Category: Funny Ha-ha

. . . laugh instead of crying.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Yesterday, I took the kids to the church picnic at a local beach. The start-time of the picnic coincided with my daughter’s naptime, but we threw caution to the wind and partied on.

She ran from the slide to the swings, then detoured to the shore to throw rocks into the Puget Sound. Then a quick trip to the bathroom, where she refused to use the potty, though I knew she needed to go. Back to the swings, the slides, the shore and then, the bathroom again. This time, she did the deed.

While I stood in line for lunch–a good old-fashioned potluck–she crouched near two moms with young babies who sat on the kelly-green grass. My daughter adores babies and risked being distant from me just to linger in the presence of drooly, crawling little ones. (One of them is CuteBaby, the 9-month old we watch every day.)

We ate lunch and by then, I noticed one of the other 3-year old girl asleep on the ground. Asleep. On the ground. They had to do a three-legged race around her. Later, I saw yet another 3-year old girl sleeping peacefully on the ground. My almost-three year old girl was running, jumping, splashing rocks into the water, climbing, swinging . . . we were there for four hours. (The boys went on boat rides and had a water balloon fight and drank pop from the cans. Good times!)

Last night, I washed her hair in the tub. She hates to have her sparse curls washed, but she held a hand-towel across her face and told me, “I will not cry!” And she didn’t.

Afterward, she told me, “I did not cry!” Then, she thought a second and said, “But I will cry later!”

That about sums it up, I guess. Always reserve the right to cry later. Not a bad policy to have.

Bok Choy!!!

In my house this morning, my 7-year-old son has been stomping around, chasing the preschoolers and riling them up by hollering, “BOK CHOY!” CuteBaby is 8-months-old now and is mobile. He scoots around the floor, delighted to see, touch, and taste every toy. My carpets have never been cleaner, in anticipation of his newfound skills.

I’m thinking of calling my babysitter tonight–the one who now drives herself around in her own car–and seeing a movie. Just the thought makes me tingly all over and makes me want to scream with joy, “BOK CHOY!”

(Yes, I know it’s a vegetable, but my son thinks it is a fine proclamation anyway.)

Those Funny Kids

Yesterday, a friend of ours sent some hand-me-down clothing to Babygirl. Babygirl immediately requested to wear two skirts, a shirt and a sweater, all at the same time. I said, “Oh, look! What a cute skirt!” Later on, she gestured toward her hot-pink, plaid skirt and said, “I wearin’ my curtain.” Get it? Skirt? Curtain?

Last night at 10:30 p.m., I checked to see if the twins were going to sleep. I see the glow of their television (yeah, they have a television in their room, wanna make something of it?) and I said, “Hey, boys! Time to sleep!” And TwinBoyA said from the floor, “Awwwww, Mom! It’s about artichokes!” I stifled a laugh and said, “Okay, finish watching it but when it’s over TURN OFF THE TELEVISION!”

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Babygirl uses C0urney L0ve’s hairstylist. And yes, she pays too much. (Actually, this is just a really bad case of bed-head. Babygirl’s never had a haircut, which is sad, isn’t it, that a child should be so hair deficient?)

Is That a Tootise Roll? (Or: Don’t Step on the Poop!)

My husband, The Pastor, is sick. He has a cold and has taken to our bed (actually my side of our king-sized bed because it has a better view of the television). Yesterday, he rested most of the day and this morning, he nearly didn’t go to church. As chance (?) would have it, he didn’t have to preach this morning, so he went, faked it and came home, back to bed. I stayed home with all the kids because Babygirl is recovering from her cold and sounds like she is coughing up a lung and her spleen, too.

Meanwhile, I’d invited my sister and her family over for an early dinner and trick-or-treating. This obviously meant that I had to clean off my dresser and pick up all the books scattered on YoungestBoy’s floor. All the toilets needed scrubbing, all the floors had to be vacuumed. The piles of laundry had to be washed and the dishes had to be put away. I had to cook. I had to bake homemade butter cut-out cookies shaped like pumpkins. I was nearly finished mixing the dough (which had to chill for one hour), when I realized I was a quarter cup short of flour.

