Earlier this week, I tried something different on my facebook page, and invited friends to describe parenthood using only the titles of movies. My friends really came through, and the results were hilarious.
Many addressed the general chaos of living in a house with kids
A Series of Unfortunate Events
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
Apocalypse Now
Armageddon
Flying Circus
How to Train your Dragon
Into the Wild
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Sharknado
Sudden impact
The Crying Game
The Fast and the Furious
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
The Greatest Show on Earth
The Hunger Games
Toy Story
Transformers
War and Peace
War of the Worlds
We Bought a Zoo
And the way they can be little monsters
Aliens
Animal House
Monsters, inc.
Psycho
Revenge of the Nerds
Ruthless people
There were allusions to the fact that there are no easy answers in parenting
Adaptation
Catch-22
It’s Complicated
Mission Impossible
Spies Like Us
The way it consumes our whole lives
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
From Dusk ‘Til Dawn
Six Days Seven Nights
The Theory of Everything
And it’s impact on our social lives
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
The exhaustion, sleep deprivation, and brain drain
Altered States
Clueless
Dazed and Confused
Groundhog Day
Sleepless in Seattle
The Neverending Story
Waiting to Exhale
The fraying last nerve
Big Girls Don’t Cry
Despicable Me
Drive Angry
Sure, they can be naughty
Catching Fire
I Can Do Bad All By Myself
I Love Trouble
Liar, Liar
Something Wicked This Way Comes
The Invention of Lying
The Usual Suspects
Throw Momma From The Train
But they’re our little mini-mes
Identity Theft
The Imitation Game
Then there’s the high cost of raising children
Million Dollar Baby
Money Pit
The things you keep hearing yourself say, over and over again
One of the local schools has a sign on the gate that says “NO PETS ALLOWED ON SCHOOL GROUNDS.” The sign goes on to specify that the pets not allowed on school grounds are cats, dogs, and pot bellied pigs. Does that mean ferrets are allowed?
I always wonder about signs like this, with something oddly specific included in the rules. I wonder if there was at one time a pot bellied pig problem. I’d love to hear that story.
Tell me about your week and show me some pictures.
I am in possession of most of the old photographs and do-dads from our family history, and on occasion, I rummage through those items and take a stab at getting some of them scanned so we have a digital record that can be shared around the country. Most of the pictures I rummage through are multiple copies of old school photos, but every once in a while, I find something interesting.
The pen doesn’t work, it’s 44 years old. Apparently, this is the pen that the best man presented to my dad, the groom, “for use in signing his life away.” This cracks me up. I wonder if he had any idea that decades later we would still be in possession of this pen and the card to which it was taped.
The card says:
Compliments of the Lee Museum of Warped Art and Hysterical Do-Dads.
Left on ancient dining able, believed o be the “Official Pen” use in ancient wedding ceremony. Given traditionally (for the first time) to the Groom fo use in signing way his life by the Honorable Best Man. Hmph!
And here’s the best man, Pete Lee, with my Dad. Dad is on the right.
This is one of my favorite photos from my parents wedding – Dad looking at his ring. I wonder what he was thinking.
I spent my daughter’s nap time pondering what I was going to do about my weekly photo post, when her chattering and giggles caught my attention.
There’s nothing I love so much as the sound of her giggles. In fact, I grabbed my gratitude journal to make a note of how well she entertains herself during her quiet play time, and how much I love her giggles when this little face popped out of her room and into my view:
She had covered her face with blue permanent marker. She said she was putting on makeup.
Oh, my, yes, she was proud of herself.
I crowd-sourced the issue with friends on FaceBook and Twitter, and received a wide range of suggestions. Some were much more helpful than others, for instance, we didn’t try the steel wool.
I’ve rubbed her down with olive oil a couple times, and scrubbed her face several times. The most effective treatment was to apply a layer of coconut oil, let it sit for a few minutes, and then gently rub it in a bit before washing it off.
But there’s still a hint of blue. Her hair and eyebrows are the worst; the color does not want to let go of her hair. Oh, yes, my little punk got it through her blonde curls, as well.
Since yesterday, so many of my friends have shared stories from when their kids did this as well.
I don’t enforce a silent nap time. In fact, around here, nap time is ‘learn how to make your own fun, and maybe rest a little bit, while Mommy tries to get her work done‘ time.
So when the happy-fun “Woohoo!” sounds wafted from her bedroom, I just smirked and went back to work. She’s doing a great job learning how to make her own fun, I thought.
From the looks of her trashed room, I imagine she had quite a lot of fun.
Work Hard ~ Play Hard ~ Sleep Hard
One of these days, we’re going to have to install a video camera in her room. I’d love to know what her play looks like when she thinks no one is looking.
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