Random Esquire

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.

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.  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*

My niece (turned 3 in March) and my nephew (turned 1 in March) are in town, staying with my parents.  I took two days off work to maximize my blog material with them.  My niece does not disappoint.

1.  We took Little Filthy for a walk.  As we were walking along, my niece said, “What’s that hole?”  I looked on the grassy ground surrounding us.  No holes.  I said, “What hole?”  She pointed.  “What’s that hole?”

She was pointing at Little Filthy’s backside.   As you may know, Little Filthy is a pug mix and that means his tail curls up and sits on his back, leaving his exit door exposed.  I said, “Oh…that’s…” and trying to be sensitive to what words to use, I used a word in another language with which she’s familiar.  My niece said, “Ohhh…that’s his butt.”

2.  My sister asked me if I could make a run to pick up some diapers for my nephew.  I said of course.  I was writing down what to get (because, did you know, diapers are numbered?  Like pencil lead?):  #4 diapers and baby lotion.  I said, “Cool. Anything else?”  My sister said, “God, I need a stiff drink.  Or wine.  Get a bottle of wine.”  My sister and her husband are oenophiles.

There is a Wal-Mart just a half mile or so from my parents’ home so I decided to head there.  Right to the back where I grabbed diapers and then over a few aisles where I found baby lotion.  As I walked back toward the front, I saw an aisle with beer and wine.  I decided to at least check out what they had.  I found a Cab that looked decent and grabbed it.

Now, somewhere in the 10 or so yards I walked to the cashier, I realized that there I was…in Wal-Mart walking with diapers and baby lotion in one hand…and alcohol in the other.  My own sense of propriety made me flinch a little but I tried not to give it another thought.  That is, until the guy behind me in line said, “Diapers!  And alcohol!” and the burst out laughing.

Annnnnd my shame is complete.

I have just returned from visiting my sister.  Dude.  My niece thinks every Hispanic looking man is named Ola.  As in ‘hola’.  This is because when she said waved to one of the gentlemen who maintains their yard, he responded, “Hi!  Hola!”  And she responded, “Hi, Ola!” thinking that his name is Ola.  Because this has occurred with more than one man, she believes that all Hispanic looking men are named Ola.

This has prompted her to remark, upon eating at a Mexican restaurant, “There are a lot of Olas here.”

Or, upon seeing any white van with a logo, “That’s Ola’s van!”

This is delightful, no?

I have been contemplating buying this 500 gb external hard drive from Amazon.  Oh look…right under the picture, it says “See 1 customer image.”

I wanted to see how large the thing really was sitting on a desk or something – which is what all the other customer images are (of all the other external hard drives).  I click.

It’s a picture of 6 children standing behind a griddle with a Mickey Mouse pancake.

No, I am not kidding.  See for yourself.

WTF?

Edited to add:  Picture has been yanked!

Edited to add:  Now it is a Homer Simpson head!

Edited to add:  WTF.  Now it’s a bird.

My sister is an interesting mix of prim/proper and back alley craps game.   She balances between flying on the corporate jet and then telling me that she’s going to show her kids the movie Mystic River so that they never run away.    She’s extremely ethical and always tries to do the right thing.  Except for that Black Market Baptism (which happened).  She doesn’t swears or says a harsh word calls people charming names like coo-coo bean and quirky bird.  But she will say that her kid can smell weakness in a nanny like a wolf smells sheep.

She was prim/proper sister when she called me to tell me the following story.  My niece (who is almost 3), was digging around in my sister’s purse.  She pulled something out, held it up and said to my sister, “What is this?”

My sister looked at it and said, “Put that away, my love.” (She calls her kids ‘my love’ a lot.)

Niece: “Can I open it? What is it?”

My sister then relayed to me that it was, and I quote, “a certain feminine product.”  I like that she compared her kid giving up diapers to pulling someone from a line of coke but doesn’t want to say the word ‘tampon’.

She said, “That’s something just for mommies.”

My niece, knowing that my sister wears contact lenses and that daddy does not, said, “Ohh.  Are these contact lenses?”

My sister gave in and said, “Yes.”

My niece said, “Ohh.  Do you want me to open it and put it in your eye?”

My sister said, “No.”

I can’t wait to see this backfire on my sister.

I spent the weekend in New Jersey with my sister.  Her daughter, my niece, is 2 1/2.  Niece said something that caught my ear and I asked my sister, “Does she have an imaginary friend?”  Turns out she has two and also two imaginary pets.  Her friends are named Katcho and Comedy.  No lie.  I wondered about the pets names.

Random: Do you have a dog?

Niece: Yes.

Random: What’s his name?

Niece: Silk.

*pause*

Random: Do you have a cat?

Niece:  Yes.

Random:  What’s her name?

Niece:  Silky Silky.

*Blink*

I looked at my sister and she rolled her eyes, “We really have no idea how this happened.”  My sister imposed a rule that I was not to encourage these imaginary friends.  I asked why not.  She said she doesn’t want her daughter to be seven years old and saving space at the lunch table for Comedy.

I told my mother that the kids were baptized.  My sister asked if she (my mother) was happy about that.  I said yes, she was relieved that my sister was no longer raising heathens.  My sister said dryly, “Oh yes…they’ve been washed of their Original Sin. I can totally tell.”

heh.

So, the baptism.  I didn’t understand a word of it.  Okay, that’s not entirely fair but this was a priest whose presence at the church on a Saturday afternoon was paid for with a generous donation to his mission in Sri Lanka.  He not only had an accent but he was pretty determined to have this thing over in 15 minutes.  I’m pretty sure I denounced or renounced Satan and all his empty promises while also promising to make sure the kids grew up Christian.  I figure I’m already in trouble on that one since the first thing I did was ask my niece if Katchoo and Comedy enjoyed the Baptism as well.

Welcome to the family.