Feeling the love here at the Playground!

Baby Sis called the other day and informed us she was 'stuffed', 'the bun was in the oven', 'with baby'...She did not actually use those words but I was able to grasp the gist of her conversation almost immediately.

sis: hey, do you and wife.imp still have baby clothes? I will need some in Sept....
me: Of course! We keep them just in case boy.imp stops growing...Oh, you are! Congratulations...yada yada yada...

So I work all day and then called the eldest bro and ask if his daughter has any old clothes (twin girls) and received a very vague answer (she lives in Colorado and I know that my older brother calls her up daily to check on the status of her twins clothing needs...) Anyway our younger brother (who is single and childless) immediately offered to send baby sister all of the baby clothes he has at home.

Soooo, it looks like in Sept. Baby Sister will be getting gift cards.... (or knowing my siblings, greeting cards -- Hey, don't hate the Playas', hate the game!).

clipart from: http://birding.about.com/library/bl0600stork3.htm

Let's update the Three Wise Monkeys

It is time to make a stand. The 'Speak No Evil' Monkey has seen its time come and go. In our playground we have seen the rise of another wise Monkey.

It started in the the morning in our mouths, grew in the laundry and in our clothes and got stronger in the kitchen, but finally acheived full potency with boy.imp's diapers.

You know those times when bad odors compete for attention in the house.

Morning breath: Ok, we adults know we have it. And we deal. But just about the time the Good Lord put odors in the diapers he also decided that bad smells out of the other end would also be a neat trick!

First thing in the morning, our imps could knock a buzzard off of a shit wagon at 20 paces!

Laundry/body odor: Imps, daylight, the great outdoors. 'Nuff said.

Kitchen: There are the times when you go to cook dinner and are just browning the garlic ('aint nothing better in the kitchen than the smell of browned garlic -- unless it is freshly baked bread) and the imps start screaming because one of them looked cross-eyed at the other's toy...then by the time you get things settled, the garlic has burned and your spouse walks in the front door...

'Yuuuck! what is that smell. I could smell it in the driveway. It smells like someone is burning sewage...'

Cheers mate!

The spouse, wife.imp, who can smell burning food from 2.6 miles away, seems unable to smell a 'loaded diaper'. I have tried several tactics to test her disability. Burning food? She is on it!

Bad Breath? On it!
Body Odor? On it!
Bad smells in the laundry? On it!

BM in boy.imp's diaper? He can do anything short of taking it off and shaking the contents out at her feet and she cannot smell a thing! and I have TRIED to out last her...

I can be gasping my way down our stairs and see b.imp sitting on w.imp's lap, at her feet playing or just running in circles and she looks as if nothing were amiss. Plants are wilting at her elbows, tears are forming in my eyes and girl.imp is trying to shove her nose into her armpits and ....Nothing!

Except that boy.imp now has a diaper rash...

I have seen the light! I am now converted and am now a fulltime supporter of shaking up the accepted tradition of the Wise Monkeys! I fully support and am instigating the campaign to speed the rise of the newest Wise Monkey. The 'Smell No Evil' Monkey.

Yes, dear readers, here at the playground we have risen up and deposed Iwazaru. We are now ruled by the wise insights of:

'See No Evil', 'Hear No Evil', and

'Smell No Evil'.

Monkey photo originially posted at: http://www.tanmonkey.com/funny-monkey-pictures.php

What is the one thing you do not want to happen...

...when changing your imp's diaper?

No answers 1 and 2 are not correct.

No the worst thing to happen when changing your imp's diaper is when you raise its butt to put the clean diaper under the imp--you know, when the little fannie is pointed practically directly straight at your nose--you are greeted with the worst of all sounds...followed by the rankest of all smells that have ever been smelled (without the arrival of any physical evidence)...and you still have to hang around and put on the clean diaper because if you let go of the little one's feet you are going to involved in a 10-minute 'catch as you catch can' race...

'My Fine Is...' UPDATED and less Tame!!

Here’s how it works: You don’t have to confess your answers, just the amount of your fine. (Not per incident!) Tally up your score and post it on your blog with the title… ”My Fine Is…”

OK, this MEME was fine, as far as it went. But to make this more interesting and to really make you honest the list has been broken into 4 major categories (the psychoanalyst amonst you should really enjoy this).

Take your fine and break it down into the total sums for each category (Answers were originally posited to include childhood to present. However I think anything Pre-Teen should be given a pass). How well did you truly know yourselves? If you dare, repost your totals reflecting the total sums as they relate to the categories below!

