Things that amuse me, Vol. 18

So where was I? Oh yeah...

Four kids is a lot. Did you know that? Anyway, here are a few of the things that have been amusing me during the past several months:

1.  Before I had kids, I can very confidently say that no one had ever happily stepped on my taint to get a boost up.

2. How many episodes of Mad Men does it take before a woman stops saying things like, "What?! He's married!" The world may never know.

3. My 9-year-old son D- recently found out that dyslexia is a real condition, not just some kind of unhelpful super power of Percy Jackson. Since he got four books and one movie into the series before realizing this, he still might not be able to resist following slow readers around school, watching for magical fight scenes to break out after the tears and misplaced anger blow over.

4.  I'm becoming convinced that it may be the primary purpose of dry cat food to serve as bait to draw mice into The Kill Zone. Either way, the cats get fed, though, right?

5. My 3-year-old son E- opened a fortune cookie to find the observation, "You are never bitter, deceptive, or petty." And that's how we discovered the unwritten label, "Fortune Cookies not intended for users 3 or older."

Classic quotes, Vol. 41

Here are a few more recent quotes from my 8-year-old son D-, my 5-year-old daughter M-, and my nearly-2-year-old son E-:

D- (having been shown an "I'm too busy to be organized!" mug I'd gotten for my wife J-): Hey! Mom should put that on her desk! ...Because she's always so busy... that she can't be... organized.

E- (coming into his family heritage, waking unwillingly as I laid him down to change him one morning): Eyes! (rolling away, pawing at his face) Wight! (openly frustrated that I just don't seem to get it) Bwight!!

D- (seeing an Adidas footprint in the dirt): Hey look! It says AIDS in the footprint!

M- (vehemently disputing D-'s account of her assault): I didn't punch him in the EYE... I punched him in the FOREhead!!

D- (referring to a man speaking through a megaphone to a crowd of kids): That's not a very loud... shouty-thingy.

Classic quotes, Vol. 39

Here are a few recent notable quotes from my 8-year-old son D-, my 5-year-old daughter M-, and, in his quote-list debut, my 20-month-old son E-:

M- (among her rules for decorating the cakes from her little cake-making kit): No punching, no kicking, and no head-butting.

D- (smiling while reminiscing, after I pointed out he and his sister have already taught their little brother E- to laugh at mentions of bodily functions, by example): Yeah... heh-heh... we have...

M- (the day after the Olympics ended, out of the blue): I want to wear an outfit like those... who are those people, again, who jump over those GIANT hurdles? (Me: "Hurdlers?") Yes, hurdlers. I want to wear those shorts and one of those shirts, that shows my belly, then people will think I'm one of them! (giggles)

E- (begging for a bite of popsicle from his big brother D-): Bite! Biiiiite!! (after digging a tiny Nerf gun into his chest) Bite.

A conversation between M- and D-: Justice, served lukewarm

My 5-year-old daughter M- was indulging my 7-year-old son D-'s penchant for spontaneous, awkward hand-to-combat practice one day recently, when he began the following exchange:

D- (with the expected pseudo-karate posturing): I'm gonna break your HEAD off!

M- (popping his balloon as sharply as she can): No, you're not! You'd be in HUGE trouble... You'd have to sit on the STAIRS for the rest of your LIFE!

D- (accepting this at face value, then feeling smug as he thinks about its relative leniency): No more than that, though.

M- (thinking aloud, qualifying her previous statement): ...Until you were a grownup, then you could go back to eating candy, and playing, and everything.


It seems "life" as they know it ends in just a few years. They're probably right.

---

You may enjoy my previous D- conversations, M- conversations, and (wife) J- conversations.

Important Question: If I didn't notice a sparkle, can it still be a vampire?

This is the kind of urgent question that cannot wait until it's not the middle of the night to ask of The Internet.

