Conversations With A Toddler Part The First

Tags

awkward conversations, parenting, toddlers

Talking to a toddler can be a strange adventure.

I’ve had some truly bizarre and awkward ones with Owl, who is now two and three quarters. I need to start documenting them, because if they seem weird to me, his doting mother, I can only imagine how bizarre they will sound to you.

Owl: Mommy…. what I doing?

Me: You’re putting your fingers on your nipples, honey.

Owl: Yeah. I am. I am putting my fingers on my nipples.

Me: Okay, step into your undies, please.

Owl: No. I busy. I busy putting my fingers on my nipples.

—

A few days later

Owl: Mommy… what I doing?

Me: You’re… you’re putting your finger in your foreskin, honey.

Owl: No.

Me: Yes, yes you are. Yup. That is your finger up your foreskin.

Owl: No I not. This my penis. Look. What I doing?

Me: Yes, that is your penis, and this PART of your penis is your foreskin, and you are putting your finger in it. Please step into your undies.

Owl: This my foreskin? I put my finger in it?

Me: PLEASE STEP INTO YOUR UNDIES BEFORE I COUNT TO THREE.

Great Plot Idea For The Next “Cars” Sequel

Tags

cars, imagination, parenting, pixar, slash, toddlers

A trip to Owl’s imagination often ends in strange places. The other day he approached me and said,

Owl: “Mommy, what do you want for play?”

Me: “Uh… do you want to play with your big green ball?”

Owl: “Nope, let’s play with my cars!”

He handed me a generic red plastic car that he often pretends is McQueen from the Pixar atrocity “Cars” (which he has never actually watched).

Owl: “You’re McQueen, and I’m Mater!”

Me: “Ok.”

McQueen and Mater then held the following conversation:

…

In which I change the direction of the blog

Tags

I should leave my blog logged out more often, so much hate, why does PH hate me

Dear reader,

I’ve decided that, now that I’ve been writing this blog for almost four years, it needs to go in a new direction. Your comments on this recent post convinced me of that.

So from now on, I shall be focussing the vast majority of my posts on…

Pinkie Pie!

She’s awesome. Just so awesome. I invite you to read through the link above and truly appreciate the hard work that went into creating a Wiki page that has that much information about Pinkie Pie.

I’ll still update occasionally about Owl, of course, but I really find that he’s taken a backseat in my life ever since I discovered this:

 

So thank you as always for your readership, and I hope you enjoy my new path. And remember…

 

Hey, Single People, Here’s A Window To Married Life

Tags

dialogue, humor, life, marriage

Perfect Husband and I are in bed and settling down to sleep. For me “settling down to sleep” means reading for an hour in dim light until I develop the ability to go unconscious. For Perfect Husband, it means *snore snore snore snore*.

Perfect Husband: “I have a vital task for you.”

Me: “What?”

Perfect Husband: “Before you go to sleep, turn the dryer on to timed dry so it doesn’t run all night. Do this, and I will reward you with riches beyond your wildest dreams.”

Me: “And if if I don’t?”

Perfect Husband: “I will lick the inside of your nose.”

Me: “…I’ll remember.”

A Moment In The Life Of An Almost-Two Year Old

Tags

babies, humor, parenthood, toddlers

Me: “Owl, I have to use the potty. Do you want to come upstairs with me, or stay here and play with your cars?”

Owl: “Play with cars!”

Me: “Okay, I’ll be back in a minute”.

Just as I flush the toilet, I hear an outburst of wailing from downstairs. I rush down expecting to find him hurt. He is waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs, still wailing miserably.

Me: “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

Owl: “No…”

Me: “What happened?”

Owl: “THIS happened!”

He gestures dramatically to his pyjamas, and as I approach I see that an epic sneeze has sent a long string of snot across his face and all down his pyjamas, right down to his navel. 

I got him a Kleenex and peace was restored.

I wonder what it’s like to be so helpless you can’t even reach the Kleenex when you need it.

Ouch.

PH: “What are reading?”

Me: “I’m obsessively googling articles on child spacing.”

PH: “Well, instead you should be googling “why does my child bite everything he touches and how can I make one of those things NOT BE ME?”

Self-Esteem Does Not Run Rampant In Our Household

Me: “So apparently Helper Lady was going on to Daycare Lady about what a great husband she thinks you are.”

PH: “What? Why?”

Me: “Do you mean why were they talking about you, or why does she think you’re a great husband?”

PH: “Both.”

Me: “No idea. Daycare Lady was just like “Helper Lady was telling me what a great husband she thinks PH is!” and I was like “he is, but how does she know that?” and Daycare Lady said “well, of course PH is a very nice man, and Helper Lady is very intuitive. She says she can see how well cared for and happy you are and that he is clearly a good husband to you.”

PH: “Yeah! Don’t you forget it, either!”

