Oh The Joys

"Spin around in circles until you fall down!" the band cried.
The Rooster and her friend Margaux spun like whirling dervishes.

Margaux fell repeatedly and The Rooster weaved like a drunkard.

"Now show us your belly buttons!" the band roared.
Roo and her friend exposed their bellies by pulling their 3T shirts up to their eyeballs.

At the Ralph's World concert we went to this weekend, the two girls were gone like a shot in the first few bars of the first song.

The Mayor sat clinging to my side. He intently studied the whole scene like a budding anthropologist.

The Rooster and her friend on the other hand, were down in front jumping up and down and pumping their fists in the air.

Occasionally, one of the girls would run back to me long enough to take a long pull on a juice box straw and then disappear again amongst her peers in the junior mosh pit.

Before they began their last song, the band invited audience members to join them onstage.

Margaux and The Rooster raced up the stage stairs nearly flattening the two year old set.

At first they teetered at the proscenium's edge squinting into the spotlight for a look at the crowd, but then I lost them in the throng.

The next time I spotted them I noticed they had stolen drumsticks and were banging on the drum kit like two wild animals.

Something tells me this doesn't bode well for the teen years.

"She's not being nice!" he wailed.
[Gah! Sisters!]

"Mayor, don't let her take away your power."
Remembering the strategy, The Mayor sucked in a gulp of air and righted his ship.
He is learning to master of his own composure.
The Rooster is skilled at pushing his buttons.
She can make The Mayor cry by saying,
"You're not my friend!  You can't come to my birthday party!"
[Her birthday is in August, but this threat works all year-round.]
Lately, this thing about holding on to your own power has really been working for us.
When Roo has a go at The Mayor, we remind him that she's doing it specifically for the sport of making him mad.
"If you allow her to make you angry," we tell him, "then she wins."
The Mayor, addicted to winning, finds his poker face and steals himself to his sister's wicked taunts.
"Try to make me angry," he dares her.
When she starts in on him again he remains passive and still, unaffected.
"You're winning now," I whisper to him.
He won't betray his game face, but I see the slightest smile at the corner of his mouth. 
His sister scowls, her fun has ended.
[Gah! Mothers!]

The other day at the playground, The Mayor and several other boys from his pre-school class drifted away from the playground and onto the baseball field.

I was standing on the far side of the playground with a man whose name is curiously "Cole's Dad".

The boys were pretty far away from us, but we could still see what they were doing... which was fighting.

They appeared to be ramming each other in the stomachs like four-year-old, big horned sheep.

Their sole purpose seemed to be to knock each other down.

From our vantage point, it appeared somewhat violent.

On several occasions Cole's Dad and K took steps towards the field intending to intervene but then stopped themselves.

The boys seemed completely happy. There were no tears.

In fact, whenever one of them was knocked down, the fallen one rose up to pursue enthusiastic vengeance.

“Boys will be boys,” Cole’s father shrugged.

“I guess,” I marveled.

“We used to play like that,” he said. “Boys are like dogs. We
connect with each other through physical fights.”

He looked wistful remembering his boyhood.


“It was always fun until blood was drawn.”

I glanced nervously over at the field.

“Once there was blood we’d have to figure out something else to do,” he said.

"What? Like humping each other's legs?"

[And after saying this to Cole's Dad, whom I hardly know, I buried my head and my big, fat mouth in sand.]

"Do you hear that?" K asked the kids.
"Hear what?" they asked.
K rolled down the car windows.
"It's the Muslim call to prayer," K told them. "Doesn't it sound beautiful?"

They were driving past a Mosque on the way home from a friend's birthday party.
"What is Muslim?" The Mayor asked.

"It's a kind of religion, a faith," K told him. "Muslims pray five times a day in a building called a Mosque. When it's time to pray, the Muezzin leads the call to prayer."

K closed his eyes and listened, remembering our travels in Malaysia and India.

"What's a Muezzin?" The Mayor wanted to know.
"The Muezzin is the person at the Mosque whose voice you hear calling the faithful to pray. Do you hear him sort of singing the words?"

