A Rash of Embarrassment

We went to the pediatrician for a little checkup. When the doctor walked in, Jordan went slightly limp in my arms. I thought he was just being shy, but the moment she asked how everything is going, he croaked out "I have a rash" in his best fake sick voice. She came over as he held out his leg and she took a look. I was shocked to see that he really did have spots all down his leg! The doctor checked it out and took a deep breath... "That's dirt, Jordan. I think you need a shower little guy!" The bad news is that my kid is so filthy even HE thinks he's got a rash and I took him to the doctor like this (embarrassing!). The good news is that my kid is going to be able to take good care of me when I'm senile after he wins his first Oscar, and I won't be able to see the dirt then anyway! :)

Don't Eat Your Burgers

We've been out running errands all day and the kids started to get hungry, so I thought I'd make a stop for some fast food. I got the kids really excited about eating burritos for the first time because I thought Taco Bell sounded better than Carls Jr at the time and I knew they would be wondering where their nuggets were. But when we got to Taco Bell, it was closed. I was pretty bummed and I turned the car around and told them "I guess we'll have to eat burgers." Jordan was horrified. "Don't eat your burgers Mommy! Dat nasty."

Mmm... Phlegm-broiled boogers are my favorite though.

They're For Boys

Jordan and Emma are really into coins lately. When Dave comes home from work each evening, he gives them the coins in his pockets and they put them in their banks. This has become a huge deal to them, and Dave gets the cold shoulder if he doesn't have any change when he comes home. I feel bad for him sometimes when they act so excited that he's home and then they just want his money. I guess this is what it's like being a dad though, huh? Well, Emma had a small collection of coins that she had been dragging around all day and wasn't quite ready to retire to her bank. She played with them for hours until it was time to take a shower. I made her leave them on the floor by the shower. Sure enough, Jordan wandered by and they caught his eye, and he began playing with the coins. I didn't tell him to stop because I didn't want to point out to Emma that she was being robbed while she was in the shower, because it freaking echoes in there and echoed screaming really has a way of rattling the good mood straight out of me. When Emma was done showering and realized on her own that she had been robbed, she handled it well...
E: Jodie, dose MY coins.
J: Nope, dey mine.
E: No Jodie, dose is mine. I had dem.
J: No Emma, deese ah foh boys.
E: Dey not foh boys, Jodie. Dey foh me.
J: Nope, see (shows her faces of the coins) -- dey gots boys on dem. Dey foh boys.

What a nice day at the poo-l, dogonit...

My kid sister is out of school on summer vacation finally. But she needs a ride to swim practice on the days that our mom works and I have traditionally taken this responsibility up. Well, now that I have moved across town, it's a little harder to do, so my dear sister cut me a deal. She'll play with the kids and give me a little break on these days before we have to leave for practice. I decided to take full advantage of this opportunity and ask her to throw in swim lessons. Afterall, she is seriously a badass when it comes to swimming and the kids trust her and listen to every word she says no matter what the situation. She is cooler than Mickey Mouse to them at this point. So she agreed to do it and the kids were more than excited to participate. She gave them their first little lesson in their pool today and it was adorable. Then they got out and all things adorable promptly ended when one of them crapped on my mom's patio. While I yelled to Taylor (she ran inside to dry off) to come help me, their little old deaf dog started chow-hounding it up and couldn't hear me as I yelled at him to stop. Then the kids got grossed out and started to run and the dog thought they were playing so he chased them and was trying to lick them, which grossed them out even more and my dry heaves began, causing total loss of control of the situation. Taylor ran out to help and asked where the poop was... Oh no... Dog-on-it... Standing on it now. By the way, Mom, I cleaned it all up but Eddie might smell kind of crappy when you get home. Sorry about that.

Blanket Dander

I have ridiculous allergies this morning. My eyes are swollen, my nose is running, my throat itches and I can't stop sneezing. Have I been around a shedding animal? No. Am I having grass or pollen allergies? Nope. Could it be the trees? No, not that either. What could be causing this incredible misery then? It's the kids' damn blankies. Dave washed them with our towels the other day and they shed their nasty fluff all over. Now I'm being suffocated by raunchy blanket fluff. I feel like I'm dying, and this is a horrible way to go. Suffocated by slobber-induced-rotting blanket fibers? I might prefer the droopy-loogie torture by my brothers that I endured as a kid. At least THAT spit was fresh, and not sticking to the walls of my lungs. I'm starting to think I even prefer things like last month's barf-o-rama, when I couldn't suppress my gag reflex after my poor child spewed all over me. At least that was fleeting torture.

