Avoid Beverages While Reading

In general I think it's lame to write a Blog entry about someone else's Blog entry, but Dooce is so darn funny I just have to share. Particularly this entry about housebreaking her new puppy. And in an odd coincidence, her older dog Chuck, bears more than a passing resemblance to our dog Taffy.
I can remember back to the good old days when we adopted Taffy and the good people at the Humane Society, when asked if she was housebroken, deftly avoided answering that question by saying, "We're not sure because we've kept her crated."

The truthful answer to that question was a resounding "no." Let's just say we have now replaced our wall to wall carpeting along with an area rug that I was more than a little attached to.

Taffy, like Dooce's puppy, no longer poops and pees on the carpeting on a regular basis, but she has certainly replaced that with several other annoying behaviors, such as rampant underwear munching, and then passing said underwear in little multi-colored piles all over the front yard.

But that's another Blog entry for another day when I'm feeling far more creative.

For today, enjoy reading Dooce. Inevitably I snort some sort of beverage out my nose while I'm reading her Blog. The best I can hope for is that I'm not drinking soda when it happens.

Because DAMN those bubbles burn when they come out.

I Don't Think I'm Equipped To Raise A Boy

Jamie do you have to pee?

"No."

Then why is your hand down your pants?

"Because my penis keeps going up and down."

Jamie I'm pretty sure that's because your hand is in your pants.

"No it's not."

Fair enough. After all, it's not my penis.

Don't Drink The Apple Juice

First I must preface this story by saying that the story I am about to tell will disturb my mother on so many levels. So if you're reading this Mom, uh, Hi! You might want to stop now. Consider yourself warned.

We keep a gate at the bottom of the steps to keep Meredith from climbing the stairs - there are 13 of them so a pretty good fall if she were to fall down them. She thinks climbing stairs is big fun so she makes a beeline for them if she thinks they're open. She also seems to have a capacity for hearing tones previously detectable only by canines and sensitive computer equipment; hearing so powerful that she hears this gate opening regardless of where she is in the house.

Jamie just recently learned how to open this gate so he can go upstairs to use the bathroom, but he doesn't always remember to close it. Being a three year old boy, he also (like many adult males I know) does not always remember to flush. Heck I'm just happy when he gets the pee in the toilet.

So I'm sitting here and realize I don't see Meredith at the same time I hear a noise from upstairs. I go flying upstairs and there she is grinning a self-satisfied grin, soaked up to her shoulders in toilet water (you guessed it - unflushed) gleefully splashing with the pitcher we use to rinse hair in one hand and bobbing the drain plug up and down in the other hand like some sort of weird demented splashing yo-yo.

As a friend pointed out, I was grateful Jamie didn't have to poop.

My Exersaucer Cannot Be Converted To A Porch Swing And No I Won't Mail It To You

Meredith's first birthday is in 2 weeks. She's outgrown lots of her baby "equipment" like swings and exersaucers. We're done having babies so there's really no reason to hang on to this stuff so we're listing some things on Craigslist. Craigslist is great isn't it? Free listings and you get to make money and clear excess stuff out of the house and someone else gets good bargain. It's like a Garage Sale without the Garage. Everyone's happy right?

The only annoying thing about Craigslist? You talk to a lot of flakes. Like the girl that drove all the way from Butler on Thanksgiving Day to look at a baby seat with a three point harness. On the phone she asked me if she could convert it to a 5 point harness. No absolutely not. But when she arrived that was all she wanted to look at - NOT the stroller that was actually listed for sale in the Craigslist listing. I was just tossing the baby seat in for free.

We were selling a truck years ago. It was a really old truck and it was pretty shitty looking and it was one of those trucks that might go another year or two or it might fall apart and blow up the next day. But it was inspected for the year and it ran. We ran an ad in the Pennysaver, the local magazine that's the print version of Craigslist.

We were only asking $500 for it.

We got calls from some of the world's largest idiots. One woman called and asked me what color it was. Orangey-red mixed with body putty color with a side order of rust. And did I mention it was painted wtih a paintbrush? So then she wants to know what color the interior is. Uh lady? It's a $500 truck why do you care what color it is? She tells me she wants to buy it for her teenage daughter. I assured her that her teenage daughter would want nothing to do with this truck. But she persisted and wanted to know if it had a good stereo system. I couldn't inflict that truck on some poor unsuspecting 16 year old girl, so as much as I wanted to sell the beast, I politely declined her offer to look at it.

Then we had the guy that called about 12 times a day. He started off politely enough stating his name, his interest in our truck, and his phone number and would we please call him back. He left several messages throughout the day, each more agitated than the last that we hadn't already returned his call. Because we weren't out of the house during the day doing anything like WORKING. But I suspect that possibility doesn't occur to professionally unemployed people.

