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Don't get fooled by these guys. They are some great tricksters!

I have so many wonderful memories from my childhood. My family did a lot together and especially during the summer months. I have a memory of a prank that my sister and I pulled that I always remember around this time of year.

We used to go camping a lot when I was young. My sister and I got those little white popper firecracker things...you know what I am talking about? You throw them to the ground and they crack/pop loudly.I think they are called cracker snaps. Anyway, we would go to the showers/bathrooms at the campground and stick them under the toilet seats. Then we would go outside and wait for someone to go in and use the toilet. Someone would sit on it and it would POP and they would shriek. It really was hilarious (and harmless)!

So, do you have any pranks to share or any particularly fun childhood memories?

At my son's baseball game last evening, my husband mentioned that he does not think I am as "focused" as I was before I had kids. To borrow a term from the kids that cause me not to be focused, I say "Well, DUH!". 

I truly hope to get back to being more "focused" when my boys are older. I am using quotations around the word "focused" as a way of trying to be slightly sarcastic. See, there were many responses I could have given my husband. I am sure he is not quite as "something" as he used to be either. Instead of finding flaws to sling back at him, I prefer to "focus" on this post and tell you that I found an article that explains why I have this problem.

The article is called  Mom,Interrupted and is on ParentingHumor.com. It explains just how I feel and why I am not "focused", but in a very funny way. Now, what the heck was I doing???

My favorite color has always been blue. I associate it with a bright blue sky and also the color of a body of water. To me, blue is both calming and invigorating.

I stumbled across a blog that has a bunch of personality quizzes. There is a whole set of quizzes that assess the relationship between your personality and color. I normally don't find online quizzes all that interesting or fun but somehow I ended up taking quiz after quiz! They are not very long and to my surprise, they were eerily accurate.

For a little fun (and maybe some insight), take the  What Color Is Your Mind quiz on Blogthings. It came as no surprise when my result said blue! If you enjoy that quiz, there are four other color related quizzes to take. I took them all and actually found it to be time well spent.

Except when it is a practical joke! I wonder just how long it would take me to realize this situation was a joke.

Have you ever wondered if you look like a celebrity? Now you can find out! MyHeritage.com has a cool face recognition tool that will tell you who you look like. I tried it out and am displaying my results below.  Try it out now and come back here to tell us which celebrity you resemble the most!

E-mail: I think I have a love/hate relationship with it. There is a ridiculous amount of spam and scam emails out there. Then there is the never ending "forwards" that you get from friends and family and inevitably THEIR friends and family!

Jenn over at Of Cabbages And Kings asks "Which E-mail Personality Type are YOU?" She described the most common personalities to a tee! I seem to fit into several categories depending on the mood I am in that particular day. Head on over to Jenn's and figure out which category you (or someone you know) falls in to!

We all know that kids can say really funny things. I found a few Cute Kid Stories:

"I had just read an article on the destruction of the rain forest and was talking to my son about ways to avoid fast food restaurants and other ways we can protect the planet.
He says to me, "Mom! You'd be so proud of me! I got at least 7-8 kids to stop using paper towels in the bathroom at school!"
All excited, I look at him and say, "Wow! Honey, that is great. How did you do that?"
He says, "I just taught them all to wipe their hands on their shirts like I do!"

Check out that link if you want to read a few more!

If you ask any parent what their favorite sound is, most of them would answer that it is the sound of their child laughing. If you have not seen this video already, you should watch it. It is the cutest little boy just cracking up! His father is so happy hearing his little guy laughing this way.

Meet The Offended Blogger. No, not me. This is a lady who writes offensive posts in her blog daily. Do I want to be offended? By her, yes! She is hilarious!

Even her latest post has the offensive headline The "Guess My Offense" Offensive

"Now, I don't know about you, but some of my offenses were so great and so brilliant (and since the statute of limitations on most of them has recently passed) I feel that they are seriously overdue some well deserved recognition!

So I decided that the best way to do them justice is to turn them into a pre-Weekender Offender warm-up game that I am calling....

"Guess My Offense!""

