Random Esquire

My 8 year old daughter’s buddy – lets call him ‘Matt’ – was over the other day.

Matt is 9 and a neighbor and my daughter’s best friend (not that she would admit this in a million years, he is a boy after all). Daughter and Matt were goofing around and decided to play ‘dog‘. By that I mean that Matt pretended to be a dog and Daughter pretended to be his owner.

I was in an adjacent room, paying very little attention because that is the kind of attentive parent I am. Then, I hear Daughter speaking with an English accent – quite a decent one at that.

She is saying stuff like ‘Now you be a good doggy or I shall have to become more strict‘ and ‘You are being a very, very bad boy‘ and ‘If you keep being naughty, I shall have to punish you.  BAD doggy‘ and he is making sad puppy noises.

I decided to take a closer look (what with being supermom and all) and there is Daughter, holding the end of a piece of twine as a leash, with the other end forming a ‘collar’ around Matt’s neck.  Matt is on all fours, seemingly content with his role in this little drama. It was reminiscent of – well things I felt I shouldn’t be thinking of.  Later, I was recounting the story to my husband, telling him how Daughter was pretending to be a British dog owner.

Daughter overheard and jumped in to correct me: “Mom – I wasn’t a dog OWNER.  I was a dog TRAINER.  Because Matt was a very, very bad dog and needed a lot of training.”

Well that really put any doubts to rest.

My little one is practicing to be a dominatrix.

And a rather good one too – the next day she played over at Matt’s house and came home sporting a shiny new pedicure.

She proudly told me Matt had polished her toes.

1.  So.  Single Ladies by Beyonce.  Let me tell you how this went.

I put my laptop on the table, pulled up the video on  YouTube and announced to my niece and nephew that it was time to dance.  I hit play.

And they were thoroughly unimpressed.

They stood there and stared at Beyonce dancing and then looked at me.

My niece said, “I don’t want to listen to this anymore.”

My nephew said, “Twinkle twinkle!”

Science FAIL.

2.  Last night I ate gingersnaps before bed.  And in my dreams, I fell in love with a ginger.

BigLittleWolf asked me what would happen if I ate chocolate chip cookies before bed.  So I ran to the corner and got these.

Will let you know how it turns out in the morning.

UPDATE – 8:00 A.M.  I don’t remember my dreams, if I had any.  Clearly, chocolate chip cookies wipe your memory or prevent dream formation.

3.  As you know, I like to take pictures of food.  I may have left out the fantastic loaf of French bread and the french fries I enjoyed.  My niece made them for me.  They were delicious and I enjoyed them with a juice box.  And I may have had an apron on at the time.  A very.  Tiny.  Apron.

Man, check out those little fingers and that cute dress.  Just looking at that picture makes me laugh.  She’s a TINY PERSON.

I spent the past weekend out East, visiting my sister and her family.

1.  My sister’s driver picked me up at the airport.  He doesn’t stand around with a sign, though.  I call him when I land and then he’s there when I walk out.  He had popped the trunk open and so, without really thinking about it, I started putting my bags in the trunk and he ran around and opened the door for me.  I decided that next time, I’d let him lift the bags and I’d open my own car door.  It’s weird.

2.   When I arrived, I met the new nanny.  She is pretty awesome.  My nephew was sleeping and so I took my niece out to lunch.  We ate at a little bistro and, as we left, we passed an obese gentleman.  My niece looked up at me and said, “Why he ate too much?”  There’s little you can say to that.

3.  My nephew is a year and 8 months.  He likes it if you ask him to whisper a secret into your ear.  I leaned down and he whispered something softly into my ear.  I asked my brother-in-law what he said (because the kid is fluent in two languages and choose the one I don’ t understand – and apparently he happens to tell the same secret to everyone).  My brother-in-law said, “We don’t know why but he always whispers the same thing. ‘One egg.’”.

4.  You may recall that my niece has an imaginary friend named Katcho. My niece was pretending to speak on the phone.  She looked at me and said, “I’m speaking with Katcho’s nanny.”  My brother-in-law looked at me and said, “Yeah… we’re on our second degree of separation.”  I laughed.

5.   I told my sister that I wrote about Christmas in our family.  She said, “It’s a transaction.”  I said, “EXACTLY!  I called it prostitution.”  My sister said, “EXACTLY!”

We’re very practical people.

