Watch What You Say

Most families go through the phase where the child/ren repeat everything you say. In some cases this can go on for years, and the older the child, the bigger the time delay in when they repeat what you said -- usually they wait for the worst possible moment.

Take this story, for example. I think it is safe to tell it now without causing strife, as it happened over 10 years ago, and all the parties involved are either still friends or are dead....

When this story happened, my oldest niece was a little girl. I don't recall how old, exactly, but old enough to be in school. My mother, my grandmother and I were to meet my sister and her family at the local Chinese Buffet for lunch. Now, to be fair, this was a period of time where my mother's entourage seldom arrived anywhere on time. Nobody liked this, least of all my mother, but things were what they were. My mother would be hunting for coupons or something, my grandmother would forget we were going someplace ... it wasn't a pretty scene. Of course, we were all used to it by now, and everyone made some sort of accomodations for transport of the elderly and the generalized chaos that seemed to follow the three of us when we were living together. By the time we arrived, we were probably 10 minutes later than we said we'd be. At that point, my niece comes running up to us and said, "Mom told us to just go inside and get our seats, because she said, 'You know how they are!'"

Umm, yea. Kids will say the darndest things, right?

Well, we are in that phase right now with Toddler. Our one saving grace is that his speech, while complex, still requires a human interpreter, so even if he rats us out, chances are he won't be understood ... for now. I've been having fun with this by saying things like, "Go tell Daddy that Mickey Mouse is a piece of broccoli." (Of course, he does.)

Today, however, we saw what we all knew was coming. Toddler repeated something little boys aren't supposed to say. For about a minute, he was walking around the house saying, "dammit, dammit." Now, I know we have all been trying so hard not to say such things anymore, but when the brand-clean pile of laundry falls down on the big giant pile of cat fur, things just slip out, okay? Thankfully, he dropped the idea quickly, and the front door was closed.

Be very, very careful. The day has arrived....

Read more...

Of Fur, Food, and Freaked Out Pets

Things have been unusually interesting in the cat colony here. We've crossed the line from Cat Owners to Weird Cat Family. Yes, we've begun to treat the emotional issues of our pets. I never thought I'd see this day.

I think I've mentioned that Houdini is not popular among the prior four-footed residents, but he is very popular with Toddler. Houdini goes back and forth between acting like he doesn't care about this and wishing everyone just loved him enough to just sleep in a big giant fur pile with him like all good cats are supposed to.

Let's take the bed, for example. Prior to Houdini moving in, Girl Cat would sleep on DH's feet, and Big Black Cat would sleep on mine. This was peaceful, or as peaceful as life could get with a 14 pound cat vibrating the bed with the force of his purr and rocking the bed springs with the motion of his tongue-bath. Then came Houdini, who decided that if everyone else could sleep on the big bed, so could he. But there was no peace if he slept next to the other two at the foot of the bed, so he tried to sleep on the pillows. Umm, no. I thought maybe that would have been fun when I was about 10 and tried to get the family cat to sleep on my pillow, but I'm older and wiser now, and I don't want 11 pounds of shedding orange Houdini fur next to my nasal allergies. So, the pillow was out. Next, Houdini decided he wanted to be on top of, in between, or preferably both, DH and me. *sigh*

We've tried banishing them to outside the bedroom altogether, but Big Black Cat will claw the door, Houdini will yowl, and Girl Cat will smack the boys around until they open the door, and I'm too much of a softie to lock them in the basement.

All this dispute started lots of anxiety among our family of four footers. Girl Cat boiled over in a pit of resentment when Houdini moved in, and apparently again when Toddler was born. She took it out on us and the house. There was nothing we tried that made a lick of difference for months and months and months. Sometimes it would get better, but I knew that it was only a matter of a few days before I was going to have to get up in the morning and clean up a nice puddle of resentment from the floor. What a great way to start a day, right?

So, finally, we found this magic (and very expensive) cat pheromone room deoderizer that has brought affection and tranquility back to the house. There are still swats, but no more rolling fights. The liquid resentment has declined to the occasional, "I saw you pet him, take that" in the front room, and the purring has increased. So, sadly, has the "pet me, please, right now" behavior from all cats, in the middle of the night, first thing in the morning, and any time anyone is trying to sleep. Now, instead of trying to march around the house dividing it into individual fiefdoms, they all try to jump on the same lap at once. (Ouch!)

