I've been a little busy [chortle, chortle] lately, so no time for updates (although I am working on "Why kids' cartoons annoy the crap out of me, by me, part deux"), but I had to put this somewhere out in the universe.
Our local 7-11 has a sign on the door that says, "Happy Halloween! Please, no masks inside store." Because you know, most potential burglars are going to honor that.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
College football edjumication begins early in these parts
This is the following conversation, verbatim, that took place betwixt the child and I while I was putting her to bed tonight:
Me: Hey, we have lots of college football to watch on tv tomorrow! That means we get to yell a lot![This being, of course, her favorite part, although to her credit, she generally yells the right things at the right time.]
A: Why do we yell?
Me: Because we get excited when our teams play. [Feeling no need to elaborate upon "excited" just quite yet.]
A: What kind of things do we yell?
M: You know, like, "Go go go!" and "Get him!" and "Touchdown!" or sometimes, "Oh, man!"
A: And "Oh, shit!"
[a moment of dead silence as I do my best to stifle my laughter]
Me [weakly]: No, honey, we don't say that.
A: Daddy does.
[another pause, partially because she's right, partially just because I'm glad she didn't finger me for it, which she justifiably could have]
Me: Well, he shouldn't. He'd rather say [outright lying shall now commence] "Oh, shoot!" And I like to say, "Oh, phooey!"
A: What's my word?
Me: Um... darn it?
A: No. It's "Oh,bugger."
I suppose that's better than "Oh, shit"...
Me: Hey, we have lots of college football to watch on tv tomorrow! That means we get to yell a lot![This being, of course, her favorite part, although to her credit, she generally yells the right things at the right time.]
A: Why do we yell?
Me: Because we get excited when our teams play. [Feeling no need to elaborate upon "excited" just quite yet.]
A: What kind of things do we yell?
M: You know, like, "Go go go!" and "Get him!" and "Touchdown!" or sometimes, "Oh, man!"
A: And "Oh, shit!"
[a moment of dead silence as I do my best to stifle my laughter]
Me [weakly]: No, honey, we don't say that.
A: Daddy does.
[another pause, partially because she's right, partially just because I'm glad she didn't finger me for it, which she justifiably could have]
Me: Well, he shouldn't. He'd rather say [outright lying shall now commence] "Oh, shoot!" And I like to say, "Oh, phooey!"
A: What's my word?
Me: Um... darn it?
A: No. It's "Oh,bugger."
I suppose that's better than "Oh, shit"...
Randomness
A few notes from the gloomy stretches of SW Virginia...
A has a strange obsession with what's going on with traffic signs, directives, etc. For example, they recently put up two new traffic lights (yippee) on the main road near our house. But the lights weren't activated until a couple of weeks after they were erected. (Always fun to type that word.) And boy, did that just about drive her crazy. Every time we drove past, her little brow would furrow. "Why dey not workin' yet?" "I don't know." "Dey can't not work." (Already started on the double negatives--yes!) "Well, the men [not being sexist, all the workers were men] are trying to make them work." Delivered in a dark mutter: "Dey haf to work." And so on, until it got to the point where I started taking a back road to avoid said non-working lights because I was getting a little concerned about her mental health.
Yet our glorious town, which is evidently determined to screw with her, is now adding speed bumps to the back road. There were previously two big ones and then a set of small ones. Two days ago, they started work on the road, which elicited a great deal of alarm: "What dey doin' over dere?!" "They're adding bumps." "But why dey do dat?" "To get people to slow down." "Dat's not fair." (Since I tend to agree with this, I said nothing.) Well, this morning on the way in, there were more trucks, more orange cones (which, thanks to "Lou and Lou Safety Patrol," she calls "safety biolations"), and more workers. All of which served to make her wail, in a tone worthy of one announcing that an iceberg had hit the Titanic, "I don't know what's going ON!!" I suppose I shouldn't have laughed. Or kept laughing after the third time she said it.
