Bringing Home Random Junk That Will Break Immediately Day

At the elementary school they have a reward system where the kids can earn tickets. They earn them for being good, or answering questions right, or whatever.

It's like the House Points system at Hogwarts. "Ten points to Gryffyndor, Potter!"

Wait, did I just brand myself as a hopeless nerd with that reference? Oh well....

Anyways, the kids can earn tickets, collect them, and once a month trade them in for.... Random Junk That Will Break Immediately.

As we all know, kids LOVE Random Junk That Will Break Immediately.

In case you don't know what I'm talking about, here are some examples:

 Sticky hands. We love 'em.

Throw them at the wall, watch them stick there for a moment, and then watch them fall on the floor. Endless hilarity.

Until they get covered with hair and carpet fuzz and no longer stick to anything.

Here we have the Slinky's more colorful but less practical cousin.

They are called "magic springs."

I don't know what's supposed to be magic about them. 

Perhaps the astonishing speed with which they get tangled or break.

And here we have the ever popular Temporary Tattoos.

My kids love these. Let's hope they aren't practicing for their real tattoos later on...

Now, unlike the other Random Junk, these don't break. The kids put them on their arms or whatever, and they stay for a few days. They actually work as they are supposed to, amazingly enough.

The problem with the temporary tattoos is the designs they come in.

Some are incomprehensible....

 

...some are inappropraite....





...and some are downright disturbing.







And we can't forget this favorite:

Water tubes.

(So they are apparently called, according to the Oriental Trading Comany, who has made an empire out of Random Junk That Will Break Immediately.)

I can't TELL you how many of these have come into my house, caused minutes of fun, and then been forgotten somewhere, until they spring a leak and ooze their water-like subtance into the rug.

As you might have surmised by the tone of my ranting, a large influx of this crap has just made its way into my house today. Half of it is broken already, and I predict the demise of the rest by tomorrow.

But it makes the kids happy, right?

Houston, We HAVE a Pee Pee

YAY! After over a week of fruitless sitting on the potty, the other day there was finally something IN it!

I will admit some trickery was involved in getting Baby Girl to go peepee in the potty.

And the trick has not been repeated by either twin since.

But it's a good sign, right?

Humor me. PLEASE.

The Pet Wars Are Not Over!

Well, the mouse to cat ratio in the house is down to 1:1.

Yep. Another mouse has been stalked, caught and killed around here.

R.I.P. Bubbles.

I’m starting to think maybe mice aren’t a good pet when you have a predatory feline in the house as well…

Okay, I admit, I thought that from the beginning.

(See my previous post about what happened to the other mouse here, if you want.)

This most recent mouse execution was the result of a long-term campaign on the part of the cat. For several months he’s been hanging around the cage in ET’s room, especially at night, working on a plan of attack. Often she’s awakened to find the cat sitting on top of the glass aquarium the mouse lived in, just watching. Periodically he would wake her up by slamming himself into the plastic cover, and she’d chase him off.

She complained to me about it.

ET: Why does Kitty want to eat my mouse?
Me: Well, he’s a predator. He can’t help wanting to eat a mouse.
ET: But, he has his own food in his dish. He should eat that.
Me: Think of it this way. Suppose YOU were the pet, and we fed you nice healthy food every day in your dish. But we kept a delicious treat sitting in the middle of the room in an impenetrable glass box. Just to look at. And then we said, “Forget about that lovely-looking cheeseburger in the cage. Go eat your bowl of salad!”
ET: Oh.

Anyways, it turns out the glass box was not as impenetrable as we’d thought.

Last weekend, while ET was sleeping over at a friend’s house, Kitty made his move. In the morning the plastic cover on the aquarium was cracked down the middle and the mouse was gone.

I guess one of the times the cat body-slammed the cover it finally gave way. Persistence pays off.

So that’s it for poor Bubbles.