And now, to top it all off they hate both sets of that test food the nice cat food company sent to us. So, not only do they want lots of attention, they're hungry too. Hungry cats don't sleep at all. Starting at about 4:30 in the morning, Big Black Cat sneaks up to my belly, starts purring, and nuzzles my head to let me know that the pheromones make him very happy and content, and he is very, very, very hungry please. Food. Now. Most happily and respectfully, of course.

I don't know where this story will end, so consequently, I don't know how to end this blog entry except to say that I never, ever, ever, ever imagined I would honestly become the Crazy Cat Lady who mistakes her pets for her children. I never thought Houdini would be the sort of cat to let Toddler roll all over him, thus making it impossible to give him away. I never thought I'd get pushed out of my own bed by three cats, one of whom has a big crush on my husband.

And, most of all, I never thought I'd be so glad for an expensive bottle of cat smell in my outlets.

Read more...

Wednesday ... It's Football Talk Again

For those of you paying very close attention, it's Wednesday, and on Wednesdays in this blog, we talk about football ... at least during the fall. I know. I know. Most of you think I'm just random, but there is a pattern here. If you hate football, you can know to just skip the Wednesday entry for a few months.

Of course, putting in football exactly on Wednesdays is sometimes trickier than writing the blogs. See, to be sure that you don't miss a single day of humor, I have written ahead on some of these blogs. But, writing ahead in football is really hard (impossible), and posting football posts too late makes them nonsensical and boring even to the most die hard fans of the sport.

SO, to make this Wednesday miracle happen, I actually type the entry, then go into my blog calendar and move ALL the existing entries ahead a day so I can slide this one in. Tricky, huh? I knew you'd be impressed at all this effort.

Well, I picked Wednesdays because it is the day before the "football" week begins, and usually there is not much football happening on TV. It seemed like the perfect time. Except, apparently, ESPN is screwing up my schedule again. Last week, for some reason, the "Thursday Night Game" was broadcast on Wednesday (Hawaii, LA Tech), and on Thursday there was no football. (Gasp!) My whole system is in tatters now. The football world is in disarray. As late as last year we could count on a few things. First, NFL and college ball would never be broadcast simultaneously (GONE, opening Thursday of College Football this year), Wednesday is a football hiatus (GONE, as of last week), and Tuesday is a football hiatus (still intact for the moment).

If this chaos continues, pretty soon we'll see ACC and Big East schools playing football on Saturday, and then again the following Monday, just to catch the tv schedule. Yeesh!

BUT ... enough about all this. Let's talk about this week's crazy football stories.

Lee Corso was overheard to say, on College Game Day, that "USC's offense is struggling offensively." So, what were the other choices? Could the offense been struggling defensively? Or did Corso mean they should have been struggling "politely"? Good question.

This story is crazy only in that when my team can't win, they find something else to be winners about, and that's cool, but the "Good Sport Award" for this past weekend is shared by Penn State and Iowa. Check out this article from the Daily Iowan.

Now I want to talk about Michigan. I know some of you are groaning -- there she goes again, picking on us. Well, hey, it's your turn. I haven't picked on Michigan hardly at all this year, despite my promise to do so. I could start out by asking Michigan fans if they are sorry yet about all the bad things they said aout Lloyd Carr in his last few years, but I will do my best to refrain. Instead, let's talk about those helmets you are so proud of -- those "winged helmets". What part of those funny stripes running from the front to the back of the helmet is supposed to represent a "wing"? I will (grudgingly) admit that the curved stripes are visually appealing. They are distinctive. But a wing? I just don't see it.

And then there is Saturday's game. Wow. Michigan versus Michgan State is always entertaining. Heck, watching Michigan State is entertaining enough, considering that the poor school holds the NCAA record for the biggest come-from-ahead loss. We have a saying in our Big Ten Circle called "Pulling a Sparty," which means managing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory after putting up a really convincing lead.