Another thing: You'd think I'd have learned by now to watch what I say. Well, when it's early and I haven't had enough caffeine... I was jotting something down while driving (which: uber-safe, yes) and weaving a little, and muttered, "The police are going to take Mommy away." It took a good five minutes to talk her down from that one by assuring her that Mommy was just being silly and that no one was going to take me away and--telling, no?--that Mommy wasn't going to call the police to take A away. I did manage to refrain from noting that I'd considered it, which I think is laudable.
And yet another: Yesterday, we were walking to our car from daycare at the same time as one of A's teachers, and A yelled out to her, "You're not going to beat me, are you?" Well, you should have seen the look of alarm that crossed the woman's face. I could tell that she was trying to process a protest that no, she doesn't actually beat my child, so I said, "No, she means in your car. She's got a thing about trying to beat cars in traffic." (Back to the traffic again. I don't know what that means.) The teacher, needless to say, looked quite relieved.
But A has always had a knack for saying just the wrong thing. When she was about two, she called every man we saw "Daddy." Tell me that didn't do wonders for my reputation. And last weekend, we were on our Saturday walk when we came across a very short man walking in the opposite direction. As he drew closer, A said, "Look, there's a little boy!" Me, in a quiet voice, "No, that's just a man." A, louder: "Hello, little boy!" "Honey, hush." A, waves: "Hello, little boy!" "Little boy": glares, walks by without saying a word. A: "He's not very nice."
Finally, two words that she mangles that I find hilarious. One is that she likes to help out around the house. (Don't know where she picked that up; must be a second-generation sort of thing.) And she particularly likes to take out the plastic bottles to the recycle bin, cheerfully announcing, "I'm precycling!" I suppose that's not entirely off. The other is what she calls the fairy godmother in Cinderella: the "bery godmudda," making it sound as though she's an extra from Goodfellas.
I tell ya, it's hard to keep up. But entertaining nonetheless.
A has a strange obsession with what's going on with traffic signs, directives, etc. For example, they recently put up two new traffic lights (yippee) on the main road near our house. But the lights weren't activated until a couple of weeks after they were erected. (Always fun to type that word.) And boy, did that just about drive her crazy. Every time we drove past, her little brow would furrow. "Why dey not workin' yet?" "I don't know." "Dey can't not work." (Already started on the double negatives--yes!) "Well, the men [not being sexist, all the workers were men] are trying to make them work." Delivered in a dark mutter: "Dey haf to work." And so on, until it got to the point where I started taking a back road to avoid said non-working lights because I was getting a little concerned about her mental health.
Yet our glorious town, which is evidently determined to screw with her, is now adding speed bumps to the back road. There were previously two big ones and then a set of small ones. Two days ago, they started work on the road, which elicited a great deal of alarm: "What dey doin' over dere?!" "They're adding bumps." "But why dey do dat?" "To get people to slow down." "Dat's not fair." (Since I tend to agree with this, I said nothing.) Well, this morning on the way in, there were more trucks, more orange cones (which, thanks to "Lou and Lou Safety Patrol," she calls "safety biolations"), and more workers. All of which served to make her wail, in a tone worthy of one announcing that an iceberg had hit the Titanic, "I don't know what's going ON!!" I suppose I shouldn't have laughed. Or kept laughing after the third time she said it.
Another thing: You'd think I'd have learned by now to watch what I say. Well, when it's early and I haven't had enough caffeine... I was jotting something down while driving (which: uber-safe, yes) and weaving a little, and muttered, "The police are going to take Mommy away." It took a good five minutes to talk her down from that one by assuring her that Mommy was just being silly and that no one was going to take me away and--telling, no?--that Mommy wasn't going to call the police to take A away. I did manage to refrain from noting that I'd considered it, which I think is laudable.
And yet another: Yesterday, we were walking to our car from daycare at the same time as one of A's teachers, and A yelled out to her, "You're not going to beat me, are you?" Well, you should have seen the look of alarm that crossed the woman's face. I could tell that she was trying to process a protest that no, she doesn't actually beat my child, so I said, "No, she means in your car. She's got a thing about trying to beat cars in traffic." (Back to the traffic again. I don't know what that means.) The teacher, needless to say, looked quite relieved.