This evening, close to midnight, we were shocked to discover an intruder in the house that may be either a bat or some kind of darting swift or swallow. It didn't stop panickedly swooping toward my indefensibles long enough for me to get a good look at it before finding a safe enough nook in which to plot its revenge.*

So, after several fruitless hours of searching, the question I have for you all is this:

Which one of us will wake up with this thing on our face?

It's kind of important that we know this as soon as possible. Please share your educated hypothesis** in the comments.

---

* And J- couldn't see much from under the blanket, where she was, quote, "Protecting the baby."

** Additionally, I suppose, you could answer by telling us who will never wake up after this thing was on our faces?

Things that amuse me, Vol. 7

Here are some of the happenings and such that have been amusing me lately:

1. Only a baby can sit there crying after punching himself in the face and still reel in the sympathy of the whole room.

2. There's nothing like an earthquake, string of tsunamis, resultant fires, and impending nuclear meltdowns to make a 7-year-old ask me why I don't turn off the music and turn on the news on the way to school.

3. I recently wiped out several dozen flies flirting and sunning themselves on the east side of my house. They died as they lived-- trying to make thousands of babies and irritating the hell out of me.

4. A baby is the kind of person whom you can't trust to not urinate on you during any given 1-minute period of the day.

5. Unlike his do-gooder cousin the Easter Bunny, the equally famous After-Easter Bunny has this week been employing his Magical Rabbit powers of whisking himself around to the baskets of all good little boys and girls of the world to remove just enough candy each time that they'll never notice.

The downside of exposing children to classic novels

Quoting the escaped convict in Great Expectations recently, my 6-year-old son D- threatened to cut out the liver of his 4-year-old sister, who refused to be quiet at bedtime.

Needless to say, she didn't get the reference.

Storybook Weddings: Elmo, assault, rampaging horses, and idiocy

I came upon an older article recently about 13 wedding horror stories, including a massive brawl at a lesbian wedding, and a groom arrested for violating his new wife's restraining order, and I figured I'd share my amused observations on a few of them:

Bride Drunkenly Assaults People - I'm pretty sure the lady in this amusing mug shot is the yin to the yang of this bride I posted about awhile back.

Bride Thrown From a Runaway Horse-Drawn Carriage - You may question his methods, but you can't argue with the results when God decides to point out that you're being kind of a douche.

Bride's Dress is Ripped by Dry-Cleaners After her Wedding - Really? This is on par with being arrested, poisoned, or nearly killed by a truck?? I'm thinking they ran out of good ones but still wanted to have 13, for the gimmick.

Husband and Wife Brawl With Police When Renewing Vows - When your name is "Elmo Jesus", there's bound to be a few assault charges anytime lots of people are gathered.

Woman Swallows Engagement Ring - This one was fated to end disastrously from the moment it was conceived. If this lady is anything like my wife, he should have already known that you do not put anything you value between her and a Frosty.*

Man Scales Side of Brooklyn Bridge to Retrieve Ring - This one answers the age-old question, "What does an idiot do when he drops something?"

---

* I know that sounds bad, and she'll probably groan and hit me, but it's true, and I would never lie to you people, or even withhold unflattering information. Honestly, I don't blame her, though-- those things are good! Have you ever dipped a fry in one?

Editor's Note: With that winning note, speaking of brides, I'd like to announce that today is my wife J-'s birthday, which has always been one of the biggest highlights of her year. Since it's not yet been made a national holiday (though it was, much to her chagrin, named a national day of mourning 8 years ago), the day is tarnished by her having to go to work.

Wanna help me brighten her day with some well wishes?

I've got your Father's Day right here...

A belated Happy Father's Day to the approximately 3% of my readership who is both male and a father, and same to the husbands of 92% of the rest of you.

I spent my day sleeping in, using the computer (for a welcome change of pace), and playing outside with the kids, who are trying to see if it is scientifically possible to melt the paint off the walls out here in Maine with the sheer quivering force of their pent-up energy.

While that may sound all quaint on the surface, I want to know what it says about my performance as a father thus far that the most attractive games to my son involved, in however convoluted a way necessary, punching me wherever he could reach?