6.  Back home in Chicago, I went to bed last night at 8:30.  No, I’m not kidding.  That’s about 4 hours earlier than usual.  You know why?  Because kids are like Ambien to single people.  I ran and played for three days, soaking in as much of the little ones as possible.   And you know what?

HOLY CRAP, ARE THEY EXHAUSTING.

Do you dance?

I marvel at people who can’t dance.  It just seems normal to move your body to the beat of music.  My best memory about dancing was with one of my first girlfriends who was Puerto Rican.  We shook our money maker down on Miami beach.

I grew up in a relatively musical family.  My sister and I play no less than 7 different instruments between us.  Her children are also growing up with music in the house and will most likely take some sort of instrument lessons.

Anyway, I happen to stumble across this article which asked the pressing question All the Single Babies: Why do Tots Love Beyonce? This question arose after the slew of videos turned up on Youtube of babies dancing to the Single Ladies video.  (See a lot of them here.)   Turns out, according to the article,  babies/tots love high contrast visual stimulation… and a good beat… and repetition.  And her video?  ALL OF THE ABOVE.

Soooooo, I’m going to visit my sister on Thursday.  My niece is 3 1/2.  My nephew is 1 1/2.  Now, when I arrive, my sister and my brother-in-law will still be at work. And it seems only fitting that I give the nanny a break when I arrive, right?

So, it’s gonna be me.

And the kids.

And my laptop.

That’s right.  I’m going to let them watch the video.  Over and over.  And I’m going to film their reaction.

This is for science, people.

For science.

1. I love watching Jeopardy. I laugh through most of it. During Kids Week, all of the kids jammed their buzzer to answer a question to name the war in which some state was acquired by the U.S. But when asked about the primary ingredient in marinara sauce, they all look at each with blank faces, completely stumped. That shit cracks me up. Last week, a woman gave an incorrect answer and Alex Trebek said something like, “Ohhh, no, it’s XX. What you said is something else entirely.”  I laughed.

2.  I bought foaming hand soap for the bathroom.  At some point, while using it, I wondered, “Does this make me lazy?  I don’t even want to take the time to lather my own soap?”

3.  Yesterday, the Today Show covered a story in which two adopted guys worked at the same place and then found out that they were brothers.  And then a sister emerged out of the woodwork.  The three of them were on.  Turns out there’s another sister and so they all met each other live on the Today Show this morning.  The best part was that this 4th sibling…she looked a little, how shall I say it…. rough.  She said that as soon as she saw the show the day before, she knew this was her family.  And then she made a motion toward her newly found sister and said something along the lines of:  “I mean, come on, look at us. It’s so obvious that we’re sisters.”

And I swear the other sister cringed.

4.  Today, I watched a Cover Girl commercial on television.  Penelope Cruz was in it.  I watched it and then paused, rewound it and watched it again before I realized why.

*sigh* Bah.

Updated to add:

5.  I put a plate with a slice of watermelon on it down on the coffee table.  I got up to get a glass of water.  I turned around and Little Filthy had it in his mouth, sticking out of each side.  I yelled, “HEY!” and he tore off running down the hall.  He ran right into the bedroom (have I mentioned that I don’t have any doors in my place?  I live in a loft so I don’t even have walls that go up to the ceiling…which is about 17 feet high).  Yeah, I found the beast on my bed, watermelon rind on my PILLOW.

And you know what? Dogs don’t have lips.  You know what that means?  It means they get watermelon juice everywhere.

Who wants a dog?

Instigator decided to tell her daughter about sex recently.  Heh.  Here’s her account:

The other night my 8 year old daughter and I were watching House.  One of her babysitters loves this show and was watching it at our house, and next thing you know, my kid has tivo’d a season pass. Frankly this is irritating as I don’t watch House, didn’t want to, and quickly realized she shouldn’t watch but since she was (as she pretty much is in charge, I admit it – so shoot me) I’d better watch with her.

Watching House with an 8 year old results in a myriad of questions.

Why are those two girls kissing?  Cause they are gay.

Who is that lady the guy is talking to?  A prostitute.

What’s a prostitute?  Its a complicated grownup thing.

What’s an aneurysm?  How the fuck do I know, I’m a lawyer not a doctor.

So anyway, this episode is about a guy in a coma and in one scene, the nurse is changing his catheter.  My kid says ‘What’s that?’  I tell her and then my mind goes like this: catheter, penis, sex talk.

(more…)

1. QTMama wrote a poem about me.  I dig it.

2.  The other day, I said to Besos, “You’re not very…” and then I paused because I meant to say, “stereotypically Mexican” but what actually came out of my mouth was, “Mexicany.”

