laugh and wonder what's going on in her head.  I figured I'd share some of her more recent ones with you before they're forgotten.

We had a birthday party for her on Wednesday last week since her actual birthday and the weekends surrounding it were jam packed with activities and what not.  A friend gave her a cute little Webkinz puppy and she pondered what to name it.  After much thought she declared that the dog was a girl and she knew this for a fact.  Ellie told her she couldn't know that and I stupidly stepped in and asked how exactly she came to this conclusion.  She explained that she knew this because when she flipped it over "there was nothing hanging from the undercarriage."  Yep, she lives in a female dominated house with a short-haired male dog.  Maybe I should stop referring to the underside of the dog as an undercarriage.

Last Thursday on our way to the beach Madeline was in the third row of the van chattering away about this and that.  The subject turned to altar serving and one of her many stories from the sacristy.  I could seriously start a blog based solely on her behind the scenes altar serving stories.  So she's going on about the most recent funeral she had served and then says, "Sometimes Father M---------- doesn't always wear pants.  I wonder why."  I insisted that he did wear pants, but she insisted that lots of times he doesn't wear pants to say Mass.  Bryan and I were both laughing and trying very hard to correct her.  You see, Father frequently wears a cassock when we see him at Mass.  Ellie had chimed in that he must like wearing dresses. [Face:Palm] I had to insist over and over that Father does, indeed, wear pants under his cassock and that he wouldn't say Mass with no pants.  And, no, he doesn't wear dresses.   I also needed to explain that cassocks aren't the long version of a kilt.  Madeline didn't like it when I told her that the next time I saw him I was going to tell him that she thinks he goes around saying Mass sans pants.  She wasn't too thrilled with that idea.

I happened to run into Father at the parish office this morning and told him I heard from Madeline that he doesn't always wear pants.  I think he was a bit surprised when I told him.  We had a good laugh and he told me next time he sees Madeline when he's in his cassock that he's going to lift it up a bit and prove that he's wearing pants.  I told him that the girls were opining that maybe a cassock is a bit like a kilt.  Oh my!

On Sunday I was talking to Bryan about something regarding Ellie and one of us mentioned her by her first and last name.  Madeline immediately quips "Who's Elisabeth G****?"  Ellie was offended and Bryan and I were astounded that she didn't recognize her sister's first or last name.  Honestly, it's not like we never call Ellie by her given name.  In fact, I call her Elisabeth at least several times a day.

Our days are certainly filled with many memorable little quotes.  You just never know what they'll say next.

From the Mind of Madeline

When Madeline starts talking you never know what is going to come out of her mouth.  Sometimes, when she's thinking "deep thoughts" she comes out with some funny things that simply must be recorded for posterity.  Last weekend was filled with several such moments.

On Friday morning Madeline excitedly asked me about the "bread balls" that Bryan had made the night before while the girls were in bed.  "What?" I asked her.  The bread balls of which she spoke were what the rest of us call rolls.  Bryan made rolls from a pizza dough that he made a few days before that we hadn't used.  We were hungry and thought homemade rolls would hit the spot.

The funny thing about the "bread balls" is she knows what rolls are, and the rolls Bryan made looked just like the ones we eat at Bertucci's.

Friday was clearly Madeline's day for astounding comments.  For the past six months Bryan and I have been talking about buying a freezer.  Four of those six months were filled with weekends where the freezer was getting ordered THIS. WEEKEND.  This past weekend was finally the weekend where we actually ordered it.  Over half of our freezer is filled with little bags of breast milk which no one is drinking since a certain little person only takes a bottle a few times a month.

Anyway, I've digressed a bit.  So we're in Lowes on Friday night looking at freezers, again.  Madeline runs over to me and tells me I have to see this fridge.  I explained that we're not looking for a fridge since ours is just fine.  She's persistent.  This fridge needs to be looked at.  Want to know why?  If you're drinking something, swallow it right now.  Ok, the fridge LIGHTS. UP.  Yup.  You read that right.  So I told her all of them do.  "No, they don't! This one even has a switch to turn it on and off!"  At this point I need to call Bryan over.  "Our's lights up," I tell her.  "But this one has a switch! " she insists.  I then had to explain that our's has one, too.  She didn't believe me, because you know, I lie about things like lightbulbs in refrigerators.  The next day I proved that our light up fridge has a switch and that it really goes dark when you close the door.  How is this child ten and a half and just discovering this?