His 2-year-old sister swung happily on the swings for more than an hour, using the wind she generated to keep always just out of reach of the blackflies, but this lanky 5-year-old was very soon discontent with boring old swings, soccer, and basketball.

Some of the alternative games we tried were:

1) "How Dare You Steal the Ball, I Will Now Punch You in the Butt While Roaring to Get it Back,"

2) "I'll Pretend to Be the Squirrel From Ice Age Attacking a Large, Ferocious Predator as Foolishly as I Make Him Do in the Ice Age Videogame I Was Just Playing,"

3) And finally the even more convoluted, though tragically aborted, "The Basketball Court is Water, the Picnic Table is Land, and I'm a Fighter-Guy Fighting Dragons to Save People in a Way That You Somehow Know Involves You Being a Series of Dragons Who Are Foolish Enough to Just Stand Next to the Picnic Table While a Knight Works Them Over With Both Fists Until His Hands Hurt Too Much to NOT Move on to Short, Efficient Kicks Instead."

Oh, and, should you ever be put in a similar situation, be advised that catching and teasingly holding one, then a second, fist carefully aimed at your back may result in a frustrated, em-boy-sculated cry of, "Don't ever do that again! I want you to leave me alone for the rest of your life! ...if you're going to do that again."

Notice that even at five, he's perceptive enough to say "your life" instead of "my life". Nothing like a special day of recognition to remind one's parents of their sizable lead in the race towards death. Happy Father's Day again!

May you all live long enough to feel the next volley of anniversarial punches, always stronger than the last.

Developments at our house, Vol. 16

Here are some of the latest developments around here:

1. After 5 years of reading both the classic original stories and the cartoony Disney version of Winnie-the-Pooh, my son D- finally realized that the lead character's name is "poo".*

2. I was made aware that my current roommates are so tiny I can unknowingly smuggle one of their socks in my freshly-laundered underpants for at least several hours before noticing it.

3. It says a lot about my currently uncertain status in life that I get e-mails opening with lines like, "Congratulations, you're a 2009 Mother of the Year!" and including videos like this.

I think I need to go slather myself with motor oil and kill something that only seems not defenseless.

---

* He was amused.

Not goodbye, just see you later

I figure I should let you all know that tomorrow, I'll be checking out of this northwest-Chicago-suburban popsicle stand for a few weeks to drive all the way out to Northern Maine to visit my wife's family and some old friends from the mean streets of Caribou and Presque Isle.

During this time, I should have posts popping up on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays as usual, but my e-mail responses to comments will be spotty at best, or nonexistent at likeliest.

So while I'm off today desperately packing for our long, long, long 1400-mile drive in a Camry with a 5-year-old and 2-year-old, I'll give you something to discuss amongst yourselves.

As I began last night to assess the unbelievable volume of little bits of crap my wife has let pile up in the car over the past school year, I found a notable scrap of paper I'd dropped* a few weeks ago.

On it I'd recorded an amusing conversation opener from the lady herself while we were driving somewhere, after she'd had yet another in a chain of is-it-summer-yet long/violent days with the generally lovable 7th-8th grade Special Ed. students/gang members she teaches:

"I have a feeling quite a few of my students are going to get the s*** beat out of them [at home] tonight, and to be honest, I don't feel too sorry about it."

Negative-three days till summer break! Am I right?

When I get back, we'll all be more than two weeks closer to me pathetically hanging around downtown trying to meet random BlogHer attendees. If you'll be one of them, let me know!

---

* To be fair to me, it is HER paper and I had picked it up off the floor of the car to start with. So, in essence, I was subconsciously putting it back where I found it, 'cause that's the kind of person I am. I put things away and take care of my immediate area so I never HAVE to formally Clean The House/Car.

So now thanks to this footnote, we'll have something fun to discuss in the car tomorrow. Wish me luck!!!

Classic quotes, Vol. 14

Here are the latest quotes from my 5-year-old son D-, 2-year-old daughter M-, my wife J-, and me:

J- (after awakening me with a confused snooze-button smack to the face when her alarm, on the other side of the bed, went off at 5am): Oh, I didn't know you were there.

