Pretzel fish are not a weapon! . . .and other bizarre things you will hear around my house

I started this blog with the purpose of talking about my books, and my writing life,and not with the intention of filling it with stories and pictures of my kids (don't worry, Mom, I'll start that blog eventually). . .but let's face it, part of my writing life is being a woman who is trying to balance momhood with building a successful writing career. There's no doubt that my daily life, including my stay-at-home-mom-ness, influences who I am as a writer--and I thought I'd share a few moments, starring KidA (my almost-3-year-old son) that definitely help inspire my sense of humor.

Lunch the other day:

Me: Hey, KidA, what do you want for lunch today?

KidA: Ketchup

Me: Um, you want some chicken nuggets with that?

KidA: Nope, just ketchup.


Breakfast a few days ago:

As I hand KidA his carnation shake, he starts giggling as little pooting noises emanate from his diaper region.

Me: KidA, are you tooting?

KidA: Nope. My butt is talking to you!


At our weekly trip to the grocery store:

Things were looking bad (or pretty much the same old, same old) with our weekly trek to the grocery before we even got out of the car. In fact, it all started when I opened the door to get KidA out of his carseat, and I was met by a pelting of tiny fished shaped pretzels right between my eyes (accompanied by a chorus of explosion noises, and little bits of spraying spit from KidA's mouth). Then he turned his barrage of flying fish on his brother, KidZ, who promptly began screaming.

Me: "Pretzel fish are not a weapon!"

KidA: "Actually, yes they are."

After I threatened to confiscate his salty pescetarian grenades, KidA finally relented on his attack and seemed relatively calm as we walked about 50 feet into the store--which is where all the calmness ended. KidZ announced that he was too big to ride in the car cart anymore, which means KidA also decided that he was too big, and was quite adamant about the subject. Neither child could be coaxed into any cart of any kind, so the next 45 minutes proceeded with me lumbering through the store, pushing one of those huge car carts (because they still insisted we get one) while the boys ran around me in circles, engaged in a Star Wars style battle of epic proportions.

How disturbing should I find it that my toddler can make perfect machine gun sound effects?

The battle continued, and the kids managed to only turn over the grocery cart once, and I finally made my way to the check-stand. . .where KidA decided he MUST incessantly push the little green button on the credit card reader, rendering it impossible for me to finish paying for our groceries.

After about the tenth button push, the cashier looked at KidA, and in all seriousness said to him: "You cannot push that button. There is a bomb in the store, and if you push that button one more time, all of Harmons, and everyone in it, will EXPLODE."

KidA's eyes got wide. He looked at the cashier. He looked at the button. He looked at me. He smiled, reached up, and . . .pushed the button.

Jack Baur, you've met your match.


The other afternoon:

I was working on my laptop when KidA announced that he "needed to go potty," and ran into the kid's bathroom. The thing about KidA "going potty" is that he doesn't actually "go." Nope. Not at all. What he does is run into the bathroom, push up the toilet-seat, stand fully-clothed in front of the potty, lift up his shirt, press on his belly-button (he has quite the "outy"), and make a "pssssss" noise with his mouth. No actual peeing happens--ever.

Hurray for potty training!

Anyway, on this particular afternoon, KidA became fascinated with the up/down action of the toilet seat, and got distracted by banging it back and forth for awhile. I kind of zoned out on this activity until a particularly loud bang was followed by a yowelling shriek from KidA. He came barreling out of the bathroom, holding out his little hand in front of him.

Me: "Oh no. Did you slam your fingers with the toilet seat?"

KidA: "Yes." Then he stuck out his germy little hand in front of my face. "Kiss it, mommy."

Me: "Um . . .can we wash your hand first?"

KidA: "KISS IT!! KISS IT!!!"

Um, yeah . . .I kissed it. Because I'm a mom, and that's what moms do.


Side note: I finally figured out why KidA always pushes on his belly-button when he "pees." I was changing his diaper the other morning when he pointed at his giblets and said, "That"s my belly." I shook my head and said "No, that's your willy." (In theory, we believe in using all the anatomically correct names for body parts. However, in practice, we mostly end up using words like willy and giblets.)

KidA shook his head, pointed at his willy and said, "No. This is my belly," then he pointed at his outy and said, "and this is my belly-button." Apparently, the belly-button must be pushed in order for the "belly" to work.


At church this afternoon:

Hubby: "So KidA's teachers asked him what song he wanted his class to sing today. Guess what he said?"

Me: "Um . . . (Part of me was hoping he was going to say Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World since I'd sung it to the kiddies the night before, but this is KidA we are talking about, so I was suddenly filled with dread. . .) what?"

Hubby: "The fart song."

Oh, and it gets better than that. Because when KidA is questioned as to how "the fart song" goes, all he does is shrug and say: "I can't sing it. Only Mommy knows that song."

Yeah, I SWEAR that I do not know how that song goes. . .but I am happy to report that at least it wasn't my kid at church who kept licking the bottom of his own shoe. . .