But, as Lee Corso is famous for saying, "Not so fast, my friend." This year, Michigan State manages to lose its big lead in the fourth quarter, like usual, and it became a war of which team has the worst mojo and karma this year ... in overtime. As it turns out, this year is apparently not Michigan's year either, because Michigan State managed to pull out the win despite their own crippling efforts of self-defeat. Michigan State has beaten Michigan for two years straight ... for the first time since Lyndon Johnson was President of the United States.

Have I twisted the knife enough yet? Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week.

Read more...

Weathering the Weather

This is the time of year I have a dreadful time figuring out what "season" to dress in. Do I wear Fall and risk roasting my insides, or do I wear Summer and risk my chilled skin and goosebumps doing an impersonation of a smurf with acne? (Hey ... if you understood that joke ... chances are ....)

Well, consistent with Murphy's law, no matter which way I decide, I'm wrong. I tried looking at the weather report, and checked the temperature, but it doesn't help. For starters, I made the mistake of looking at the weather forecast that shows up on the Cox.com web page. Let's just say that at 8:00 last night it said that the weather was 82 degrees and sunny. I was thinking that it was awfully dark for "sunny" at 8 PM in late September in Virginia ... perhaps there was an eclipse of the sun I missed?

But, if I go out dressed in shorts in 55 degree weather, the worst that happens is that someone chuckles into their hands and whispers to their companion about what an idiot I am (or perhaps how I am wearing fashion-challenged clothes, but that doesn't depend on the weather). If I happen to take Toddler out in the wrong gear, though, heaven help me.

I first learned about this phenomenon of random strangers to comment on my parenting-dressing skills shortly after Toddler came home from the hospital. He had spent a couple of months there and was well adapted to the cold. In fact, the Virginia August heat was a bit much for him, so we were hanging out in shorts and a t-shirt in the usually quite chilly Costco. Out of no where, in the freezer section, this random short woman came up to coo at Toddler. She felt compelled to tell me that he was going to get very cold and I should have him wrapped up in a blanket or something.

Okay ... random stranger ... and I do mean strange ... what if I told you that it was really quite warm in the store and obviously you had a rare but severe metabolic disorder probably brought about by dressing your children too warmly when they were little? Hmmm, you probably wouldn't understand what I said. What if I told you I was really the mother of 7 children, and this was my grandchild, and I have so much more child-rearing experience than you do? How would you know? But, in the interests of not wanting to slap you upside the head for being rude, I will simply walk away with some trumped up excuse about going to find Darling Husband. Follow me at your own risk. Darling Husband is a very big man.

Two weeks ago I took Toddler to music class. The rain was heavy, the air was chill, but it was not "cold." It was "cool." We were going to a music class to run around in, so I decided on shorts. The walk to the door from the car was short, and not worth putting on a coat, so we made a run for it. I got an awful lot of funny looks from the other moms on my way in. It had to be the way we were dressed -- they hadn't met me yet and had no other reason to look at me that way.

The next week I decided on long pants. After all, it is September, and the temperature is rarely getting above 75, and the class was in the morning. We might have to change later, but at least we wouldn't get chilled from the start. Woops. The room was warm, and Toddler was sweating in 4.5 seconds and getting mad about it. Wrong again, Mom. I guess this coming week we will try shorts and jogger pants so we can be layered for all weather.

At that point it will probably snow or something. I love Fall.

Read more...

Things That Make You Say ....

For the past few days, I've had advertisements on my mind. I've seen a few while driving in my car that made me do a double take, and I've seen some on TV that make me wonder who is so dumb as to believe it? (Hopefully not the writers, but you never know.)

Let's start with those TV commercials. Have you ever noticed all those auto insurance customers that claim to save people all that money? Did you ever notice the way they phrase those savings? "Customers that switched saved an average of ...."

Um ... duh. If they didn't save, I doubt they would have switched. Now what would be really useful information is if they told us the average amount of non-savings of all the people who got quotes and didn't switch. That would be useful information, but probably it wouldn't be good advertising....

The rug commercial I heard last night just takes the cake, though. The voiceover promised that if Carpet Store couldn't beat the competition's price by 15%, you'd get the carpet free.

Uh ...

Okay ...

I hope no one thinks anyone is getting a free carpet from that place. I mean, what would you do if you were Carpet Store? Give a 15% discount or give it away?

More importantly, does anyone actually believe this stuff?