"What is he saying?" The Mayor asked.
"Hmmm... the call to prayer is said in Arabic," K told him. "I'm not sure how the words translate so I don't know exactly what he's saying."
The Rooster (who is only three) suddenly used her best Darth Vader voice to shout,

"Come to the dark side, Luke."
Oh. My. Got.

[Do you think there's a Diversity Appreciation & Political Correctness Trainer for toddlers?]

"You're a quiche eating old lady!" he yelled.
"You're hag with legs as tall as a house and a butt as big as the planet Earth!" his brother replied.

Our friend Michael suffers from migraine headaches. When his wife was out of town this weekend he came down with one so I took care of the boys. 
I have to say, I had a pretty good time with them.

[I mean, who can resist the fun of yelling elementary school yard insults?]

"You're a giant butt crack filled with potato chips!"
I decided to join in,
"You're a bran muffin eating, big poop maker!" I told the younger boy.
"No, no, no," the elder son said, "I make bigger poops than him."
[Of course. How silly of me.]
"Fine, fine. Then he's a bran muffin eating, tiny pellet pooper!"
"That's the TRUTH," said the elder son laughing.
"Oh, yeah?" the younger countered. "Well, YOU clip your toe nails and fling them behind the sofa."
"No, no, no," the elder corrected. "It's DAD who does that."
Oh, the things our children will tell the world about us.

I believe in Government Transparency.
[Oh, yeah... and what she said, too!]

Edited to add: Roger Ebert!

Something about the word"ROFL" (is it an actual word?) makes me want to strut like a turkey, saying,
"Rofl, rofl, rofl!"
Is that wrong? 
At any rate, today is the day that Chicky Chicky Baby and I bring you The October ROFL Awards.
[Keep your eyes out for November posts that make you laugh and nominate them next month!]



Killing A Fly with A Ukulele awarded Graze If You Want To...

Rusti awarded Her Bad Mother
Little Nut Tree awarded Suburban Mum

SJ awarded What Ladder?

Maddy awarded Magnetobold
Under the Mad Hat awarded Collecting Tokens
Lottifish awarded The Blogess
Magpie Musing awarded Waitress Where's My Martini
Motherbumper awarded Whiskey In My Sippy Cup
Dutch Blitz awarded Full of Snark
Tiny Mantras awarded Prefers Her Fantasy Life
Queen of the Shake Shake awarded Miss Britt
All Rileyed Up awarded What Works for Us
Whee! All the Way Home awarded The Spohrs are Multiplying
wellreadhostess awarded Formerly Fun

Motherbumper awarded Mr. Lady

Chicky Chicky Baby awarded Mothergoosemouse

Oh, The Joys awarded Notes From The Trenches

**********************
To award someone a ROFL Award next month:  

1. Pick a post from the current month that made you laugh. 
[Please only choose original material written or developed by a blogger - i.e., not a YouTube video, cartoon, or joke circling the Net.]

2. E-mail me a link to the post that you are nominating AND a link to your blog by the deadline.
[I will send you the award button so you can share it with the blogger you've nominated.]  
3.  I will send you the award button code a day or so before the awards are to be posted.  
4. Send the person you are awarding the award button code and let them know when the ROFL Awards will be posted for the month.

5. On the first Friday of the month, write a post on your blog about the post you nominated.  
[Please link back to this blog (Oh, The Joys) and to Tania at Chicky Chicky Baby so that people can see the full list of award winning funny posts.]

6. Read all the funny posts for the month and enjoy!

Feel free to e-mail me with questions.

Last night, watching the election coverage on television, I looked out into the sea of faces gathered in Chicago’s Grant Park.
There were thousands of people of all shapes, sizes and colors all jubilantly jumbled together.
Their faces were shining, their eyes filled with joy and hope.
In them, in all their differences and similarities, I saw my America.
That crowd embodied the America that I believe in.
I’ve never been as proud of us as I am right now.

It seemed like we had a "Halloween Hangover" all weekend.
The four of us were dragging.
By Sunday afternoon, it was clear that I had a bad cold, the children had eaten too much sugar and K had taken ENOUGH.
After the obligatory use of a Disney film to absorb a bit of Sunday, the children begged to play cards.
K launched a three-way game of War.
"One, Two, Three... DRAW," he said.
The Mayor, The Rooster and K each flipped over a card.

