Things that (Probably Shouldn’t Have) Made Me Happy this Week.
Dance class is finally O-V-E-R. Sure I wasn’t the one wearing the leotard and tap shoes, looking like Little Bo Peep Gone Nuts in 1980, but I did the, “Parent Dance” in the waiting room for an entire school year. It sucked and I’m glad it’s over. I’m also thinking about turning that florescent pink and yellow mess into a pint-sized scarecrow because…
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…squirrels found my tomato plants. In a few days my 5-foot plants went from being loaded with green tomatoes, to wilting with good intentions. I sprinkled coffee grounds and pepper at the base of the cages, and in response the fluffy rats gang-banged my plants and left half-eaten tomatoes all over my yard.
So yesterday I took the remains of my first garden into protective custody.
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Hopefully I’ll find some success with the squirrels because I lost a big case to ONE. She and I have been arguing over tape for weeks. She wants to tape everything she’s ever made to her walls. I don’t want her to peel off the paint. I’ve also been teaching her how to argue her case respectively when she feels like I’m not listening to her. After my definitive, “No,” she took me by the hand, led me to her room, and pointed at the very wall that also functions as a snot burial ground. In her most respectful tone she said, “Remember all those boogers on my wall? If you let me tape up my pictures, you won’t have to see them anymore.”
Well done, counselor.
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My kids universally rejected these vitamins, citing such ridiculous things as, “They’re too tart,” and, “They’re kinda chalk-y,” and, “I no love-a-dese bitamins.” Seriously? From whose womb did these children emerge? Were they born with no trace of my DNA? (In related news, I’m harvesting my next kidney stone by sucking down Vitamin C zoo animals. Without my mom to nag me into, “one-per-day” submission, I can’t seem to help myself.)
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I also can’t stop listening to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on audiobook. A murder mystery read to me in a British accent while I wash dishes, fold laundry, and ignore whining? Summer bliss in my blood via earbud.
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My house is also known as the Gum House, and in order to keep our reputation as such, we celebrate (in bulk) all things sugar free and Trident. ONE’s friends make a beeline to the gum drawer when they first arrive, and ask for a, “goodie slice” before they leave. We recently, and I’m guessing to the dismay of her parents, converted ONE’s BFF into a believer. The other day she confided in me (while smacking on the apple-pineapple), “Gum never goes away. You just keep chewing it, and chewing it, and it doesn’t disappear. I tried to do it with marshmallows and tootsie rolls, but it didn’t work. Gum is a great thing.”
Yes, BFF. Yes, it is.
Now if gum could somehow rid my garden of squirrels, my !!! would be complete.
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{ 42 comments }
I love Flintstone vitamins! Great post! The gum. Ah, the gum. Have they made a gum ball as big as their mouth yet? Never been to Costco. Don’t think I will any time in the near future either. I hear it is evil for those with little ones. Her argument was PERFECT! What a smart little girl! So sad about the tomatoes. We lost the cabbages to flooding. I go today to check on it, since I’m the resident weed puller.
Oh squirrels! We had one determined mama to be building her nest in our decking and only a metal grill plate was sufficient to stop her!
Your daughter’s reasoning for putting her pictures up on the wall? Absolutely brilliant, I think you have your work cut out for you with her in future :-)
If you love the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo you will love the sequel too – I could not put the books down and next on my reading list is the final book.
My daughter would not eat any vitamin tablets, gummy, chalky or otherwise so I got her the baby Vitamin drops from Target and I use a medicine dispensing little cup and add a little water and she has her “medicine” every morning no problem. (She does not drink milk so needs the Vitamin D supplementation).
I was going to add Girl With The Dragon Tattoo to my list – I take it you would recommend it? Between you and Gibby – I’ve got my summer reading all taken care of. Which is awesome because I get at least one hour of uninterrupted reading each day when I take my lunch break! (this last sentence was purposefully typed out to elicit some sort of jealousy response – don’t disappoint.)
YES to the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo…some parts are pretty brutal, but it’s a really well-written book. I liked it a lot. And as jealous as (you know) I am about your hour, no one deserves that hour more than you. So I’m afraid I can only be happy for you and raise my !!! for your lunch break. (Sorry to disappoint :)
The squirrels are my suburban arch-nemesis. They never touched the tomato plant I had last year, but they chew my kids’ pumpkins all to hell every fall. And painting on a coat of watered-down tabasco sauce and chili pepper only delays the inevitable. I hate those gray bastards.
Ha! I have been sucking down a daily Flinstone/Zoo Animal/store brand vitamin that I’ve got stockpiled, too, since my kids discovered the Sour Gummy variety. They beg for them.
You know, after all that, one of them got my last remaining tomato. BASTARDS!
Are you willing to tie mylar tape on some branches of your tomato plants? Might work to freak them out and keep them away. Them being squirrels.
And Costco parking lots suck regardless of if you have kids or not. But I’m surprised the taking kids inside where free samples abound at every corner doesn’t drive you mad. How do you ever get out of there in less than 3 hours with all that food to try?
You are so right! One is going to be the best lawyer. Ever!
You made me laugh out loud with this: “I no love-a-dese bitamins.” That’s EXACTLY how my two-year-old says “these” and “vitamins.” I read that sentence exactly the way my kid says it. Except she pulls open the bathroom drawer and wants to take vitamins all day long. And how can Costco charge you for parking!??
The Girl w/ the Dragon Tattoo is pretty addicting… I think I heard the third in the series is finally in English!