But A has always had a knack for saying just the wrong thing. When she was about two, she called every man we saw "Daddy." Tell me that didn't do wonders for my reputation. And last weekend, we were on our Saturday walk when we came across a very short man walking in the opposite direction. As he drew closer, A said, "Look, there's a little boy!" Me, in a quiet voice, "No, that's just a man." A, louder: "Hello, little boy!" "Honey, hush." A, waves: "Hello, little boy!" "Little boy": glares, walks by without saying a word. A: "He's not very nice."
Finally, two words that she mangles that I find hilarious. One is that she likes to help out around the house. (Don't know where she picked that up; must be a second-generation sort of thing.) And she particularly likes to take out the plastic bottles to the recycle bin, cheerfully announcing, "I'm precycling!" I suppose that's not entirely off. The other is what she calls the fairy godmother in Cinderella: the "bery godmudda," making it sound as though she's an extra from Goodfellas.
I tell ya, it's hard to keep up. But entertaining nonetheless.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
"A Christmas Story" came early this year
They say that when you become a mother, you become YOUR mother. I'm finding that not only is this true... but that I'm becoming everyone else's mother, too.
For example, this morning, it was below freezing here (which is unseasonably early and entirely unwelcome). Since A's winter jacket hasn't come in yet, I had to stuff her into multiple jackets so that she wouldn't freeze. She wriggled experimentally and then whined, "I can't move. I have too much jacket on." And I said without thinking, "Well, you can move when you get to daycare." Then I realized that I was channeling Ralphie's mother from "A Christmas Story." (And if you haven't watched that movie's classic "I can't put my arms down!" scene, well, I don't know what to say to you. I mean, you can watch it for 24 hours straight on TNT on 12/25. Get thee to a tv.)
So while I originally found the scene funny, I now realize that the screenwriter probably heard the same thing from his mother, who heard it from her mother, who... well, you get the gist: as mothers, we are reduced to automatons, mere shells of what we used to be. Now, pardon me, I'm off to chide my child to please, please watch where she's going for the thousandth time today, and then to watch as she trips over her feet nonetheless. If I had a nickel for every time she did that... or every time I spouted a mothering cliche... I'd be off to the Bahamas... I wish.
For example, this morning, it was below freezing here (which is unseasonably early and entirely unwelcome). Since A's winter jacket hasn't come in yet, I had to stuff her into multiple jackets so that she wouldn't freeze. She wriggled experimentally and then whined, "I can't move. I have too much jacket on." And I said without thinking, "Well, you can move when you get to daycare." Then I realized that I was channeling Ralphie's mother from "A Christmas Story." (And if you haven't watched that movie's classic "I can't put my arms down!" scene, well, I don't know what to say to you. I mean, you can watch it for 24 hours straight on TNT on 12/25. Get thee to a tv.)
So while I originally found the scene funny, I now realize that the screenwriter probably heard the same thing from his mother, who heard it from her mother, who... well, you get the gist: as mothers, we are reduced to automatons, mere shells of what we used to be. Now, pardon me, I'm off to chide my child to please, please watch where she's going for the thousandth time today, and then to watch as she trips over her feet nonetheless. If I had a nickel for every time she did that... or every time I spouted a mothering cliche... I'd be off to the Bahamas... I wish.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Dude... it's getting all existential in here.
So last night during our "getting the child to bed" process, A asked me to sing "Row your boat" with her. Which I did; it's better than singing the theme song from a tv show, I figure. Afterward, though, she asked, "Mama, what is life?" (Because you know, the song ends with "life is but a dream.") And I was floored. My brain was flooded with potential replies, such as, "I'm still trying to figure that out, I'll let you know in 30 years," "It's a journey, enjoy the ride," and "It's part of the universe and everything" (only Douglas Adams fans will get that one; I'm pretty sure A wouldn't). But I figured those were a tad too old for her (although the question--quite unintentionally on her part--is, too) and ended up stuttering, "Uh, life is every day."
