Little. Brown. Stick.

In honor of Ree the Pioneer Woman judging over at i Heart Faces this week, I've decided to publish this post inspired by her that I wrote months ago but have been hesitant to share for fear it might offend some readers (how's that for a run-on sentence?!). Please let this serve as both warning and apology to my more sensitive readers: Over the next few days this blog will feature more mature than usual content, not that I won't be my same goofy childish self, just that several of the next few posts will contain adult humor. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this Ree-inspired, never-before-published post from my archives...

This post was inspired by a blogger most of you are probably familiar with: Ree of Pioneer Woman fame. (She was recently named one of Time Magazine's Top 25 Blogs!) I was cruising around her archives and found this hidden little gem. It's an audio recording of her youngest son mispronouncing a request for a juice bag. Hilarious - definitely worth a listen. Go ahead - check it out. I'll wait...

Welcome back. Now, here's the little Beast's version of dirty mispronunciation {Warning for those of you who don't appreciate adult humor - this might strike you as inappropriate, sorry!}

The little Beast is always collecting odd, useless little objects he finds outside, like buttons and rocks and pinecones. The other day at the park, it was a stick, and when he dropped it and couldn't find it again, he became a little bit frantic. Here's a couple short video clips of him whining to me about helping him look for it. See if you can catch what he actually says when he means to say "little brown stick":




What words do your kids hilariously mispronounce?!


Though this isn't a video about emotion, it is technically a vlog, so I'm submitting it over at Fort Thompson as part of their Vlogemotions carnival. I think the concern and disappointment the little Beast is feeling is evident in the clips, even if he can't yet verbalize his emotions!

Casualties of Naptime War

Naptime for the little Beast is always a struggle. Some days he falls asleep after a short round of whining and resistance. Other days, we fight it out for hours -with me usually ending up the loser. I just don't have the skills or energy to counter and defeat the litte Beast's guerilla tactics. I "lock" him in his room, he screams, kicks the walls and door, and totally destroys his bedroom. Here are some photos to illustrate just how outmatched I am in this battle:


Yes, he's crying. Because he got scolded. But you'll stop feeling sorry for him by the end of this post, I promise...






Had enough?! Me too, but the little Beast is not done yet!


Just look at that smug little smirk on his face! He knows he's winning!


Dude. You're three feet tall. How did you manage to mess up the curtains?!?!

And last but not least - The Great Diaper Disaster:

(Check out the full story of this photo - and my favorite naptime mess EVER - at this previous post.)

Anyway, these are just the battles I have photos of. I could bore you for hours with my naptime war stories, like the time the little Beast took off his own dirty diaper and used its contents to redecorate his bedroom. Ugh! Lately he's been escalating his offensive and I think it's probably about time I waved the white flag of surrender. But, boy, does it ever rankle being bested by a two year old! Grrrr...


Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Got Milk?

The other day while driving in the car with his grandma, the little Beast spotted some cows standing in a muddy, flooded field, which led to an interesting conversation I'd love to share with you.

The little Beast said: "Those cows is standing in milk, gramma."

Grandma replied: "No, that's mud buddy. Cows don't stand in milk, they make it."

Beast: confused silence.

Grandma: "Do you know where milk comes from?"

Beast: "From my frigerator."

Grandma: "Yes, but where does mommy get the milk to put in the refrigerator?"

Beast: "From store!"

Grandma: "But where does the store get the milk?"

Beast: Thinks for a moment: "I don't know!"

Grandma: "From those cows on the farm!"

Beast: "Ooooo-oh."

Grandma: "And where does Beauty get her milk?"

Beast: "From mom's shirt!!"

Which reminds me of another story. When the little Beast was a baby, his then 4-year old cousin Ms. Smartypants, was fascinated with the concept of breastfeeding. She gave it a lot of thought. One day she announced to the family that she knew why women had two breasts:

One side for hot milk, and the other side for cold!

I love the way their cute little brains work. What are some of the funny things your kids have said?


Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

What the %@*#?! Wednesday, Week 8!

Okay, so Spring is here which means warmer weather, flowers in bloom, and cleaning house, right?!

Not-so-much here. This morning, there was snow on the ground. Again. Ugh.

And the flowers are still middle-of-winter dead.

And as for Spring Cleaning: what would be the point? Because I live with the messiest human being, or perhaps even the messiest mammal, on Earth.
What the %@*#?!

Freshly unfolded laundry
Contents of my "to be filed" box
The little Beast's book collection, normally kept on a shelf
Previously unopened mail
Self-explanatory, I hope
And more fun with stamps and baby powder

Since I can't get any cleaning done, I'm giving away a box of goodies to help you get your cleaning done instead (includes spring washcloths and dish scrubber, fabric softener, dish soap, stain remover, dust cloths, air freshener and more!) To win, simply leave a comment on this post telling me you want them.

For extra entries, do one or all of the following (worth one entry each). Be sure to leave a separate comment for each thing you have done because that comment counts as your entry.

1. Follow my blog.
2. Be or become a member of my BlogFrog community (see lefthand sidebar).
3. Blog about this contest with a link back here.
4. Tweet and/or Facebook this contest, leaving the url in comments.

Contest ends at midnight on Saturday, April 18th. Winner will be chosen at random by random.org, and announced on Sunday (when my new giveaway begins!). Thanks for participating!

Six Word Saturday

Permanent Marker Is Hard To Remove

or

Anyone Want To Adopt My Toddler?