How well do you know your spouse/significant other? Have them complete this and compare the fine you anticipated with their actual total! (remember the fines are not limited to the time your significant other has spent with you…)

Drugs/Alcohol
Smoked pot — $10
Did acid — $5
Woke up in the morning and did not know the person who was next to you — $40
Ever got drunk at work, or went to work while still drunk — $50
Got drunk, passed out and don’t remember the night before — $20

Deviant Sex
(we assume everything not directly related to procreating and not the Missionary Position a fine…)
Ever had sex at church — $25
Had sex with someone on MySpace — $25
Had sex for money — $100
Had sex on your parents’ bed — $10
Used toys while having sex — $30
Had sex in a pool — $20
Had sex with someone of the same sex — $20
Cheated on your significant other — $10
Masturbated — $10
Cheated on your significant other with their relative or close friend — $20
Done oral — $5
Got oral — $5
Done/got oral in a car while it was moving — $25
Had sex with someone in jail — $25
Made a nasty home video — $15
Had a threesome — $50
Had sex in the wild — $20
Had sex with someone 10 years older — $20
Had sex with someone under 21 and you are over 27 — $25
Had sex with your best friend — $20
Had sex with someone you work with at work — $25
Had anal sex — $80

Deviant Behavior
(again some of these might be more fun than ‘bad’ but they are outside what society calls the ‘accepted norm’)
Kissed some one who’s name you didn’t know — $0.10
Given money to stripper — $25
Been in love with a stripper — $20 (should actually be more because, how can you be in love with a stripper unless you were visiting her place of work????)
Crossed dressed — $10
Hit on someone of the same sex while at work — $15
Went skinny dipping — $5
Kissed someone of the same sex — $10 (giving anyone a peck on the cheek does NOT count)
Been in the same room while someone was having sex — $25
Been in love with two people or more at the same time — $50 (now this fine is just cruel)
Said you love someone but didn’t mean it — $25 (really depends on why you said it, but for the guys we’ll just assume the worst)
Went streaking — $5
Went streaking in broad daylight — $15
Peed in the pool — $0.50
Played spin the bottle — $5
Done something you regret — $20
Lied to your mate — $5
Lied to your mate about the sex being good — $25

Criminal Behavior
Vandalized something — $20
Beat up someone — $20
Been jumped — $10 – (why is being a victim punished with a fine? I don’t know…)
Ever drive drunk — $20
Stole something — $10 (as long as it has value and you took it, it counts!)
Stole something worth more than a hundred dollars — $20
Been arrested — $5
Spent time in jail — $15


My original fine: $410.60


My totals (excluding pre-teen activities): $390.10
Drugs/Alcohol: $0.00
Deviant Sex: $165
Deviant Behavior: $175.10
Criminal Behavior: $50.00

MamaG, Diane - consider yourselves tagged :)

Time to Take A Meme-- Come on. You Know You Want To...

GO WITH YOUR FIRST INSTINCTS !
WHEN CHOOSING NAMES, MAKE SURE THEY ARE REAL PEOPLE THAT YOU ACTUALLY KNOW

1. ON A BLANK SHEET OF PAPER, WRITE NUMBERS 1 THROUGH 10 IN A COLUMN ON THE LEFT.


2. BESIDE THE NUMBERS 1 WRITE DOWN ANY NUMBER YOU WANT.

DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE NUMBER?


3. BESIDE THE NUMBERS 2 & 6, WRITE DOWN THE NAMES OF TWO MEMBERS OF THE OPPOSITE SEX.


4. WRITE ANYONE’ NAME NEXT TO 3, 4, & 5.
(LIKE FRIENDS OR FAMILY...)


5. WRITE DOWN FOUR SONG TITLES IN 7, 8, 9, & 10

If you are interested the key and my answers are in the Comments.

If you do take this Meme on your own....please let me know.

So a lot is going on around the Blog world--but not much at the Playground

Diana at Stuck In Elmo's world has tried to juggle being both a mom and a career woman. While we have been enormously entertained by stories people in her office (I hesitate to call them co-workers because they never seem to do any work), we here at the Playground certainly hope Diana is soon afflicted with office mates that know how chew gum and walk at the same time.

Sweatpantsmom recently was spoiled by her husband on her birthday, making the rest of us men out there look waaaay bad. Come on Dude! at least one of your love notes could have been a demand for 'hot monkey sex!'

Betty at WAYA and Tony at Creative-Type Dads are about to single-handedly make KFC's stock soar into the stratosphere.

The contest to detail the worst pregnancy story over at Suburban Turmoil has just about driven me right into my doctor's office to demand the 'little procedure' that will unarm my little soldiers.

Radioactive Girl recently found that besides sharing space and sweating with the other ladies in her gym the the fine print on her membership contract also might sometimes mean that she could be expected to share the showers...

Izzy is throwin some love to the Pope for gettin' all up in the grills of those video game makers!