[I watched from my horizontal parenting position on the couch.]
Every time The Rooster lost a hand, she snatched her card back, pressed it close to her chest and wiggled back and forth as if her whole body were saying, 
"NO!"
The Mayor, in a great act of maturity, accepted her idiosyncratic play style and focused on the cards won and lost between himself and his father.
"Rooster isn't playing right," he shrugged.
"No she isn't" K said, sighing.  "That's how your mother plays, too."
[Rooster's not the only one in this family who doesn't like losing.]

The plush head of the horse sat cradled in the crook of her elbow.
In her free hand, a pink plastic pumpkin bucket swayed back and forth.
Her pink cowgirl boots were a size too big and the horse's dangling legs routinely got tangled up in hers.
Concentrating on keeping her balance, she carefully picked her way up the buckled concrete steps.
The lights were on in the house and we could see shelves and shelves full of books inside, but no one appeared to be home.
There were three stuffed zombies sitting on a wicker couch on the far corner of the porch where she stood.
The zombies appeared to be made from straw and pillow stuffing, like scarecrows, but they had frightening masks for heads.
The Rooster rang the doorbell and waited.
No one came.
Then, ever so slowly, one of the zombies started to move.
The Rooster had reached the porch first and stood there alone.  The Mayor and our friend's children were behind her, still on the stairs.
The zombie leaned forward towards The Rooster.
He beckoned her with a rubber clawed hand.
She took a step in his direction and he leaned forward even further.
The zombie seemed to be reaching for a huge bowl of candy at his feet.
Cautiously, The Rooster walked towards the zombie.  
When she reached the monster, she looked him right in the eyes, smiled a gigantic smile and shouted,
"TRICK OR TREAT!"
She was fearless.

I got home late.
I hadn't eaten.
The kids were wound up, not yet in pajamas and their lunches weren't made.

[Sisyphus? I know how you feel!]
K wrangled the kids into their sleeping garb and read them stories while I ate cold cereal and packed up the next day's lunches.
Then I remembered....
"Sh*t! I have to bake!"
[I got suckered by the Pre-K PTA.]
I agreed to bake a cake for the Fall Festival.
[Ha ha ha ha.]
When I agreed to bake, I decided I would make my Grandma K's Lemon Pound Cake with Walnuts (without the walnuts because nuts are banned from the land of the short people).
I e-mailed my Dad and asked for the recipe and, once he sent it, I purchased the ingredients.
It wasn't until I stood before the pre-heated oven and the greased bundt cake pan that I actually READ the recipe he sent.
[Which, unfortunately, confused me greatly.]
I tried calling my Dad at home and on his cell phone.
[Dad access = FAIL.]
I tried calling his sister, my Aunt Dorothy.
[WHO DOESN'T ANSWER HER CELL PHONE WHILE PLAYING CANASTA!!]
Next, I called my cousin Gary and his wife Judy answered.
This is how she answered the phone,
"Hal-low?  What? Wait. Listen, I'm forty-five years old and I'm going through some CHANGES right now, okay. I just got my period. It was two weeks late and it feels like everything down there is going to fall right out on the floor.  I've been up since 2:30 in the morning and I'm covered in glitter and glue and I'm trying to make a Heat Miser Halloween costume for a sixteen year old. What do YOU want?"
[Ha ha ha ha ha.]
I tried to be empathetic.
"I feel you," I said.
"Oh, I don't think so. No, no, no. You definitely DO NOT. Call me back when yours are teen-agers!"
I told her why I was calling.
"Oh, please," she said.  "I do NOT bake."
Judy suggested I call my cousin Jeffrey and then she started swearing.
"This glue is giving me a damned headache!"
I bid Judy a polite goodbye and called my cousin Jeffrey.
Jeffrey had a vague idea that the cake recipe involved a package of lemon pudding mix.
[Then he told me that he thought Sarah Palin was cute.]
"Did you try my mom?" he asked.
"Yeah, I tried her first, but she didn't pick up."
"Oh, right. Canasta."
[There was a pause.]

