I'd have to be pre-tty desperate

An excerpt from my inner monologue, while viewing job postings just now:

Inbound sales.
Outbound sales.
CNC operator.
Truck driver.
Telemarketer.
Medical office asistant--urine taster.

URINE TASTER??

Oh, urine tester. Yeah, that makes more sense.

Are we weird?

There's this strange cartoon called "A Little Princess" or something, and the main characters have very strong North English accents.  And on one episode, which we probably saw over a year ago, one of the characters said a fairly innocuous line, but with the accent added in, it struck us all as funny.

"Maaybah thay claymed in threw the windahr."

(Translation: Maybe they climbed in through the window.)

Anyhow, for some reason one of us said that line last night, and it led to--literally--5 minutes of all of us repeating the line over and over again in different voices (monster voice, baby voice, crazy voice), still doing the accent...and then it culminated in everyone beat boxing and rapping the line over top.

Anyhow, at the end of this really bizarre impromptu performance, I was struck by the fact that it was completely odd, yet it seemed completely normal at the time.

So I just thought I'd ask -- are we weird?

(Note: I'm pretty sure I already know the answer.)

Braver than me...

Just out visiting with our neighbours who were back from a day of fishing.  After some coaxing, E picked up one of the fish and handed it to our neighbour ... We all congratulated her on her bravery, and then she started dancing around yelling "I touched a fish! I touched a fish! IN YOUR FACE ... YOU ... PEOPLE WHO DIDN'T TOUCH ONE!"

So, she needs to work on her trash talk a bit ...

Let us all bask in television's warm glowing warming glow.

I watched an episode of a TV show that had a profound impact on my life. It reminded me that TV can have a positive effect in the world. It made me feel young and alive and joyful. It underlined one of life's great undeniable truths...that Barry White is awesome.

It was the Whacking Day episode of The Simpsons.

Oprah may have renewed people's commitment to making the world a better place, but seeing that episode of The Simpsons has made me renew my commitment to watching a bunch of yellow people get up to hilarious hijinks.

In other news, two girls were crying last night, both of them obviously still asleep...S was standing next to E's bed, crying because E 'was pushing her' ... I can only assume that she was pushing her to get her away from her bed.  Why was E crying?  Well, besides the unwelcome sight of her sister standing next to her bed crying in the middle of the night, the only thing I could glean from in between the sobs was:

"What about the underwear?"

I really want to hear what that dream was about!

What's on right now?

Just had a discussion about thunder and the idea that it is the sound of God re-arranging his furniture. I did an imitation of God saying "I just don't like that chair over there, I'm going to try it over here..." and then we got on to the idea of God sitting on a couch, watching TV.  What would God watch?

Consensus is that he watches highlights of what we all do every day, like his own personal America's Funniest Home Videos.

E: And whatever channel that Royal Wedding was on, I bet he just watched that all day.

Now I'm going to bed. It's our anniversary, DH is off to band practice, and I'm going to curl up with a glass of wine and some home made chocolate chip cookies. I don't know if this is what Oprah meant by living my best life and being responsible for my happiness ... but I'm going to assume that it was.

Super Family

Last night E envisioned a whole set of comic book superhero personas for our family.

She, of course, is Animal Girl.  Her outfit will be pink, with paw prints all over it. I don't know if I ever caught what her super-skill is, but I assume it has to do with communicating with animals. Or saving them. Or miming to them.  Have to get back to you on that one.
S will be Smart Girl ("because she thinks she knows everything"). Her outfit will be blue, with an exclamation point on her chest. She will be 'like Velma on Scooby-Doo.'
K will be Craft Girl. Any craft that she makes will become real and we will be able to use it when fighting bad guys ... 'like a big super hero gun that we can shoot the bad guys with ... or a pepperoni if we get hungry." Her outfit is green. Dunno what's on her chest.  Bottle of glue maybe?  Googly eyes?
Pop will be Building Man, with the ability to fix anything. His outfit will be orange, with a hammer on the chest.
I will be ... wait for it ... Computer Girl. "Because you're on the computer so much." My super-strength? Apparently, because of my over-developed typing fingers, it is the ability to poke people in the face.

Worst. Superhero. Ever.

WUAB

We had a fantastic play date today. I say 'we' because the girls had fun, and the mom who had the girls over is AWESOME so I hung out with her and laughed all day.