She seemed satisfied with that, even if I'm not entirely sure what it means. But man... I didn't expect to be tackling issues like this so early. I'd better start studying philosophy, theology, and everything else that ends in a "y."
She seemed satisfied with that, even if I'm not entirely sure what it means. But man... I didn't expect to be tackling issues like this so early. I'd better start studying philosophy, theology, and everything else that ends in a "y."
Monday, October 13, 2008
"I don't know any more things."
Well, it’s happened. We have entered the “why?” stage that I’ve heard is inevitable—and that in itself makes me wonder why, but no, we have too much of that going on already—and two days in, I’m already tired of it.
Because I don’t know. I don’t know why the truck went straight instead of turning. I don’t know why the speed limit is 60 mph, and I don’t know why the other car is going faster. I don’t know why the red leaves haven't fallen yet, why the light is green, or why that man isn't walking on the sidewalk. I don't. Friggin. KNOW.
The worst part is that I actually try to answer the questions. (He had to go home. It's a safe speed. Because they're speeding. Because it's not time, it's our turn to go, he's not being safe.) Now, as any parent who has weathered this stage will know, the penalty for doing so is the resulting, "but why?" In other words, by trying to make the question into a teachable moment, I am beginning what will be an endless loop of "why?"s until I finally cave and say (mutter, shriek), "I don't know."
I remember when I first saw this comedian Louis C.K.'s spiel on this topic. That bit (also the source of this post's title) starts at about 7:10 in (although the whole thing's a pretty damned funny commentary on parenting). (Also, if you're sensitive to swearing, uh, skip it.):
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4u2ZsoYWwJA
I laughed my ass off. Of course, I saw this about a year before I got pregnant. And don't get me wrong, it's still extremely funny, but because I'm now watching it from the other side, my laughter has a bit of an edge to it, mostly because I really do start getting into existential crisis mode about five "why?"s in.
T, of course, has the best solution: he just makes shit up. But I figure that we can't both go that route, otherwise we'll never be able to ship the kid off to college. So, wish me luck. I'll be the one in the corner rocking back and forth, whimpering, "I don't know. I don't. I swear I don't!"
I may or may not be exaggerating. I'll keep you posted.
Because I don’t know. I don’t know why the truck went straight instead of turning. I don’t know why the speed limit is 60 mph, and I don’t know why the other car is going faster. I don’t know why the red leaves haven't fallen yet, why the light is green, or why that man isn't walking on the sidewalk. I don't. Friggin. KNOW.
The worst part is that I actually try to answer the questions. (He had to go home. It's a safe speed. Because they're speeding. Because it's not time, it's our turn to go, he's not being safe.) Now, as any parent who has weathered this stage will know, the penalty for doing so is the resulting, "but why?" In other words, by trying to make the question into a teachable moment, I am beginning what will be an endless loop of "why?"s until I finally cave and say (mutter, shriek), "I don't know."
I remember when I first saw this comedian Louis C.K.'s spiel on this topic. That bit (also the source of this post's title) starts at about 7:10 in (although the whole thing's a pretty damned funny commentary on parenting). (Also, if you're sensitive to swearing, uh, skip it.):
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4u2ZsoYWwJA
I laughed my ass off. Of course, I saw this about a year before I got pregnant. And don't get me wrong, it's still extremely funny, but because I'm now watching it from the other side, my laughter has a bit of an edge to it, mostly because I really do start getting into existential crisis mode about five "why?"s in.
T, of course, has the best solution: he just makes shit up. But I figure that we can't both go that route, otherwise we'll never be able to ship the kid off to college. So, wish me luck. I'll be the one in the corner rocking back and forth, whimpering, "I don't know. I don't. I swear I don't!"
