Random Esquire

1.  My nephew is going through potty training.  My mother visited my sister and her family this weekend and was a witness to the magic that is potty training a little boy.  My mother informed me that she instructed my nephew to “hold it” while he stood in front of the toilet.  He did and then withdrew his hand again and looked up at my mother and said, “My pee-pee has a booger on it.”  I mean, I can understand why he didn’t want to hold something with a booger on it.  So you can hardly blame the kid.

2.  I spent Memorial Day on Lake Michigan, salmon fishing on a chartered boat.  One of the salty older men who was along on the trip told me a lot of stories that made me laugh.  When in college, he and a buddy thought that they would sign up for dance lessons as a way to meet girls.  They walked to the class congratulating themselves and when they got there, each was given a mannequin on roller skates.  He said it was horrible.

3.  I got a Droid Incredible. This means that I may become perfectly obnoxious posting pictures of everything because it is now super easy from my phone.  Having said that, while I understand that some of you (especially if you follow me on twitter) would appreciate a picture of Turtle or Permanently Pregnant girl, I have learned my lesson about trying to take pictures of people in public places.  I am reformed.

4.  The dog and I are going to have a beer and finish watching the hockey game.

CAUSE THAT HOW WE DO.

1.  I decided on a late night shower this evening.  I undressed and was going to get into the shower when I decided to lower the thermostat.  I walked out into the living room / kitchen naked and realized that the dishwasher had just finished the wash cycle.   I decided to open it instead of having it go through the dry cycle.  I flipped the latch, opened it a bit…

and damned if I didn’t almost steam my genitals.

2.  On the train this morning, I observed a young man whose natural expression was… slack jawed.  His lips were like two ships that pass in the night but never meet.  I don’t get it.  But I sat there and thought of all the other jacked up analogies I could make about his teeth.  Like, his upper lip was a window shade that wouldn’t pull down.  Or his upper lip was like a belly shirt that exposed too much teeth.  Dumb shit like that.

3.  I asked my sister her thoughts on towel sharing and informed her that some people wash their towels after every use.  Her response was, “Those people never went to college.”

4.  Editor and I had a beer outdoors on Friday night.  In the vein of being keenly observant, there was a woman at the next table and I could not help but notice her.  This is because her chin seemingly never met a jaw of any type but simply bled into her neck.  With her hair pulled back, she was remarkably turtle-like.  I suppose some people just inevitably get compared to animals.  I think, perhaps, the turtle is not so much a flattering comparison.

5.  My niece and nephew are big Little Filthy fans.  When they saw him on Sunday, I explained that he had received a shot in the leg and it had made his leg sore.   Remember when my niece pointed to Little Filthy’s exit door and asked, “What’s that hole?”   Well, this time, my nephew pointed to it and said, “is that shot? boo boo!”  Yeah.  He thinks Little Filthy’s hole is where he got his shot.  I don’t bother explaining things but cautioned against touching anything.

6.  I got my hair cut last week at a new place.  This means that I did not receive the kind ministrations of The Bumper.  The Bumper is the pretty young woman who would wash my hair prior to my cut and she would…*ahem* …bump me.  Honestly, people, it’s hard not to grin just typing that.  Anyway – no Bumper so therefore, no bumps.  Because, in case you didn’t know, it’s rude to dive for a bump.  Now you know. It’s one to grow on.

7.  When Little Filthy was at the vet last week, his anal glands were expressed.  The vet said: “they were quite full.”  This somehow makes me feel negligent.  I decided to see if I could learn how to do this so perhaps I could take care of this little issue when giving Little Filthy a bath.  Naturally, I turned to Youtube.

After a few videos, I decided that there are some things best left to the vet…  left to the vet and some dark room in the back where no one talks about what’s going on or what they’ve seen.

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*