Saturday night at dinner Madeline tells us she's been thinking.  "Daddy, you should grow a handlebar mustache!"  I wish we had a video of our reaction.  Why she even thought this would be a good look for Bryan is beyond me.  We're not even sure where she came up with this.  We all had a good laugh over that one, but Madeline seemed pretty confident that Bryan should really give it a try.

To round out the goofy musings of Madeline we have a little gem about Indian Burn.  For those of you who don't know what this is, it's when someone has a sunburn and another person goes up to that person, grabs their arm with both hands and twists them in opposite directions.  A classmate was kind enough to do this to me when I had a very bad burn when I was a senior in high school.  Quite painful. Anyway, Madeline's friend who is Indian (not sure if she's India Indian or Native American Indian--hard to get an accurate ethnic description from a ten year old) told her that Indians don't feel Indian Burn.  So Madeline was wondering why they don't feel it.  I had to explain that everyone has nerve endings in their skin and the color of your skin or your ethnicity doesn't change that.

Now I don't want to leave Ellie out since she also had a memorable statement on Saturday night.  We got take out from Bertucci's for dinner.  While Ellie, Katie and I waited in the car, Ellie scanned the parking lot.  "Hmm...I don't see any candy-capped spaces here."  I asked for clarification since I never heard of parking spots with candy in them.  "You know, the candy-capped spots for cars," Ellie stated as if I've lost it.  No, I don't know.  "They're the ones for the candy-capped people with the little wheelchair sign."  Oh!  Now I get it.  She was talking about the handicapped spots.  Here I am thinking she's talking about parking spaces with candy in them and she was concerned that there weren't any spaces for the people in wheel chairs.

These girls keep us laughing and they give me plenty of blog material.  I look forward to the day when we can tell these stories over and over years from now.

Top Ten Ways to Ruin a Morning

I had originally intended to do a top ten post on gardening, but after this morning I decided that a top ten on ways to ruin a morning would be more appropriate.  Unfortunately the events chronicled in this post were the bits and pieces that made up this morning.  On the bright side, I'm looking forward to an awesome afternoon.  The day simply has to improve.

1. Spend approximately two minutes fumbling for the alarm remote that your husband has decided to hide under his pillow all while listening to the grating sound of the alarm clock.

2. Greet happy baby with explosive poopy diaper.  Happy baby is good, explosive poopy diaper not so much.  Take a moment and wonder how someone with such a messy diaper can be so happy.

3. Walk into kitchen to find ten year old decked out in what we will now refer to as middle school fashion.  Sorry, but in mid-May a dark denim mini-skirt (Did I seriously buy that for her?  It had to have been a good two to three inches longer on her when I bought it a year or two ago.), peach top (the top was actually quite nice) and black patent leather sling back dress shoes do not make an appropriate outfit for the school band and chorus concert unless you want a bunch of adolescent boys looking up your skirt.

4. Help ten year old find an appropriate outfit while she laments that she doesn't have anything good to wear.  You've only been up for seven minutes at this point so pace yourself and take a moment to thank God that both of your school aged children will be attending Catholic school next year.  My children aren't wearing uniforms yet and already I am grateful that these morning battles over clothes will not exist next year.  Praise God!

5.  Rouse grumpy seven year old* and inform her that she needs to get up and eat breakfast.   Spend the next ten minutes reminding her to eat and drink.

6. Discover that your seven year old* has decided not to wet or wash all of her hair in the shower.  Send her back to wash her hair only to have her return wearing a now soaked shirt and hair that still smells and is partially dry.  Accept the fact that there is not enough time for her to take a third shower and arrive at school on time.  Opt to send said child to school as the smelly child for the day.

7.  Choose to wear sandals on a rainy day in 65 degree weather, because it's 65.

8.  Arrive at first store on the list of errands just as a massive downpour begins.  Promptly step in large puddle wearing sandals that you brilliantly chose because it was 65.  Never mind that it was raining.  It's OK.  Don't most people like to run errands in soaked shoes?  No?  Oh.

