except for when I was inside in class this morning and this afternoon!
I know...I Know...we tried this with girl.imp and had her leading the entire class singing Christmas Carols and picking dandilions by the last class.
For dinner the imps decided to add their own flair.
It seems that girl.imp was laughing and encouraging a neighborhood boy to try and get a dog to pee on the girl (g.imp's most frequent playmate in this neighborhood) who lives across the street from us.
Then she almost rides her down whilst we are out on our Trikkes.
Dennis has not been very happy with the imp this weekend. The problem with punishment is that g.imp is not a computer fan, not a t.v. fan, not a play and get sweaty fan. She does, however, read. So now she must read 5 books (approved by wife.imp) and give verbal reports (approved by me!). I am also starting to place limitations on girl.imp until I can trust her judgement again.
I only wish I had a garden (when I was growing up we had one 50 yard wide by 25 yrds deep) for g.imp to weed.
****
We ate at a restaurant the other night and boy.imp needed to visit the Water Closet. As soon as we are in the door he makes a beeline for the sit-down toilet. So I go through the process of cleaning off and papering the seat (yes, since the discovery of gravity, there are grown men out there that are not much concerned with aim) and paper the seat for the young imp...Who then informs me he only has to pee.
Great, I go and wash my hands and wait. He then finishes and washes his hands then informs me he has to go potty again. This time he wants to sit down..!!
So here at the Playground life has continued to move forward, even though the blog process has been somewhat stagnant (my apologies).
Wife.Imp's youngest sister is stopping by for a brief visit and today I took her out for a road trip (ok, I gave her the keys to my car and told her that she gets to drive me around). Because the one thing I have learned when visiting wife.imp's family is that if you have no means of going out and about, then things can get boring.
SIL brought gifts from the family, of which a baseball hat with an Iron Man logo on it was given to boy.imp. Since getting the hat boy.imp wears it around the house fighting the 'bad guys'. The fights are terrible, with lots of shouting, jumping and falling down. However b.imp always gains the upper hand with a knock-out blow. Which he has to describe to me.
'I hit him in the eye!' 'I hit three of them in the teeth!' 'I hit him in the chest and two of them in the eye!' 'I hit five in a row here!' (this is where boy.imp points to the lower abdominal/higher thigh area of his body and will continue to point there until you have viewed the area of damage and acknowledged his fighting prowess...)
Concerning aging...
I went to my s0mewhat-annual (ok, 1st time in 3 years) checkup today because I felt I had enough info to make the doctor's effort in the examination more than just routine. I have a very nice back rash (the result of a hair-removal waxing--Oddly enough when I found out a year or so ago that I did have hair on my back, I have never been able to put that thought out of my mind. It actually bothered me. I finally pulled the trigger and it barely tingled. It felt like someone had spread masking tape on my back and pulled it off. But the rash kind of puts a damper on repeat procedures), a pain in one of my knees and a phantom ache in one of my arms.
I also had (the first of what is now an annual event (yea me!)) the prostate exam! I am not certain, but I am fairly postive that procedures conducted in the family-care doctor's office should include the patient's continued ability to, oh say, breathe during said procedures!
There we were sitting on the sofa. Wife.imp was lying down and resting, boy.imp was sitting on my shoulders resting his chin on my head and moving around (so I thought) trying to find a more comfortable position. Then he burped from his southernmost orifice...
Wife.Imp and the imps and I went out for Sushi last Friday and after dinner we split up so that I could purchase a family planner calendar and wife.imp could take girl.imp shopping for a gift for our neighbor's daughter's birthday.
Being that I am over 35 and it was after 7 p.m., I needed coffee. So I took boy.imp to the coffee shop/sports bar which is located in the mall where we ate dinner.
boy.imp: can we go in and sit down?
me: nope. we're going home as soon as we get our coffee and food (he talked me into buying dessert by stopping his whining as soon as I agreed).
boy.imp: why not? I want to sit down.
me: (looking hatefully at the mother and toddler-aged daughter sitting in plain sight) weeeell, you're still too little to go in there and I am not buying you one of those drinks (re: alcohol beverages that everyone seemed to be enjoying)
boy.imp: (long pause) I could use a little cup...
Friday night after the imps' betime:
me: Hey! (girl.imp walks into the bathroom whilst I am enjoying some free time on the porceline throne)
girl.imp: Now that you have some free time, I have a question to ask you.
me: (nonononono these are the questions you need to ask your mom! I don't want to deal with boyfriends, puberty or you staring at me while I am on the toilet! Yes, we have a door that locks now. No, I have not gotten into the habit of locking it--YET)
girl.imp: So--In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, why did blah blah blahbabablah...