"You could try calling Aunt Gladys," he said and he gave me her phone number.
Aunt Gladys, one of my Grandma K's sisters, is famous for telling extremely raunchy jokes and pretending she doesn't understand why they're naughty.

I glanced at the clock.  
It was getting later and later and I hadn't even started the cake.
I was desperate.
"When do you have to make this cake?" Jeffrey asked me.
"Right now," I answered.  "I'm in PTA hell."
"It's due tomorrow?  You waited until the last minute?"
[Uh... yeah.]
"Well, who's gonna eat the cake?" Jeffrey asked.
"What do you mean? I don't know who's going to eat it," I said.
"So why don't you just follow the directions on the cake mix box and forget about Grandma's recipe?"
[Blink. Blink.]
"Okay, Jeffrey.  You've talked me down."
I'M COMING DOWN FROM THE LEDGE NOW PEOPLE!!!

And I am listening to a self-help tape...
"Repeat after me... I do not have to be a baking over-achiever for the PTA...now try that a few more times..."

"I do not have to be a baking over-achiever for the PTA..."

"I do not have to be a baking over-achiever for the PTA..."


"I do not have to be a baking over-achiever for the PTA..."
Everything is going to be just fine.

"Loving you is really, really good," she said.
[I tried to ignore the fact that she was sitting on the potty creating THE MOTHER OF ALL TODDLER POOPS during this conversation.]
"I like loving you too, Roo.  It's one of my favorite things to do."
"Tell me about when you cried when I came out of your tummy," she said.
"Well, when you were in my tummy, I didn't know if you were a boy or a girl.  When you finally came out, they laid you on my chest and they told me you were a girl.  I was so happy that I cried and cried."
[We no longer have to go over and over the fact that sometimes people cry when they're happy and not just when they're sad.]
The Rooster beamed at my description. She likes hearing that I was happy to see her when she arrived.
"And when I was a baby, did you love me so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so..."
[The "so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so's" went on for a LONG time.]
"...so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so much?"
"I did love you so much, and every day since then I've loved you a little bit more."
"I like loving you and Dada the best, Mama.  It's really, really... it's just really good."
"I think so too, Roo.  Every day."

Over the weekend, The Mayor studied the photos in the newspaper's sports section.
"How can this be, Mama?" he asked pointing to a photo of a quarterback.
"What, Mayor?  How can what be?" I asked looking at the picture.
"How can the skin on his throwing arm be brown and the skin on his other arm be blonde?"
A trick of the light made The Mayor think the quarterback was somehow bi-racial, literally, that one half of him was black and the other half white.

Admittedly, the photo did kind of look that way.
I pointed to the picture.
"One of his arms is hidden in shadow and the other arm is extended in sunlight."
I smiled thinking about The Mayor's choice of words, the way he used brown and blonde to describe skin color the same way he would talk about the color of hair. 

Next time I'm asked to check a box to indicate my race, I'm going tick "other" and write,
"Blonde."

When we were little, my brother was always dressing up.
If you met him as an adult, you might find this hard to imagine. These days my brother most often wears a tough shell, but in the 1970's... he had hats.
He had a policeman's hat and a fireman's hat and was routinely "rescuing" someone or otherwise saving the day.
Lacking the proper costume was never an issue for him, he was good at improvising.
I remember coming home once to find him wrapped in a bed sheet that was belted around his waist.  On his head he wore a pillow case turban and he brandished a sword with a remarkable resemblance to a wrapping paper tube.
When my mother asked what he was doing, he shouted,
"I am El KaBar!"
He had been watching a some sort of Nights of Arabia movie and was inspired to transform himself into a Middle-Eastern warrior.
I remembered all this about my brother on Sunday morning when, in a fit of last minute birthday present desperation, I was left with no choice but to brave a trip to the local Whale*Mart.
I asked The Mayor to get dressed and the next thing I knew there was a four year old fireman riding backwards on the front end of my shopping cart as I careened up and down the aisles of the Super Center.
["Super" being decidedly subjective in this case.]
It was my job to shout,  "Woooo  Ooooo Wooooo Oooooo Wooooo!" approximating the siren sound for our hook and ladder truck (formerly known as the cart).
[The things parenthood makes us do in public!]
Later in the day, The Mayor reminded me of my brother again.
Having received a toy eye patch in his crap-tastic-plastic-filled, birthday party goodie bag, The Mayor decided to dress up like a pirate.
I think it was the navy, corduroy blazer with elbow patches, the fireman boots and the baseball bat sword that really made the outfit for me.
The Mayor stood in front of the mirror practicing various pirate faces and generally admiring his costume design skills when The Rooster approached.
She planted herself in front of him and gave him a full, head-to-toe appraisal.
Then she looked him in the eye and said without regret,
"You look weird."
I wonder if my brother will read this blog today.  If he does, he'll be reminded of me.