Please. Why don’t I plan ahead? Check ingredients? Miss Huson, my seventh grade home-economics teacher, would be so disappointed in me. So, I joind a bunch of other people who do not plan ahead at the grocery store this afternoon.

I did have a slow start this morning, but then I worked all day (hello? Day of Rest? Where is my Day of Rest?). How can a medium sized house with only four children and three cats and one husband degenerate so quickly? If only the Second Law of Thermodynamics (The “Law of Disorder”) hadn’t been debunked with statements like this: A typically erroneous quote from a high school chem text is: “The law of disorder states that things move spontaneously in the direction of maximum chaos or disorder.” First of all, there is no such law of disorder for things. But the worst here is how the sentence misleads students about things moving by themselves when the author puts in that word “spontaneously”. That defeats understanding of how the second law works. Molecules tend to become random spontaneously by themselves, but things do NOT.

For one glorious moment, I thought the Second Law explained everything! The reason for scattered socks! For crumbs on the floor! The disintegration of anything resembling order in this house.

I put the boys to work cleaning and running the vacuum cleaner. Everything did come together–even with the unplanned grocery store excursion. My sister and her family were an hour and a half late (typical!) which I had anticipated, so when they arrived, it was 4:30 p.m. and just about time to eat tacos.

I had originally intended to leave Babygirl home with my husband, but since he wasn’t feeling well, I took her trick-or-treating, too. She was enthusiastic about the idea of going outside in the dark. Since the moon eclipse, she wants to go into the night every night.

I dressed her as a Seahawks cheerleader, completely with homemade pom-poms (made from yarn). She even let me put yarn ribbons in her hair. Her pink coat covered her costume, but I took pictures of her first, which really is all that matters. YoungestBoy went as “Flame,” an alter-ego he created himself. He had a black cape with “FLAME” in prominent yellow felt letters. Most importantly, he had red hair, thanks to red hair gel.

We live on a circle, so we hurried from house to house. Babygirl is a cautious soul and has refused to be held by another adult since she was three months old. She scares easily. But not tonight! Tonight she jogged in the dark streets and even went into some homes to snatch candy from their over-sized bowls. She said “trick-or-treat” when we were in the street and then at the doorsteps, she just said “Pleeeease!” And then “thanks!” The people in our circle are generous because we don’t have many trick-or-treaters, so they gave the kids handfuls of candy.

When we came home, we stood for a moment in the doorway, Babygirl and I, and I caught a glimpse of a chocolate colored mound in the entryway. I said to no one in particular, “Is that cat poop?”

Our mutant cats occasionally leave a random log of waste . . . it’s as if it sticks to their posteriors like some kind of stinky velcro and then falls off. I didn’t really think it was poop, but then TwinBoyA said, “Yes!” And I said, “Get me a tissue!”

Then I stood guard, holding Babygirl. The kids–my three boys and their two cousins–were high on the excitement of full candy buckets. They were circling around like vultures, scurrying like ants carrying a giant grasshopper corpse and then YoungestBoy stepped up to me and said, “Look, Mom!” And I said, “No, no, no, no, don’t M O V E!” And then, “NO NO NO NO NO NO! I SAID D O N ‘ T MOVE!”

And then he pranced, mushing that cat poop into about five different spots which I hollered, “WHERE IS THAT TISSUE!” I keep a tissue box as mere six feet from the front door and TwinBoyA had been gone for a long, long time, much longer than necessary. I didn’t dare grab a tissue myself because I was guarding the cat poop–and doing a–excuse me, I can’t resist–a crappy job of it.

My husband crawled out of his sick bed and came downstairs to see why I was yelling. I explained that there was CAT POOP all over now and I was waiting for a tissue–and here TwinBoyA calmly walked up and handed me a measly wad of toilet paper–not a tissue, as I had requested–and I made some kind of gutteral animal noise of disgust and horror and pain.

Then I took the smelly cat-poopy shoes to the bathroom and scraped them and cleaned them and rolled my eyes. I cleaned the carpet (yes, carpet in entry way, how stupid, huh?).

When I went upstairs, my husband said, “Are you finished yelling?” And I said, “You would have yelled, too!” He denied that. I contend that it’s only natural–and right–to yell when you have kids milling about a live grenade “cat deposit” and when you can see with x-ray vision that someone will STEP IN IT and the universe holds its breath for just a second while it waits for you to intervene. Yelling is a perfectly appropriate response.