Girl.Imp has taken a great interest in separating the whites from the darks in recent weeks. Unfortunately, she has no interest in the laundry. Instead she likes to sit on my lap and pull down my t-shirt to separate gray chest hairs from the others and then tries to convince me to let her pluck them...
But yesterday the fam left 'The Playground' to visit the grandparents and to watch the Buckeyes completely dismantle 'that team from up north'.
However I noticed that during the game that boy.imp was resting his head on wife.imp's chest. Later during the day I cornered wife.imp in the kitchen:
me: do you realize that boy.imp's head will fit in your bra?
There is still some slight bruising to my left arm...
Today wife.imp and girl.imp were about to go shopping and I was rough-housing with boy.imp (who now likes punching things). I made the mistake of rolling onto my back as he started his swing. He adjusted his aim and ensured that there will be no more imps born into our family.
Just so that you know, girl.imp likes to wake one up, in the early morning, by breathing on one's face. I just hope her future spouse is more tolerant than I am...I do have to admit that this is a fairly effective system of waking one from a deep sleep.
Both imps like to announce when they toot. Boy.imp takes it a step further and likes to toot then reach around behind him and 'grab' the toot so he can then 'throw' it at someone...
I was back at work and wife.imp needed to take the imps to Saturday Mass and the dinner after. Two notable events occurred:
1- the fam was sitting behind an elderly couple in which the husband was more or less bald. During the middle of mass, boy.imp became fascinated by the play of the lights off of the man's pate. Before wife.imp realized, boy.imp had reached out and run his finger down the back of the man's head...top to bottem (my guess was that boy.imp was tracing the play of the light across the shiny, bald scalp).
2- dinner was rather inexpensive, however there was a slight push for $$ donations at the dessert table (dessert being cupcakes and cookies). Wife.imp gave the poor child $10 and got 1 cupcake and 1 cookie.
wife.imp: excuse me--where's my change? (she wanted to give a smaller donation)
helper: there's no change
wife.imp: what do you mean there's no change? I want my change!
girl.imp: well, you put money in and there's your dessert
wife.imp: But that's $10 dollars! For a cupcake and a cookie!
The Church gladly accepted our family's generous donation....
******
At times, I have to take my bad knees and walk across somebody's farm field in order to reach an equitable arrangement (re: I stay employed and the people I work for have more work to do. This is a good arrangement).
SOOoooo, whilst we were traipsing over 20 acres of hills and forest, I dropped my cell phone. My new(ish) cell phone that is what keeps me connected to the world (just two weeks ago girl.imp read me 30 minutes of Harry Potter whilst I was driving home).
I discovered this loss approx. 30 minutes after leaving in my car to go home, and after 30 minutes back and 30 more minutes of trekking through fields, jumping creeks and staggering through brambles in a forest--I FOUND IT!!
Life is good!
I was on my way home last night and had stopped at one of the various 'local' truckstops for a good pee. While enjoying the moment the sound that brings the odor arrived first at my ears then my nose.
ZIIIIP
With my eyes watering, I stumbled to the sink then out the door wondering just what one has to eat to chase someone from a restroom the comfortably stands/seats at least 12 people..??
****
I also got a phone call:
girl.imp: daddy? did you do the 20 pushups that I asked you to do
(in the background wife.imp is shouting: 'don't bother him with that, tell daddy what you told me)
Uhoh!
girl.imp: I, uh, I told mommy that iwasmakingoutwiththe
me: what? making out with who?
(was g.imp necking with the boys at school already? I don't have my 'Cans O'Whup Ass' ready!! Geez Louise!!)
g.imp: ItoldmommythatIwasmakingoutwiththespoon
me: The spoon? That's all? ---I mean why would you tell mommy...What does making out with the spoon mean?
g.imp: It means I was kissing the spoon.
me: Kissing the spoon? Oh, well then I would prefer you told mommy that you kissed the spoon.
Daddy has spoken! (and it was a job well done if I say so myself!)
at a reading of the humorist David Sedaris, I forgot the 'Code' and embarrassed wife.imp. Yes, this is the 'Code' that is hardwired into women's DNA and so baffles us knuckle-draggers.
This is the 'Code' that women use during arguments that grants them perfect recall of the tiniest details of some ancient transgression that, at the time, barely blipped the radar but during the heat of the moment--total victory.
