playgroupsarenoplaceforchildren

I suppose only hunters and spouses of hunters can truly appreciate giving a loved one fox urine for Christmas.

This gift made Tate disturbingly excited.  Apparently it’s very difficult to find and “thanks” to his mom and dad’s Christmas shopping diligence, he now is the proud owner of fox urine.

So I guess in this case it’s appropriate to say, “Merry Pissmas?”

If you’re getting desperate and need to buy some super fab gifts for the hunter in your life (and they’re already lucky enough to own their own bottled fox pee), do I have some ideas for you!

Hoo-ahhs and Monkey Butt Powder, or The Butt-Out Tool.

(You can thank me later. *wink*)

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Shop now!

Get yer fox urine right here! (Not SO hard to find…)

Nothing says I love you like a good wipe. Buy them Hoo-Ahhs!

Anti Monkey Butt Powder, for those loved ones with itchy, monkey-like asses!

Buy the much coveted Butt-Out tool here!

Full disclosure…these wonderful products are linked via my Amazon affiliate account.  If I sell enough of these fabulous treasures, I’ll have enough money in six or seven years to buy a can of pinto beans.  Thank you!

My children each received these Zhu Zhu pets as an early Christmas present from their great aunt and uncle.

Surely I’m missing something here?  The most coveted toy of the Christmas season is a fake robot hamster that moos like a cow and can sound like a car horn, amongst many other non-hamster-like sounds…um, why?

I’ve been a daredevil parent since the beginning.  Soon after Carson was born and back when I still read Parents Magazine, I read that one of his toys had been recalled because the wheels on one of his plush car toys could come off and choke an unsuspecting infant.

You know what I did?  Not a darn thing.  I didn’t even take the death trap toy away from Carson.  He continued to gnaw and gnaw on that toy, defying the odds stacked against him and that toy.  I really enjoyed the added rush of excitement that lingered whenever he played with the toy.

There was also this one time (okay, about twenty times) that I put Carson in his Bumbo seat and placed him high atop a bookshelf while I went out for the afternoon with some girlfriends.  Danger, schmanger.  I figured he was safer up there than on the ground, prey to the dogs.  He was perfectly fine when I returned a few hours later and didn’t even fall out until I got home!

Once when Ella was a baby, I let her ride in her carseat on top of the roof of my car, just to let her get some fresh air.  We rode around, I took her out on the highway to pick up some speed and really let her feel the wind in her wisps of hair.  The only truly dangerous thing I did was not putting socks on her wee little baby feet.  Poor girl was freezing when I retrieved her.  I’m lucky she didn’t catch a cold.

At the beginning of the summer, I signed both kids up for knife juggling.  They didn’t really show any real talent for the sport and weren’t making any progress so I cancelled the lessons.  They started practicing on their own and really started to show improvement.  Nothing like getting sliced a few times to really teach them!

This pattern of dangerous parenting has continued.  Why, just yesterday at Target, an employee stopped us to reprimand me for allowing Carson to ride standing up on the back of the cart.  She warned me that children END UP IN THE HOSPITAL by such careless acts by parents.

It’s a good thing she taught me something about safety and parenting.   I think I really have a lot to learn.

(Portions of this post were either fabricated and/or greatly exaggerated. The part about Target? 100% true.)

I just wanted to wish you balls all a very Happy balls Thanksgiving! I hope your turkey is moist balls, your family is balls well, and that your Thanksgiving centerpiece doesn’t remind you of anything balls.

Happy Turkey Balls Day!

I just had to explain to my heartbroken four year old son why the woman pushing two kids about his age in a double stroller in front of our house didn’t say “hello” to us, even after we said “hello” and waved.

“Mommy?  Why didn’t they come over?  I wanted to play with them,” confused, Carson asked as tears began to fill his eyes.

I wanted to say, “Carson, I’m so sorry, sweetie.  I don’t know why some people are assholes.  They just are.  They are the type of people we should throw rocks at.  The next time they walk past our house I’ll scream ‘HELLO!  HELLO!’ until she replies like a civil human being.”

Instead I hugged him and told him that they probably didn’t hear us saying “hello.”  Carson looked up at me with an expression on his face that told me he wasn’t buying it.  (Because seriously, we were standing at the end of the driveway saying “hello” and waving.  There was no way we went unheard or unseen!)

“Well maybe they were in a hurry to get home or maybe they were really shy,”  I explained again.   Quickly I tried to redirect his attention to shiny, happy objects so that he wouldn’t cry and so that I wouldn’t let it slip how I really thought we should chase the lady down and ask her what her damn problem was.

People who can’t return simple human courtesies, such as saying “hello,” completely confuse me.    Sadly, it’s not the first time it’s happened.

It broke my heart to see my son look at me with such excitement to see potential playmates! in our neighborhood! walking right toward us!, only to be completely ignored.  How can you ignore two adorable little kids waving and saying “hello???”  What is wrong with people?

Oh right!  Some people are just assholes.

(These are the people we’re supposed to pray for, right?)

You know all those kids who are way too old to be trick or treating that come to your door?  They just stand there holding their pillowcase open, reeking of Sense of Entitlement, without even saying trick or treat?  Yeah.  THOSE kids.

I gave them all the crap candy we didn’t eat from Halloween three two last years ago.

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Well, actually it didn’t exactly play out that way seeing as we had a total of seven trick or treaters.  Thanks stupid rain.   But!  If we had had any of those annoying teens, I so would have given them the stale Whoppers and rock hard Tootsie Rolls, teaching the ill-mannered youth of today a valuable lesson.

On the bright side, that candy will be really ready to give out next year.

I just love it when people mispronounce common words.  And by love I mean, it irritates the crap out of me, but yet it provides hours and hours of hearty chuckling when I’m making fun of them on my blog.

My most favorite mispronounced word was one I heard last week.  The lady who was speaking said, “we’ll talk about all the scenarinos.”  Scenarinos.  As in scenarios.  I looked at the other people sitting around me to see if anyone else was trying as hard as I was not to bust a gut laughing.  Nobody was visibly shaking, but there is no way I’m the only one who heard her say “scenarino.”  Scene-arino.  Seriously.  That’s comedy GOLD.

Tate and I have made it our goal to work this new word into our everyday vocabulary.  “So Tate, which scenarino works best for lunch?  Ham sandwiches or leftovers?”  “Hey Jennifer, after the kids go to bed later, I imagine a scenarino with us going to bed early {eyebrow wag, eyebrow wag}.”

Other words that make me laugh/want to punch someone includes:

Supposebly.  Supposebly you’re an idiot.

Irregardless.  Irregardless of what you say, irregardless is not a word.

Warsh.   I’m going to warsh your mouth out with soap if you say this stupid word ever again.  (I used to hear this all the time when I was a kid and lived in Oklahoma.  I don’t know if it’s an Oklahoma “thing,” but I’ve also heard a few people from St. Louis say warsh instead of wash.)

Ideals. I have lots of ideals about how I can torture people who use the word “ideals” when they really mean “ideas.”  (I hear this ALL the time in Tennessee and it makes me want to punch somebody.)

Any words that people totally botch that make you cringe or giggle with delight?

Edited to add:   Your comments are reminding me of words I didn’t even think about!  Kindygarten!  HATE that.  Also, I lose intelligence points every time someone adds a plural ending to words that don’t need plural endings.  Krogers, Meijers, Walmarts…THERE IS NO “S” ON THOSE NAMES, DAMMIT.