You try it. And let me know if you yell. Place a chocolate-colored roll of cat poop in your entryway as five children stomp about and the doorbell rings and you are holding a two year old and a candy bucket and then let me know if you YELL when someone steps in it and grinds it into the carpet five times before he stands still while you wait for a tissue which should have arrived in seconds, not minutes.

Yeah. See? I’m right again.

And thus ends another Day of Rest. Bring on the week! I’m so refreshed.

Rolled Oats, Lentils and Y2K

Because my house was remarkably clean this morning–unless you count the seven dirty glasses in the sink–I had time to think today about forgotten chores. I thought about my extra freezer, the gigantic appliance that takes up the corner of my laundry room. I haven’t cleaned out that freezer since 2002, right before my daughter was born.

At the time, I made myself a list of Things To Do before she came, important things like defrosting the freezer and alphabetizing the spices and cleaning out every closet in the house. Because, you know, newborns will do a Martha-Stewart check of your housekeeping skills and return to your womb immediately if things are unsanitary, dusty or out of alphabetical order.

I use the freezer as an overflow area and then tend to neglect hunks of foil-wrapped ground beef and Costco-sized bags of vegetables and twenty Ziploc freezer bags of frozen strawberry slices. I wish I were one of those super-duper organized moms who filled her freezer with homemade frozen meals waiting to be defrosted and cooked and homegrown vegetables which were flash-frozen and meat purchased in bulk and hermetically sealed in Food Saver bags. But I’m not. In addition to the strawberries, ground beef and giant bags of vegetables, my freezer also features twenty pounds of rolled oats and fifteen pounds of lentils.

Why, you wonder? Well, don’t you remember Y2K? Also known as “The End of the World As We Know It?” My ex-stepmother (my dad divorced her when I was 18) who lives in a geodesic dome she built herself (which features a composting toilet and solar energy and a fancy wood stove) on thirty-five acres gave me those items, “just in case.”

So, if the world had come to an end and we had no electricity or gasoline or groceries, we would have lived for what–days? weeks? months? Of course, we would have wanted to kill ourselves if we had to subsist on rolled oats and lentils cooked over a fire we built using our kitchen chairs and pine needles from the yard, washed down with big old glasses of muddy water from the sandbox. We could have supplemented our oats and lentils with the stash of goldfish crackers and Cheerios under the couch, so that’s a bright spot.

But the world did not end and now I need to throw out the oats and lentils and defrost the glacier in the freezer. Unfortunately, I’m in the midst of a long-running Trash Crisis. Our decades-old trash compactor died and now every week, I desperately await the arrival of the trash collector. The second he leaves, I fill the cans with the accumulated trash. Somehow, we never have extra space for pounds of oats and lentils.

If only I could find a recipe for rancid lentils and stale oats, I’d be all set.

(And my husband doubted my ability to write an entire post about my freezer. Ha!)

Shopping for a Miracle

Yesterday, my husband granted me a brief furlough from the prison house. I had three hours. Oh, the pressure. How to spend this precious time?

I wanted to take my film to Costco to have it developed in one hour. I killed two birds with one stone by also picking up my husband’s contact lenses. After I dropped off the film, I drove a short distance to the mall. My plan was to buy my husband a Father’s Day gift and shop the sales rack at Gap for Kids. Babygirl needs new lightweight tights.

The moment I entered Sears, I became distracted, no, deluded by the thought that I might find a swimsuit. A Lands End swimsuit, because doesn’t Sears carry that brand now? I wandered until I found the swimsuits. Picked out everything that looked probable and tried it on.

No.
No.
No.
No.

Ack. What was I thinking?

I ventured to the Gap and bought my baby girl two white shirts and a darling pair of sunglasses (all on clearance).

Then, I thought, maybe Bon-Macy’s would have good swimsuits. Couldn’t hurt to try! Plus, I still had to buy that Father’s Day gift.

I found myself in the midst of a Sixteen Hour Sale. Women everywhere, swimsuits everywhere, crying babies in strollers everywhere! I started getting too hot, but now I was determined.