9.  Buy cute pajamas for the baby, go back out in the pouring rain to get to the car.  Wait until you are at the gas station to discover that the pajama pants never made it into the bag.  Call the store while baby screams in the background, explain the situation and be told the pants are not there.  Search van and find nothing but trash the kids claimed they threw away.  Call unsympathetic husband.

10. Go back to the store in the pouring rain, exchange pajamas for a complete set.  Marvel that the rain has let up upon exiting the store.  Change baby's diaper, place screaming, cranky, tired baby in car seat and discover that it is now 10:45.  Sigh audibly and realize that the rest of the errands on the list are not going to happen until the sun comes out.

*Oh, dear me!  I must be losing it!  Ellie isn't seven yet.  I guess after celebrating a birthday for me on Friday I tacked another year onto Ellie's age.  How funny is that?  In my defense, if you can defend being a mother and forgetting your child's age, Ellie will actually turn seven in less than two months.  So I suppose I was close.  Feel free to laugh at my total lack of brain function today.

Marital Life Lesson

When your husband has shaving cream on his face and you hear the water running in the sink, it is not a good time to smack him in the butt.  Why, you ask?  Well, as obvious as this may appear to more observant people [self not included], chances are your husband DID NOT put shaving cream on his face to brush his teeth.  If you hear running water and you just watched your husband put on shaving cream you can probably expect him to pull out a sharp razor [I vaguely recall seeing him replace this just before he went to "brush his teeth"].  Fortunately for Bryan my total lapse of brain activity did not result in an injury.  I think he's often amazed at how quickly I can forget what is going on around me.

The Funny Side of Nursing Katie

While browsing on Facebook earlier today I stumbled on this funny little drawing and poem that describes my little nursling's side preference perfectly.

Credit: The Baby Sucks

If you've ever had a baby with a definite side preference you'll likely find this as amusing as I did.  What makes this even more funny to me is the fact that Katie is a right sided child.  Ellie was, too.  Madeline on the other hand was a lefty lover.  Aren't you all glad you know this?   I've never had to resort to "teddy-bear augmentation" but I have wondered if the lopsidedness is easily noticed by others.  I imagine that if it is people choose not to point it out.  I really don't know what I would say or how I would react if someone thought it was ok to mention it.

It's Fun to Mess with Your Kids

Bryan and I have a lot of fun teasing our girls and just messing around.  I've convinced Madeline that her picture was being considered at the illustration for the word gullible, as well as many other things.  We've told the kids we were going out for a treat only to take them for flu shots [they did get a treat later that day, so we aren't total monsters] and conversely have told them that we were taking them to get the "piggy and bird flu shot" when we were taking them to Cold Stone Creamery for a treat.  What always amazes me is they don't pick up on the fact that I'm laughing the whole time.  I'm terrible at playing it straight when we're messing around with the kids.  However, I did do a good job of not laughing when we took them for the flu shots.  You see, Madeline freaks out about shots, so we had decided to take the approach some people take in getting their dog in the car to go to the vet.  Instead of asking her if she wanted to go for a ride, we asked her if she wanted to go out for a special treat.  So instead of fretting on the ride to get the flu shot she was excited.  Of course, the excitement faded away when we pulled into the Walgreens parking lot.  Anyway, the reason I'm exposing my sick sense of humor when it comes to parenting is because I stumbled on this video where parents deliberately gave their kids crappy gifts to see their reaction.  With the exception of  a very spoiled child and another child who needs to watch his mouth, I found this video to be rather amusing.  I'm sure Bryan and I could have come up with something worthy of being included in this video.

First I Lost Track Of The Days...

I think I can officially say that I'm losing it.  A few weeks ago I lost track of what day it was.  For three days I thought it was Wednesday, but I was only right on one of the three days.  Only that wasn't good enough.  On the day when it was, in fact, Wednesday, I forgot that I was supposed to be lunch mom at Ellie's school.  Not my shining moment.

Fortunately since that screwy week where I had no idea what day it was, I've been pretty good about knowing what day it is.  I thought I was chugging along just fine, until I came to the startling realization this evening that I apparently don't know what year we're in.  Now maybe you'll think I got confused and thought it was still 2010.  No, I knew full well that we have said goodbye to that dreadful year where family members dropped off left and right.  Would you believe I thought we were already in 2012?