Go ahead, guess her offense. You know you want to! (Disclaimer: I cannot be held responsible for any offense you might feel if you click over to The Offended Blogger. I might have provided the link but you chose to click!)

January 11, 2007 2008

To Whom It May Concern,

Please excuse HelloKitty's absence on January 10, 20078. She had diarea diahrea dierhea gastrointestinal problems.

Thanks,

BadBadIvy

My kingdom for paper with spellcheck and backspacing. Maybe I should just write all future notes in MS word.

Shannon at Rocks In My Dryer owes me a new keyboard. I should really learn not to drink (water, people! It's only noon! I don't start actually drinking until later!) while I'm reading my feed reader. She starts off with this:

Motherhood has taught me many things, chief among them that you can't take anything for granted.

And you probably think I mean that in the really sweet Hallmarkian way of "oh-you-divine-child-I-will-never-take-you-for-granted."

Yeah.  Sweet thought.  Not what I'm talking about, though.

Go see what she's talking about. Hilarious!

Jordan at MamaBlogga writes about stupid Christmas lyrics:

And some of them just don’t make any sense.  Here’s my favorite example of a line from a Christmas song that makes no sense whatsoever, in or out of context:

Christmas comes this time each year.

Um, yeah. . . . And Thursday comes this time each week.  Thanks for the lesson immemorial about . . . the calendar.

Ha! I think the song that gets me the most is "Up On The Housetop"-

First is the stocking of little Will,
Oh just see what a glorious fill,
Here is a hammer with lots of tacks,
A whistle and a ball and a whip that cracks!

While poor, poor Nell only gets a stupid doll:

Next comes the stocking of little Nell,
Oh, dear Santa, fill it well! (He didn't. All she got was a doll.)
Give her a dolly that laughs and cries,
One that will open and shut its eyes.

Oh, come ON! Will gets a hammer AND tacks AND a whistle AND a ball AND a really cool whip that really cracks. And all Santa can find for Nell is a stupid, annoying doll that cries all the time? Pah. It irritates me every time I hear the song. HelloKitty and I always sing the "Nell" part in an irritated voice and mimic throwing the crappy doll out the window.

What about you, Shak-ers? What Christmas songs do you think have dumb lyrics or amuse you?

Kathy T's more nervous about her daughter's performance in the National Vocabulary Championship than her daughter is. I totally understand this, when I watch my kids do anything in front of an audience, I wring my hands in fear that they will be embarrassed.

My kids have had all sorts of performances and other public exhibitions and they've always come through. No, it's me that's the embarrassment- like those moms you see in the backs of beauty pageants mouthing words and putting big, fake smiles on their faces, I always want to try to help. The kids just don't look at me, lest they die of embarrassment right there on the stage.

I've really got to work on that before I get myself banned from the kids' performances.

On Friday, I wrote a post in Shak In Style. My post was tagged for a game of blog tag!

I took my turn in the tag game today. You can view it in Shak In Style right HERE. I hope you enjoy it. I found it to be very fun!

When I was small, I absolutely loved the little rhyme/finger play "5  Little Monkeys Jumping On The Bed". When I had kids, I found there was a book and got it for my kids. I have probably read that book 1,334 times. But I never really thought of it this way:

Let's review the facts: there are five monkeys, and they are put to bed by their mother. When the mother closes the door, the monkeys begin to jump on the bed. Their jumping becomes so reckless that one of them proceeds to fall off the bed and sustain a contusion to his cranium. The alarmed mother contacts a medical professional who informs her that from this point forward, the remaining monkeys should probably abstain from the aforementioned jumping on the bed. Undeterred, the remaining monkeys continue jumping on the bed, and, in spite of repeated admonishments from the family doctor, each eventually meets the same fate as their wounded brother.

But wait, it gets worse! There's culpability on the part of the doctor and the mother! Quick, someone call CPS and the state medical board! Hit the link to read the rest, including one of the best comment threads I've read in a long, long time.

HT: Tanyetta

Is this what we are coming to?

I feel like every time I wake up there is a new recall for my child's toys.

