Monday, April 20, 2009

Turnoff Week

On my way home from my nightly run to the grocery store after the kids go to bed, I heard a program on the radio about Turnoff Week. Well, I thought, have I got some turnoffs I could tell them about. Ok, that's not true, I can't think of any turnoffs. Except for, you know, the idea of more babies. TURNOFF.

Turns out, though, that they were talking about the annual Turnoff Week, sponsored by the Center for Screen-Time Awareness. Wow, did I get that wrong?

So I rushed right home to share this news with all of you. But then, I thought how hypocritical is it to BLOG about an event that requires you to turn off your computer? So I started writing it out by hand. Old school.

But my hand started cramping, and my carpal tunnel flared up. And when I tried to read what I'd written, I got a headache. Jesus, my handwriting has gotten abysmal. Too much dependence on this high-falutin' keyboard machines. Maybe these CSA folks are on to something.

Then I realized, shit, who can read this, if I can't read it and none of you are in my kitchen, where you too could enjoy saying things like, "what the fuck is that?" and "Where did you learn to write, monkey school??" How, how would you ever know that you are supposed to be NOT looking at your computer right now?

So I sat down instead to type this up.

But now I realize, you are looking at your computer RIGHT NOW. And you're not supposed
to be. Shit.

Turnoff week 2009, duration = 5 minutes.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

All 9 Kinds

"It was a simple picnic lunch - there was nothing but pie. But there were all nine of Harold's favorite pies."

I hear that line a lot, either on the Harold and the Purple Crayon DVD (permanently installed in the car DVD player as it is particularly well-suited for detering tantrums from the 2.5 yr olds among us) or in the book, a regular read.

This morning, though, it really hit me. 9 kinds of pies? Seriously? How can you have NINE favorite kinds of pies?

Here are mine:

  1. Strawberry rhubarb
  2. Apple
  3. Cherry
  4. Chocolate mousse
  5. Does cheesecake count as pie?
  6. What about chocolate cake?
  7. Because seriously, I'm out of pies.
  8. 9 kinds of pie, my ass.
  9. He's totally counting cheesecake.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Cackle PSA: How to get that thing out of your kid's nose

Somehow we made it through just over 5 years of being parents without anyone sticking anything up their nose. I guess we were due, then, when Rory decided to find out what happens when one sticks a googly eye up one's nose. I can tell you what happens - it gets stuck. Stuck stuck, you can't see it stuck, bring out the nose speculum stuck. And you spend 3 hours in the ER waiting room, because of course he'd try this little experiment on a Sunday, the day before Memorial Day. When I was in a cast and on a scooter. It was awesome. Even more awesome was that, after spending all that time in the waiting room, once we got back to see someone, the nurse asked us if we'd tried the following method to remove it. We hadn't, so we did, and it worked, and the nose was spared the speculum invasion (although the trauma might have stopped him from doing it again in the future).


So, on behalf of all of you imaginary readers and your imaginary kids who stick imaginary things up their noses, here is a Cackle Loud Public Service Announcement: Removing a Foreign Object From Nose. To save you three hours on a Sunday afternoon, hours which would have been much more profitably spent watching Dr. Who.


  1. Convince your child to lie down. This might take some doing if your child, like Rory, was wigging because not only had he stuck something up his nose, he had been specifically told NOT TO STICK THIS IN YOUR NOSE 5 minutes before he did stick it in his nose.
  2. Use your finger to close the unobstructed nostril - like you're going to do CPR.
  3. Put your mouth over your child's mouth - again, like you're going to do CPR.
  4. Tell your child to stop giggling, it's not that freaking funny, and didn't you tell him not to stick that friggin' googly eye up his nose?
  5. Repeat step 3.
  6. Blow really really hard.
  7. Clean the snot off the side of your face.
  8. Tell your kid to stop giggling. Again. Threaten to go ahead and get the doctor with the scopes and the speculums.
  9. Blow really really hard.
  10. Retrieve the foreign object from wherever it shot. Put it in an envelope and make your child carry it around all day. Every time he sees you, he has to show you that he has it and repeat, "I will not stick a googly eye up my nose. I will not stick a googly eye up my nose."

