Kaleidoscopic Eclat

It’s all the rage, nowdays. Even for the pup. Remember her previous living arrangement box?

Well, seems she decided it was too big. All that decorating was just taking TOO MUCH TIME. So she downsized.

Now if only she had enough room to put a shirt on too…

[OH NOZ!

I know I'm no Annie Libwhatserface the photographer - but it's a half dressed child! WHAT WOULD HANNA MONTANA AND MULLET DADDY DO?! Oh yeah. Get mega bucks and a magazine cover or 80.

For me, I just made it a 'friends and family' picture only so only the freaks I actually know can find it on flickr. Heh. ]

Could it be? IT IS! There seems to be a stain marring the perfection of Our Brie’s Perfect Lawn. See?

Can’t quite make it out? Look along the edges there, along the street where technically it’s not her lawn anyway, but Our Brie, she does love to encroach - even on the city. Here, I’ll circle it for you…

THERE. NOW you see it! DANDELIONS! Not just one, but TWO of them! I know for a fact that Our Brie? She HATES Dandelions! She has spent YEARS battling the pretty little weeds flowers. So the question is, HOW on earth did some of them manage to take seed along the edges of her perfection, beginning what is sure to be the battle of the summer?

I have NO idea how that might have happened. None. Honest.

Hehehehe.

It’s no secret. I am a large woman. I have the perfect hourglass figure - that holds 3.5 hours. Figures like mine aren’t born, they’re MADE - it takes time and dedication to get the kind of curves I’ve got - for SURE. (and what would I do if I DID lose weight? I’d have to get all new material!) What I’m not, apparently, is a SMART woman. Ha!

See, it started innocently enough. After listening to the pup bemoan the fact that she’s BORED and none of her FRIENDS are home and WHY aren’t they home and of COURSE I don’t want to do chores just because I’m bored momma are you NUTS woman but I’m BORED and LONELY for most of the day, I decided that I’d surprise her and take her to her Auntie’s house.

And surprise her Auntie too, because I didn’t call and say I was coming.
And surprised Deogi too, because I decided to WALK THE DOG.

I know. Clearly, I’ve been smoking too much crack. But, she only lives like a block away, right? It takes less then a minute by car, and the kids go back and forth in nothing flat (remind me to break their legs later, will ya?) and it’ll calm the dog down because he’s flipping out and so hey! Get the leash, let’s go.

… You’d think I’d know better, wouldn’t you? She lives an ALASKAN block away, and while they do things “bigger” in Texas? They ain’t got NOTHING on us. How long have I lived here again? 30 years? Yeah, you’d think I’d know better.

So I got the leash (Deogi goes NUTS! A walk! WALK! OUTSIDE! with MOM! OMG! WALK!) and the dog, and started walking while the pup pedaled circles around us on her bike. Deogi tried to eat everything, forgot the no pull rule, barked up a storm, but we plodded on. It’s good for the dog, see? The pup asked where we goin huh huh huh about fifty gazillion times before she realized what direction we were headed in, but still couldn’t quite believe it. There were KIDS THERE. KIDS to PLAY WITH. Kids to get in TROUBLE with. KIDS! WHO WOULDN’T BORE HER! Are we REALLY going to Auntie’s mama? REALLY? and when did you decide to walk anyway you never walk are we out of gas in the car again?

(Duh…yes. of course we’re low on gas - who isn’t nowdays? Conserving for the driving of the boy to work until payday on Wednesday. Smart ass lil brat.)

So, we walked. And walked. And I began to wonder just how long this walk was anyway, and when are they gonna just punch a shortcut road right through to her house already because holy cow my back is starting to hurt!

But eventually, we braved several cars, and barked at a lot of dogs, and pee’d on the street (…ok, those last two were just Deogi. Honest.) and turned the last corner to Auntie’s house where I could let the dog go and just have him race to Auntie when she called him, and plod my slow way to them.

Whew. So I stayed there for oh, a couple hours. Because I knew I had to walk back. And the Girl and her BFF took the dog on a long bike ride to get some of his energy out before I shot him, and I gabbed with Auntie and her very preggo friend who she’d been walking with earlier trying to walk the baby out. Then, I had to bite the bullet, the Girl brought the dog back (amusingly - the Dog that is Scared of Everything? LOVES to run up and down the giant plastic slides at the park… i know, right?), the Pup was invited to stay the night, and I… I had to walk home again.

Before I did though, I asked my uber fit triathlon running sister just HOW FAR it was to walk between our houses… she, of the 30 mile bike rides, blithely replied “I dunno, just half a mile or so.”