The very first book I ever received was a Mother Goose book of nursery rhymes. Recently, my daughter found the book and asked me to read it with her. As we read, she became more and more shocked. She sees the nursery rhymes through modern, politically correct eyes. Nursery rhymes when viewed through modern eyes are pretty scary.

Don't believe me? Just read them for yourself:

Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home,
Your house is on fire and your children are gone,
All except one and that's little Anne,
For she crept under the frying pan.

A cautionary tale about working outside the home, I'm sure. Poor ladybug is probably out working when her house catches on fire and all her kids die except for Anne, who probably has 3rd degree burns from hiding under the frying pan.

Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater,
Had a wife and couldn't keep her!
He put her in a pumpkin shell,
And there he kept her very well.

Oh, Peter. Sounds like you need to divorce that wife of yours for running around on you instead of keeping her hostage in a pumpkin shell.

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,
She had so many children she didn't know what to do.
So she gave them some broth, without any bread,
And whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.

There's a shining example of good parenting right there. First she starves the children and then she beats them. Child abuse! Quick, someone call CPS!

Speaking of child abuse, what about this?

Little Polly Flinders
Sat among the cinders,
Warming her pretty little toes.

Mother came and caught her,
And whipped her pretty daughter
For spoiling her nice new clothes.

Why wasn't anyone watching poor little Polly? Let your kid sit in a FIRE? And then beating the kid because she ruined her clothes? Chiiiiiild abuse!

But they're not all bad, right? I mean, what about this one?

Hey diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed to see such a sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.

A nice, gentle nonsense rhyme, with the cow jumping and the dog laughing and the dish...wait. The dish is running away with the spoon? Adultery! What is Mr. Fork going to think when he comes home and his wife has run off with the dish? Anarchy, I tell ya!

At least there's still my favorite, nothing bad in there at all:

Ring around the rosie,
Pocket full of posies,
Ashes, ashes
We all fall down!

See? Nothing bad in that one at all. Ummm...what do you mean that one is about the bubonic plague? I guess we'll go back to reading Where The Sidewalk Ends.

Usually, laundry is my husband's job. He had surgery about a month ago, and so I've been doing the laundry while he's been recovering. Funny what you learn while doing the laundry. Here's a few things I've been musing about:

-My daughter has approximately 42,973 sweaters. Now, who else in my family is a sweater lover? Oh, yeah, my mom. Next thing we know, HelloKitty and my mom will be going to ugly sweater parties. I shudder at the thought.

-It seems Flip has already acquired the longstanding man tradition of wearing holey underwear. I suppose I need to have that conversation with him now about not wearing underwear with holes in them, lest the paramedics lose valuable time saving his life, because they were laughing at the state of his underwear.

-We have too much clothing. I've done enough laundry in the last 3 days to be able to outfit every man, woman, and child in Africa and I still am behind on the laundry. Time to start getting rid of clothes.

-SpiderMan lives up to his name by having the real Spider Man on every single item of clothing known to man. Shirts. Sweaters. Pants. Underwear. Socks. I mean, seriously, who makes Spider Man socks?? And who buys them? Oh, yeah. Me.

-Even though we have too much clothing, it's still sad to get rid of clothing. It's like bagging up little bits of my life and shuttling it out the door. There goes the dress HelloKitty wore to  her first day of Kindergarten. There goes the pair of pants Flip wore to his first dance. Ah, memories.

-Speaking of memories, why did I just wash my old band shirt from high school? I wore a size THREE in high school. Let's just say I no longer wear that size. Or anything close to it. Who was wearing that shirt, the ghost of my former self?

-Whose bright idea was it to put the cat litter boxes in the laundry room? Oh, yeah, me. Well, whose bright idea was it to get cats, anyway? Oh, yeah, me. I guess the only person I have to blame for the scattered bits of litter all over the laundry room is me. No, wait, I can blame the cats. Yeah, that's the ticket. Those darn cats.

-Doing the laundry is enriching. No, really, it is. I made $1.68 today because certain persons in my house totally fail to remember to empty their pockets before dropping their clothing on the floor. Awesome.

If anybody needs me, I'll be buried under Mt. Washmore. Thanks.

Tell me breastfeeding doesn't change your breasts!