At one point all of the kids wanted to go outside to play, and E really just wanted to stay in and watch TV. Did I mention this is the first fully awesome day we've had in, oh, 6 months? So at first I was mortified, but then the Mom and I admitted that we were both that kid when we were growing up and we turned out fine.

Games shows all morning, soaps all afternoon.  And WUAB, channel 20!  Rocky & Bullwinkle, Leave It to Beaver, I think The Andy Griffith Show was in there, too. Super Host! Laverne & Shirley reruns! That's probably also where we saw Good Times and What's Happening? Thank God we had the 'brown box' converter! And J across the street had a weird one that wasn't brown, and you had to slide the thing along to change the channels. (As opposed to the brown box's futuristic buttons that stayed down until you pressed another button...)

Anyhow, it was a lovely way to spend the day, especially if the Rapture really is going to happen in 45 minutes. Although unfortunately E ended the visit by farting--repeatedly and with intent--at one of her hosts. So that'll be a nice memory for all of us cherish in the hereafter.

Best! Day! Ever!

Can you imagine the excitement of being a 6-year-old who randomly walks up to the button that turns on the splash pad, pushes the button out of habit, not expecting anything to happen, and then WHAMMO the water starts spraying all over the place?  

Yeah. It was pretty awesome.

So they pretty much just ran around shouting 'This is awesome!' and 'I'm wet!' and 'Best day ever!' for the first 10 or 15 minutes...

But the best was K, who randomly yelled:

"SHOWER ME WITH LOVE AND SPRINKLER WATER!"

She's sweet...and a bit diabolical

After cooking the roast beef beyond recognition, I was lamenting my cooking skillz. E offered these comforting words:

"Mummy, it's okay if you're not the best cook in the world.  Because we live next door to the best cook in the world, so you can just get her to cook stuff and bring it over here and tell people you made it."

Funky

But not in a Chaka Khan way, just in an 'in a funk' way.  Job hunting is soul-crushing!  The only thing that has consistently made me laugh over the past couple of days is the fact that a hair salon is looking for a licensed stylist.  And apparently they are looking quite actively, because the ad keeps reposting every day. And I'm thinking perhaps they don't realize that when the posting shows up on the sites, it shortens to:

"Joe Blow's Salon is looking for a lice..."

That would not entice me, were I a licensed hair stylist.  Or a customer.  Like, is there just one pesky one that they really need to get rid of?

You know what else would cheer me up?  If my children said or did something hilarious.  But alas, they have been relatively normal.

So, I shall pull one from the archive, dust it off, and see if it still makes me giggle...

Should I go with the time E told me she was having trouble sleeping because she was worried that I'm ruining her life?

The time we were having a lovely family conversation, and suddenly S put up her hand and said "Wait a minute ... " and then cracked one off that was louder and longer than any I'd ever heard?

[ed. note: I know I'm not supposed to find that funny, but I do.  Just like the people falling down on AFV, it will always be funny.  If a person fell on AFV AND cut heat at the same time?  I would probably liz...]

Maybe I'll go with this one:  I went out to a rehearsal one night (although I'm sure my husband told the girls that I was out drinking) and the girls wanted to put on lip gloss.  DH told them that they couldn't, because it was against the law and if he let them, the girls would have to go live in a foster home.

The next morning they looked at me tearfully and asked if they were really going to have to live in a "foster hole."

See?  I'm not the only one who doesn't know what they're doing!

Oh, if only...

E wants S to go to a school where they teach you to be 'less annoying.'

S was horrified by this suggestion, saying she would miss her sisters too much.

K tried to sweeten the deal -- "But you'd get to go on a bus!"

I explained that if such a school did exist, I'm sure it would already be full to the rafters.

Possibly...

According to S, babies kick when they're inside the womb because they wake up and say, "Oh man, where am I?  I've gotta get out of here!" and then try to kick their way out.

This actually just reminded me of the time S asked how babies are born.  Well, no, it started with "I don't want to have a baby because I don't want anyone to cut my tummy." So I had to explain that I had a C-section because there were three of 'em in there, but it usually doesn't happen that way ... which then of course led to the question, "How does it usually happen?"

When I explained that there was a hole down there where the baby came out, she literally laughed for five minutes.

Looong rainy day

S enters, indignant.

"E kicked me and almost gave me a bit of a nosebleed!"

"And how many times did you kick E before she did this to you?"

[pause]

"I don't know, I wasn't counting."

Tina Fey

So I'm unemployed.  Goin' on two months.  Kinda starting to get me down.

So I'm looking at the job postings, as I do twelve hudred times a day, every day.

