Ginger Unplugged

My cell phone rings at 8:45 am in Walmart. Butterfly: Mom! Come home. (Sniffle, sniffle). My head hurts SO bad! Me: Oh sweetie, really? I'm so sorry. Who's in charge? Butterfly (crying): I am. Dad took Crash somewhere. Me: Oh no. So sorry! Go up to the medicine closet and...how else are you sick? Does your stomach hurt? How are your ears? Butterfly: Oh I'm not sick. Sleestack just keeps jumping on my head! Me: Um...the baby's jumping on your head? (A lady in the aisle starts smiling at this point.) Me: Okay...wait. Don't get the medicine. First, let's just have you get your head in a place where Sleestack can't jump on it. Buttefly (whimpering): Okay. Me: Better? Butterfly: Yes. Me: Now. Get a drink of water and remember the first rule of babysitting--Never let anyone jump on your head. Buttefly: Okay. Me: Call me in twenty minutes and let me know how you're feeling. I worry about the aisle-lady's sense of closure becaus...

Monkey: Everything is just "one" until you start counting.

Okay. I just couldn't take the him wiping his meal on his shirt anymore. Those are safety pins and napkins. Notice I have ALL the bases covered. My cousin wants to market this.

Crash: What shape is this? Monkey: A parallelogram. Crash: No, sorry. It's a rhombus. A special kind of parallelogram. Until I hit Junior High I'd never even heard the word "parallelogram." Let alone "rhombus." And IS a rhombus a special parallelogram? Suddenly my college degree seems so inadequate.

Turbulence in an elevator. WHAT CAUSES TURBULENCE IN AN ELEVATOR? I was forced to ask myself this question somewhere in between floors 2 and 1 of the city library. The answer being particularly urgent since I acquired a bit of GEA (General Elevator Anxiety) after someone pushed the "UP" button while I was doing graffiti in an elevator shaft. They all have little trapdoors on the top, you know. It was a teenage thing. Anyway, in the 15 seconds it took for the elevator doors to open in the correct place on the correct floor, Princess and I came up with some theories. Extremely localized weather systems. Someone should do research on this. Gremlins. Princess has recently seen that particular Twilight Zone episode. I'm so glad there wasn't a little window for us to look through. Tribbles. Same actor, different show. Similar potential to gnaw/destroy elevator machinery resulting in my death. Okay, to tell you the truth, I only came up with three options in 15 se...

Monkey: Isn't zero a number? Me: Yes. Monkey: Then why don't we count it? From now on I think I'll refer Monkey to the other kids whenever he has questions.

Mom, why can some things be pulled and not pushed? Like what? String.

All our kids' Christmas presents are bought except for Butterfly's. When I asked her what she wanted she just said, "Surprises, lots of surprises." I really had no clue what to get her. Husband wasn't going for the live hamster, I wasn't going for the robot one. What else is there? So we kept telling her all the interesting surprises she could get: rocks, underwear, nothing. Finally, she started to worry and wrote a letter to Santa. I actually don't think she believes in Santa but as soon as the kids stop believing in the tooth fairy she quits paying up. So Butterfly's hedging her bets in more ways than one. Her letter says: Christmas Dear Santa, I want (See...she's usually much more gracious than this.) A makeup kit CANDY!! Hair kit Face glasses Julrey D.S.I. (blue) Camra Spy romot car Scooter Skates Gift card for iTunes Mario Bro's Wii Princess Crowns 2 more Wii controllers Guitar Strings Trampoline Lipstick St...

Monkey's preschool teacher (who is undoubtedly THE best preschool teacher in existence) did this little interview, typed it up and gave it to me for Thanksgiving. What store would you buy a turkey from? "The turkey store, Ms. Cathy. Everyone knows that." How much do you think a turkey would cost? "Three." How would you cook a turkey, Monkey? "Get three turkeys and put them on the grill. You can eat some toast but no jelly while you are waiting for the turkey to cook." Monkey, would you put anything on the turkey to make it tasty? "Thank you for reminding me. Like 2 bottles of salt and 1 bottle of pepper." Obviously, a great chef in the making. And polite, too.