Me: “I know you’re a great husband! Otherwise your nickname on my blog would be “Needs Improvement Husband” or “Somewhat Acceptable Husband” instead of “Perfect Husband”.

PH: “You should change my name.”

*Helper Lady apparently also commented on the fact that I am “beautiful because she doesn’t wear makeup”. I take this to mean that she admires my inner strength at being brave enough to walk around with a unibrow and dog blood on my cheek every day. 

 

Waste Not, Love Not

Tags

food, love, marriage, relationships

A couple of months ago:

Perfect Husband: “Carol, why are there two waffles in the garbage?”

Me: “I made them and then realized we were out of butter.”

Perfect Husband: “So you THREW THEM AWAY?”

Me: “Yes.”

Perfect Husband: “Because waffles with syrup BUT NO BUTTER are inedible?”

Me: “Yep. The butter is a vital component of waffle eating.”

Perfect Husband: “How can you waste food like that?”

Me: “Would you eat something you didn’t want rather than just throw it away?”

Perfect Husband: “Yes!! I can’t just THROW FOOD AWAY.”

Me: “Why would I eat a high calorie fattening meal if I wouldn’t even enjoy it? Either way it’s a waste.”

Perfect Husband: “You and I are, in some ways, very different people.”

Yesterday:

Perfect Husband: “So, while you were at your friend’s house for dinner, I decided to eat hot dogs.”

Me: “Oh?”

Perfect Husband: “So I defrosted two hot dog buns. Then I took out the wieners, and I realized that they were two weeks expired. So I took out the OTHER wieners, and found that they were a month expired. So I took out the OTHER OTHER wieners, and they were TWO MONTHS expired.”

Me: “I’m sorry.”

Perfect Husband: “…So I THREW THE BUNS AWAY.”

Me: “…But why not just put the buns back?”

Perfect Husband: Because I’d already toasted them and put cheese on them.”

A moment of silence.

Perfect Husband: “…I HAVE BEEN HOISTED WITH MY OWN PETARD.”

Me: “I love you.”

Vet Food – The Reprise

Tags

animal nutrition, Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease, pet food, veterinary diets

So, remember this post?

Well, my cat (who still resides with my parents, because she is too high strung to try and move with me) has a tendency to anorexia. My parents were keeping her weight on with kitten food for a while, but even that wasn’t enough, so they had to supplement with the only thing she would eat.

Whiskas.

Or Friskies.

One of those brands. You know the type.

To her credit, my mother tried. She tried every vet diet out there, including the Recovery stuff which is practically kitty crack.

But no.

My cat would only eat the cat version of McDonald’s.

… Can you guess who now has a urinary tract infection?

Hint: It’s not one of the pets who are on exclusively vet-brand food.

Back From Work And Only Slightly Humiliated

We all know from Dooce that posting about work is a bad idea. So I haven’t talked much about my new workplace and probably won’t.

Suffice to say it is a two-clinic practice, the man who hired me seems very nice, and one of the clinics reminds me of my old work in Nova Scotia, which makes me feel at home.

So all in all, I have hopes.

But you all know how nightmarish starting a new job is:

You don’t know anyone, and they don’t know you, so the slightest thing you say or do comes to define your whole personality as understood by them. Like the time, in my last job, when someone mentioned bananas and I went, “I AM A BANANA!”

There was this moment of silence afterwards when I realized that I was not among my friends, and that anyone who hasn’t seen the Rejected video would be highly inclined to question my sanity.

I have never been so relieved to hear someone reply “MAH SPOON IS TOO BIG!”

Thanks, ~K, for getting me out of THAT mess.

…Anyway, that was then, this was now. I was older, wiser.

But still me.

All in all it wasn’t too bad. I managed to make myself useful as much as possible when I didn’t know where ANYTHING was, or belonged, didn’t know any policies, any of the clients, or how to operate the computer system. Mostly I cleaned and counted pills.

I did managed to set up a fecal float in a dissatisfactory manner, and then my boss burst into the bathroom to discover me sitting hunched on the toilet seat lid with my boobas out. (It doesn’t help that my pump has started sounding like an old woman in a rocking chair, so it was going “squeak squeak squeak” while fluids gushed out of me.).

I’m so glad that despite my best efforts I still managed a moment of humiliation. At least this one was probably worse for my boss than for me. He practically rebounded out o the room as though he had walked into a force field, and when I came out IT WAS NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN.

Babby did fine without me, having a blast with his Daddy all day. The only sign that he missed me was a big grin and an immediate sign for “milk” (yet more proof that I am not so much “mommy” as “Milk Jugs”). But after he’d had his fill, he went right back to re-engaging his father in peek-a-boo.

I was pleased.

But oh, man, so hard to go so long from my baby. When my boobs fill up, so do my anxiety levels. The full boobas somehow send a message to my brain that say,

“IT’S BOOBA-O-CLOCK. DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR BABBY IS?”

I work again on Tuesday. Hopefully there will be more pumping and less anxiety/awkwardness.