D- (as if he's proposing something fun for me): Dad, you wanna watch a kid movie? It's been a few days since yesterday when we watched Curious George with Momma.

J-'s student (after J- removed her glasses to rub her eyes): Geez, Mrs. --, you're really pretty without your glasses!*

D- (as Spider-Man, while holding a cordless phone to his ear): Dad, you've got to feel my muscle... (remembering the game he was already playing, turning toward the phone) Hold on, Batman.

---

* Explanation from J-: "This happened in a moment of much-needed relaxation, as I was pretending the children and the rest of the world don't exist, but then they once again interrupted me rudely to prove that they do."

A robotic family portrait

Since I know that pictures have been few and far between for a long while, I thought I'd share with you all this intimate family portrait, with members represented according to my 2-year-old daughter M-'s remarkably consistent series of dramatic scenarios over the past several weeks:

Spoiling his long-held secret identity, I'll admit that the fellow on your left up there is my dad, whom the kids call Dado (DAH-doh) in the Irish custom. On the right, in an uncanny representation right down to the giant titanium claw hand, is my mom, whom the kids call Grammair, similar to the French title.

Now, the two in the middle are harder to pin down. The lady on the left was originally employed as my 5-year-old son D-, with the smallest (grown male) figure representing M- herself, but, I believe over D-'s one-time objection, at a certain point she began identifying herself instead as the (bipedal, clothed rat-) woman, with D- then played by that man a fraction of "M-'s" size.

I'm thinking that the size/power upgrade was a big reason why she didn't mind abruptly changing the conventions of her personal game to suit the whims of her bystander brother, who's as prone to ranting power-trips these days as she has always been to squeezing someone's face with her fingernails until they stop saying whatever it is she objects to, such as, "what [she] should do."

To explain the likely disappointing, for you, lack of my wife and I in this portrait, I get the sense M- herself is the Momma in her games, and I imagine I'm not usually given any inanimate representation because I represent myself so well in that state throughout her waking hours. I am omnipresent and omnisomnolent.*

But it's our (virtual) loss, I assure you. Because oh, what fun this crew has, day in, day out... almost as much fun as my wife J- had before she was formally introduced, trying to figure out one night after bedtime what in the world M- was talking about when she was crying for her to "go find M- and D-... I want you to bring me M- and D-!"

The answer J- would have given, had she been up to speed on the fast-changing world of Imagination Games that is our afternoons around here, is that M- and D- were not available that night because they were still unconscious inside a shoe under the coffee table after Dado shot them in the face with a giant web-missile while attempting to pass the sugar cubes at teatime.

You know, the usual disfunctional family hijinks. Plus robots.

---

* Don't feel bad if you don't recognize that word, because I'm pretty sure I just built it right this moment, and I love it.

I am the hero I've been waiting for

Though he may be a whole 5 years old now, my son D- is more importantly a man in training, and following that storied tradition, he constantly asserts his superiority in every way over almost everything he looks at, hears of, or thinks of, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

So I walk a fine line every time I'm challenged on strength, speed, intelligence, agility, or proficiency in many of the world's most inane activities.

I don't think it's healthy to completely disillusion and demoralize him, but I think it's equally unhealthy for me to set him up for any harder of a fall than he's already due when released into the wilds of full-time school next year.

I mean, a kid needs all the confidence, whether completely off base or not, that he can get in this world. So if he starts out thinking HE'S the strongest man in the world, instead of me, then that just gives him a leg up over all the other boys, right?

Here's a conversation snippet, issued out of the blue while walking through the library, from the kid who's told me (verbatim) more than once, "I know Everything. Not everything-everything, but I know Everything," just minutes before and after asking me entries in that day's long list of questions about how the world works at the most fundamental of levels:

D-: I'm even stronger than you.

Me: Yeah?

