Entries Tagged 'Family' ↓

Over the weekend I'm driving through the center of town and pass by the church that has a little coffeehouse sort of thing going in the basement. "Tonight!" the sign proclaims, "Maeve, at 8pm."

Whatever.

As I'm driving by, the podcast I'm listening to – a novel called Shadowmagic — they begin speaking of a character called, and I'm not kidding, "Maeve."

Cue spooky music!

The podcast is about Irish mythology, so I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume the band playing in the basement of the church was Irish, too.

3yr old: "Dorothy Quinlan is the president!"

5yr old: "Hillary Clinton, and she's not the president yet, because if she was Daddy said we have to move to California."

Me: "Canada, sweetheart."

…you're watching Lipstick Jungle, a new tv show clearly setup to be a sort of "Sex and the City for married women" sort of thing. And, there's a climactic scene where the stay at home dad is expressing his frustration at his movie producer wife and says something to the effect of, "You're the one at the big celebrity parties and I'm the one at home getting my name on the pre-order list for Happy Feet Part Two"…

…and your first thought is, "Wait, there's a sequel? When's that coming out?"

🙂

So the other day we got a letter. Odd in that it looked like a Christmas card. But even stranger in that there were three "mistakes" on the address – our name was off by one letter (Moran instead of Morin), the street was one over from us, and the street number was one digit off (12 instead of 123). So a card originally sent to the Morans at 12 East, somebody had fixed it to go to the Morins at 123 South.

Here's the thing, though. Ready for this? We *know* the Morans at 12 East. My wife has playgroup with them. So she brought the card over to them and said "I think this is yours." Sure enough it was a lost Christmas card. Some well meaning postman, at best guess, had said "Wait, I know the Morin name, they're one street over. I'll just go ahead and fix this."

Via BoingBoing.net comes this great mugshot of one Robert Morin, of Maine.

Of course it's not my real Uncle Bob of Maine(though I do have one), but how could I not post this? 🙂

It is fun communicating with someone so young that they don't really understand the rules of communication yet. My 3yr old's favorite expression lately is "last day". This is used as in "Today I would like cereal. Last day when I had the red chocolate berries I didn't like them."

It's just her generic for "previously." Like a cross between "last week" and "yesterday."

"Red chocolate berries", by the way, are raspberries. We recently had blackberries in the house, which somehow started being called "chocolate berries", and she liked them. This week we tried raspberries under the guise that they were "like chocolate berries, only red." Maybe not.

"Daddy, why did the frog in Shrek die?"

"Because he was old and sick."

"Yes but why did he die?"

"Sometimes frogs just die, sweetie."

"No they don't."

"Yes, believe me, they do."

"I'm gonna call Gabrielle and ask her." (hand goes up to ear) "Hello, Gabrielle? Do frogs just die? Thanks." (click) "Gabrielle says frogs don't die."

Gabrielle, for those not in the loop, refers to the character from High School Musical.

While I'm here, have a different story: The other day I caught her speaking to her hair ribbon. "Stop it," she says to the ribbon, quietly.

"Are you talking to your ribbon, sweetie?" I ask.

"It's being mean to me," she says. This is her generic statement that means something has not gone her way.

"And….is the ribbon talking back to you?" I ask, not sure of the answer I'm going to get.

"Yes."

"What does it say?" I ask, wondering which doctor I call for this.

"It says," she tells me, in the same whisper she's been using, "I'm pretend."

I hate being owned by my 3yr old.

Oh, Christmas. I look forward to having smart kids. I also don't like lying to my kids – I'm bad at it. So Christmas the whole Santa Claus thing is going to prove interesting. As the years go by and various events come and go, we're forming our own set of rules that explain how Santa does what he does:

• "How come Santa brought me some stuff that's not on my list, but he didn't bring me some things that are on my list?" Got that question last year. Answer – because Santa always brings three things – *some* stuff from your list, *some* stuff you *need*, and some stuff he *thinks* you might like. This seems to have gone over very well, to the point where my daughter spotted a toy on tv the other day and told me, "Even though I already mailed my list, maybe Santa will think I'd like that."
• "That lady is not Mrs. Claus, you can see the wig." Just happened this weekend, as our daughter almost ruined the fun for her little friends at a tea party. Answer – You know, you might be right, it might be somebody in a wig. But I'll tell you a secret? Sometimes it's the *real* one. They come down in disguise and hang out sometimes too, you know. You didn't? Oh, absolutely, that's part of the fun. You just never know.
• "The kids at school say they don't believe in Santa Claus and they still get presents." Answer – Well, sure, you get *some* presents from your Mom and Dad and friends and relatives. But you don't get Santa presents, now do you? That's how Santa does so many houses in one night, he gets to skip the houses of kids who say they don't believe in him.
• This one is not mine, but have you heard that the new thing is to put the milk and cookies in a "to go" bag for Santa? Helps him keep in schedule, you see – he eats them on the way to the next house.

It should be fun watching as the rules change over the years. With a 5, 3 and 1.5 yr old they'll all be at different stages of believing as time goes by and we'll be able to enlist the older ones in helping the younger ones.

Just caught this on tv, and it is so worth blogging.

"Abilify may control symptoms of bipolar mania and reduce the risk of manic relapse…

Ok, so far so good, seems like a thing worth treating.

"When taking Abilify call your doctor if you have high fever, stiff muscles and confusion, as these may be signs of a life-threatening reaction."

Life threatening? That'd suck. But I suppose there are plenty of medications out there that, if you have a bad reaction, can mess you up.

"Or if you have muscle movements that can not be stopped, as these may become permanent."

Umm…that's not cool.

"High blood sugar has been reported in some patients taking Abilify. In extreme cases this can lead to coma, or death."

Watch blood sugar….check. Got it. I think.

"Elderly people with dementia should not take Abilify due to an increased risk of death or stroke."

Stop saying death! It's not good to say "may cause death" repeatedly when advertising your product!

"Some people feel faint upon standing. Other side effects include impaired judgement and motor skills, and trouble swallowing."

Look on the bright side, he didn't say "anal leakage."

My daughter, 5, is working on a reading game called Headsprout. It tries very hard to give her meaningful things to read, based on the sounds she's worked on, so you tend to get very simple stories about characters who have otherwise meaningless names like "Vee" and "San": "See Vee, see San, see San and Vee in the van on the sand." That sort of thing. Each character started out as a space alien, but in the later books they became animals.

It just clicked with me the other day when I was reading a book with her that one of the characters is a monkey. And his name is "Fling."

Somebody at Headsprout has a sense of humor. I will wait until my daughter is old enough before I explain to her what monkeys are famous for flinging. Maybe during a trip to the zoo.