There's a posting to be a receptionist at The Athletic Club.  I think: "Hey, that would be just like when Tina Fey worked at the front desk at the YMCA."

This is:
a) a sign of an unhealthy obsession with Tina Fey.
b) a really weird attempt to pretend that she and I have anything in common.
c) the worst justification for considering a job EVER.
d) all of the above.

Anecdote of the day:

Sitting in the back of the van at Mackie's, door open, havin' a car picnic because the place was packed. The conversation turns to bodily functions, as it OFTEN does in our family.  E declares loudly--

"We're not buying dried apricots for this guy again!  (jerking her thumb in the direction of Pop)  They make his farts smell horrible!"

--just as a young family walked by the van.  The best part was that the wife tried to politely ignore the conversation, but I saw the husband smile knowingly.

Whew!

That was a long, dark 16 hours.  Blogger went loco apparently, but now all is well with the universe.

The only casualty of all this is my 'toilet tag' entry, so you'll just have to ask your friends to explain that one if it ever comes up in conversation.  And it will.

[May 15--that's soooo weird.  Toilet Tag entry has mysteriously re-appeared.  Huzzah!]

Last night we were having an in-depth discussion about the Princess Bride.  S mentioned that she didn't like it when 'the guy who turned out to be Wesley was fighting with that big animal.'

E: You mean the RSVPs?  The rats of unusual size?

You know what? Considering she's only seen the movie once, I'll give her a pass on that one.

And then later on in the evening S had her regularly-scheduled nightmare.  I heard her stirring and whimpering via the monitor, so I hoofed it upstairs.  By the time I got to their room (10 seconds, tops), S was STANDING ON K'S BED.  She was standing there, blathering away about something, and K was still fast asleep.  Thank God. Can you imagine waking up to that?  Luckily S wasn't sleeping with her new hockey mask and chain saw last night.

OH, and K is having issues with bees, because she got stung last fall and so she has spent the entire winter fretting about when the bees will come back.  So she was getting herself all wound up about it the other day, and I said "For God's sake K, what do you want me to do--put you in a giant plastic bubble?"

K:  (earnestly/excitedly) I would LOVE that.

Her sisters convinced her this was a bad idea, though, because she would get too hot if she sat in the sun for too long. So they can apply logic to ridiculous scenarios like that, but if their socks 'feel weird' they can't figure out that they should just get some different socks?  Life's mysteries....

Kids today and their newfangled games...

According to S, the girls were playing 'toilet tag' today.

What is toilet tag you ask?

When you get tagged, you stand with one arm sticking out beside you.  To get 'unfrozen', someone has to run up to you and push your arm down, then you spin around once and you're free.

The most surprising thing about the game is that this is not something that their father taught them.

Parenting mistake number 673

E was just reminiscing...

"Remember when you used to say S looks like Pop and K looks like you and I look like the milkman?"

Of all the things I've said over the last 6 years, this is the one she actually remembers?

In other news:

I love the fact that when S is really passionate about explaining something to me, she uses her hands like Richie Aprile in this scene:

Example:

"I can't believe O said that the Tooth Fairy brings a present when your second tooth falls out. [start doing Richie Aprile hand thing now] The Tooth Fairy can't carry presents!" [stop]

The weird thing is--she kinda says it like him, too.

Should I correct her?

E is glad she's a girl:

"Girls are better because they're into recycling, they hardly ever go to jail, and they hardly ever do graffiti."

Backfiring

I don't know, I try to impart life lessons onto my kids, but it keeps backfiring.

Like the whole Harry Potter thing.  I read the books last summer.  All of them. In three weeks.  So yes, I was a bit...focussed on them for that time, but not to the detriment of our family life.  I mean, people were still clothed and fed, and I just read while they were watching movies or took the book with me when they played at the park.

Near the end of the odyssey, the girls started asking me what happens in the story and I explained that I didn't want to tell them everything, in case they wanted to read the books someday. At which point S said:

"I don't think I'll want to read those books when I'm older. I'll want to spend time with my family instead."

So. I thought I was modelling how positive and exciting reading can be, but I actually ended up showing them that reading is evil.  Well played.

And now?

On Sundays, after enjoying a lighthearted hour of watching people fall down on AFV, we have been sucked into Extreme Home Makeover.  Don't get me wrong, I love a good cry, and this show always delivers...And when you get past Ty's incessant screaming, the people do seem to be earnest and lovely.