I was once again browsing some homeschooling sites and I was getting annoyed that so much of the content on their sites was dated.  Honestly, am I supposed to enroll my children in a home study program where they have last year's information up on their site as if it's current?  I simply could not figure out what the problem was with these places.  Then I tried to figure out what happened in 2011 since I hardly had any recollection of it.  A few minutes of me being perplexed and a little more browsing online brought me to the conclusion that 2012 hasn't happened yet.

I'd love to know why I thought it was already next year.  This, dear readers, is how I totally disorient myself with little to no effort.

Confusion

Madeline wasn't exactly thrilled yesterday when she found out that Ellie not only got to go to the zoo, but she also got to spend time with my parents.  In fact, when I asked Ellie if she wanted to go to the zoo with me she responded that she wanted to go to Mom Mom and Pop Pop's house.  Defeated, I called my parents and asked them if they had any plans for the day.  They agreed to come to the zoo which made Ellie one happy little girl.

On our ride home from the hair dresser this morning Madeline decided to ask Ellie about the zoo trip.  She apparently had gotten over her jealousy or annoyance at the fact that we went to the zoo without her.  She asked what animals she got to see.  Ellie excitedly told her that she got to see the crocodiles.  I corrected her and told her it was an alligator.  That's when Madeline came out with the profound statement of "Oh, so you saw a girl alligator!"  I explained that we didn't know the gender of the alligator to which she replied "I thought crocodiles were boys and alligators were girls!"  I told her that species don't work that way and that it would be like saying that cats are girls and dogs are boys.  Ellie, presumably flexing her 5 1/2 year old know-it-all muscle, had to comment that she knew they were different.

The little misconceptions never cease to amaze me.

My Catholic kid

Sometimes Ellie has it in her head that something or someone is called a certain name that sounds like something she knows and she sticks to it no matter how many times she corrected.  It's frustrating and it reminds me of the year she spent arguing with me that the letter C wasn't called C.  Fortunately for us, her preschool teacher laid down the law and Ellie capitulated and began calling the letter C by its proper name.

Now she's moved on to changing the name of a classmate's sibling.  Her friend has a sister named Harmony.  I know this is the child's name because I was standing in the kindergarten class room four years ago when the father came in and told us the name of their new baby.  So what does Ellie call the child named Harmony, you ask?  Homily.  Yes, she thinks this child is named after her least favorite part of Mass.  In fact, she has even asked me why her parents would name her Homily.  I have explained numerous times that her name isn't Homily, it's Harmony, but Ellie's not buying it.

SHARK!

I think the stress of keeping up with the balancing act I've created for myself must be affecting my dreams or something.  I can't remember what went on this past Friday but it yielded a very interesting dream.

I seldom, if ever, dream about blogging.  It's just not that important to my subconscious, or so I thought.  I woke up around 4AM Saturday morning because of a dream I had about my blog.  Not this one, and not the one I created for my religious education classes, but my shark blog.  Yes, that's right, the blog of my dreams is a shark blog.

The girls and I in a shark at Epcot three years ago.

I haven't actually done a Google search to see if anyone blogs about sharks.  I'm sure that someone must have a shark blog.  I can't imagine why I even dreamt about a shark blog, let alone one that I created.

I told Bryan about it and he had quite the laugh.  He wants to know when I'll be starting up the shark blog. I told him I doubt it will be anytime soon, if ever, but he thinks I should just run with the idea.

Without giving the blog away (I know many of you are on the edge of your seats wanting to know more about the shark blog) everything about my dream blog, I'll give you some of the details.  The blog features a daily post about something relating to sharks.  Maybe it's a picture, or maybe it's a fact or interesting article.  The blog had a header and background that was created by me using photographs I took. (Imagine that!  In my dream world I'm a shark photographer, too!)

I'm still surprised that the blog of my dreams is a shark blog of all things.

Texting Towards Humility

Sometimes my carelessness can result in a major dose of humility.  Tonight brought me one of those moments.

Since getting a cell phone with texting capabilities thirteen months ago I have had a few blunders when it comes to texting.  Given that I average less than 100 text messages a month I suppose you could say that I simply haven't gotten the hang of things.  You could say that, but I can't blame my meager texting for my being careless.