D-: I'm so strong, that if there was a robot, up in space, and I was up in space? One punch, and he'd be dead. If I punched a big robot one time, he'd be dead.

...I'm thinking that "leg up" just may land him upside down in a cafeteria garbage can one day. Maybe I should grab his ankles and wrists with one hand and hoist him helplessly into the air like a safari prize more often while I still can.

We all know this world is nothing if not humbling, and I've always found a steady diet much easier to take than the sudden compulsory feast days that are one's only alternative. So I suppose I'll have to take it upon myself to begin a campaign of careful destruction and reconstruction of his ego, via the most fun, ridiculously lopsided competitions I can think of.

And once he turns 10? Then, my friend, we move on to a crash course in Trash Talk 101 delivered by the one true master greater than Shakespeare, Da Vinci, Jordan, and your mom combined.*

---

* I mean me.

I am not responsible for this behavior

While a lot of people like to point to certain events, character traits, or incidental behavior as indicative of a child's similarity to or even destiny to become exactly like one or more of his parents, I prefer to promote the idea that this is complete nonsense, except in the rare case in which doing so might make me look good.

For an example of the former, let me share that my now-5-year-old son D- recently hit his leg on the coffee table entirely out of his own carelessness, which, if you ask me as his loving parent, causes him pain and discomfort far too infrequently to really teach him anything of use.

His response to this assault was to immediately engulf himself in soaring flames of impotent rage and begin letting loose the following diatribe:

"OW!! We should move to a different house that doesn't have this stuff in it!"

He then dramatically threw himself upon the couch, before just as quickly standing back up to add some other points he just thought of:

"See?? (pointing at the TV) We've got all this stuff everywhere to walk into and we should just go somewhere else where we don't have any stuff in the way on the floors!"

In rereading this before publication, I realize that it sounds at best partially fabricated, but let me assure you with the three fingers of my Boy Scout salute held high in the air that since I was sitting at the computer at the time, I transcribed this rant word for word.

I have no further comment.

Is the position of 'Belligerent chimp' still open?

At long last, we return to the latest engagement in humanity's long-running War Against Nature:

Study: Belligerent chimp proves animals make plans

---

According to a report in the journal Current Biology, [a] 31-year-old alpha male started building his weapons cache in the morning before the zoo opened, collecting rocks and knocking out disks from concrete boulders inside his enclosure. He waited until around midday before he unleashed a "hailstorm" of rocks against visitors.

---

Am I the only one who sees this through the prism of a potentially gripping dramatic action film, juxtaposing this ape preparing what he sees as an all-or-nothing death stroke against the rising tide of humanity with an innocent little girl excitedly gearing up for her first trip to the zoo?

It would star, naturally, Dakota Fanning as the girl (with only a nearly identical younger sister or --fingers crossed!-- unholy clone as an acceptable substitute), and, say, Mickey Rourke (he's sooo hot right now) as the chimp.

But the story continues:

---

Santino the chimpanzee's anti-social behavior stunned both visitors and keepers at the Furuvik Zoo but fascinated researchers because it was so carefully prepared.

"These observations convincingly show that our fellow apes do consider the future in a very complex way," said the author of the report, Lund University Ph.D. student Mathias Osvath. "It implies that they have a highly developed consciousness, including lifelike mental simulations of potential events."

---

Can you imagine being so patronized when expressing your very legitimate rage against your captors?

He should at least have fun with this, constantly upping the ante with the craziest stuff he can think of, while researchers and keepers merely dive into their protective Plexiglas cages and wipe off their glasses, furiously scribbling notes at the wonderful new behaviors they've discovered.

Just wait till you folks see the (possibly literal) shitstorm he's got planned for you all next summer! I'm thinking the sequel would have a lighter tone, adding in Andy Dick as the hero's wisecracking squirrel sidekick, and possibly Jack Black as a lovingly disapproving elephant in the next habitat over.

Before you feel too sorry for his unwitting victims, though, you have to realize that they're asking for it by taunting him verbally and in print:

---

"However, he rarely hit visitors because of his poor aim, and no one was seriously injured in the cases when he did, Osvath said."

