Funny Things to do to Mess With Your Kids

1) give them french bread to eat when they are really hungry (ever tried cutting the crust off french bread baquette?)
2) When you catch them sneaking candy, hide behind the door and jump out and say “BOO!”
3) When they are in the bath and one starts screaming “MOMMY COME QUICK YOU HAVE TO COME QUICK! and you run there thinking someone is drowning and the older one says “Blue peed in the bath!” and then you just shrug and walk away and let them sit in their pee water.
4) throw a miniature size Baby Ruth candy bar in the bath when they aren’t looking and gasp “WHO POOPED IN THE TUB?” and watch them scramble out
5) give them 99 cent chocolate from Walgreen’s instead of the usual Lindt chocolate they are used to and make them think that chocolate is suddenly “bad”
6) take out hearing aids and pretend you can’t hear a thing when they are asking for dessert and serve them spinach instead. “OOOOH! I THOUGHT YOU ASKED FOR SPINACH!!!”
7) Tell them Curly, Mo and Larry will show up and scold them if they don’t stay in bed
8) Pretend the television is broken around noon on a rainy Saturday (oh wait, is that worse for the kids or for Mommy?)
9) Get them dressed, fed and walk them to school on a Saturday morning and then wonder in amazement where everyone is when you reach the schoolyard
10)I’m sure I will think of more.

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A Chat Before Bed

At bedtime we read stories on my bed, cuddle and talk and then go to the girls’ room where I sing on each of their beds for them before we say goodnight. One night my older daughter wanted to tell me a few things after I sang to her and my little one pipes up from her bed, “Whatcha guys doin’ ovah der?” (we live in the Boston area, which explains the accent).

“Oh, we’re just having a chat,” I say.

So as I am about to leave the room I go over to say one last goodnight to her and she takes my face in her hands and says “I wanna chat too.”

So I stretch out on the bed with her and say “What do you want to chat about?”

She thinks for a while and goes “hmmmmm” and then when I think she’s going to come out with something prolific that she’s been thinking about she says “What the heck is a CHAT?”

Over time, she has gotten accustomed to what a “Chat” entails. It started with knock knock jokes. Then she tried out some potty talk like “What’s wrong with saying “Pin-uss” at school, Mommy?” and then tonight, after a brief chat about how she loved doing arts and crafts all the time in our house, she began the questions.

“Mommy, how does a seagull eat?”

“Mommy, how does a seagull drink?”

Satisfied with my answers she thinks long and hard before asking, “Mommy, how does a seagull POOP?”

Her hilarious cackling laughter upon finding that seagulls CAN fly and poop at the same time, was too much.

I couldn’t quite answer “if seagulls pee too”. I don’t think they do, do they? I would think all that liquid white crap comes out of the same place. She was appalled to find out that if you don’t watch out, seagulls might poop on your head.

From the other side of the room her older sister pipes up “A seagull pooped on my FOOT last summer at the beach, REMEMBER?”

And we all sat nodding our heads, remembering the panic and the anxiety she had over the white seagull poop goo streaming between her toes. And how easy it was to wash it off in the ocean.

There you go. That’s what we, three girls, chat about at bedtime.

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Upon Seeing a Tampon

Upon seeing a tampon, something my kids have been seeing around the bathroom their whole lives, once a month, like clockwork, my 6 year old, Red, asks me today “Mommy, WHY exactly do you need that stick thing?”

“Because when girls get grown up, they need Tampons.” I say, vaguely. I’ve avoided telling her about the bleeding part because the THOUGHT of blood to either of my kids results in hyperventilating, shrieking, clawing at my trunk to climb up to my shoulders and wrap their arms around me and sob into my neck (snot and saliva and tears running down into my shirt) and never let go. (and be used as a stall tactic at bedtime)

My 4 year old, Blue, goes “What is that thing?” because although she has seen them, she hasn’t really ever paid attention or asked…and I certainly haven’t struck up a conversation with her about it.

The funny thing is, her whole life, my 6 year old has not missed a beat. I remember a few years ago, when she was 3, getting out of the shower, with my tampon in, and her standing there staring at me and then crouching down and turning her head upside down to try and look up in between my legs because she thought she saw a “tail”.

And that would be my tampon string.

So there you go.

Because now, years later, she feels so knowledgeable about it, she felt she needed to explain it to her little sister.

Red: See, when you grow boobies, you get to use Tamp-a-pons. Tamp-a-pons go into the mommy’s vagina and it stays there, but just for a week. And because we are little girls, we never put anything in our vaginas.

Blue: Oh. Okay.

Red: And boys don’t use Tamp-a-pons because they have penises.

Blue walks away and asks to watch Scooby Doo.

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