Nine times out of ten the person I'm texting is Bryan, so I naturally assume that he's receiving any text I want to send him on a whim.  On several occasions I have texted my best friend with things intended for Bryan.  She will usually text back and tell me she's not Bryan or something like that when I send a nagging text about him not taking out the trash or something the kids did that aggravated me.  Other times, I have texted Bryan and in reality have sent something to our sixteen year old babysitter.  For some reason, she always gets those text messages that I wish only Bryan had seen.  I'm not sending anything salacious to him, but just things pertaining to money matters or other things of that nature.

Tonight, I was feeling unwell from some food I had eaten and instead of grabbing my laptop as I dashed upstairs, I grabbed my cell phone.  A few minutes later I was texting Bryan lamenting about some food containing fire sauce that I had earlier in the day.  Then, I suddenly thought to look and see who I had just texted.  Yup, I sent it to our neighbor, the sixteen year old babysitter.  I immediately told her to disregard what I had sent her, but her initial confusion about the texts had faded and she totally got what I was getting at in my texts to Bryan.  She and I are so even.  Both of us have so much embarrassing dirt on the other that neither could successfully blackmail the other.

Isn't it great when technology is able to help me serve up a nice heaping dose of humility to myself?  Bryan and I had a good laugh about the whole situation and I learned that I really do need to check who I am texting before I hit send.

Nursery Rhyme Humor

I didn't do many nursery rhymes with either of my girls when they were younger despite the fact that I have several beautiful nursery rhyme books.  Part of it is probably due to the fact that my mom held on to the book of Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes that I cherished as a child and part of it is due to the fact that I learned the meanings behind many of the rhymes through my studies of history.

Ring Around the Rosie was one of my favorite rhymes as a child, but it now conjures thoughts of the Black Plague.  Not exactly the most cheerful little ditty is it?

A cherished favorite that was passed on to my girls with some minor revisions was This Little Piggie.  Sometimes he went to Target, sometimes he had to stay home and do laundry, sometimes the little one would be very distraught and other times he'd yell "Yippie!" all the way home.  But I can't think about the last little piggie any more without thinking he's a total spaz.  Why, you ask?  Take a look for yourself:


I'm really liking that the piggie has a name, too.  Every time I watch this I can't help but laugh. It's nice to know that the money we're paying for car insurance with Geico is entertaining us on some level, although I think I'd like a lower insurance bill even better.

Who are these kids and why are they so weird?

From time to time my kids utter some things that force me to say "What?!"  After that, I usually have to ask my husband why they're so odd.

Two weeks ago as Bryan was saying good night to Ellie she decided to act a little goofy.  Instead of saying "Good night, Daddy." she decided to say "Good night, Uncle Daddy!"  Uncle Daddy, huh?  I immediately asked Bryan when we became the incestuous couple.  Uncle Daddy sounds like the most twisted title on the family tree.

Wednesday Madeline decided to provide me with more blogworthy material.  While talking to a friend on the phone, and trying to sound overly cool, she approaches me and asks when she's available to play with her friend because [are you ready for this?] her "planner is all unorganized right now."  Are you kidding me?  Gosh Madeline, I'm not sure if we can pencil in time with your friend between being delusional and sleeping, it's looking pretty tight.  Sometimes I wonder if this kid is for real.   I had to explain to her after the phone call with her friend that saying crazy things like that doesn't make her look cool.

Last night Madeline decided to grace us with another statement that needed to be preserved on the blog.  She had scraped her arm getting out of the pool [the wrong way] yesterday and "required" a band-aid.  I told her it wasn't necessary and wasn't going to do anything but she insisted.  About 7 hours after the panacea band-aid application she walked into the family room and announced to us that this band-aid wasn't working and she could still feel pain.  How many years has this child operated under the delusion that band-aids were pain killers?  Bryan was more than happy to let her know that band-aids serve no purpose other than to cover cuts and absorb miniscule amounts of blood.  The explanation of their function was met with an "Oh." from Madeline.  Now that she knows the truth about band-aids, I wonder if we should tell her about Santa and the Easter Bunny.

Kids Say the Darndest Things Friday

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A few weeks ago Ellie was telling me all about how she was going to start taking showers like her big sister.  She happily told me that she begins taking showers that she's not going to have to use any soap, just like Madeline!  Madeline wasn't amused, but Bryan and I got a good laugh out of it.  And, Ellie got to start taking those showers she was longing to take and has come to terms with the fact that she still has to use soap.