Category Archives: Hilarity

Back to the Future

I kinda let this slide. For two years.

Excuses I’ve pondered:

• I accepted that CEO position. Finally. It kept me busy.

• I accidentally had four more kids. They’re a handful.

• I waited in line to see Star Wars. It was a really long line.

• I binge watched The Simpsons. That’s like, over 500 episodes. It was a time suck.

But, none of those would be true.

Instead, I listened, I shared, and I celebrated this once wee little guy. He’s not so wee anymore. He’s almost five feet tall now. He’s wicked smart. He questions the norm. He’s a mathlete. And, he is still L. Lovely and caring and hilarious and truthful and himself.

Jackpot.

IMG_3280

Fun with Felt

L came home yesterday with a special buddy. He decided he wanted to do a little sewing (again, I question if we are biologically connected as needle/thread aren’t part of my skill set or my vocabulary).

Directions for making “Pocket Penguin” (as told to me by L):

“First, you take a piece of black felt and you fold it in half
And cut out a shape that looks like an egg and
stitch around the sides but leave a little hole at the bottom
For stuffing him only you may not find real stuffing, so you can use
whatever is lying around that’s pretty soft and then
sew him shut and cut out the rest of the pieces and sew them on
And make sure you make his flippers big enough
Because otherwise they’ll come off, and you’ll spend a lot of time
Trying to find them, like I did, and then you’ll give up,
And need to start over, but that’s okay, because sometimes
It’s best to just start over, but keep going, don’t give up,
and sew on some buttons for eyes and then put him
In your pocket and he’s a forever buddy.”

Penguin2

TV Is Bad

Dad is out of town, traveling for work. L and I swing by a local pizza joint for a to-go pie. We look up and there he is…

The Great and Powerful Oz. No, not the guy behind the curtain. The one who has a television show which, up until yesterday, I’d never seen.

The subtitles are flying by, (phonetically spelled, always a plus for a kid), and suddenly we realize this Great and Powerful Oz is talking about the dangers of eating (too much) red meat, the alarming rate of salmonella in poultry, not over-indulging in calcium…

Animated visuals are showing platelets zipping through the bloodstream like pinballs, an ominous buildup of plaque. Ultimately, we see a heart cease to beat (in cartoon, natch).

L: “Ack! I don’t think I’m going to eat red meat anymore. I barely do anyway.”

L: “Is hamburger considered red meat?”

L: “What did it say about turkey?”

L: “So milk is bad? Should I stop taking my vitamins?”

I do what any good, responsible parent would: I pull out my iPhone and command him to play.

L has been thrown off the scent.

All I can think is “The Exorcist” might have been less traumatic.

oz

You Just Can’t Undo Some Things

Insight:

I grew up in the Midwest. One of my parents was raised in the Deep South; the other grew up all over the place and escaped a fairly dark childhood because he is, well, he’s brilliant. College at 16. PhD at 20. Particle physicist/musician/poet/programmer/humorist. All of that probably came to be because he was so dang smart and because he absolutely, desperately needed to get away.

That said, brains aren’t equivalent to common sense. The first movie we saw in the theater was “Soylent Green.” (Yes, it’s people. For a small child, NOT GOOD.) The first movie I saw on television? “The Birds.” Yes, THOSE birds. Terrifying, squawking, ubiquitous, horrifying, not-melodious birds. To this day, a bird that’s too close is, dagnabbit, just plain scary to me. Lovely songbirds? Charming from a distance. Hummingbirds? Cute, but aren’t they a bit like killer bees?

This weekend, I set out to conquer that fear. What better place than a beach filled with seagulls and a loaf of stale bread? Seagulls are goofy, right? Pixar and Disney depict them that way. Sure, they can be a bit bossy. So can I.

Bread chunks in hand, I began my quest. Gulls are not shy. In fact they’re downright aggressive. (And, yes, of course I should know this, but we must remember the Midwestern roots.) The second they sensed “sucker with bread” they swarmed. I shrieked. They stepped back and squawked at me. With great trepidation, I held out my hand, with giant 72,000 foot long bread scrap (give or take), and they swarmed again.

Shriek.
Squawk.
Shriek.
Squawk.
…

I stopped my lunacy long enough to take a good look at the leader of the bird pack and what I saw looked downright human.

“Just pipe down and hand me the bread and we’ll all go on with our day.”

Did that. Lost my voice in the process. Gained a little less fear of birds. And a son who laughed so hard, he fell to the ground and said, “my mom is crazy.”

Laughter. As much and as often as possible.

birdsEDIT

What the F?

Yesterday as I was chopping some veggies for dinner, I nicked my finger and let out an F-bomb.

L: “Mom, I think it would be more appropriate for you to stop using that sort of language. If you’re telling me not to use it, I think you should stop using it. You’re sending a confusing message.”

M:

L: “Do you think you can stop using that sort of language? Because you’re sort of telling me it’s okay. And I know it’s not.”

M: (DREAM SEQUENCE: You betcha, I will not say s–t, f–k, a–h–e, d-bag, d–k wad, h–l to the no. I will abstain from such language.)

M: “Got it. No more potty mouth.”

L: “Great. What’s for dinner?”