This is the 'Code' that allows complex and lengthy discussions to occur between women with the twitch of an eyebrow, a look, pursed lips or the way a woman curls her hair around her fingers.
wife.imp noticed a women wearing a mini-skirt and breathed the following comment into my ear:
You know, it's true what they say that a woman should not wear a mini-skirt past 40.
me (loudly): Oh, I don't know
wife.imp: no it's true
me (loudly): I mean look at Teri Hatcher. She's over 40 and can wear a mini-skirt
Wife.imp put several more inches of empty space between us at this comment. I was later to learn that there was a women who appeared to be over the age of 40 who was wearing a mini-skirt AND standing right next to us...
I did manage, however, to keep my mouth firmly shut as a woman in fishnet stockings in the row behind us managed to inform all present how proud she was that she could afford MEMBERSHIP to the local museum (so can about anyone living in our city) and then she spent 30 minutes going over the plot (badly recalling its high points) of the latest episode of 'The Office'.
I have to admit that I actually watched that episode and if it were anything like how she described the action, I would never watch another episode. Happily I can admit that the show was much, much better than her description (and I am not really a fan).
*****
boy.imp: Mommy, am I Filipino?
wife.imp: yes, you are.
boy.imp: is Daddy brown?
wife.imp: no, daddy is not brown.
boy.imp: Then he's not my daddy...
But it took a really bad day to get something this good.
Yesterday was a definite Thonday (a Thursday that masquerades as a Monday) for us. It started when we awoke to discover that we had overslept. Has anyone tried to scare their imp into getting ready for school faster?
"Honey, wake up! We're late for school! We HAVE to leave in 5 minutes"
and find yourself 15 minutes later saying:
"Don't worry about brushing your teeth and tie your shoes when you get down the stairs! Geesh! I'll have to miss every red light (something that Karma does not even consider allowing to happen) if we even have a chance to beat the bell. Come on! Just wear the one shoe and hop through the grass to the car!"
But I have found the light, it only costs $$:
"Honey, wake up! We're late for school. If you hurry we can stop for chocolate milk and doughnuts."
Later wife.imp calls and tells me New Babysitter is not home so she is bringing boy.imp home so that I can take him back. She arrives home at the same time my uncle arrives to discuss work issues. So I pack everyone up, minus wife.imp, and go back to NB's house. Nobody home.
I find out later she had a previous apptmnt (that she had told us about).
Then the cable/internet folks run past the scheduled morning appt. In fact, they were so late that I had to push the repair woman out the door (and it was hard because she was making great progress on rewiring the cables in the house) to go get girl.imp from school.
That effectively kept me from doing practically everything I had planned. Except for getting new books on tape for the car.
Today was a day for phone calls, phone calls and more phone calls.
Which reminds me, I might have won (even though I have not entered any contests for years) a new Caddilac Escalade! I am waiting for them to call me again so that I can tell them the Caddy is not for me and that I would like an 8-year-old Toyota Corolla.
Remind me to talk, at some time, about wife.imps Pythagorean Theorem for 'Optimal Parking at Work'
The imps and I were walking from the car to the hardware store, when girl.imp had to ask about 'life changes.' Of course, we were walking within earshot of others.
g.imp: (pulling on her shirt) daddy? Am I growing boobies?
me: uh, no.
(Of course, this is the type of anti-testosterone induced conversation that I really need to get me in the mood for a trip into the hardware store)
g.imp: oh. Mommy thinks I'm growing boobies.
g.imp: daddy? when you were a boy, uh, I mean when you were younger and were about to be a teenager, did your ping-ping bleed.
me: uh, no.
(Of course you know what I'm thinking here, don't you? I'm thinking I just can't catch a break, where is wife.imp when you really, really need her to be around? I also had the remaining conversation in my head:
me: boys don't have that problem
g.imp: what problem is that?
me: boys don't have to worry about all that leaking. It's much more fun being a boy.
g.imp: what leaking
me: well girls are always leaking some kind of fluid from thier bodies--from their eyes, nose, mouth and other areas.
g.imp: like bleeding from their ping-pings?
me: yep that's why God gave y'all pantie shields and boobie shields.
g.imp: my boobies are going to leak?
me: yep.
g.imp: why?
me: I don't know. My boobies don't leak. Go ask your mother.)
So we're eating spaghetti for dinner and b.imp decides to sit next to me on the couch (our dining table is currently fix-it central for all the home improvement projects I have ongoing ) and decides he wants to rest his legs across my lap. unfortunately that is where my plate of boiled noodles in red sauce was currently sitting.
I do need to state here-and-now that if anyone touches my food, I am likely not to finish it. I sometimes think there is a therapist out there whom is pining away, trying to find the money to send his/her kid(s) to an Ivy League university. I sometimes feel guilty that I am hoarding my quirky behaviour and not doing more to help the younger generation realize their collegiate dreams.