Please note that step 10 does not work quite so well if what your child has crammed up her nose is something less solid, something more like, say pancakes or playdough. Although this method will remove those less object-y and more "why the fuck would you stick this gooey crap up your nose" as well.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

In which I blame the Bloggess for my eternal damnation

So, yeah, I've kind of been on a weird slant lately, with the chocolate Jesi. "Out of control" may be a more accurate description. Facebook, Twitter, here. Wow, it's been a little crazy. Like on FB? A friend of mine was all, "Indeed" (as in the "Lord is Risen, He is Risen Indeed") and I'm all, "Chocolate crosses for everyone!"

And the only thing I have to say for myself is that The Bloggess made me do it. I discovered her a couple of weeks ago on Twitter and spent this weekend reading her entire archive. The ENTIRE archive. You can say it, I'm Bloggsessed, which should totally be a word in the Urban Dictionary about reading archived Bloggess posts until your children give up and start getting their own waffles out of the freezer. And then I could be as cool as The Bloggess, she of Kawasakied fame.

Except I could never be that cool. I mean, the ninjas? The zombies? WOLVERINES?
But it's like she's in my brain now. And I'm suddenly afraid of dead bodies on toilets. And I want a pet chicken. And my mind, it's kind of wacked.

So that's why I blasphemed the Resurrection by complaining that there weren't enough crucifixion-themed Easter treats. And that's why I'm going to hell. The Bloggess made me do it.

(Except that this conversation totally really happened.)

Friday, April 10, 2009

Good Friday, in our tradition

Tyler: You know what would be cool? Chocolate crosses.
Liza: For Easter?
Tyler: Yeah.
Liza: Shouldn't they be two pieces, then? A chocolate Jesus and a chocolate cross. And on Easter, you could eat the Jesus and be all symbolic.
Tyler: I just want the chocolate Jesus. See what people have to say. Jesus was a black man.

Liza: Rory, do you know what Easter's about?
Rory: Nope.
Liza: It's about everything coming back to life, rebirth, growth.
Rory: Like the dinosaurs??

[paraphrase long conversation about the superhero Jesus and how he was all about the love but that the bad people ("The dinosaurs??") killed him because they were afraid of change. And some people believe that he rose again, to show us all that love is triumphant.]

Rory: I think I'll just believe that the dinosaurs are coming back on Sunday.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Blog entries I've written in the past several weeks ... in my mind

Lately, my blog entries have been exceptionally short lived. They are dying in my mind, without ever seeing the light of the keyboard. I get an idea, I work on it a bit ... in my mind, and then it just, you know, settles into the dusty corners of nowhere land. So because I am lazy have been remiss in posting, I thought I'd at least share some of the things that died and my reasoning, and you can understand why the old posting just isn't happening.

Married Underwear: I was getting dressed, pulling on my amazingly boring cotton underpants, and I started thinking, "Thank God we've been married long enough that I don't care that my underpants are white cotton, and neither does he." And I started writing this crazy blog post all about my underpants. Rolled waistband, not exactly granny panties, but you know, not lacy thongs either. It had promise, this idea, exploring why undies matter so much early on but then you thank God get to be comfortable (or your ass gets too big for the sexy stuff). And then, those same underpants, well, they started falling down. All day, I'm hiking up my drawers. And I realized, honey, ain't nobody likes boring underpants when the waistband has failed. You have just let yourself go.

Fat Acceptance: I've been off and on reading Kate Harding's Shapely Prose about fat acceptance, being fat, accepting it, dealing with bigotry because of your fatness. Etc. Etc. You can check it out, but I won't provide a linik. And here's why - because I'm pretty sure that if you expect others to accept your shape, no matter what it is, and you are at peace with it, yay. But you also have to accept the fact that you are the way you are because of YOU. You (um me) are the one who ate several entire bags of Cadbury Mini-Eggs and packages of cookie dough. YOU did that. Accept it. Own it. Like I own my big fat ass.

(Yeah, this one I can't really keep writing because some of those readers on that other blog probably have bigger asses than mine and could squash me. And can you believe I even typed this out? This is why it was in my MIND, people. Sometimes, it is a good place.)