Ha-ha, It Is To Laugh!

Here are two jokes that Zaya invented this last week -

1.) What kind of karate do soybean's do?

2.) What kind of note stores white blood cells?


Answers are below the picture.




A1) To-FU!

A2) Lymph notes!

We are finally beginning to approach jokes with an actual punchline! This is a momentous occasion in the life of any child (and/or parent who is forced to listen to hundreds of silly, pointless jokes.)

We needed a little extra humor. Zaya had strep throat last week, and now that he is fever-free, Mim woke up with a temperature! One more doctor's trip today, and maybe we'll be done for a while.

Writing Santa, Digital Style

I finally thought of a way to help all my relatives who will be calling in the next month or so about Christmas presents. My kids now have wish lists at Amazon.com and Thinkgeek.com for your shopping or idea convenience. (Actually the thinkgeek list is for the whole family.) Art and I also have a wish list at Amazon. (Ok, it's mostly mine. I'm still trying to talk Art into adding some specific things.)

I was going to include the links so that you just had to click to get to them, but then I realized that you could see all our family information when you went to the lists, which is not really what I'd like to make available to the entire internet. Therefore...if you're interested in seeing these lists, please just tell me so and I'll send you the links in an e-mail. Unless you're some creepy stranger, then you're out of luck.

Now, I'm not saying anyone has to buy my family anything, or that we wouldn't love something that isn't on these lists. I'm just saying here are some ideas. If you find something similar at Walmart, that's fine too. Again, these are just ideas. I can never think of anything when someone asks me, so now you have somewhere to turn.

Mommy, I'm so tired.

We have our first fever of the season. Zaya has his annual case of bizarre strep throat. It's bizarre because he doesn't have a sore throat. In fact, he never has, and he's had strep every year now for the last three years. He just gets a fever. His throat is red, but it doesn't hurt him. This morning he broke out with hives suddenly on his back, but a little Benadryl knocked those puppies out. (I have a picture. I'm glad I took it, because the Benadryl made them disappear by the time we got to the doctor's office, and they always believe you so much more when you have photographic proof.)(And yes, I'm one of those moms. Get over it.)

He spent the day playing Endless Ocean on the Wii, which is a beautifully peaceful little game where you explore the ocean and discover new types of sea-life. He loves it, which is nice, because I much prefer it to the other games in his digital arsenal. After Daddy got home we had a nice supper, and now they're playing Mancala while Mim takes her bath. Then it's to bed, and praying for a good feverfree night.



Oh, and in other news, we are now the proud owners of a small chest freezer. It fits in the little place beside the door in our den as if it were made for it. Art plans to get a deer this year, so this'll be it's resting place.

Budding tastes

Here are two different ways that Mim has described food or drink that did not meet her taste standards recently.

"It tastes like an alien crawled into my mouth."

and

"It tastes like a pool with bugs in it."

Leading me to ask, of course, "How on earth could you possibly know?"

She has a cold, which is presumably why things don't taste quite the way they're supposed to.

The picture below is how my two children write the word Popeye. The left is Mim and the right is Zaya. (Zaya had a little help with the last two letters.)



In case it's hard to tell, Mim drew an eyeball after the word Pop. Then she made the pupil an M, because she likes to autograph her work.

This was all done in Grandma Lilibeth's classroom, which we try to visit once or twice a week after school is over. The seniors are currently selling those big round lollipops, so the kids usually leave school with blue, red, purple, pink or white tongues. And lips. And faces. And hands. Thank you, Grandma.

Pomegranate Goodness

My mom directed me to this video. You have to watch the whole thing. Don't just give up and decide it's another boring commercial.

Run Away! Run Away!

Yesterday we were driving to visit Grandma Lilibeth when Mim surprised me with a question.

We had been traveling quietly for awhile, the children reading, or so I thought. Apparently Zaya was reading, but Mim was contemplating unimaginable brutality with typical nonchalance.

"Mommy," she spoke into the silence.

"Yes, sweetheart?"

"Mommy, do they make bunny slippers from real bunnies?"

"Umm. No. No they don't. They make them from fabric, just like clothes. They just look like bunnies," I said while trying not to imagine someone ripping the insides out of a bunny and sticking their foot in said mammal. "They are not real bunnies."

"Oh, ok."

For the rest of the day I had the Monty Python bunny stuck in my head. (The picture above is of the Monty Python Killer Rabbit slippers from thinkgeek.com; a fantastic place to shop for all the geeks in your life, by the by. The Teeson family may just have a wish list there, in fact, in case you were, you know, curious.)

Oh, and on a related note, my father said that Monty Python was one of the things that his generation had done to my generation that required apologies.

The man speaks truth.

Be Kind

I have this crazy idea for a column I might try to present to the editor of our local paper. Actually, the idea of writing a column for our local paper is also crazy, so that makes this loco on several different levels.

Anyway...

If I were to name a specific strength I have, or expertise, if you will, (besides my excessive use of commas) it would be that I love learning about new/different things, and I'm a quick reader and researcher. And I can write a bit, too. (I'm not talking about grammar. I hate grammar.)

What do you, my supportive and uplifting family and friends, think about a column that is just a small explanation of various things in our world? Each week would have a different topic, like an encyclopedia, but more friendly and fun. Sound thrilling? If you were an editor would you pay, oh, anything, for that?

Here are some examples of just how random I'm thinking: What makes up the earth's atmosphere? What exactly is a Ponzi scheme? How do your white blood cells work together? Who invented the pop can? How much sleep do children need? What are the best strategies for solving sudoku puzzles? What might you see if visiting Budapest? etc....

So here is my question/idea for you -

What are some random things you would sit down to read a little column about? (A well researched column, I promise, but little nonetheless.) (And no, I wouldn't just be going to Wikipedia.) Or, alternatively, do you think this would be at all interesting?