I’ve been ‘forgetting’ to set the timer on my kids bathes and instead I’ve been reading the ‘Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest’ so I feel you there!
Good laughs. Perhaps you can provide us other moms a lesson in teaching our children about arguing their case respectively, since ONE did it so well? hahaha!!
When you get rid of your squirrels, come fight my caterpillars. They seem to think that they own my parsley plants. It may be time to send out the caterpillar squishers. Unfortunately, they’ve grown up and they now think it’s icky.
Like shooting orcs who explode isn’t?
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with OD-ing on kids’ vitamins (said by the mom who is currently mainlining her kids’ rejected gummi ones from Trader Joe’s). Nothing says afternoon snack like 1,000,000 IUs of Vitamin D!
Gang bang your plants. OMG. I’m roaring.
Damn squirrels. Did you get your shot gun out yet?
Love that your daughter convinced you to hang up her art. Is there lawyer in her blood?
I read all 3 “The Girl Who…” books and LOVED them! I’m not ashamed to say that my kids got a little ignored while I visited Sweden for the first time! Have you read The Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins? Also amazing books that allowed me to escape for a while!!
Thank you for the book recommendations! I’m sure I’m going to need something to help me get over the sadness of the series ending when I finish the third one…
Sounds like you have a great negotiator on your hands. Good luck with that. I’m in the teen years with my negotiator and it’s brutal.
Honestly – that was one of my biggest fears when trying to teach her the right way to argue her case. I mean, I was basically showing her how to get what she wants. But I figured she’d fight hard either way, might as well be polite about it.
But still…I’m dreading the teen years.
Flinstone vitamins are called Einstein vitamins in my house and she only eats the PINK ones. Loved those as a little kids, but I wasn’t picky, any color would do.
Always love your humor and honesty CK. Always a pleasure. Thanks.
I first put up an electric fence around my garden. The bunnies still ate my green beans. Then I put up a rabbit fence…210″ around the entire garden…by myself. Let the c%@*suckers come and eat my beans now!!!
Ok, I completely forgot to !!! and you send me my very own !!!’s and EVERYTHING. I will soon, I promise. In other news, I mowed down a squirrel this week and would be willing to head up there to take out the rest of them in your garden. Interested?
YES, please! I’d love to see those little bastards try to stand in your way.
Forgot to mention that you’ve raised quite the negotiator there…
Um, would now be an appropriate time to ask what exactly *is* gum and why do my children think it could save the world?
The layer gum is fantastic. I want to be a kid at your house!
Okay, so, those vitamins? Disgusting. I once ate half a bottle and then downed some Syrup of Ipepac to make myself throw up (as some crazy scheme to get out of school). Ever since, just looking at the chalky vitamins turns my stomach. We are gummy vitamin people!
But the question remains…Did it work?
My boys LOVE vitamins. I have to enforce a one a day policy.
Oh, the GUM. Sarah turned me on to gum as a kid “treat.” Man oh MAN. Sometimes our house smells like gum. (Which is better than diaper pails, so, you know, I’M NOT COMPLAINING.) About that. But, the vitamins? I have at LEAST three opened containers of “yucky” vitamins on top of my fridge. My children are not as specific with their assessments. “Yucky” is the all-encompassing way they tell me that No way, No how are they ever going to gag on another one of THOSE vitamins again. But. I digress. Great job finding the !!! in a week that included garden devastation.
Heh heh heh. Love my sister. L-O-V-E. And Love seeing her in the comments section. And yeah, gum. Mmmm.
Ha, how could you possibly argue with that logic?! I pick tape.
Man, oh man, i cannot get my kids to take any vitamins, either…Luckily, when the dinner entree is to their satisfaction, they eat…
The link got eaten up, I think….Let me know if I need to resubmit….
P.S. You guys just upped the ante with the pictures. I cannot wait to do it, plus, it will help with remembering the !!! instead of racking my brain for, what was that that made me !!!
Great !!! as usual…I’ve requested that book from the library and can’t wait!!
Here in NJ we don’t have fluoride in our water so our children are prescribed special vitamins. Once, when the drug store ran out, the pharmacist told me to just “give them Flinstone’s chewables for now.” I did, and they reacted EXACTLY the way your kids did! WTF? I loved those things as a child! Those, and St. Joseph’s aspirin (now that I know giving aspirin to a child could give them Reyes disease, I cringe in horror at that memory, btw). Thanks for the laugh.
HA! The gum thing is hilarious. Although, I’m slightly worried about that little girl….. My armchair psycho-analytic skills tell me she might have future control issues. I’m hearing “I don’t have many things in my life I can hold onto and keep for myself…..” Or maybe that’s just my own voice breaking through. :)
Birds are getting my tomatoes. Little bastards.
“Well done, counselor.” HA HA HA!!! Indeed!
There is this stuff that is used in theater called blue tape (maybe it’s called something else), it won’t peal the paint off the walls. I think you can get it at paint stores too.
I especially love the bitamins. They look like they’re having a cozy little animal meeting.
Oh, dear God, I’m so relieved not to have the only child in the blogosphere who wipes snot on her walls. That’s a gigantic !!! for me.
My husband was 33 when we met and it took the impending birth of our first child – 6 years later – to get him to stop hanging things at random all over the house with push pins. Or even just sticking a found push pin into the nearest vertical surface – wall, door, trim, cabinet, bookcase. So, the tape is welcome. Most of the time he uses masking tape but there is a picture of Santa on the staircase wall taped the entire way around with scotch tape. But I won’t repeat the argument that ensued when I took it down from the door in January. Oh those testy artists!
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