So I'm thinking we're watching a show that will illustrate to the girls how important it is to help people who have suffered misfortunes and fallen on hard times.  The girls' take?

"Mommy, why can't we live in a falling down house so that we can get a home makeover?"

I give up.

The first 5 minutes of my day

Cuddled up with E this morning while she was doing one of her trademark monologues. 

It started out being about money ("it can't buy you everything mommy"-- followed by an extensive list of the things it can't buy -- most of which it actually can, like 'fingernails' but I wasn't going to argue with her when she was on such a philosophical tear).

She then moved on to her plan for creating a schedule to clean up after the dog (you know, the one we don't own) that went something like this -- 'we clean it up one day, you guys clean it up the next day, and so on until the dog dies.' I like how she's envisioning the excitement of getting a dog, the drudgery of looking after the dog, and the inevitable death of the dog all in one sentence. 

We then briefly revisited the tough time she's having with her career decision -- still torn between being a veterinarian and being a mime.  Today she decided that this could also be done on an every other day schedule.  At this point K started yelling out requests from E's mime routine, so we had a quick performance of 'trapped in a box' and 'in the elevator.'

She brought it all back home by returning to her original point about how important the real things in life are -- like family.  As she concluded,  she snuggled up closer to me, but was having trouble getting comfortable.  I shifted around and said 'sorry, my boobs are in your way!'

"It's okay, mummy.  They're part of the family too."

Dancefest 2011

Critical--almost fatal--levels of cuteness were reached today when the girls participated in Dancefest at the Western Fair Agriplex.

Emma described it thusly:

"Two thumbs up! With a star in the middle!"

You know what else gets two thumbs up with a star in the middle? The fact that I went BACK TO BED this morning.  For the first time since finishing work, I got up, got dressed, shipped the kids out...and then crawled back into bed!

AND I had dinner with a friend tonight, and we apparently decided to pretend it was 1992, because I ate fries with gravy at Prince Albert's Diner. The only things missing were high-waisted jeans and a body suit. Well, and the fact that it was 7 p.m. and not 2 a.m. and I hadn't been drinking 50 all night.  But still -- fries and gravy!

Lookin' good Mr. Kotter!

The bedhead that greeted me in the mirror this morning was really quite spectacular.  I mean, I've seen some good ones before--my roommate once just walked out of her bedroom and pointed wordlessly at her head...there was nothing either of us could say in the presence of such a marvel--but mine today was really pretty good. It looked very much like Beatrice's fascinator from the royal wedding was growing out of the back of my head.

But the best was look was yet to come.  A few hours later, when I pulled into a parking space and turned off the loser cruiser, I suddenly realized (as if someone else had been responsible for dressing me) that I was out in public IN RUNNING SHOES.  Not cute little runners, not Cons, nothing like that. Just...runners.  And, in the interest of full disclosure here, I will also admit that I was still wearing the t-shirt and sports bra I had worn for my work out.  So I was wearing running shoes AND rockin' the uniboob.

Why did I think that just changing from yoga pants to jeans had made it all okay?  That the switcheroo had magically rendered the rest of the outfit socially acceptable? Why didn't I just take the extra twelve seconds to lift and separate the girls and put on a shirt that isn't XXL and doesn't falsely give people the idea that I ran for the cure when we all know I just walked briskly for it?

Egads.

As God is my witness, I'll never be schlumpy again.

New lid

Oh wind and rain, why do you insist on turning a kicky new 'do into a dorkalogical helmet of shame?

Yesterday, I mentioned to the girls that my hair was driving was driving me nuts, and I was glad to be getting it cut today.  E then casually mentioned that 'all the other mommies have long hair.' So I asked her if she would rather I had long hair.

"Well...I wouldn't want to tell you what to do..."

Oh my God, she's going to make such a good mother.

First parenting choice of the day

This morning I was throwing in a load of laundry when my daughter came into the laundry room. She pointed at a pair of my undies, asked a question, and I was faced with the prospect of explaining menstruation to a 6-year-old at 7 o'clock on a Monday morning, or letting her continue to believe (as she had immediately supposed) that I had sharted.

Starting off the week in a no-win situation like this does not fill me with optimism. But it does make me laugh.  Which is important, considering it is the first week of my 40th year (sure I'm only 39, but you don't get awarded the title of 40-year-old until you have actually completed that lap) and my sixth week of unemployment.

"Aha!" you think. "That explains the whole 'creating a blog' thing."

Well, yes, it does.  And stop being so smug.