Now the cat has been watching the other mouse cage in GG and Boo’s room…

BTW the above silhouette of the dead mouse is available on a mouse pad at etsy.com. If you're into that sort of thing...

Hey Decorators! We live in the real world here!

My older daughters like to watch those home-decorating shows.

Which are really nice, I admit. But I often wonder if decorators understand that rooms are for actual PEOPLE to live in.

And some times... those actual people have actual CHILDREN!

So as much as I would love to live in a decorator showplace, let's be real; My kids would DESTROY it!

One popular decor item this year: Balls in a Bowl.

Pretty. But can you say "flying projectile?" Can you say "broken window?" How about "black eye?"

All of which would happen within five minutes if these things sat on my coffee table.

Here's a nicely-decorated room that's actually supposed to be FOR a child.

Dried flowers? REALLY?!

It's like an exercise of Count-The-Choking-Hazards! My kids would KILL those beautiful flying swans!

And I can't even BELIEVE the number of white couches you find under "decorating ideas."

Does anybody actually have a white couch in the real world? That's just ASKING for trouble, even if you don't have kids.

And this one has a white RUG too! Don't walk into THIS room with a jar of salsa!

Actually, I'm probably just jealous. Becaues my house will NEVER look this nice.

But that's okay.

I can eat salsa in MY living room any time I want.

Keep reading?

 I saw one of those weird facebook exercises where you post strange things. This one was: Take the book that’s closest to you, turn to page 56, count down to the 5th sentence, and post it as your status.


I guess the idea was to see what you could guess about other people’s reading material by reading a random sentence.

For example, from my friend’s random sentence, it was obvious that her book was about childhood allergies.

I thought, why not?

So I grabbed the book I’ve been attempting to read for the past few days.

It’s touted on the cover as “an international bestseller” and “an absorbing thriller steeped in history.”

I say I’ve been “attempting” to read it because I’ve been having trouble paying attention to this book. For a thriller, it’s not particularly thrilling. It’s a little…dare I say it? Boring. However, I hesitate to throw a book aside until I‘m sure I’ve given it a chance.

Here’s the random sentence:

“Well, you are only sixteen,” said Talleyrand, inhaling the aroma of the brandy in his snifter and taking a sip. “There will be time for many experiences.”

Uh huh.

Not exactly what I’d like to post on my face book page as exemplifying my taste in reading.

I guess I’ll have to officially give up on this one.

Time to move on.

Spring Break

So, it’s spring break here in Hawaii.

That sentence sounds pretty good all by itself. Kind of makes you jealous, doesn’t it? Wish you were here?

Before you start thinking of a wild beach party, remember who you’re talking to.

No wet-T-shirt contests, people! I think that’s more Florida than Hawaii anyway…

By the way, that graphic above was the most G-rated picture I could come up with. I searched Google images for "Spring Break." I think I need to wash my eyeballs now...

But I digress.

Around here, Spring Break should be called The Official Torture Mommy Into Insanity With Incessant Whining And Fighting Week.

It’s Wednesday, and I’m pretty close to certifiable by now.

Good job, kids!

For some reason, I decided to exacerbate matters this week by initiating potty-training of the twins.

Yeah. THAT was a brain-wave.

So I’ve been increasing my stress level by forcing the twins to sit on the potty while I sit on the floor and manically read books and sing songs to keep them entertained and therefore seated.

It’s day THREE, and we have yet to produce anything inside the potty.

But I’m still singing!

In the meantime, the fight in the living room over the possession of the remote and/or the seat closest to the TV has escalated into a real smackdown.

Also, last night the kitchen sink clogged up and filled with (brown) standing water, AND Baby Girl threw up in the car today.

So far Spring Break is shaping up to be AWESOME.

Still jealous?

Wish you were here….

What the twins have been doing during naptime...

....NOT SLEEPING!

Now that Baby Boy can get out of bed, he roams the room, climbs the furniture, and generally causes trouble during naptime.

Baby Girl, who is still in her crib and so far can't get out, just watches him and eggs him on.

