Irony

So back a year and half ago Munchkin was driving me BANANAS with his inability to entertain himself for even 13 seconds. On someone else’s advice (sorry, can’t remember who you were, but Cruise bless you) I stalked Craigslist for a few weeks looking for the obligatory train table with some track and trains. Most of the entries looked something like this:

Train table with Thomas the Tank Engine trains. Trains include regular Thomas, Birthday Thomas, 2 Percys, Toby, Edward and coal tender, 2 James’ with coal tenders, Emily and coal tender, Molly, Rosey, Sodor Chicken Cars, Sodor dairy cars, Cranky the Crane, the Breakdown Train, Aquarium Cars, Giggling Troublesome Trucks, Musical Caboose, Annie & Clarabelle, Express coaches, Hector, Diesel 10, Hank and coal tender, Might Mack, Tidmouth Sheds roundhouse, Quarry Mine Tunnel…..and on and on and on.

I remember reading all that thinking, “Good GRIEF, people!”

So a listing for the perfect train table appeared one day for $100 and included about 80 miles of track and a handful of trains. I called the woman, told her I would PayPal her the $100 and kiss her on the mouth if she would promise not to sell it to anyone until I got there. She agreed.

We got it home that night and Munchkin went into a train-induced trance that he has yet to come out of it. Best damn $100 I’ve EVER spent, hands down.

Here is where the irony comes in. That night while DH and I were settling in, I announced, “We are NOT going to go crazy and buy every Thomas train available. That is just RIDICULOUS. I mean, NO child needs all those trains. We can get him Thomas and MAYBE Percy for his birthday, but we are NOT getting any more than that. He will be perfectly fine with a couple of trains and he can pretend he has the rest. I mean it’s SOOOO much better for his imagination and will teach him to appreciate what he has and blah blah blah blah.” I think I also said something about national security and the downfall of society, etc. Oh, I wish you could have HEARD the sanctimonious tone with which I proclaimed all of that.

May 27, 2009 – 53 trains and counting.

So much for single-handedly halting the downfall of society.

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I create fun and colorful flashcards for children. When you do that long enough, you begin to see the world as a series of flashcards. Sometimes they are funny. Sometimes they are warm and fuzzy. Sometimes they are mildly innappropriate.   Come see the snark at The Flashcard Zoo Blog.

Obsessive

I have recently come to realize I might be a little obsessive about my plastic container cabinet. My parents didn’t have a plastic container cabinet until recently. They had a drawer about a foot deep that was level to the top with lids and bowls. When you wanted to store your leftovers, you opened the drawer and started pulling out bowls and random lids until something matched. When you found what you needed, you stood on top of all the bowls and lids and jumped up and down until you could get the drawer closed again (OK, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but not much).

Recently when I went to visit my parents my mom asked me to clean out their drawer and arrange everything in the cabinet in their island. I was positively GIDDY I tell you. Fishing out bowls and lids and throwing away sacks full of empty butter and Cool Whip dishes was so cathartic. (I was ordered not to tell my dad I had thrown them away because he likes to save them and gets heart palpitations when you throw something away that MIGHT be useful….next year).

Anyhoo, when we got it all done I felt this warm calm come over me like I had just figured out my meaning in life. It wasn’t quite the feeling I had when they placed my newborn child on my chest, but it was close. I slept like a baby that night.

It was at that point I realized I MIGHT be a titch obsessed with the neatness of my plastic container cabinet. I thought it was completely normal to arrange all your containers according to size so that you get the maximum stacking capacity. And all lids should be stacked from back to front in descending order according to size so that you have maximum visibility for easy retrieval. Square containers are stacked inside square containers and round containers inside round ones. There shall be no mixing of geometric shapes, for this is an abomination in container storage!…..I mean…anyway, that’s kinda what I would say if I were REALLY obsessed. But I’m not.

And then I’m reminded of this episode….

I ask, “Ummm, what are you doing?!?” His response was, “I make french toast, Mommy.”

