Something Salinas This Way Comes...

Monday, February 8, 2010

Unpublished Parenting Advice of the Week

*If you resist the idea of your kids using boxes of Band-Aids as body art, skip the fancy Dora/Disney Princess/Transformers/Bob the Builder types.  Go with the plain ugly, brown, cheap Band-Aids that do not inevitably lead to your discovery of your child hiding, naked, in the closet and covered in colorful pieces of sticky tape with cloth pads sewn into them.

*On that note:  Ladies, if you have a toddler-aged kid and you have not figured this out yet--you must keep all padded feminie wear out of reach of your younguns.  Because if you do not, you will find him/her (again, naked) padded from head to toe.  Two of my children-who-shall-remain-nameless have discovered how utterly painful the removal of these items, once attached to your skin, can be. 

*Also, that gooey, nasty sticky residue left behind from Band-Aids?  It does not leave.  Ever.  Yes, it can be removed with baby oil but you will find the remnants stuck to the side of the bathtub or sink; and trust me when I say that short of a brillo pad, it is impossible to remove from fixtures and bathroom surfaces. 

*The more I read this, the more I think I'm liking Maurice's idea of replacing Band-Aids with duct tape.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

A Tad More of the Random

*I really can't wait to get the new wood stove.  The current stove is old and makes a lot of crackling noises when in use.  Thanks to the Fiery Year of Hell (2008--two stack fires AND a freaking forest fire in our back yard), I now have a bonafide phobia of dying a fiery death.  Since this wood stove is old and creaky, I must come down the stairs several times each night to check for signs of impending doom, only to discover that the crackling sound I am hearing is actually a creaking sound of expanding metal and not the sound of creosote catching fire and threatening to burn my family alive. This new wood stove promises not to be creaky in any way, thus I will be inclined to actually sleep at night.

*Maurice-ism: He bought decorative kerosine lanterns and mounted them on the wall in our living room today. This, he says, will provide me with enough light to sustain my evening ambiance.  I know that at almost fifty cents a kilowatt, he thinks this is a good solution to my fancy electric lamp. I know he thinks this means I won't turn on the electric lamp.  I know that as soon as I hear him coming down the stairs, I'm going to turn off that electric lamp and pretend like I enjoy sitting here in the dark, like a Puritan.

*We keep finding chicken eggs in the deli drawer. Until today, the perpetrator of this weirdness has been a mystery. Turns out, Chloe and Hannah take it upon themselves to remove the eggs from their carton and put them in the deli drawer. If you want to know what justificiation lies in this act, ask them. I'm pretty sure that you will only be able to decifer enough of their reply to lead you either to the living room to obtain a DVD of The Wiggles, or to the top of the fridge to retrieve some candy. If you want to witness just how many eggs can fit into a deli drawer before they completely explode in domino-fashion once the drawer is closed, come on over. Bring a roll of paper towels.

*Maurice is now switching through the channels and just passed a soft-porn version of Tarzan that is airing on Showtime. Which brings me to the question: Why does porn even have plot??

*This blog is on an RSS feed, thus the timing of its appearance in your Facebook feed is delayed. So just put down your remote control.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Creative Excuses

Joshua has begun to show signs of stellar excuse-making skillz.  Yesterday afternoon, he swore the reason he'd shoved his entire Lego/Hot Wheels mess under his bed instead of putting them away, was that his eyes were bad and that he "possibly could not have seen where he was putting the stuff". 

This is an excerpt from our conversation early this morning:

Me:  Is everybody ready to go?

Josh, Kody, and Kyleigh (mumbling all at once):  Ready!  ....find my gloves....juice box....show and share?....sign my reading slip?...

Me:  Josh, are you wearing clean clothes under that snowsuit?

Josh: 

Me:

Josh:  Yes.

Me:  Are you wearing your shirt from yesterday?

Josh:

Me:

Josh:  Well it's clean.

Me:  You can't wear the same shirt two days in a row.

Josh:  But it's not diiirrrrrty.  I don't want to take off all my snow gear now.

Me:   Your shirt is dirty if you wore it once, especially if it has dried rice on it.  Does your shirt have dried sticky rice on it from last night?

Josh:

Me:  You need to wear a clean shirt or your teacher will think we're gross.

Josh:  But I have hair on my chest, and lice bugs don't like dirt, so I neeeeeed to wear this shiiiiirrrrrrt.

....The basis of his argument was so genius that I actually allowed him to wear the Halloween shirt from three years ago to school again today.  Props to Josh for creative excuses, and this is duly noted for when he's between the ages of 13-19.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Random Statements and Crudeness

*"Sautee" is just fancy for "fried in butter".  Get with it, menu makers of America.

*Since discovering the sinus-clearing miracle of tea tree oil, I've been inspired to initiate the process of switching all our toiletry items to natural/vegan products.  I really like my new organic rosemary shampoo.  Thanks to the afore-mentioned tea tree oil, I am keenly aware that my hair smells like the bottom of a bong, but I don't care because it is shiny, soft, and naturally volumized.

*I'm tired of the bigoted Obama jokes.  I get it.  His politics are unconventional, he's made serious mistakes, and he's a black Muslim Nazi Socialist.  Get over it, please.  Bush was a redneck who referred to the World Wide Web as "the Internets" and sent us to Iraq instead of Afghanistan, thus proving he has absolutely no sense of direction.  If we can tolerate eight years of that, we can face anything.  So there. We're all evened up now.

*Did I really just talk about hippie pot shampoo and then bag on Bush/support Obama in the same blog??  Gasp.

*I did think Bush was kind of handsome, before his eight years in office turned him into an old man.  And to be fair, I think Obama is aging faster than Bush did.  It must be karma--payback for all that evil socialist/muslim/nazi/NAACP agenda-- rearing its head and cursing him in ugly ways. 

*My friend N and my dad had a (very public) Facebook conversation yesterday about the use of FDS (that's Feminie Deoderant Spray, for you sufferers feminine-issues ingorance) to cover the stench of self-tanner.  I still laugh about it when I think of it.  Let me know how that works out for you, N.

*I seriously just advised my daughter, after she explained to me her Big Brother Woe of the Day, to get herself a bag of Sweet Hearts from the top of the fridge, and relax.  I'm really unsure as to the future damage this may cause her.  I envision lots of candy consumption during her heartbroken teen years, though...

*My husband and my best friend are in a debate over the correct title for the famous Sesame Street duo whose relationship status is debatable.  The results are in and the winner is my friend.  The answer is unanimously, "Bert and Ernie", not "Ernie and Bert".  Though their sexual preference is still open to interpretation.

*It occured to me yesterday: my life involves a lot, lot, lot of cleaning up bodily excrement.  We invest in about four different types of anti-bacterial grocery items, I disinfect our bathroom in its entirety at least once daily, and my hands are constantly chapped from washing them in some variation of abrasive yet anti-bacterial solution.  I can promise you, when I look back on these days, this is one series of memories I will not hold in high regard.

*The conclusion to this entire list of randoms is: In order to escape a long day of rank disasters, I should fry sautee something in butter and after that, enjoy a bag of Sweet Hearts.  I should always choose Sesame Street over Fox News, and continue to sniff the tea tree oil like it's an illicit drug in order to determine when a stinky disaster is created, and who the offendor is.  And in order to avoid the smell of my own bong-water hair, I should spray it with FDS.  I just hope my husband doesn't confuse my head for my...