She sat back and looked at me.  “In what way?”

And I said, “Well… I don’t mean it like ..you don’t drive a truck with a refrigerator in the back. I mean it like…” and that is when I realized that what I should have said was, “I don’t know.”

3.  Boss has begun a new school year.  She said her favorite little boy came into the classroom last week and said, “Whew! It’s hotter than fuck out there!”

*Blink*

Ayup.  Other things heard in her classroom:  “Girl, you need to stop showing your panties!” and “He said he doesn’t want to be my friend because I act like a girl and that I’m gay.”

Welcome to kindergarten in the Chicago Public School system.

4.  I bribed Besos over the other evening by promising to give her ice cream.  I had to go to the store to get some because I don’t eat ice cream.  I like ice cream; I just never think to eat it.  But now I own a pint of mint chip minus one Besos portion.  I figure there’s enough in there to get me lucky at least two more times.

1.  Who’s usin’ twitter?  I’m Randomesq.  Be warned:  it ain’t pretty.

2.  QTMama has a date tonight with this guy she likes to snog.  I decided to make a bet with her.

Via Text, I dared her to work a phrase into casual conversation with the guy.  The phrase?  “…like tossing a hotdog down a hallway.”  I told her that if she did it, I’d buy her some K-cups for her Keurig.

She texted back:  “But, what does that even mean?”

At this point, I burst out laughing.  Then came her next text:  “I would totally say that.  I want K-cups.”

Then I told her what it meant.

She said, “It means that?  Dammit.  Okay.  I’m still saying it.”

This should be good.

3.  Instigator sent me a text tonight informing me that her daughter had just broken her (daughter’s) arm.  I asked how it happened.  Here’s what Instigator had to say:

“She fell out of a tree.  Still at hospital.”

“Scared shitless.  Thank God I wasn’t with her.  Poor little baby. Dr. happened to be in the park who stayed until we got there.”

“Her arm looked fucked up.  She was trying to show her sitter she could get out of the tree one handed cause she wanted her iTouch in her other hand.”

And then my favorite:

“That demonstration backfired.”

heh.  Instigator.

4.  I’m packing up for a quick little roadtrip this weekend.  Little Filthy is going to stay with his grandparents.  My mother said, “That little terrorist.”

*sigh*

My sister likes to ring me on her way home from work some days. She’s usually pretty entertaining because she’s very prim and proper but says off the wall things.  For instance, she said that she’s going to show her kids the movie Mystic River so that they never run away.   And arranged a Black Market Baptism for her kids (which involved cutting a check).  And she once said that getting my niece off of diapers was like pulling someone from a line of coke.  She just says stuff like this and I find it really off the wall.

That brings me to the other day.  First, some background:  My niece has a very old fashioned name.  For our purposes here, I will use the name Bonnie for my niece because it is sufficiently old and rare enough to make the point.

My sister called me and informed me that Bonnie had just attended a birthday party.  She said, “All the other kids were running around the yard, playing.  Bonnie just wanted to sit and watch and eat cookies.  She just wants to eat cookies!”

I laughed.  My sister cried out, “A  fat kid named Bonnie isn’t gonna have any friends!”

I protested through my laughs and said, “Don’t say that! What’s wrong with you?”  I could practically hear her shrug.  She said, “I’m just honest.  You know how kids are.”

I suppose, like me, my sister is not here to gloss over the truth.

That brings me to my next story.

Today she called on her way home and announced that there was a warrant out for her nanny’s arrest.

*Blink*

See, that’s not the sort of thing you begin with.  You’ve got to ease your way into that kind of bomb.

It turns out that her nanny received a ticket and it was mailed to an old address, never paid, fail to appear, blah blah, boom!  Warrant.

I think we would both be more alarmed if it weren’t for the fact that my sister and I are sort of fascinated by being so close to someone so on the edge of the law.

We’re a very straight and narrow bunch.  We gotta take our excitement where we can get it.

Guess what was in the yard?  My niece was pretty fascinated by the baby bunny we found.  I resisted the urge to take it home and raise it on my patio so that I could later kill it at my neighbor’s bidding.  That’s called strength, people.

Yesterday, as we made Play-Doh animals, my niece watched carefully as I made an elephant for her.  When my elephane was complete, I placed the head on the body and proudly held it out for her inspection.  I said, “I made you an elephant!”

She eyed it and said, “Does it have a hole?”

*sigh*