Mother Goose Mouse reminded us recently that parents sometimes lose their heads and we, possibly maybe, might want not to throw the first stone...

I would mention Chag at Cynical Dad or Dad Gone Mad, but they are both slowly losing their minds and the only question is will their imps graduate from high school first..?

Why am I recapping posts from other sites, other than this being a weak attempt to prove that I do read other posts?

Because It is the latter end of the week and I.Have.Nothing. No ideas and it is already noon.

So I thought I might touch on subjects that I do not normally address. Then I remembered wife.imp's final admonition to me when I started this blog...'Don't Embarrass Me'

So that left me pretty much handcuffed. I mean sure wife.imp's family in the Philippines reads this post and wife.imp's co-workers read this (hi gals!) and I can see things like discussing personal matters, politics, religion might be somewhat offputting...

SO I thougth this a.m. that I would talk about sex....Then after two cups of coffee I thought, 'No, why embarrass myself?'

Yo! 'Yet to be named National Pizza Chain!!' Whatever happened to Customer Service 101??

Dear Sirs,
We are contacting you after more than 3 1/2 hours after ordering a pizza tonight. We are
taking into account today’s bad weather, however this can only account for so much of
the limited amount of satisfaction we derived from doing business with your company
today.

Issues:

1) The limited technology of your on-line website does not warn customers of any delays
to be expected when placing an order.

2) Upon calling the regional, Ohio location to verify the status of our order, we
were twice informed that our order should arrive in 15-20 minutes.

3) In discussing the issue with the manager, ......, (approx 1 1/2 hours after our order)
we were finally told that we could expect a continued wait of up to 1 1/2 hours, even
though our order was already with a delivery driver.

At this time, after expressing our current level of dissatisfaction, your manager offered to credit back to us cost of our order. However we will have to wait 10 days to verify if this can actually be accomplished with any level of competency.

4) After waiting beyond 3 1/2 hours after our online order was placed, we called back and
were told that our pizza had been delivered to another residence and that another could be
made and delivered in 20-30 minutes—UNLESS we wished to pick it up ourselves!!

I have a very big concern with the fact that not once did your management staff, at any
time, proactively try to contact us and resolve any issues concerning our order. Plus, in
an effort to make this problem go away with the least amount of effort on the part or your
employees/management staff, we were advised that it would be better if we would pick it
up and deliver it to ourselves.

OH, we just received the pizza, almost 4 hours to the minute from our original, online
order, and at best its temperature it could only be called lukewarm. We are now in the process
of heating our oven in order to reheat the delivered item in hopes that we might be able to
wring the smallest possible enjoyment out of shopping with your company.

Thank you for your time.

When is being a Work-a-holic not really all that bad??

boy.imp: daddy smile!
(of course boy.imp was holding girl.imp's brand new, digital camera and daddy was sitting on the toilet...daddy did not smile. Daddy decided to go to work.)

After my shower I was in my skivvies and work shirt, getting ready to step into my jeans when girl.imp walked into the bedroom (at this point I was still not enthusiastic about leaving).

girl.imp: hahahahahahahahah (pointing at my lower body. First things first, I checked to make certain I was actually wearing my skivvies. Yes, I had to check. Yes, I truly believe I could actually forget. I have been known to tear about the house/apt. looking for glasses that I was wearing or keys that I was holding between my teeth. So a quick peek did not seem to be out of the question.)

So much for doubt and second-guessing. My plans for work definitely included a full 8 hours.

So, after getting on the road, I flipped on NPR and 'Wait Wait Don't Tell Me' and Paula Poundstone actually scored enough points to win!

For those of you who do not listen to this show, I will not bother to go in-depth. Let's just say the panel members compete with each other at the end of the show by trying to answer the most number of questions correctly. On this show, Ms. Poundstone wins almost as often as the odd ice age sweeps down from Canada across the great American Mid-West.

Why is this important? Because Paula lost again, prompting me to call home to rap with the wife. Because after 12+ years of marriage, instead of hours and hours of conversations laced with sexy innuendo or just plain, nasty phone sex, we get off on conversations about NPR and its programs.

g.imp: hello daddy (we have caller id now)
me: hello. what are you doing.
g.imp: ohhhhh, I'm drawing.
me: uhhuh...where's your mother
g.imp: she's in the shower. Ummm, daddy? Boy.imp's in my bedroom...
me: ok. Tell him I said hi.
g.imp: ok. Daddy? He shut the door and locked himself inside....(calling to boy.imp) daddy's on the phone and he told me to tell you 'hi.' can you hear me?
me: he's what? Open the door and let him out!
g.imp: I can't! He locked the door from the inside!
me: Well go get mommy out of the shower and tell her to unlock the door and let b.imp out! Oh and tell her that I'll be home late tonight!