On Christmas morning, my grandma likes us to go to her house for breakfast. She makes the Li'l Smokies and we make our own eggs. I'm sure Grandma does more, but I only remember the Li'l Smokies--mainly because I make it a point the rest of the year to never eat anything with the words "Li'l" or "Smokies" in it. That taste stays with you for weeks. But anyway, there I was making Husband and a kid or two some eggs. Scrambled. With a little bit of milk and garlic salt. Enter someone who shall go nameless that said, "You're putting milk in your eggs?" "Um, yes." I don't know what exact words followed but the general idea was that putting milk in scrambled eggs is pretty much the nightmare of cooking faux pas. I do remember someone else saying, "Sure glad I don't have to eat those eggs." I won't even get into specifics about the garlic salt. And what were they doing in that 1950's kitchen anyway...

Crash: I had the freakiest substitute today! Me: Are you okay? Was it a man or woman? Did they attack you? Crash (giving me a weird look): Woman. Princess: Was she this tall with a face like a melted pumpkin? Crash: That's the one! Okay, how did Princess even know to ask that? And how did they end up with the same sub. Ever? Brothers and sisters just have weird connections I guess.

Crash's latest theory of infinity goes like this: Infinity isn't so much a number as it is the beginning of the next dimension to our own. Because if we had a four dimensional object compared to our three dimensions, we call it infinity. But it's really just four dimensions and we only use three. These are the things that my 11-year-old occupies himself with. This, and juggling knives--we try to keep him well rounded.

Monkey brought home these little pom poms from preschool the other day and immediately demanded tweezers and two plates to go with them. Apparently he's supposed to be learning eye-hand coordination and developing finger muscles by tweezing the colorful little fluffy things from one plate to the other. He eventually left them to go play with friends. As soon as he was gone, Sleestack, who'd been studying the whole process, climbed up into his chair. Instead of the tweezers though, she went for the salt. She salted, salted and salted until the plate resembled the beach of the Great Salt Lake (I know, I've been there). Only then did she grab the tweezers to stick one in her mouth. She made a disgusted face but then caught me watching her. She started nodding and tried to smile while saying, "Mmmmmm." I'm not sure if she wants me to think she's a good cook or what, but I was really worried when I checked back later and they were all missing. I had flashbacks ...

Monkey learned to talk backwards. Which means when he was learning to speak he started saying the ends of words instead of the beginnings. Water was "ter." Blanket was "et." And believe me it was extremely difficult to figure out what he was ever saying. Which wasn't helped by the fact he was attempting to use big words at the same time, like "delicious," and "creepy." Then when he started trying to say the beginnings of words he stuttered. And stuttered. And when he learned a new word, he stuttered. And stuttered. I thought he was over the whole thing but yesterday he was going around saying, "Sippy Misses One, Sippy Misses Two, Sippy Misses Three." "Don't you mean One Mississippi, Two Mississippi?" I asked. Of course he just said, "Nope." I think that was the one word he learned correctly the very first time.

This afternoon, Monkey suddenly started jumping, spinning and rolling on the couch all with his eyes closed. "Uh, Monkey, what are you doing?" "Dancing like the wind." "Why are your eyes closed?" "The wind hasn't gots eyes." Silly me. After he crashed a few times, he declared he was now going to do the "Blinking Dance." That's where "you keep your eyes wide open and never ever close them except to blink really, really fast."

As we decorated for Halloween, I let Monkey pick out some light-up shapes for the windows in his bedroom. There were four to choose from and he wanted them all up, which was fine. While we hung them he got very excited and said, "Maybe they'll scare the little girl away!" "What little girl?" "The one who talks to me at night." "Uh, what does this little girl look like?" "She's invisible." "Does she come every night?" "No, just most of them." "What does she say?" "She just says, 'Watch out!'" "Then what does she do?" "She runs away." "Why?" "The dragon always shows up right after her." YIKES! Go little light-up shapes, go!

We made some new rules in church nursery class the other day for the twelve or so toddlers that were there. Rule #1: No pulling people around by their heads. I'm so proud this rule was made because of Monkey. My favorite rule offered by our 3-year-old neighbor: Just relax and breathe.

Crash came running inside the other day after hitting his head on the driveway. "I think I'm in shock! I know you're supposed to ask people in shock questions so I asked myself my name and I almost couldn't remember it!" I was laughing too hard to remember what to do for people in shock.

A BOY is visiting Princess. It begins.

Crash: What's Mom's name? Monkey: Ginger. Crash: What's Dad's name? Monkey: Dear.