As far as advertisements seen through the car window, I thought you might appreciate these:

Near the Pennsylvania/Maryland border, heading north, there is a Nesquick Billboard (with the rabbit and everything) that says, "When life hands you lemons, make chocolate milk."

I'm not sure I want to think about that too much. It reminds me a little bit of pineapple pizza.

In Frederick, Maryland there is a Motel 6 with one of those announcement boards where the motel can put up things like, "Welcome Jones Wedding." This one said, "Love Chapel." That's all it said.

I'm thinking, is this a band? Did I suddenly end up in a Bermuda Triangle Vortex to Las Vegas? Has Maryland changed its marriage laws? Was the motel bought out by an embarrasingly overdone Poconos resort and is now sporting heart shaped hot tubs? I don't know what to make of this.

While I was driving home, I happened to catch the other side of the same sign at Motel 6. It said, "Bible Life Church Ministries." I think I know what that means. I think it means irony.

Read more...

Our Nation's Roadways

This topic is so vast ... our nation's roadways. I've spent a lot of time in automobiles, driving across vast stretches of this country (although most of it was east of the Mississippi, not all of it has been). On my travels, I've made some observations, and I am wondering how true you might find these.

Atlanta, Georgia. Apparently, no matter how much you might wish or need to, if you are stuck south of Atlanta during rush hour, there is no way around but through. I guess whenever the city roads developed, no one considered that there might be anyone that wanted to go ... say ... west of Atlanta. I guess they thought that the only interesting places to go were north or back to Florida? I can see their point, but I was trying to get from Tampa to St. Louis, and hanging out south of Atlanta wasn't in the cards for me, and a 3 hour traffic jam around the city was not in the plan! We found a small and windy road (that would be the narrow and twisting kind of windy, not the big breeze kind) that eventually led us to Tennessee, but I'm not sure that waiting in the traffic jam wouldn't have been faster.

Have you ever noticed that when you cross the Mason Dixon line from Maryland to Pennsylvania the quality of the road immediately deteriorates? When I used to live in Pennsylvania, PennDot used to blame the road conditions on the difficult-to-manage "freeze and thaw cycle." Okay. But 2 miles in either direction from the state line, aren't Maryland and Pennsylvania in the same freeze and thaw cycle? I'm more inclined to think that the poor road conditions are there to slow down the bootleggers so more of them get caught smuggling cheap liquor in from Maryland. On the other hand, if you've looked at the prices recently, they aren't all that different anymore ... Maryland just sells them in more convenient places.

I have not yet joined the world of modern technology enough to buy an EZ Pass (says the woman publishing a blog on the internet). Either that or I like to be shocked by how much money I pay in tolls every trip .... Regardless, I am always befuddled at why the Ohio Turnpike has not joined the electronic revolution in any way. They still collect all tolls manually. Is this some sort of public job protection for the toll workers, or what? Or maybe Ohio is just telling us all that they don't really want us trucking through their state anyway? After all, the Ohio Turnpike is one of those places where they put the first visitor's center 40 miles inside the state line (on the PA side). If you want to get into Ohio as a curious visitor, apparently you have to really want it. They don't give those tourist brochures away to just anyone, you know.

While we are on the subject of turnpikes, how is it that the Pennsylvania Turnpike always seems to have at least 1/3 of it under construction at any given time? I mean, seriously, at some point you'd think the Commonwealth would just give up and start blaming the freeze and thaw cycle like they do with the rest of the roads, wouldn't you? Then again, there is that old Pennsylvania joke that there are really only three seasons in the Keystone State: Football, Winter, and Construction.

If we move past Ohio into Indiana, we find one of the most curious phenomena I have ever seen in all of my travels. The state stretches in the dark. In the daytime, you can cross it in no time at all. At night, that skinny little state at least triples in size, and the more tired you are, the longer the state becomes. I distinctly remember one trip where I was swearing up and down that I'd made the trip from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh in half the time it took me to get across Indiana. That's pretty amazing to me. That's even more impressive than the magical stretching Route 322 that makes the last 30 miles northwest into State College, Pennsylvania some of the longest minutes of my life.