I may or may not be exaggerating. I'll keep you posted.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Because I have no time to be funny
I'm passing along something that is, although only if you were a fan of '80s music and/or remember when MTV actually aired videos. Give it about 30 seconds to kick in with the funny.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Yo, blabba blabba
Anyone who's read this blog for long enough knows how much I despise Yo, Gabba Gabba. However, when T is away at school, I do allow A to turn on Noggin when we get home to ease her into the "where's Daddy" transition. (TV replaces Daddy... paging Dr. Freud, party of three...) Anyway, Noggin was insidious enough to change their schedule from showing the reasonably innocuous Little Bear or Franklin, or even one that I really like, such as Backyardigans, at that time. Because no. Guess what we're stuck with: Yo, Gabba Gabba. Which, naturally, she loves. Yippee.
It's got its pros and cons, lesson-wise, I've found. Such as tonight in the tub, when I heard her making some really strange blowing noises. I asked what on earth she was doing and she informed me that it was BizMark's beat of the day. Oh, joy. On the other hand, I later heard her singing at her dinosaurs, who were attempting to do something or another, "don't give up... never give up... keep trying, keep trying, don't give up," etc. ad infinitum.
So what it comes down to is, learning to beatbox versus learning the value of persistence. I honestly can't decide which one trumps the other.
And more importantly: when am I going to get that frigging song out of my head?! (Keep trying... keep trying...)
It's got its pros and cons, lesson-wise, I've found. Such as tonight in the tub, when I heard her making some really strange blowing noises. I asked what on earth she was doing and she informed me that it was BizMark's beat of the day. Oh, joy. On the other hand, I later heard her singing at her dinosaurs, who were attempting to do something or another, "don't give up... never give up... keep trying, keep trying, don't give up," etc. ad infinitum.
So what it comes down to is, learning to beatbox versus learning the value of persistence. I honestly can't decide which one trumps the other.
And more importantly: when am I going to get that frigging song out of my head?! (Keep trying... keep trying...)
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Yikes
You know, I joke all the time about the fact that I no longer have a memory is because the kid sucked it out of me. But I may not, in fact, be wrong. Because she has a SCARY sharp memory.
Case in point: Several months ago, I wanted to get her a clock for her room so she would know when she was allowed to start bellowing for us in the morning. We bought a cute frog clock from Target but when we got it home and opened the package, I found out that it was broken. So I took it back the next day and saw that that was the last one, so instead, I dug up an old Mickey Mouse clock of mine and we've been using that.
Well, tonight, out of nowhere, she's talking about what time it says on the clock and says, "What happened to the frog?" I say, "What frog?" thinking, she can't possibly mean the frog clock. But no. She did; she says, "The clock with the frog on it. Where did it go?"
Keep in mind that a) this was, like SIX MONTHS AGO, b) we owned said clock for less than 24 hours, and c) it has NEVER been mentioned again. Like, we don't sit around waxing rhapsodic, "Gee, remember that frog clock?" Hell, I'D even forgotten about it.
So... that kind of freaks me out. And it's getting to the point where she's reminding ME of things. I somewhat fear that I'm going to be committed any day now; yeesh...
Case in point: Several months ago, I wanted to get her a clock for her room so she would know when she was allowed to start bellowing for us in the morning. We bought a cute frog clock from Target but when we got it home and opened the package, I found out that it was broken. So I took it back the next day and saw that that was the last one, so instead, I dug up an old Mickey Mouse clock of mine and we've been using that.
Well, tonight, out of nowhere, she's talking about what time it says on the clock and says, "What happened to the frog?" I say, "What frog?" thinking, she can't possibly mean the frog clock. But no. She did; she says, "The clock with the frog on it. Where did it go?"
Keep in mind that a) this was, like SIX MONTHS AGO, b) we owned said clock for less than 24 hours, and c) it has NEVER been mentioned again. Like, we don't sit around waxing rhapsodic, "Gee, remember that frog clock?" Hell, I'D even forgotten about it.
So... that kind of freaks me out. And it's getting to the point where she's reminding ME of things. I somewhat fear that I'm going to be committed any day now; yeesh...
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