He is lucky he’s cute.

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I create fun and colorful flashcards for children. When you do that long enough, you begin to see the world as a series of flashcards. Sometimes they are funny. Sometimes they are warm and fuzzy. Sometimes they are mildly innappropriate. Come see the snark at The Flashcard Zoo Blog.

E?

So Munchkin has been getting 5 M&Ms whenever he takes his antibiotic. (I know, tsk tsk tsk. But honestly I have tasted the stuff and I wouldn’t take it unless you promised me a gift certificate to Bliss Spa every time, so I figure in this economy we’re getting off good with 5 M&Ms.)

Anyhoo, he gets his five M&Ms the other night and takes them over to his little special place on the ottoman to lay them all out and go through the ritual of counting them and grouping them by color (he IS my child) and deciding which one he should eat first when he says, “Mom, why deez M-uh-Ms don’t have Ms on ‘em?” I go over and look and ask what he means because they all have Ms on them. He says, “No Mom. Doze are EEEEs.”

So I turned them all 45 degrees to tranform the Es into Ms. He gets a look in his face as if he’s just grasped the intricacies of String Theory . “Wow, Mom. How did you do dat?”

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I create fun and colorful flashcards for children. When you do that long enough, you begin to see the world as a series of flashcards. Sometimes they are funny. Sometimes they are warm and fuzzy. Sometimes they are mildly innappropriate. Come see the snark at The Flashcard Zoo Blog.

Anticipation

He’s standing there waiting for the first time he gets to go on the ice. He knows that if he is going to be a “big hockey pwayer just wike Daddy” that he must first learn how to ice skate…and he can hardly wait–to be just like Daddy, that is.

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I create fun and colorful flashcards for children. When you do that long enough, you begin to see the world as a series of flashcards. Sometimes they are funny. Sometimes they are warm and fuzzy. Sometimes they are mildly innappropriate. Come see the snark at The Flashcard Zoo Blog.

Y chromosome

So here it is. I caught Munchkin on the toilet with his View Master.

It truly MUST be something in the Y chromosome that produces the insatiable need for entertainment while one is sitting on the pot. There were men in my family (I’m not mentioning names) who used to sit and read the Sears catalogue on the pot. I worked at a hedge fund in NYC where I witnessed many a men coming out of the bathroom with their thumbs flying across their Blackberry…because we know absolutely NOTHING can wait until you get back to your desk from your potty break.

I don’t know women who do this. I don’t take reading material or my phone to the bathroom with me. Who knows, maybe that’s just because I don’t have time. I rarely (if ever) get to even go in there by myself anymore, much less take 30 minutes to answer emails or pick out my spring wardrobe. Although, maybe if I had a View Master with some picture wheels of George Clooney or Hugh Jackman I could find the time.

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I create fun and colorful flashcards for children. When you do that long enough, you begin to see the world as a series of flashcards. Sometimes they are funny. Sometimes they are warm and fuzzy. Sometimes they are mildly innappropriate. Come see the snark at The Flashcard Zoo Blog.

Swiveling and Sweeping

This is the latest post in my “Child Labor Series”.

So I got a Swivel Sweeper for Christmas and can I just say that I love this thing. It swivels on a dime. It sweeps my kitchen tile and even gets right up to the baseboards. No more running around with a seperate broom and dustpan sweeping up crumbs. But the BEST selling feature of this little jewel is that it is light enough for a preschooler to use.

It rotates and rolls with virtually no effort whatsoever and it weighs next to nothing. So there you go. The perfect “toy”, if I should say so myself. Of course, he’s afraid of the noise so we are working on actually turning it on while he’s “playing” with it. But I have my hopes up.

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I create fun and colorful flashcards for children. When you do that long enough, you begin to see the world as a series of flashcards. Sometimes they are funny. Sometimes they are warm and fuzzy. Sometimes they are mildly innappropriate. Come see the snark at The Flashcard Zoo Blog.