Well Shooty Booty!

(as my friend and once-cousin Jennifer would say)...I'm on vacation but popping in quickly in an attempt to prevent my blog from becoming TOO very stale and oldy-moldy.

Here's a picture of Sugar Tov, our male cat, named after my son's favorite food group. While Nimue is partial to tampons, Sugar's booty of choice is hair squishies. Not only does he love to play with them, he uses them to express his (foul) moods by depositing them into the toilet. In this picture Sugar looks on in dismay as Cassie has exposed his entire stash of hair squishies he had been collecting underneath the oven:

In a totally unrelated incident, my son Jared once had a hankerin' for this booty-related snack:


He was two or three at the time, and unable to read the packaging or remember the name for what he so craved. He did the best he could with what he had to work with:

Can I have some of that... (pause)

some of that... (pause)

some of that... (pause)

some of that PIRATE'S BUTT?

Because of the slow computer here and the fact that I have nephews to spoil and a new year's party to help throw, I am unlikely to return to the computer for a few days. Before meandering back into vacation-land though, one of my sources for the spellings of my particular word choices for booty or bootie, but or butt would like to be sited. The other prefers to remain anonymous.

But he's a Practical Psycho...

and a really cute one too. Or maybe they just call that being a boy. At any rate, Jared made this little wire guy in art and told me he had made "a hanging man." I was mildly worried, until I heard him talking to himself while playing with wire guy:

He can't have a sword while he's bungee jumping. That would be dangerous.

That's my boy! Not only do I not have to worry about a penchant for the noose, he wouldn't do anything dangerous while bungee jumping either.

A few moments later Casandra hopped into the car and accused Jared of lynching wire guy. "He's bungee jumping sweet pea," I assured her.

But Cassie still suspected foul play: "Well, he's got it around his neck and his hands and feet are tied up too!" Okay! So my son is up for a little lynching! But at least he doesn't let his wire guy carry a sword while he bungee jumps. He's so practical that way.

A Twipply Skwood Christmas

Whip out the tissues and antidepressants folks - it's as many Christmas songs as I could reasonably search out on project playlist!

KIDDING! They're not ALL depressing...the Robert Earl Keen song might be my favorite Christmas song EVER, because I love ANY Christmas carol that has a tampon in the lyrics. Must be the influence of those little kitties 'o mine...

(Yeah, yeah, Adam Sandler's got that Chanukah song out there, but for some reason there are just a lot more great Christmas songs...what you can you do?)

Shipoopi!

Here's my girl as Maud Dunlop in The Music Man:

In these two pictures, she's the one doing a cartwheel and then a back flip across the stage, in a red top with a brown skirt, no less:Aside from watching my sweet pea's delighted smile for two hours a show each of three shows, the best thing about having a kid in The Music Man has been the addition of the word "Shipoopi!" into our vocabulary. Not only is it a versatile term of endearment, but inserting it randomly into conversation is almost as fun as saying things like, "Don't step in the Shipoopi!"

As if performing in front of a kajillion people weren't enough, they had a cast party at which they gave out awards. I'm pretty sure my sweetie won an award for being a pain in the neck. The director called it an award for "creativity" and explained that she had a lot of great suggestions. I'm pretty sure that means the same thing as "pain in the neck."

(I'm TOTALLY KIDDING about the award my sweet pea! Congratulations on your performances AND your award!!!!!! Love, Mama)

That Teacher Voice

Much to the annoyance of his 4 and 5 year old peers, one of my little boys is suddenly convinced that he is nineteen years old. "My daddy told me that I'm nineteen!"

Later in the day I checked on him in the bathroom as it seemed he had been in there longer than usual. "Do you need help or are you okay?"

He called back, "Everybody needs help sometimes! Mommies and daddies even need help sometimes! Even though I'm nineteen, I need some help!"

This boy's class is known throughout the school for requiring a heaping serving of control, endless patience and a certain tone of voice. My brother and I ended up in a conversation about it that ended along these lines:

David: "Some people never develop that teacher voice. You have the voice, the one that says, 'Do it my way, or you're f*cked!'"

Me: "Yeah...it really does help when you truly believe that your word is the law."

David: "'Your word is the law.' Oh, that's a nicer way to put it."

December is Eating my Lunch

Of course, December is ALWAYS tough. I can't really decide if this December has been more or less brutal than most or just par for course. I imagine my stresses this time of year are similar to many people's: sleep is in short supply and (despite years and years of research) I have yet to discover the formula for being in two or more places at once.

Still on my to do list for the month is throwing together a birthday party for my son. I did manage to get a Chanukah party rolling for my Sunday school class though. We had it all! Music, dancing, gambling (well, the dreidel game at any rate), and enough sugar to rot the enamel off of every last tooth in the entire class!

Even so, each and every time I've given a classroom party for first graders, one of the children asks, "When are we having our party?" after the party is over or nearly over.

We even made those cute little marshmallow dreidels in the picture for cryin' out loud!!!!! So I always have to sort of wonder what exactly constitutes a party in a six year old's mind. Surely they weren't expecting an open bar?

By the way, since I accidentally sent my Sunday school parents this web address: Thank you again for the donuts, sugar cookies, donut holes, Oreos, frosting, Hershey kisses, fruit snacks, muffins and marshmallows!!!!! The kids LOVED them! Your children's dentists, The Imperial Sugar Company, and I would like to thank you from the very bottom of our...pancreases.

Kidding!! No seriously though, thank you so much - it wouldn't have been a party without treats!

Chock Full o' Fiber...

It seems folks have been needlessly worried about my tampon munching cats. As it turns out, they do not have an insatiable appetite for cotton rayon blends.

They have not been ingesting dioxins left and right as they devour every last feminine product in my home. And, in case you were wondering, dioxin levels in tampons seem to be at an all time low, but thanks for your concern for my favorite four legged hairballs!

Yes, while I was heaving my couches to and fro in an attempt to find that elusive carpet stuff that resides somewhere below the layer of clutter and above the reclusive woman who lives below (Okay, I don't actually know that she's reclusive, it's just that I've only met her once in a year and a half. That counts, doesn't it?), I found OVER thirty tampons secretly stashed by my fuzzy little friends.

So you see, they weren't actually serving them to cockroaches or mice as horsdeuvers while I wasn't home, or if they were, the cockroaches and mice ate much less than expected. (Hey, they've got to entertain themselves somehow while I'm at work!).

Instead, as it turns out, they have been hoarding them on the off chance that either of my two male cats ever get a period so heavy he requires THIRTY or more tampons to be immediately available.

As an aside, if you've ever wondered if December, (and particularly the first night of Hanukkah when one has guests over) is a great day to have the carpets cleaned, the answer is yes and no.

On the one hand, it's great if you want your stress levels to skyrocket unnecessarily. But then on the other hand, there are plenty of people around and one or more of them might offer to move the furniture back into place. (Thanks Ray!)

Meanwhile, I've since bought a combination safe in which to store my tampons and am trying to teach the cats to serve something more practical to their guests when they entertain, such as all those smelly candles and lotions that are so prevalent this time of year.