Pirate Mayor, October 26, 2008

I don't get it.

Every night, I read you three books, hug you, kiss you and put you into bed.
Very specifically, IN THE BED.
You are so quiet in there.
I think you must be sleeping sweetly.

Oddly, when I check in on you later, you are surrounded by toys and passed out on the floor.



Rats! You tricked me AGAIN!
Gah!

The other day I wrote about how hopeful and excited I feel about the presidential election.
In response to my post, someone asked me what I really thought was going to change.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the question.

I suppose I believe that having a Democrat in office will change our national direction on a number of policies and issues that are important to me.

I’m voting for the Democratic candidate because my beliefs most closely align with those of the Democratic Party.

I am voting for Barack Obama solely because I believe he is the candidate that best represents my policy interests.

That said, the possibility of seating a Democrat in the White House doesn't completely capture why I’m so excited about this particular election.   
It's not the Democratic Party, their policies or even Barack Obama that makes me well up with hope.
It’s our country, it’s us.
I’m fantastically excited about what it might mean for our national culture if we elect a person of color as President.
Just think what an historic milestone that would represent...
Think of the progress we could make if more white Americans learned to accept, follow – even embrace - leadership from African Americans and more broadly, people of color.
While we have made many strides since the civil rights movement, our nation continues to struggle with issues of race.
Obama winning feels like it could be good medicine.

I think we need this.
We need to be unified, across our differences.
What was that Aesop said?  
Oh, yes...
United we stand, divided we fall.  
I believe in that.

One nation.  Under God.  Indivisible.  With liberty. And justice. For all.

I’m out-of-my-mind with excitement because there is an increasing possibility that  we are on the verge of breaking down a barrier, crossing into a new frontier, and charting new territory.

I can't predict exactly how a change in our national ethos of race might look, but I am hopeful that American racial politics will change for the better.
I weep tears of joy at the sheer possibility.

For my birthday present this year, K gave me a gift certificate to take a six session course with a silversmith.
Our first project is to make a silver ring with a semi-precious stone in a bevel setting.
For some reason every time I mention this class to people they say,
“Oh, you’re doing a handicraft.”
So I want to go on the record right here, right now and say that I do not like the word “handicraft.”  
It makes me think of “panty”.
Do not say handicraft to me.

I’m learning a SKILL, okay?
So anyway, the teacher suggested we take notes.
At first, I was all, 
“Honkey, PLEASE!”
But then she started to invoke π.
[I can’t even tell you how long it took me to find Pi on the keyboard.]
You’d better believe that when the mathematical formulas involving Pi started flying out of her mouth, I got down to the business of note taking.
Then I had to raise my hand.
“Yes, Jessica?”
“Uh… how do you spell soddering?”
[Sautering? Sawtering? WTH??!!]
“S-O-L-D-E-R-I-N-G.”
My classmate snickered.  
She KNEW how to spell it.
Whatever.
No one’s going to give ME a hard time in HANDICRAFTS class.
“Oh, WHAT?  Like I have to know how to spell that in every day life?”
[Honkey, PLEASE.]
[Honkey, please is my new favorite phrase. Bear with me.]
I have spent the last 36 hours trying to think of ways to mainstream the word “soldering”.
My best idea so far is to use it in meetings at work.
You know infuse it into the corporate mumbo jumbo.
“We need to solder this revenue stream to our profit portfolio.”
I’m totally going to get a raise.