So why am I so adverse to resuming feeding upon food someone else samples?
Let's go back to my formative school years:
During my youthful days as an outsider in a small town (ok it's almost 30 years later and we are still outsiders) I used to get offers from 'acquaintances' to finish food (sloppy joe sandwiches or hamburgers that did not pass the 'sniff test' or soda pops). I learned early that these folks were not passing on these tasty treats out of kindness. No, they were also passing on snacks that had the added bonus of being coated with thier own, personal seasoning (re: spit, boogers etc...). So, in order to end the standoff (everyone nearby was all smiles and urging me to take the proffered snacks), I would take the offering and walk to the nearest trash bin and dump it.
Enough of the flashback.
Pulling boy.imp's foot out of my dinner, I decided I was no longer hungry.
me: yuck! I don't think I can eat anymore.
w.imp: It was just his ankle! You big wimp!
me: no, it was his foot -- his whole foot.
w.imp: come on, it was not that bad!
(her expression was also blatantly chastising me: 'I cannot believe you are about to waste all that food! It's not like he stood on the middle of your plate! Just sack it up and eat!!)
me: (after taking a bite) All I can taste is foot...
So Thursday evening I got fed up with our current lack of customer service with our cell service and around 4a.m. pulled up the company's most recent Annual Report from the internet. I then got the names for the CEO and all the listed directors and surfed the net again for an appropriate email format...Friday around 9:30a.m. the CEO emails me to inform me that he was sorry to hear about our sitch and he asked one of his team to contact me...then I hear nothing the rest of the day (we'll revisit this statement in a minute).
Later Friday I take the imps to dad's house (1hr drive). We went because wife.imp's car is slowly falling apart and the only mechanic we trust lives in the same town as my dad. Wife.Imp is supposed to meet us for a late dinner out with my mom and dad. Here is a sample of conversation as we drive around looking for a restaurant that was not SRO:
me: hello? hello? Can you hear me?
w.imp: Hel...I'm almost to...
me: Hello? what was that? Hello? hellohellohello?
w.imp: I can't her...hello? I'm at...
me: Hello? Hello? There you are. Listen we're going to Maple Road in Zanesville. There's a Chinese Rest...Hello? Hello? hellohellohello? Can you here me? Hello?
Needless to say, my cell phone was also on its last legs. Since the designated company rep had not yet contacted me. And would you not expect that if the CEO of a company tapped you on the shoulder and asked you to contact a customer that you might make an effort to make any contact (phone, fax, email) by end of business that same day?
So Saturday we got up and went to a competitor's store and ported our numbers to new phones/new service. (By the way, at around 9:40p.m. tonight, the person tasked by the CEO to contact me about my concerns sent me an email, asking me to call the company on Monday)
It was here that the imps decided that they needed more of our attention. When I say imps, I really mean girl.imp. She has been having trouble sleeping in since returning home from her trip and woke up around 5 a.m. This means that she is getting quite tired by mid-morning and that means she starts pushing all sorts of boundaries. Boundaries that I did not think I'd have to worry about until she was old enough to star on 'Girls Gone Wild'.
How bad can a 7-year-old girl get in public, one might ask? Can g.imp really make the GGW girls seem tame? I mean geez, Dennis, little girls often flip up their skirts and shirts in public. At their age, that behavior is not so bad. Hell, it's still cute. Annoying for the parents but still cute.
Ahhhh, but if it were only that simple. You see, g.imp understands that this behavior is not to be considered shocking--yet. So she found a way to 'up the ante'.
Right after we promised our next child to the new cellular service provider in compensation for to obscenely complicated and glizty cell phones, I put down the pen I had been using to sign imaginary child number 3 away with and and looked at g.imp.
Aaaaaand found she had pulled down the collar of her shirt and had successfully inserted her left nipple (no, she has not developed in this area just yet) into her mouth and was sucking on it.
Her comment as my jaw hit the edge of the table then the floor?
"hmmmm, it doesn't taste like anything"
My first thoughts Pre-Nipple tasting comment:
"What the F? Why the hell are you..."
My first thoughts Post-Nipple tasting comment:
"Well duh! It's not the taste that's important..."
I did manage not to verbalize anything, but 'Daddy of the Year' awards probably won't be hanging on my office walls anytime soon...
It is 3 p.m. and I still have not had my first cup of coffee today. and if anyone knows me, I drink coffee like boy.imp drinks milk (and he would be perfectly content to be permanently affixed to a cows udder).
