Archive for the ‘Boys will be boys’ Category

My hastily produced rendition of the card in question.

My job, as it always seems to be on Cub Scouts outings, was to protect the children from all things of and having to do with sex. I’m not sure how I keep falling into this role, but I do, and it happened again yesterday at the Cub Scouts tour of the supermarket, of all places.

Sigh. (more…)

Matt Lane giving his speech while I try not to cry.

I couldn’t pay too much attention to their words, or I’d cry. And the mistress of ceremonies shouldn’t cry, right? Not when she has to get up in front of 150 people and persuade them to give money to a good cause, kids with cancer. (more…)

I was making a Staples run to pick up the tickets for my upcoming Kiss Cancer Goodbye event when they made their request. My boys wanted a stapler, some Wite-Out and some modeling clay. I didn’t ask questions. I figured that my sons had some sort of school project. Besides, I was in a hurry, so I dashed out the door with my list and bought what they’d asked for. (more…)

Nobody had ever offered me a farting elephant before. Not a real elephant. I wouldn’t know where to keep one of those, though perhaps it would keep the bears out of our garbage cans, which would be nice. No, this was a toy farting elephant, a “Phartephant,” which, the PR person who offered it to me promised is “hilarious fun.”

Oh how I love hilarious fun. It’s my favorite kind of fun.

Normally, I delete these type of e-mails, but this time, I e-mailed back: (more…)

Apparently, the bear knows something, but she’s not telling.

It was funny to stumble upon this scene, and yet mildly disturbing as well.

You know it’s time for the Semi-Annual Culling of the Kids’ Closets when you find Pee-Wee Herman in an underwear drawer.

As I opened my son’s dresser drawer yesterday, I jumped as though I was an expendible character in a horror movie — perhaps Laundry of Chucky. Even after 12 years of motherhood, I just don’t always anticipate stumbling upon such things as Pee Wee Herman staring at me from among a pile of boxer shorts and white crew socks. But there he was, and there went my Sunday afternoon mellow.

The rest of my son’s room has been blissfully uncluttered for much of the summer. Now and then, his bed goes unmade for hours or even a day or two. But I just start singing “Kung Fu Fighting” or “Copacabana” and suddenly, he’s speed straightening his room. Anything not to hear about Lola, “she was a showgirl,” from his mother, with Dad as back-up singer. Hmmmm. Maybe we need dance moves?

But stumbling upon Pee Wee was a sign to me that it’s time to figure out which clothes can stay and which are too small and/or too ratty, the nicest of which will be donated to the church. That way there’s more room for things that fit.

So I whipped through his closet until I had a pile of “Wow, that hasn’t fit in two years” and “Is that ketchup, or blood?” I put them in large plastic bags and we hauled them downstairs to the dining room, where I’d just pawned off boxes of “I have no bookshelves for these” and “I read this four years ago” on the annual library book sale.

As for the drawer, I haven’t had a chance to cull it yet. Frankly, I’m afraid to open it back up. I mean, who knows what I’ll find there? Oh, Pee Wee knows. That’s who. And that’s a little scary.

We are half-way through the summer, almost exactly to the hour. To celebrate, I am yelling at my kids. (more…)

On this Sunday, a day of rest, I would like to thank the Lord for the Looney Tunes – Golden Collection, 411 minutes of classic Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd and more. Because around here, Sunday isn’t the only day of rest.

Since my little soccer player suffered an eye injury during his game two weeks ago, he has missed seven days of school, including the last two days of the school year this week. He suffered from a hyphema, when blood pools in the front of the eye — and mom races him to the ER.

When he announced shortly after the game in which an opponent had kicked a ball directly into my son’s face that things were “getting blurry,” I held up my hand and asked him, “How many fingers?”

“Uh, two?” he asked like he was guessing an answer on Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?

“Get in the car,” I ordered after a quick Google search, which confirmed what I had suspected: Time was of the essence.

Since then, he has had numerous drops and numerous visits to the pediatric ophthalmologist’s office, where, it seems, they own two movies: Madagascar  and Madagascar 2. (As a result, we no longer like to “move it, move it.”)

This week, when the pressure in his eye was still dangerously high, he got an ultimatum from the doctor: Stay home and do nothing but watch TV or end up having surgery.

As a result, we have watched about 40 of the 56 episodes of Looney Tunes and all four discs of classic Jetsons, twice.

We have also played umpteen games of his version of Pokemon, figuring it requires very little reading and almost no moving, except for the Rocks, Paper, Scissors part. As a result, I am beginning to understand Pokemon. I also understand that the game is rigged so I can’t win.

But at least I have Bugs Bunny.

On Friday, my son’s eye pressure was back to normal. He wouldn’t need surgery after all. Phew!

Still, his doctor said he would have to spend two more days doing nothing. Naturally, that’s when the sun, which hasn’t shone in about five weeks, came out. But we don’t care. We have Bugs and Pokemon and the whole summer ahead of us. Thank God.