HALF OF A MILE? Meaning after walking back it was like A WHOLE MILE?
Did I MENTION that I am a VERY LARGE woman who sits on her ass and eats bonbons all day? Ok, not so much the bonbons… but DID I?

So yes. Today, the girl who prefers to stay inside and play around on the computer walked her dog for a mile. A WHOLE MILE.

Even better?
I did it in those SANDALS.
Remind me not to do that again, will ya?!

Now all I need is someone to make my back feel better and feed me bonbons. Harumph.

Sometimes, it’s just SO OBVIOUS that they are my kids. Seriously.

* The boy got hisself a haircut. Even paid for it with his own money. (Amazingly, the more this happens, the more I like that he’s old enough to get a job. Hah.) As the stylist is brushing off his neck, after the cut, and then says she missed his neck and reaches for the clippers he says “No straight razors, now…” and she laughs with a MUHAHAHAH and he pops off with “Mrs. Lovett’s MEAT pies!” and she steps on the chair lifting lever and says “so… see this lever…” and he jumps up as if he’s afraid of being tossed into the basement and made into meat pies and we all laugh. Haha! Sometimes, I love this town…

* We watched Harry Potter again last night (…uh, the latest DVD with Dumbledore’s Army… Oh! order of the pheonix) and both girls popped off with “HEY! Isn’t that Mrs. Lovett that killed Serius?!” Yes. Yes it was.

* Sunday Afternoon Comedy Hour: Dog needs a bath. Dog is scared of EVERYTHING, from plastic to being left alone, to yes - water. When I got there to help the girls, the Girl had gotten him wet and was soaping him up. At this point in time I realize she is doing this, and had set up this little dog wash, by sitting Deogi DIRECTLY ON TOP OF A PILE OF MOOSE shit NUGGETS!

* Frustrated with his getting away while still soaped up, once we finally convinced him to come back, I grabbed on to his leash, held on, and hosed him down with the other hand - and promptly discovered myself SPINNING IN CIRCLES until I was tangled in the hose and laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe. Finally finished the job with a wet towel, and a dry rubdown afterwards with no hose in sight. And no, the bathtub is not an option - he’s scared of IT too.

* Neighbor across the street is enjoying the show so much, she takes a phone call OUTSIDE so that she can continue to watch our hour-long attempts at bathing the dog - the same dog that promptly rolled in the sand on the way home. *mutters* (we were at Nana and Papa’s to use their hose.)

* Father’s Day saw us, after the dog-washing, joining Papa for movie and desert - since he couldn’t eat said desert, the girls, Nana and I enjoyed his cake and ice cream as we watched The Golden Compass finally. Good movie - so when’s the next one coming?! What, they expect me to read a BOOK? GOSH.

* We did bring Deogi with us, and he behaved well, though did beg for a cheeto from Nana. She didn’t give him any - but did roll her eyes when the Girl did. Heh. He wanted to lay down on the couch next to me, but had to do the unthinkable and lay on the floor. Unthinkable, because he’s pretty positive he’s a cat. Or a people when there’s snacks to be had. But the important part is that he behaved. Whew.

* “Momma! Can I watch a movie?!”
sure, pup, which one?
“The one with the depressed guy!”
…
“and the singing!”
…
“AND MEAT PIES!”
OOOOOOOOOOh You want to watch Sweeny Todd again?
“Yup! Hey! He’s the guy from Willy Wonka!!!”

* And we discover a Johnny Depp/Sweeny Todd theme, yes, yes we do.

* And I’m not complaining at all, no, no I am not. Johnny Depp is my secret husband. So secret he doesn’t know it.

* Stop looking at me like that. She doesn’t have nightmares, she doesn’t have any problem watching movies like that - and I don’t judge you for watching THE WIGGLES now, do I?!? And if it’s good enough for Ben Aflacks’ kid in Jersey Girl, It’s good enough for mine!

* All together now… Mrs. Lovett’s MEAT pies, savory and SWEET pies - GOD THAT’S GOOD!

Aren’t you glad you took a peek inside my weekend? Heh. Now, if I could just get rid of the ‘Eau De Freak” my AIM seems to have that’s attracting all the weirdo’s, it’d be a nigh perfect weekend, hm?

ETA: Last minute funny - The boy couldn’t find his belt before work, made due with a backup belt and off to work he went. He just found the belt, hanging on the file cabinet that BOTH OF US HAD LOOKED AT and apparently completely missed the belt hanging there. We’re laughing, and he says “YOU WERE RIGHT THERE!” Says me “YOU WERE TOO!” Says him….

