Kiddo

“She’s a hollow shell with a rotting brain.”

- my daughter, of her severely mentally ill grandmother

My daughter’s version of obedience school. Click on image to view full size.

Me: I love you, girlfriend.

.

Kiddo: I love you, mommyfriend.

I love that children’s books have all kinds of hidden (and not-so-hidden) meaning within their pages. This book is called The Adventures of Bert. Here is a page from the book. Check out the shadow.

One time I was reading a parenting magazine and there was an ad from a pharmaceutical company pushing skin medicine, and their marketing ploy was a plush toy - a stuffed rash. There was a toll free number to call to get one free.

I thought it was way cute so I called the toll free number and went through this whole automated process where they asked me my name, address, child’s name, etc. and finally towards the end of the call they asked if my child had eczema, and I said no. Then the automated voice informed me I wasn’t eligible for the stuffed rash and hung up on me. DAMMIT!

I immediately called back and went through the whole process again, and when it got to that part, I lied and said, yes, my daughter had eczema.

Two weeks later, I got two stuffed rashes in the mail.

Moral of the story: Try to tell the truth the first time, and if that doesn’t work, lie, and you will be rewarded double.

Goddamn I hate balloons, and when you have a kid, they tend to hit your radar screen. I hate how they squeak, pop, the unlubricated latex…

The other day we were at a party and there were balloons, and of course my daughter grabbed one and wanted to take it home with her. The thing is, what do you DO with a balloon besides let it go and have some duck choke on it out in the wild?

So I said to her, “Are you sure you want to take that with us? Why don’t you leave it here?”

So she turns to the people behind us and hands them the balloon, explaining, “Here, you can have this. My mom doesn’t like balloons.”

“Well, WE do,” they huffed supportively, as if hinting that I was a bad mother and a real killjoy for not liking something as fun as a balloon.

Dude, I let my kid get in the tub with all her clothes on and make fairy houses and eat pancakes for lunch.

I know how to have fun without a stupid balloon.

Click on image to view larger. See description below.

The 1st doggy from the left is thinking about how hard it was to be a Jew back then.

The 2nd doggy is hoping he finds the AFIKOMEN!

The 3rd doggy is reading the story of Passover. In the story an Egyptian is whipping a Jew, and another is eating lunch while a Jew is working hard.

The 4th doggy is thinking about how much he likes frogs.

The 5th doggy can’t wait to eat the matzoh!

The invisible doggy at the end is Elijah drinking wine from his cup!

The dog under the table already found the afikomen. Hee hee!

Every day when I drive my daughter to school, we take our guinea pig with us in a travel box for the ride. Yesterday we dropped a handful of clover in the box for him to find. My daughter said:

“Ha Mommy, Piggo was facing the wrong way so I tickled him around and then his eyes bugged out when he saw all the clover and he just started nubbling and chomping away like crazy!”

My daughter’s new hobby - turning her beanie babies inside out ala Kent Rogowski’s BEARS project.

Her drawings rock my world. I love coming across them in her room - it’s like panning for gold. Click on them to enlarge.

Bedroom before:

Bedroom after:

Move over, Pokemon, there’s a new obsession in Kidville - Uglydolls.

I know it’s serious when it’s the first thing out of my daughter’s mouth when she wakes up in the morning.

Babo is her new mostly companion.

She recites the various Uglydolls personalities and habits to me whether I like it or not.

And she was very excited to see on the Uglydolls blog that Obama has one.

“I’m HOT. And not the kind that’s sexy.”

- my daughter, spiking a fever for third day in a row

My daughter INSISTED I post this pic of the handmade masks she created for her little Pokemon army. Click on image to view full size. Look, just do it, or we’ll take you prisoner. Us and what army, you might ask? THIS ONE.

Kiddo: Mommy, I hope I have some of your qualities when I grow up.

Me: Oh really? Like what?

Kiddo: Oh you know, I want to be self-confident. And beautiful. … But I don’t want all the swearing!

I baked cookies tonight with my daughter. We tried a recipe we got from my sister called Angel cookies.

Somehow they mutated and became Cookie Monsters.

She called this one Stanley.

And then she ate him.

I found this homemade sign in my daughter’s room.

I asked her what it was about. She said it was for a toy hospital she created, and that she couldn’t fix yo yos, they needed to see a yo yo string specialist.

I got another report from Dr. Kiddo: “I tried to fix a slinky but it required too much work.”

No slinkys allowed, I guess. Better call in the slinky coil specialist.

Here is a recent drawing done by my 8 yr old daughter. I asked her to explain it to me.

This is Odd Dog School. The 2 headed dog in the front row is writing a letter to the one eyed dog in the back row. The letter says: “Dear Cyclops, Want a playdate?” The dog with no legs in the middle row is writing a letter to his vet. It says, “Dear Vet, please give me back legs.” (although it looks more like “fuck legs”). The one eyed dog in the back row is writing to his mother and declining the playdate with the 2 headed dog.

Click on image to view larger size.

I love discovering the weird little results of my daughter’s behavior. For instance, one time I was reading the NYTimes Magazine, and came across a page ripped out. Later, I found the page lying on her bed and saw what had captivated her - it was an ad featuring a sparkling gem.

Art by my daughter. I like the albino rat best.