The reason for this lapse in my caffiene addiction? Because this a.m. as I was fixing my chocolate chip pancakes b.imp wants to tell me about his sleep.
b.imp: I was laughing in my sleep last night
me: you were?
b.imp: yes, do you know why?
me: (looking at niece.imp as he is sharing her bed. She tells me b.imp was laughing in his sleep)
b.imp: because I dreamed niece.imp was kissing a boy.
Great! My son is having make-out dreams....and remembering them!! I mean he is only 3!
So does this mean that in a couple of years, when he turns 5, I'll walk into his bedroom to find him 'beating the bishop', 'slapping the dolphin', 'hitch-hiking to the moon', 'turning japanese'??
What if he reaaaaally starts to cling to that one 'special' stuffed animal.
Lord knows I spent all morning trying to figure out the living arrangements when he starts smoking in 3rd grade and he and when, on his 13th birthday he asks if he and his 3rd wife move in with the young-uns!
Maybe I should go to bed and try this day again in an hour or two...
When one flashes the priest during mass, does one get a free pass to heaven? I mean, is this like during the middle ages when the Church sold indulgences?
Flash a priest and receive an instant pass to heaven? Or is this more or less jumping with both feet into the basket racing the other direction?
Before you ask, I did not flash the priest. Girl.Imp did. During Easter Mass we arrived later than most, yet still before Mass started so we were relegated to standing in the back of the Church in direct Line-Of-Sight of said Priest. It was during one of those moments when everybody was seated, so that she was more easily observed, that she decided her tights needed adjusting. So she flipped the front of her dress up to her shoulders and grabbed her tights, pulling them out as far as they would stretch then began a sawing motion to pull them higher. Flip, pull, AND repeat.
We stood there absolutely stunned. I mean, we TAUGHT her better, did we not?
Ok, so she also likes to smell her armpits, while dressed to the 'T's and make that PEEEEE-YEEEEW grimace. But to calmly flash a priest during the celebration of Mass during the most Holy day of the year??? (yes this would also include Christmas and St. Patrick's Day)
At least girl.imp is in fact a girl imp!
Yes, I learned how to tie knots in the boy scouts...
Oh, before we get to knots there are several things I learned in Boy Scouts that probably should never be repeated (some of these I did participate in and some I was blissfully 80+miles away and only heard about it 2nd hand). These are also things that tend to make parents not allow their children to join the troop and rightly so:
Things I was present for but did not participate in:
- Snipes do not exist (however if you've hacked off the older scouts you might find yourself invited on a snipe hunt and tied to a tree for several hours about 1 mile from the camp)
- Tossing rotten eggs, burning hot egg shells or playing chicken with an ax (one unlaces the boots and spreads the shoe laces as far from the boot as they can then the other party paces off 5 steps, takes a sharpened ax and trys to cut the shoelace as close to the boot as possible--without hitting the boot or the person attached thereto - I will admit that this was an ill conceived game and one that was only mentioned to me once. It was never played after that--talked about yes. Played no.)
- Imagine that another troop messed with one of our younger scouts. Not a good idea. Because at night our older scouts would visit the offending party's campsite and would drop the tents in said campsite, grab the tent poles and beat anything that moves...
Things I was present for and did participate in:
- melting plastic milk cartons over the flames of a fire makes for very pretty flames (and also very toxic fumes- this practice that was quickly discouraged)
- it takes less than 10 seconds for a box of 5oo kitchen matches, once lined up, to burn neat diagrams into the tops of picnic tables - this occurred several times when I was not on the campout and once when I was.
- did you know that if you knock a hornets nest out of a tree with rocks, the little dears will chase you up to 1/4 of a mile. However if you are able to zip yourself into a tent before the swarm arrives then you'll be ok. It is advisable (i was later informed) to warn the people who were previously enjoying a relaxing morning, that something unpleasant was about to happen.
Things that happened when I was not present:
- During hunting season, many many hunters park their cars on the shoulders of the road. Sometimes passersbys might include boy scouts (you know, from the troop that had more street cred than most gangs). The cars might find themselves with 4 flat tires and might also be missing spark plug wires-...Might because a hunter might be leaving early and spot some of the felons-in-training and decide to introduce them to the barrel end of the Smith & Wesson that had been resting on his shoulder. I was told that one of the scouts dropped on his hands and knees and begged for sympathy while his co-horts scattered and ran for the woods.
- Picture fires, unopened cans of corn and a stopwatch. Explosive entertainment, so I was told.
How to tie a square knot:
- grasp the shoestring (one in each hand) cross the left shoestring over then under and through the right shoestring and pull snug.
- then make your bows and cross the right bow over then under and through the left bow and pull snug.