“BUT YOU WERE AT EYE LEVEL!”

Short jokes. The boy has short jokes. He’s lucky I let him live….

..always dangerous, right? But you know how it is - on a random hop around the blogasphere, you stumble over a little comment that sticks in your craw and you mull over it and then think you’ve forgotten all about it but then it keeps on popping back up at odd times and you just wonder why about the whole blasted thing and hello get out of my head already?! So yeah - I had one of those moments, so I’m just gonna write about it. We’ll see how many haters this pulls out of the woodworks. Hee.

So, I was wandering around and random linkhopping as I’ve been known to do, and saw a picture of a waterslide with the comment “The waterslide of death. Obviously my children haven’t been on it.”

Our local water slide

I know, such a random thing to stick with me, especially as I’m not fond of waterslides myself, having a fear of heights and a severe dislike of getting my face splashed/wet. (I know, I’m weird.) But I couldn’t help but wonder why it was so ‘obvious’ that the kids hadn’t been on it. The slide looked a lot more innocent then ours does around here, and I couldn’t keep my kids off it if I tried. (For the record, I haven’t tried, either. Heh.) It’s built according to safety codes, and there’s a lifeguard at the top, plus the ones at pool itself to assure further safety of the kids and so on and so forth. I’ve never worried about them going down it, even as I refuse to do so myself and no amount of convincing can make me climb those stairs to fling myself into a watery grave of doom at all nu uh no way slide.

Point being - I refuse to impose MY fears on my kids. Does that mean I’m going to let them play with knives and fire and jump off bridges and cliffs? No, because that would be stupid. However, I won’t hold them back from something they want to try either, simply because I’m too scared to try it myself.* I don’t want anything to stand in the way of something they want to do - within reason of course - see the cliff, and driving at the age of 5 or dating before they’re 87 years old.

So I began to wonder a wonder that I’ve wondered before - what the hell is with us and coddling our kids so much nowdays? I mean seriously, we’ve gone so far into the OMG MAH PRESHUSH BB DONT HURT DERE WIDDLE FEELINGS mode of thinking that it seems there’s a great deal of wimpy pushovers and terrified kids running around scared of expanding beyond their little bubbles of “MOMMY SAVE ME”. Am I the only one who thinks this does not bode well for the next group of national leaders that we’re raising?

Now, I’m not saying that common sense shouldn’t reign, but we have to give our kids room to fail, else they will never learn anything - whether it be the thrill of sliding down to a watery tomb of death splash zone set aside for such rides, or dueling with swords, or driving before they’re we’re ready, or dating before they’re we’re ready or riding their bike around the block, or into town with an older sibling, or playing a sport and learning that NOT EVERYONE WINS and sometimes your kid will NOT be the BEST at everything…

If we convince them that they’re better without doing the work, or trying, or that everyone is the same, what good reason can we give our kids to strive to better themselves through their lives? How can we possibly expect them to reach and strive for their full potential, if we’ve coddled them into believing that what they are is all they can be? I fear that a whole bunch of people out there are coddling their kids into self-important delusions of grandeur, while pointing fingers at those of us who aren’t and calling us the bad guys and horrible parents.

It’s not about mommy wars, either. It’s about raising decent human beings that can fend for themselves, instead of reclusive little twerps that we can’t get out of our basement because THE SUN! IT MIGHT BURN MAH PRESHUSH SKIN and mommy I don’t WANNA go on the SLIDE don’t make me!

Ahem.

I don’t really have much of a point beyond the wondering why and how and even a bit if I am doing it all wrong myself. But then I get a look at the smile on my kids faces, I hear the way they talk with their friends, and I see that while they have no fear, they have as much common sense as I can pack into their little blond heads - and I know I’m doing OK.

Sure, you may think differently, and I suppose that’s OK, too as they’re your kids. Just remember, that no - it’s not obvious why your kids haven’t gone down that slide and mine are rushing for ride number 2730129381292. But in the end, I promise not to snicker as my kids rescue your kids from your basement someday.

At least, not too much.
Ok, how about not out loud.

That’s the least I can do.

*Please note that my fears are in no way a result of my parents’ raising me fearfully. I discovered them all on my own, because they allowed me to explore and learn my likes and dislikes all by myself while standing patiently by ready to rescue me when I needed it - just as I do my own kids. And you know, I never did touch that stove after it burned me the first time…