And then I found it. The Miracle Suit. It promised I would look ten pounds thinner in ten minutes. I figured that perhaps if I wore it for forty minutes, I could look forty pounds thinner. I have always been very good at math.

I picked out five swimsuits, paying careful attention to the top of the suit. I generally do not want to put mental images into your head, but let’s just say that I’m on the top-heavy side of things. And unlike Anna Nicole Smith, I prefer to keep the Girls private.

I couldn’t help but notice that the Miracle Suit that seemed the most promising–black with a lime green vertical stripe and a high neckline–cost $120.00. Yes, boys and girls, One-Hundred-and-Twenty-Dollars, American.

I was so desperate for a Miracle that it seemed like a bargain.

Now. Swimsuit manufacturers must not be familiar with well-endowed women. Or maybe it hasn’t occurred to them that naturally endowed women do not have the Anti-Gravity devices that plastic surgeons use to, well, defy gravity when they install extra-large melons on skinny, flat-chested women. My Girls do not stand at attention. They don’t even sit at attention. They basically lounge at attention and don’t even bother to get up when the President of the United States himself walks into the room.

The suits I tried on featured little kicky-skirts and stomach panels and optical illusion stripes–but then, on top, there was a stretchy bit of elastic and two little straps and that was it. People! Please! I might be a self-sufficient gal, but even I need a little support every now and then. Or are we busty chicks not supposed to swim?

Let me tell you, that Miracle Suit? A fraud. A fake. A phony. I did not find a Miracle in that dressing room. Where was Benny Hinn when I needed him? I threw that suit down in disgust. Well, not really. I just clipped it back onto the hanger and sighed. By then, I was really hot and wondered if I had enough time to get an ice cream cone. And I’d decided that I really do have to go to Weight Watchers this week. I cannot face another dressing room mirror. The mirror doesn’t lie.

My respite was nearly over and all I had done was face my unclothed self in various unmiraculous swimsuits. The wasted time! Who could I sue for this outrage? I wanted a Miracle, no matter the cost!

I rode the elevator downstairs (after putting on my capri pants and t-shirt, of course) and bought my husband a belt and a purple tie, as per his request (the belt) and YoungestBoy’s request (the tie). Then, back to Costco to pick up pictures and frozen hamburger patties and buns.

Today, I wore a swimsuit. My old Lands End suit from last summer. I bought it at Goodwill last year. For $3.00.

The sun is shining and it’s a hot day here in the Pacific Northwest. I’m in the baby pool with my suit on. Black, mock-tankini. My strategy involves not looking down at my body. I use denial because really, what can you do once you’ve left the safety of your own home? I left the house with a plan to leave my shirt on, but take my shorts off because even though the wading pool is just a foot deep, my shorts had gotten soaked on previous visits.

Using my logic, I put my bra on under my swimsuit, because I hate the smushed, uni-boob look and no one would see it, right? So, I’m in the pool, red t-shirt on top, swimsuit on bottom. Then, I think, wow, it’s so hot out today. I think I’ll just take off my shirt so I can dip my whole self into the pool. I nonchalantly pull the shirt over my head, maintaining my policy of not looking down at myself.

It took me about five minutes to remember that I was still wearing my lavender bra. Yes. Under my swimsuit, clearly visible. Lavender satin. I refrained from screaming and simply stepped out of the pool and pulled the red shirt over my head again.

Later, I did a flash-dance move and surreptitiously removed the bra from my swimsuit and stuffed it in my purse.

Now, that maneuver, my friends, is a Miracle.

The Weekend

Is Monday night too late to write about the weekend? I hope not, because here I go.

My husband’s weekend was jam-packed with funerals and memorial services and a sermon and meetings. My weekend was full of kids and grit on my kitchen floor. No matter how much I “swiffer” the floor, I have grit. This is because I allow my children to go outdoors, dig in the mud and wear shoes, both indoors and outdoors. But. I digress.

On Saturday, I decided to rearrange the boys’ bedroom. This involved removing a lot of books and plastic bins from a huge shelving unit and using brute force to inch it to its new home. I moved beds, chairs. I vacuumed repeatedly. And, of course, I did all this while taking care of Babygirl and three big boys. After Babygirl napped, I took all the kids on a walk to 7-11 again for Slurpees. The weather was lovely, sunny and in the fifties.