So I was in the Shower and

I was totally enjoying the solitude and hot rinse when I heard boy.imp calling.

However I ignored his first few attempts. What could be so important that he needed to drag me out of the shower.

b.imp: Dad? Dad? Can I throw up?
me: (well if you have to ask, how bad can it be?) Sure! Go ahead!

I found out that he was serious and I spent most of this a.m. cleaning while dressed only in my skivvies and a t-shirt. I am very glad that my neighbors (mostly) work during the day!

I was going to write about the wife.imp, sex and other things but

boy.imp is home 'sick' today. How do we know he is sick?

Because when he wakes up before us, b.imp is the most annoying creature on the face of the earth.

'Daddy! Daddy, get up! Wake up! Daddy! I want breakfast! I'm hungry! Daddy!...'
(picture said dialogue while b.imp pries at my eyelids, pokes my face, pulls at my hair/lips)

Today he rolled into our bedroom and curled up between me and wife.imp giving us some lambing-lambing (hugs). He also felt like an oven on wheels. HOT! (and not in the good way referred to by Paris Hilton. Not that Paris Hilton's pronunciations are all that good. Don't you just want to soak yourself in a tub of antisceptic after seeing her image on the television?)

So how do we know b.imp is feeling better?

The t.v. commercial was of a Jeep Grand Cherokee. The SUV was sitting on a flat, straight stretch of desert highway revving it motor...again and again and again.

b.imp: can I have one? can I have one?
me: wha? Oh...not right now. Wait until your older.
b.imp: but I'm older now! I'm a big boy! (however by the tone of his voice one can tell he is slightly impatient and what he was really saying was, 'geez, a@@ho#&%! Just by me the damn truck already!!'!)

My secret weapon is #2

Girl.imp went for her first martial arts (Modern Arnis) lesson and really seemed to enjoy it. But if she were to quit now, I would not have any fear of her future safety.

g.imp: Daddy? That smell--I tootied!!
me: (gagging) do you have to use the bathroom?
g.imp: nope! I just tootied!
g.imp: (evil grin) I just tootied again!
me: (looking around at the near empty room - where are the crowds of parents when you neeeeeeed them?) Just go to the bathroom!
g.imp: Ok!

Later during g.imp's class:

me: boy.imp! Did you just...? Do you need your diaper changed?
b.imp: (grabbing is diaper and backing away) No! I'm a big boy now!
me: Right. (again, why is the room nearly empty when you really really want to blame the smell on somebody else's imp?) It smells like a rotting, skunk carcass crawled out of your...Let's go change your diaper...

That's right folks! There is no fear from the baddies in the big cities. Muggers, thieves, killers--Come get yourself some of this! IF you think you can handle the smell!!

Monday: We witnessed Floriday play a high school team. 'Nuff said.

Tuesday: Cannot remember Tuesday. Lots of driving tho'

Wednesday: We went to girl.imp's school for a field trip. We saw 'A Year with Frog and Toad'. It must be a very old play, because the male leads (Frog and Toad) were very, very chummy. What our grandparents' parents would have called good pals...Today we would refer to a closet...

Thursday: wife.imp told me that boy.imp is beginning to mature. He has recently been proclaiming '...I am not a little boy! I am a big boy!' But now he has taken it a step further. When we ask him if he needs his diaper changed he runs away screaming that he did not soil his diaper. So then if we ask him if he wants to stop using diapers and start wearing underwear...

boy.imp: You can stop asking questions. Stop asking questions now!

...Girl.Imp is in 1st Grade and already has issues with school...

Snip! Snip! Snip!

As a young imp that sound scared me to death. It meant dad was ready to cut my hair (and not too infrequently the back of my neck or my ears).

As time went by the snipping sound of the scissors faded into history. They now now cut hair with clippers. 'Come in! Come in, little sheep. Drop your ducats here and lose your hair in 5 minutes or less!'

Now the snipping sound of the scissors is starting to slip back into my reality. No, I am not speaking of the shears used by the old crone of The Fates.

I am speaking of the ultimate threat to man's pride. Wife.imp had a bad day (month) at the office (along with a mishap or two over the Christmas holiday) and has broached a topic I had thought long dead.

Yes, she wants to unman me. Have the '"little" guy' nipped and tucked! I am not so upset about being reduced to a life of shooting blanks. I am near the age where more newborns are supposed to happen to someone else. However, I am not anxious to be placed in the position where a slight deviation could result in irreparable nerve damage.

This bothers me because I am not a fan of having to use self-service to 'get my groove on' (at least not on an permanent basis).

So now the question to be answered: "...to vasectomy or not to vasectomy..."