"Mama, help," he said.
I was washing dishes, up to my elbows in soap suds, when I turned to look.
The chord from the blinds was wrapped tightly around his neck.
I must have looked panicked because he said,
"It's okay.  I can breathe."
The next thing I knew, I was kneeling in front of him unwinding the chord and sobbing.
He looked confused and worried.  I'm pretty sure he's never seen me react quite that way.
I tried to pull him in close after I got the chord off but he wouldn't let me.  He was busy  concentrating on my face.
I kept repeating, 
"Please don't ever do that... please don't ever do that again."
The Mayor pushed me gently back and put his hands around my face.
"What is it, Mama? Why are you crying?"
I tried to explain that he could get hurt and that he should never wrap anything around his neck but my crying had frightened him and I don't think he could connect my reaction to my words.
"Are you mad at The Mayor?" The Rooster asked.
She was also startled and looking at me curiously.
Hell, even I was a little startled by my extremely emotional response.
"No, Roo.  I'm not mad at him.  I just got scared.  That SCARED me," I told them, still crying.
Something about the possibility of The Mayor strangling himself coupled with the visual image of him trapped in the chord rendered me instantly hysterical.
It was so visceral, so instantaneous.
"Promise that you won't tell Daddy," The Mayor begged.
I agreed not to tell, but later I asked him about this request.
"Why don't you want me to tell Dad, Mayor? Are you afraid he'll be angry and you'll get in trouble?"
The Mayor shook his head.
"No, mom.  I'm worried that it will make him as sad as it made you."
He looked at me and seemed so completely earnest.

 "I don't want there to be anymore crying in our family."

Lately, I'm so filled with hope I can hardly stand it.
Literally, I get goosebumps when I think about what might happen and what it might mean for us.
For all of us.
As I've been driving around and leading my predictable, little life, I've noticed an ever increasing density of yard signs.
Obama...  Obama...   Obama...   Obama....
Right here in Georgia!
I don't think I've ever been as excited about a Presidential election before.

On the night of the second debate, Molly, Michele, myself and six other women threw a fundraiser, raised $2,600 and sent it off to Chicago.
I'd never done anything like that either.
This weekend I went to an event organized so moms could learn how to volunteer to support the election.  
[It was held at the local jumpy place and both admission and pizza were free for the kids. It was a GENIUS idea. The place was packed.]
Obama...  Obama...   Obama...   Obama....

When I was recently in Virginia, I saw my cousin Cary.  
He was my childhood hero and he'll always be dear to me, however...
Cary is a die-hard conservative.
He loves giving me sh*t about my more liberal political leanings.
As the two of us waited in line for homemade country ham biscuits, the last of the season's butter beans and all the other covered dish masterpieces the ladies of the church had laid out, he said,
"Much as I hate to admit it, I don't think my boy stands a chance."
My jaw nearly hit the floor.  It is wholly unlike Cary to concede anything when it comes to the Republican Party.
"I'm kind of looking forward to the Obama administration," he said.  "It will be fun to watch them dig themselves into a hole."
That was my opening.
"If you're looking forward to it so much," I said, "can I get you to vote for him?"
He gave me The Look.
I don't want to count any chickens... I've always thought that was bad luck, but more and more I keep thinking...

"Is this really happening?  Are we really going to do it?"
I find myself grinning like an idiot, feeling hopeful about the future.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

I found this image on Flickr today.  
I was looking at that hypnotic, psychedelic panda that spits out interesting pictures...
[Can I just ask, what kind of drugs the Flickr people were enjoying when they made that Panda thing?!]
[Big i-thanks to furiousball for hooking me up with that kind i-high, dude.]
Anyway, I needed to put this picture up here to get a little help understanding it.
[The comments appear to be written in Latvian.]
I've been thinking about the photo all day and am strangely bothered.
The photo's title is "motherly instinct."
Is the artist suggesting that the woman's instinct to mother is so strong that, since she has no child, she is mothering an uncooked chicken?

[Which, of course, leads me to infer that the woman has gone insane.]
[Because as tasty as a pullet can be, no one likes touching one raw.]
I can't figure out why, but mostly the photo makes me feel somehow mocked.

Do I have this wrong?
Someone explain what motherly instinct and gettin' all nekkid with a five pound roaster have to do with each other.