Happy Friday! Have a great weekend.

Halloween is my very favorite holiday. I love the costumes, the spooky stuff, but most of all, I love the candy. I love candy of all sorts. I love pixy sticks, I love Skittles, I love Snickers. About the only thing I don't really like, candy-wise, would be Tootsie Rolls.

Strollerderby wants to know how you handle the Halloween candy thing. I think I have a pretty good handle on how to distribute candy fairly, while getting a share for myself. We empty out the buckets, sort all the candy out into types, and then distribute according to tastes. Fortunately, my kids all like different things- with the exception of Tootsie Rolls, which they all love and I hate. They give me a certain portion of their candy as "taxes" (I'm a pretty relaxed government, I only take about 10%), and then spend the next few days in a sugar rush.

It works out well for my family. What does your family do?

Yesterday was an interesting day. SpiderMan has a bad habit of slamming doors all the time. He does it when he's angry, he does it when he's happy, he is just a door slammer. When I was a kid, I was a door slammer as well, so I know the joy of slamming doors.

My mama solved the door slamming issue by making me open and close a door a hundred times, gently. I keep thinking I will issue this punishment to SpiderMan, but somehow have never gotten around to it.

By yesterday, it was too late. Yesterday afternoon while I was working, I heard the bathroom door slam and suddenly, shrieks of pain. I ran to the hallway and there stood SpiderMan, holding his fingers and crying. He had slammed his fingers in the door. Wonderful mother that I am, I blurted out, "That's why you shouldn't slam doors!"

Then I got him a wet washcloth (solves all problems, I have found) and some ice (solves any problems wet washcloths don't). Spidey sat on the couch and watched some Jakers! and felt much better. Crisis solved.

Later, when Flip got home, he took the dog out wandering through our vast estates and found something interesting. He came back in and told me to go look in the backyard. I walked out the back door, and Spidey started to come out too. Flip told him not to come out, and slammed the door. On SpiderMan's fingers.

"Imsorryimsorryimsorry," Flip said, upset that he had hurt his brother. Then the blood came spurting out. "HE'S BLEEDING!" Flip shrieked. My kitchen was beginning to look like a crime scene.

Some people are good in a crisis. They stay calm, and organize things, and deal with the crisis. Other people run around like chickens with their heads cut off,  panicking and accomplishing nothing. I am neither of these. Crisis situations startle me into complete inaction. I have to take a few minutes for the situation to sink in, make a plan, and then handle it. Sometimes this is a good thing, but sometimes it's a bad thing.

Fortunately last night it wasn't a bad thing. Flip is a chicken with his head cut off crisis handler, so he started running around, gathering wet washcloths and grabbing the phone. "I'll call 911," he said. By this time, I had figured out that although blood was spurting everywhere, there were no bones poking out, SpiderMan's finger wasn't cut off, and SpiderMan was probably not going to bleed to death. I grabbed the washcloth and told Flip and HelloKitty to get their shoes on, applying pressure to his fingernail, which was the source of all the blood.

We rushed to the hospital. I drove, Flip called Mr. Ivy and asked him to meet us at the hospital. Mr. Ivy couldn't get out of work, so he called my dad who came and picked up Flip and HelloKitty.

Fingers do not fare well in my household. At this exact moment, Flip has a splint on his finger because he broke his finger while playing...wait for it...Nerf football. Long and willowy fingers run in my family. I have spent half my life fielding questions from people like, "Do you play the guitar? You have perfect fingers for the guitar." (While my fingers might be great for playing the guitar, my total lack of coordination precludes that particular hobby) And Flip inherited those same fingers.

Last year, HelloKitty managed to slam her own fingers in the car door. She inherited that total lack of coordination from me, but escaped a broken finger because she inherited the thick, strong fingers of her dad's side of the family. As I sat in the hospital room waiting for the results from SpiderMan's X ray, I looked at his fingers, hoping the thick, strong fingers he had inherited from his dad were strong enough to keep him from a broken finger.

The nurses had all said it looked broken, but we lucked out. His finger wasn't broken. They told him he would almost undoubtedly lose his fingernail, and SpiderMan was pleased at the thought that his nail would turn black and fall off, grossing out girls from hither to yon.