The most confusing road signs in all of the United States, as far as I've seen, are those inside the gates of Walt Disney World. I've gotten so turned around there almost more times than I can possibly count, and I practically live there. I know more ways home from Walt Disney World than I do back roads in Pennsylvania. At least there are more street signs in Walt Disney World then there were in Amish Country, Pennsylvania, although people still give directions by reference point rather than street name. (Turn after the sign for the Yacht Club versus Turn left at the fork in the road past the old barn that burned down 10 years ago.)

The scariest roads in this country, that I've found so far, are in Hawaii. Some of the ones that tested my fear of heights to the utmost, so far, were in Lake Tahoe, although that is a close contest. I can't even pick where I saw the worst roads -- there were so many places to choose.

The place that has the most distorted view of distance and traffic is Kauai, HI. They honestly think that the other side of the island is a world away. The entire island would fit inside the Washington, D.C. beltway. You can be on the other side in half an hour.

Oh, I could go on and on about this one, but at some point I must simply say, "Enough!"

Read more...

Who Has Been Teaching My Kid?

I have had many a moment over the past many months where I stand amazed at the things Toddler has learned. I was impressed when he knew who Chip and Dale were when we went to Disneyworld. I was stunned when he could count to 20 and I had to sit down when he counted from 12 to 1 backwards.

From time to time, though, Toddler comes up with things that make me wonder who is teaching him things behind my back. I mean, we go lots of places, but always together. He isn't in preschool, and we don't have unsupervised play dates. We don't even go to other kid's houses very much. I haven't seen most of this stuff on TV, so I'm at a loss where he is picking it up. I'm beginning to suspect netherwordly intervention, or possibly reincarnation.

A few weeks ago, Toddler surprised me by being able to recognize Barney the purple dinosaur from a book. For reasons of my own personal sanity, I have restricted access to the "Barney channel" in the house. I knew he probably would like it, but I have a low tolerance .... I figured when he pointed at the book and said, "Arney!" that I must have slipped up a few times more than I realized. I only recalled one episode being on when he was in the room, but obviously, I missed some.

There are other incidents, though, that I just cannot explain, try as I might.

For example, a few weeks before football season began, Toddler began walking around the house singing, "Na, na, na, na! Na, na, na, na! Hey, hey, hey ... Goodbye!" Of course, this is very appropriate for a child of a football family, but where in the world did he learn it? (I have to admit, he is very good at it. You can understand completely what he is trying to say ... no problems whatsoever. He even has the right attitude to go with it.) I wonder if I had ESPN Classic on too much in the background ... but even so ....

Starting a few days, ago, too, Toddler has come up with another song. He sings the words to the song, "Lullaby and Goodnight." Now, I've no doubt where he learned the tune. His musical bedtime toy sings that song. But where did he learn the words? He is singing WORDS! The problem is that I don't know the words to the song and I can't figure out what he's saying. I can hear him say, "Lullaby and Goodnight" and after that it is all too difficult to distinguish. I tried to Google the words, and I get about a dozen different versions ... and so far no luck in figuring out which one he is saying. But all of this is guesswork is beside the point, which is this: "HOW DID HE LEARN THE WORDS?" Was Big Bird singing them when I wasn't listening? I can't figure this one out.

This morning I am fairly certain I heard him sing the opening bars to "2001: A Space Oddysey." I'll admit, the song is rather ubiquitous, so I suppose he could have picked it up anywhere, but I think it a bit odd, don't you? Just to be sure I wasn't imagining things, I Googled the song, found a YouTube video and played it. Sure enough, Toddler came running over and started humming along. There is no doubt in my mind now that he knows the song.

This last one is quite a bit more confusing. Toddler will repeat most music he hears -- no surprise there. He has heard an awful lot of music by this point. He has a toy piano with a "jukebox" function that plays a bunch of songs -- some I know, many I don't. Buried among them, for some strange reason, is a quick ditty that sounds a lot like the theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It isn't a perfect match, but it is fairly close. Wouldn't you know it, but that is the song he latched onto, singing it for nearly an entire day in the car ride from Florida to Virginia? Why that one? Is in he touch with some cosmic wavelength or something? I'm not sure I really want to know. Even now he will still sing it from time to time ... spooky.

I could go on and on, but the long and short of it is I think Toddler has a hidden source of knowledge and information that I need to find. I may have to look into that Manchurian Candidate theory again.

Read more...