Saturday afternoon, my husband calls and says, “Hey, when I get home later, you can go to a movie or something if you want.” Isn’t he thoughtful? I begin to look forward to escaping the four walls and gritty floors of my home. Half an hour later, he calls again to say, “Hey, let’s go to a movie together!” I say, “Oh. Okay.” Now, I have to finish my rearranging project, clean up the rest of the messy house which I’ve neglected while devoting time to my project, feed the kids, clean the kitchen, make myself presentable, bathe the children and put the baby to bed. All alone. By seven. Then when the babysitter arrives, I will go pick him up from his office and we’ll go from there.

I am an exhausted, sweaty mess with a bad attitude by the time I pick him up. And the house isn’t tidy. A girl can only do so much.

The other thing is this. I like movies that my husband would not like. I wanted to see “Against the Ropes” with Meg Ryan. I like literary movies, dark movies, psychological thrillers, critically acclaimed movies. We saw “Welcome to Mooseport.”

I must be very difficult to amuse because I did not find the movie funny. The audience was laughing, guffawing, chortling, giggling. I was shifting in my seat, trying to get comfortable. I thought the cast of character actors had been plucked straight from community theater. They were so overwrought, so unbelievable. And Ray Romano, bless his heart, was just Ray Romano. I don’t think he can act. He is just himself. Maura Tierney was exactly the same as she was in News Radio and on ER. Gene Hackman–yawn. I liked Marcia Gay Harden. The rest? Oh please. I wouldn’t even watch that on network television. It was so boring, so predictable. So not funny.

But as I said, I must be difficult to amuse, because my husband liked it. Everyone in the theater seemed to like it. Maybe I just have PMS.

Sunday was my day to be the volunteer nursery attendant. I don’t really mind since I usually end up in there anyway, sooner or later, with Babygirl. Two of the toddlers, though, had runny noses! I cannot understand why a parent would bring a runny-nosed kid to a church nursery. I am the nursery coordinator and I need to make a giant sign saying “This is a Mucus-Free Zone.” We had seven toddlers in attendance.

My husband worked all day–he had a memorial service and then meetings. We spent a lot of time outdoors in the afternoon. I trimmed a thorny bush by the gate and the kids dug another giant hole and then asked if they could fill it with water. They love to build lakes and streams. I allowed it, even though I was not in the mood for mud. At least they were getting muddy with a spirit of cooperation.

Some time over the weekend, I peered into mirror in the boys’ brightly lit bathroom and spied a strangely colored hair. I plucked it out and examined it. The pigment faded along the shaft of the hair and I couldn’t decide, but I think I may have found my first gray hair. I wanted to save it and immediately realized how neurotic and insane that idea was. So I just let it drift out of my hand. I’ve reverted to my natural color and now it is going to betray me? How is that right?

Speaking of hair, I came across a box of pictures and letters from and to my dad, which led me to another box of his family tree paperwork. And then I found the old envelope I’d searched for a few weekends back which contains a golden-red lock of hair. The outside of the envelope says in faded fountain-pen ink: “Gary’s hair.” Sure enough, I held this silky lock of her grandfather’s baby hair up to Babygirl’s head. Her hair is the exact shade. I snipped a curl off the back of her head to save before she up and leaves home for college. The days are long, but the years are short and soon enough she’ll be earning her Master’s degree and calling me once a week.

Last night, she woke up before 11 p.m., which is strange. I nursed her and put her back to bed and then dreamed all night that I heard her crying. Sure enough, she woke up stuffy this morning. She caught DaycareKid’s cold from last week. Sigh. DaycareKid still has his runny nose, too. I hate colds.

My husband has started taking Mondays off. So, he had today off. He took a load of stuff to the thrift store for me and then hung out. He read the newspaper, talked to me while I was trying to watch a show during naptime and took a nap. I’m glad he gets a true day off now–when he was taking Fridays off, he almost always ended up working.

I still haven’t painted my wall red. But I did iron my husband pants for the week, so he won’t have to go to work clad only in his underwear. I do have my priorities.