I wrote a post last week about J Lo's chubby belly and how embarrassing it was to be asked if you are pregnant when you are not. She is now confirming that she is indeed pregnant with twins.....

"Baby bump watchers have speculated for months that Jennifer Lopez  is expecting. According to a cover story in    Us Weekly,    there's more than one reason that speculation over her pregnancy has continued.

A source tells Us that Lopez' mother "is proudly telling people she's having twins." Sources also tell the magazine that the singer/actress is four months pregnant and that it's "a dream come true. She and Marc [Anthony] are over the moon."

I think the stars love the added attention that you get from denying, denying, denying and then finally admitting. We wish J Lo, Anthony and their five nannies the best of luck!

At one point in my life I spoke Spanish with some fluency. As time has gone on, I have forgotten much of what I know. Now, I can red Spanish with some fluency, but speaking Spanish is a whole 'nother thing.

My Spanish has deteriorated to what I like to call "kitchen spanish" and "Dora spanish". I can toss out easy words no problem, but putting them together with decent grammar isn't really possible. I can also swear up a storm, but that doesn't really help when I'm trying to teach my kids Spanish.

All their lives, I have tossed out Spanish words instead of English words so the kids would pick up on them and know them naturally. I always wanted to raise bilingual kids.

The only problem is, my Spanish has deteriorated so badly that I've been saying the wrong words. Like last night. SpiderMan and HelloKitty were running in and out of a gate at a birthday party, and every time they would do so, I would shout, "Abrir el gato!" after them. Which sounds really great, but my friend who speaks Spanish better than I do, laughed and laughed.

This is because "Abrir el gato!" doesn't mean anything close to "Close the gate!" Oh, no. It means "Open the cat." Perhaps I am doing more harm than good. I might be raising bilingual serial killers.

Hello Love Shak, Baby! I usually write for the Shakadoo blog Shak & Jill, but today my colleague Ivy and I are trading places because we want to talk about something in the other's field of expertise. 

I have a two daughters.  The oldest is (so far) a well-grounded, logical almost 17-year old.  My youngest is 12-years old (going on 16) and is boy c.r.a.z.y. 

Honestly, I think it's pretty natural for girls that age to have boys on the brain.  I don't mind at all, except for one thing.  The boys like her back. And yes, boyS as in more than one. Two boys have already aked her to middle school homecoming, two are vying for her attention on the bus, and another keeps sending her notes: "Do you like me?  Circle yes or no."  and "I really want to know because I like you.  Circle true or false."  Ay yi yi.

I've been pretty cool, calm and collected throughout all the swooning over Zac Efron, Zack & Cody, and whatever rapper she's latched her attention on to... until last night.  My husband and I took our daughters to a concert at the world-famous Ryman Auditorium.  The Ryman has pew-type seating so my daughter snuggled up next to me.  I put my arm around her shoulders and glanced down.  She turned her face up and puckered her lips expecting a kiss. I said, "You are not allowed to date until you're 25." She said, "Wha?  WHY?  That's not fair!" I said, "The minute a boy puts his arm around your shoulders, you are going to want to kiss him!" We both cracked up laughing.  But she doesn't know how serious I am!  I hope I can keep my watchful eye on her until she's 25! And I haven't begun to think about this or this!  I think I'm going to need a barrel of headache medicine.  Wish me luck!

In honor of Labor Day, I give you a haiku for each of my three labors.

Low fluid, induced

Insane amounts of pain, breath

Chubby baby boy

__________________

Should not have had beans

Hang on, it's not beans, it's time

Fast, easy, boy two

__________________

Middle of the night

Pro at drug free style now

Whopper of a boy

__________________

Care to share your "Labor Day" stories in haiku form?

“I hate homework,” my youngest exclaimed as she had to write her spelling words twice for homework.  “Sorry, but everyone has to do homework some time and your time is now,” I replied, with a smile to ease her troubles.

Yep, it didn’t work.  She began to get frustrated, she started to hurry, and her work got sloppy.  What was she in such a rush for?