For the next few days he would call regularly throughout the day AND night sometimes as late as 2:00 am and scream at us on our answering machine, telling us we really needed to call him back right away because he really needed a f*$%ing truck!

Yeah, I was rushing to tell HIM where I lived.

Then there was the guy that called and asked lots of appropriate questions, was very interested and understood that this was a work vehicle in questionable shape. Oh yes, he understood and he was really interested. Great! So when do you want to look at it?

And he starts giving me directions to his house. Uh, sorry Mister, this is not Domino's. But he explains logically, I can't get there I don't have a car. That's why I need this truck.

It's called public transportation buddy. Go get a bus schedule.

Last but not least was the guy that called about 3 months after we sold it. When he called he sounded a bit "mellow." Like the kind of mellow that's achieved with a pipe and fragrant green plants. I told him he was too late and I asked him where he got our number. He said he read it in the Pennysaver and he had it right in front of him.

Dude, you might want to check the date on that Pennysaver you used to lay out your rolling papers.

We did finally sell it to a really nice guy that painted houses for a living and his pregnant girlfriend for $400. And it ran for awhile afterward too because we often saw it driving around.

Perhaps we should just look at Craigslist as a social networking forum for the underprivileged.

The Ears Have It

A few days ago I posted this photo of my daughter Meredith.
And all I could think was that it really looked like a photo of my Uncle on my Dad's side, Meredith's Great Uncle. That's my Dad on the left and my Uncle on the right.

So I sent a copy of both photos to my Uncle commenting on the resemblance and he responded:

"There is a "family" look, like poor Irish, sparse hair, high hair line and cab doors open."

Wasn't quite what I had in mind for a family legacy.

Thirty Years From Now She'll Discuss This In Therapy

We've had a lot of bubblegum being passed out in our house lately. This is an ongoing battle between Dave and I. He feels the kids need more candy and I feel they don't. After all, it'll spoil their appetite for the bread and water.

But truly he seems determined to give Jamie and Sabrina a wicked sweet tooth, and frankly they don't need the assistance. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with the occasional candy or sweets or even gum. I'm not one of THOSE Moms. It's not like I pass out toothbrushes for Halloween or anything. Because seriously? You people that do that? You're just begging to have your house egged.

Not that I've ever done that or anything.

But when Jamie asks for a piece of fruit and Dave says "Here's a cupcake," I get a little annoyed. And it's becoming a bit of an addiction.

This morning I picked up Meredith and found bubblegum stuck to her pajama'd bum. I was fed up. I decreed there would be no more gum chewing in the house.

As if I had just taken away her last crumb of happiness, Sabrina melted to the floor in a sobbing heap and cried out "FOR HOW LONG?" And because I hadn't had my coffee yet, I replied, "Until you're a teenager and can wash your own clothes."

She was so distraught I almost called Child Protective Services on myself.

We were barely able to peel her off the floor and get her on the school bus as she was concerned with every possible scenario that might involve gum. What if her teacher gave her gum? What if she got gum for Easter? And hey what happened to the gum that was in the cupboard right now?

When I informed her I had thrown it out (I'm really cranky in the mornings) I thought it might be wise to hide the razor blades.

Man if she reacts this way to loss of bubblegum privileges can you imagine how she'll react when she's 16 and I tell her that no she cannot pierce her eyebrow, and I threw out that pack of cigarettes I found in her backpack? And that guy with all the piercings and tattoos that drives a van? No she can't have him either.

Raising Monkeys

At 9 months, Sabrina was my earliest walker. She wasn't a good walker, but by golly she wasn't crawling for anyone. Her early walking career involved a lot of falling down as evidenced by the fact that most of her size 12 month and 18 month clothing is bloodstained. She never met a coffee table she couldn't split her lip on.

But despite walking early she was still generally content to stay earthbound with the mere mortals.

Jamie on the other hand, could climb long before he could walk. We found him halfway up the stairs when he was about 5 months old. After I recovered from the heart failure I installed baby gates everywhere, which prompted him to learn the art of gate climbing. We plucked him off the second shelf of the bookcase shortly before or after that (my mind is foggy from the lack of sleep or possibly lack of oxygen that accompanies the abovementioned heart failure). After those incidents it was onward and mostly upward.

When my Mom would advise us to "put things up" to get them out of Jamie's reach, I would explain that we were running out of "up". Our next move was to velcro the knives to the ceiling.

We joked that sooner or later we would find him swinging from the ceiling fans. Thankfully he hasn't accomplished that (yet) and I am grateful that he can't read. We don't need to give him any ideas.

But I just always assumed that it was a boy thing.

But Meredith did this yesterday all on her own despite the fact she still isn't walking yet.

And now she's pretty much climbing everything. Stairs, couch, rocking chair, baskets, boxes, walls.........

Oh wait - that's just me.