It's not an environment that's conducive to sleep, for either one of them.

At first, Baby Girl enjoyed throwing things out of her bed and demanding that Baby Boy retrieve them for her.

I know this from a conversation I heard through the door.

Baby Girl: BLANKIE!
Baby Boy: No blankie!
Baby Girl: BLANKIE!
Baby Boy: Shut up!
Baby Girl: SHUT UP!
Baby Boy: SHUT UP!

Obviously they've been listening to their older sisters fight.

Since then they've used naptime to accomplish lots of interesting things:

1. Turning the lights on and off.
2. Taking all the hangers out of the closet and putting them under Baby Boy's bed.
3. Getting all the socks out of the drawer and making a puppet show.
4. Transferring all the shoes from the shoe basket to Baby Girl's crib.
5. Pulling the window shades until they fell off their rollers and loudly declaring them, "BROKEN!"
6. Ripping up a very nice Blue's Clues board book that we've had at least ten years.
7. Finding Baby Girl's swimsuit so she could put it on over her clothes.
8. Removing their diapers and hiding them.
9. Banging the sliding closet door open and closed repeatedly.

And number 10....

Can you guess what this one is? Here's a closer look:

Removing the tape from their favorite music cassette, rendering it unplayable.

Basically they are systematically destroying everything in their room, or forcing me to remove it.

But I guess there's not much else to do during naptime, if you've ruled out sleeping as a pastime....

 Especially if you've been eating Choco-Mallows.

(Who GAVE him those?)

Why no one ever contacts me...

I probably mentioned before that I'm working on being a writer.

I've not been particularly sucessful at it, by the way.

I just read an interesting blog post from a literary agent named Rachelle.

Just to summarize: she was wondering why so many writers have websites or blogs without having an e-mail address or any way to contact them listed.

I quote, "Why would you even bother putting yourself out there without giving people a way to contact you?"


Oh.

Well, Rachelle, I suppose it's because I'm a complete moron.

I mean, I truly didn't think of it.

Obviously I'm not the sharpest pencil in the box here.



In fact, when I first made this blog my mother pointed out that I hadn't even put MY OWN NAME on it!

She said this in an extremely tactful manner, of course.

As in, she didn't wallop me upside the head and yell, "You IDIOT! How are people going to know who you ARE?!"

Which she would have been perfectly justified in doing.

I fixed that, and now I've made it so my e-mail address shows in my profile.

So let those e-mails roll in!

Unless you're just trying to sell me Viagra, or something. I've already got enough of those offers, thanks.

Rachelle says I really should set it up so people can click on the address right from my blog, and it can be encrypted so spam won't go through, or something. Well, I don't really know how to do that....

Maybe later.

I wouldn't want to overload my poor little dull-pencil-point brain just now...

The Dreaded Big Kid Bed

I think I’ve just heard the tolling of the death knell for naptime.

It’s called The Introduction of the Big Kid Bed.

I’ve been dreading it.

I’ve seen this before. First the kid learns how to get out of his/her crib. Then you say to yourself, “Well, I suppose it’s time for the Transition to the Big Kid Bed.”

And THEN you spend every bedtime and naptime forcing the child to remain in his/her bed. Until you finally give up on naptime and just settle for making the kid sleep at night, which is definitely NON negotiable.

Well, let me just say, the whole thing is much worse with twins, which is why I tried to stave it off as long as possible with the crib tents.

But now that Baby Boy has figured out how to tunnel out of his crib tent and roam freely about the bedroom….well, we can’t put it off any longer.

He’s in The Big Kid Bed.

The other one will follow soon enough.

So long, naptime!

Sigh.

Baby Boy is REALLY tired!

Baby Boy feel asleep standing up today.

I'm not kidding.

We came back from a birthday party at a bouncy-gym kind of place and he was pretty tired. He stood there with his shoes on his feet, put his face on the couch, and sacked out.

Now if only his sister could have followed his example...