Rewriting the Lyrics, Mommy Style: Pocketful of Sunshine

I like to keep a small handful of jellybeans in my pocket to reward my kids for good listening throughout the day. The other day I was filling my pocket when they asked me what I had...

I got a pocket got a pocketful of jellybeans
I keep em in there to make my kids do things oh
Oh oh oh...
Do want you want if you never wanna eat these
Otherwise listen yeah listen to your mommy oh
Oh oh oh...

Make me behave, a special way
A sweet lil bean, makes me behave
Make me behave on all the days
Make me behave, with bribery!

(Inspired by Natasha Bedingfield's "Pocketful of Sunshine")

The Purple Alligator

Jordan: Mama, I wan a yittle ahyigatoh.
Me: An alligator? Ahh shoot, is there one on the floor again? (Playing along)
J: No mama, I wan a purpoh ahyigatoh. I can have one?
M: Sure, but I don't know where to find a purple alligator, Buddy. I'm sorry.
J: I go get one.

He came back moments later with his purple gator. Well, grape flavored Gatorade anyway. Sucks that I already said he could have one back when I thought we were playing imagination games. Duh, Mom.

A Petty Meal

The kids have been really fascinated by their uncles lately. Particularly Jordan. He has been especially enthusiastic about Uncle Jake this passed month. Jake has a pretty cool self-sustainability thing going on at his house and raises goats and chickens for eggs and meat. Jordan thinks Uncle Jake is a famous cowboy. Last time we went to visit Jake, Jordan wore his cowboy boots and hat from Holloween last year. This is serious business for Jordie.
Fast forward to two days ago, when Monta took the kids to the park. Jordan found a duck egg in the grass. He brought it home and put it in a box to hatch, just like Jake's chicken eggs in the incubator. I just thought it was kind of cute, but it wasn't until the following day that I realized what my son was up to. We got home a little late and it was time for dinner. Jordan walked over to our pet rat's cage and peeked in.
Jordan: Mommy, when we gonna eat Say-wa? (Her name is Sara.)
Me: Jordie! We're not eating her! She's our pet!
Jordan: Uncoh Jake eat HIS pets. Why we not eat Say-wa?

Umm... Because she's a tiny rat, little dude. And plus you're not very good at sharing yet.

The Sack of Crap

I doubt I've ever worried so much about possibly needing to hit the brakes. But you see, I had a sack of crap in the back of my car. A McDonalds sack. And the crap part, literal. Not the figurative sack of crap from McDonalds. But I kept having this horrid vision that I'd need to hit the brakes and the sack might go hurling through the car and explode across the windshield or something. It's kind of the way things seem to chronically go for me. You're probably wondering at this point why, exactly, I was transporting raw turd in a McDonalds bag across town. More specifically, raw human turd. Well, we left my mom's house and a few miles down the road Jordan decided he needed to "potty"... He said he couldn't wait and started shouting about it so I knew it was urgent. I quickly pulled over and ushered him to a bush in the parking lot, thanking my lucky stars that boys can pee anywhere. I helped him get his pants down and he started shaking his legs and yelling "Wha-do I do?!" I told him to just go and he looked at me with sheer disgust. "I need ta poop, Mommy!" OMG you're freaking kidding me. In a parking lot?! What do I do?! It's really frowned upon to leave human poo on the ground in a parking lot I think. So the proverbial sack of sh*t became literal, and I might drop an anonymous note to the manager of the shopping center regarding their need for trash cans.

The Stench of Reality

I found an almost-empty cup of milk this morning when I was picking up in the playroom. Not thinking too hard about it, I took it downstairs and opened it to wash it. Jordan was standing right next to me when the week old sour milk stench blasted its way out of the cup...

My family has made it very clear at this point that Emma's blankie is disgusting. My mom makes new suggestions of horrible similar smells each time she even thinks of the blanket. And I have to admit, once I thought a dirty diaper had been left in the car on a hot day, but after a thorough search of the car, found nothing but the blanket. I have three "copies" of it, but she likes to suck on the corners of it. Within a few hours, the blanket stinks, but I refuse to give her more than one a day. It's just too much laundry...

Well, I guess I know how terrible the blankie really smells now, because my son has a way of piercing through the fog of mommy denial. When that horendous smell of sour milk entered our nostrils, Jordan quickly proclaimed, "Dat smell yike Emma's bankie." Holy crap, he's right. Not letting her take that out in public anymore.