---

These people are absolutely begging for a carefully petrified banana to the skull. And yet they lament, "it cannot be good to be so furious all the time."

Fury without an outlet is unhealthy indeed. Fury with a homemade blunt object or a fresh load of your own feces in hand is quite possibly the healthiest thing imaginable. I'm living proof.

And THAT'S a life lesson to grow on.

To deck a mockingbird

My 4-year-old son D- recently sat down with his 2-year-old sister M- to very cutely read from a little book with an adorably harmless bird on the cover, and, taking a page from Atticus Finch, he made sure to pass along sage bits of advice like the following (delivered in a ridiculously saccharine voice):

"Do you see those sharp claws? If you would bop that bird on the head, it would take them and... [demonstrating] smear across your face, and you'd be bleeding. So, don't ever punch a bird in the face."

Classic quotes, Vol. 11

Here is the latest batch of quotes from around here, this time from my 4-year-old son D- and my freshly 2-year-old daughter M-:

M- (irritatedly, after kissing my cheek): You supposeda shave!

D- (not holding a cup...): I'm very thirsty, that's why I'm drinking the 'drink in my mouth'.

M- (pointing to my bare chest at the breakfast table, reviewing a recent lesson from J-): THAT'S not breasts...*

D- (after fearsomely growling and punching the shower wall): Hey! Wow, that hurts!!

M- (in a cute, timid voice, while J- is lecturing her): Ummmm... I can do... whatever I want.

D- (anytime he's truly frustrated at an inanimate object): That's just IDIOTS!

---

* Yes, I'm aware that this is the second remark I've recently recorded of M- pointing at my bare chest, but what can I say? Shirts and socks are for people who leave the house.

Also, I want to note that it's good to know I'm still at least in good enough shape not to offer her any confusion on the breast issue.

One-item lists, Vol. 1

We all know I like me a good list post. Because my unfinished list-post backlog is reaching critical mass, I figured we could start the year off by purging some of these in one largely child-centric meta-list:*

Child-Themed Game Shows
1. Oatmeal or Vomit?

Reasons Child Services May Pay Us A Visit
1. My 4-year-old son D- says things like, "I'm holding my lip because you punched me there" after practically leaping into the way of my unrelated hand gesture.

Life Goals Met At 15 Months (note that M- is now 2 years old)
1. Find Out What Sand Tastes Like. If pleasant, chow down! Note to self: It was extremely pleasant.

My New Favorite Sites
1. This one.

Reasons I Love Hanging Out With Kids All Day**
1. Tossing out a line like, "Not by the cereal on your chinny-chin-chin!" while wiping off a toddler's chin at breakfast will cause the whole room to lose it for a good 2 minutes.

---

* Note that publishing this post itself was delayed several weeks for reasons unknown even to me.

** Unfortunately, immersing oneself in this for too long can have a severely detrimental effect on one's ability to write blog posts that amuse adults, as well as one's ability to conduct a normal, polite conversation with other adults.

Macaroni-and-Death in the Garden of Good and Edam

As those of you outside what I'll call The Snow Belt may have heard, the rest of us are currently dealing with the kind of snow that builds you a fort all by itself, and the kind of cold that freezes your tongue to your coat zipper the second your foot hits the front porch.

Sharp cold wave shocks upper Midwest, temps to -36

In times like these, disaster is rarely located anywhere but Right Around the Corner:

---

"Indiana police reported numerous crashes on slippery highways, including a truck that overturned and spilled 43,000 pounds of cheese, closing a busy highway ramp during the night in the Gary area."

---

Far be it from me to provoke an intra-national incident or incite legendary food-fight-related violence, but I think I speak for all of us when I say it should be clear to the people of Wisconsin that this willful distribution of copious amounts of free cheese to the public by the people of Indiana constitutes an act of war.

I believe I'll munch on some gravel-laced Gouda while I mull the implications of this tragic, region-shaping attack.