What the %@*#?! Wednesday Again

Ahem. My dear little Beast. Could you tear your eyes away from that cartoon for a moment? This may come as a surprise to you, but your baby sister is a human being. And decidedly

Not.

A.

Chair.

Not to mention that you outweigh her by about 20 pounds.

So, would you kindly find a new seat?

But wait! First let me snap a crooked, blurry, cluttered picture. (I'm sure it's not the least bit confusing that I'm telling you to move and stay put at the same time.)

Why, yes, reader, that is exactly the calm manner in which I addressed the little Beast when I walked in on him using Beauty as a makeshift stool. I certainly did not raise my voice or make idle threats. Oh, and please don't worry your pretty little head about our Beauty, as she wasn't bothered in the least at being crushed underneath her big brother. In fact, she actually had the nerve to smile and laugh while he tortured her this way. What the %@*#?!

Before you go, don't forget to check out my Support Our Troops Giveaway, for a chance or two to win an awesome care package!

What the %@*#?! Wednesday, Part 5

Last week, I shared the little Beast's weird obsession with putting his feet in inappropriate places, like poor Beauty's face. This week, I'd like to highlight another of the the little Beast's freakish behaviors: self stamping. He really loves ink stamps, and I like them too because they keep him occupied so that I can have a minute or three of peace. The problem is, he prefers stamping himself over stamping his art paper.



But stamping himself is really just a small part of the problem. Perhaps a bigger issue might be that I occasionally catch him EATING THE INK! (Gross, and probably mildly toxic.)



And as if eating them was not twisted enough, the little Beast upped the ante this week by creating a new way to misuse his stamps. This is what I discovered when I came out of the laundry room one afternoon.



The little Beast had used his stamps to decorate poor Beauty's adorable face! Fortunately, she thinks the little Beast walks on water, so she didn't mind being temporarily tattooed. But, really, What the %@*#?! Is it too much to ask that he use the stamps the way they were intended, rather than as a sibling torture device?!

Damn. You. Dora.

So this will come as no surprise to my regular readers, but in addition to being wild, crazy, destructive and aggressive, the little Beast is, above all things, L-O-U-D! I mean, grit-your-teeth, clench-your-fists, make-your-ears-bleed noisy. I have been trying to teach him volume control for weeks. We encourage the "inside voice", give timeouts when he wakes his sister with his yelling, even the occassional spanking when the shrieking gets out of control. But all my hardwork is undone every morning at 10:30, when Dora the Explorer takes over our lives.

There are tons of things that annoy me about Dora: her squeaky, nasally voice; her stupid, stuck-in-my-head-all-day songs, that meanypants Swiper. But nothing on television, not the violence of SpongeBob or the bizarre freakiness of Yo! Gabba Gabba, bothers me as much as the top-of-the-lungs call-and-response of Dora. Every episode, over and over again, she tells viewers "Say. It. Louder!" And the little Beast is more than happy to comply, to the misfortune of my poor ears and short thread of patience. The show is only 20 minutes long, but 4 minutes into it, I'm ready to reach into the television and squeeze Dora until her ginormous head explodes!

So, this is it. No more Dora in this house. EVER. Not even if it is the only show on television when Publisher's ClearingHouse shows up with a ten million dollar check for me if I could just distract my kid long enough to sign it. No thanks. You can keep your ten million dollars. We are "Done. With. Dora!" Consider this your official notice, Nickelodeon, we are BOYCOTTING Dora until you teach her to use her inside voice!

If you've got something to vent or complain about, head over to Mama Loco's and link up!



*photo property of www.doratheexplorertvshow.com

What the %@*#?! Wednesday, Part 4

One of the things that drives me crazy about my little Beast is his predilection for putting his feet places that they don't belong. He loves to put them on my face when I'm changing his diaper (yes, he's still in diapers. I know, I know!) And they always find their way onto the kitchen table during meals (Ewww!). He hooks them like fingers around the knobs on our kitchen drawers in order to climb onto the countertops and stand barefoot browsing through the cupboards. And he even uses them as utensils, as seen at this recent post:

But the thing he most loves to do with his dirty, nasty porkchop feet is put them on his baby sister. Here is a photo montage of just a few of the many, many times I've caught him rubbing his stinky piggy toes on my poor Beauty's face:





Do you notice the smirk of devilish glee he wears while torturing Beauty this way? Seriously, what the %@*#?! Can't he just keep his feet to himself?



If you liked this post, check out my past editions of What the %@*#?! Wednesday here, here and here!

What The %@*#?! Wednesday, 3rd Edition

The little Beast has developed a foul habit of picking his nose. All the time. Constantly. I mean, doing most everything one-handed so that he can keep a finger on the other hand crammed up his nostril to the second knuckle. It is disgusting, and I thought there was no nastier habit, but he recently took "gross" to a dirty new low.

We were driving along in the minivan when, after a few moments of unusual quiet, I heard the little Beast exclaim from the backseat, "Yummy!"

Thinking he'd dug an old french fry out of the crack in his carseat, I cringed and asked, "What's yummy buddy?"

"My booger!" he gleefully replied.

Seriously?! What the %@*#?! That is so sick. I would've preferred he eat the moldy-old-lint-covered fry. Bleck!

(you can view previous editions of WT%W here or here!)

What the %@*#? Wednesday, 2nd Edition

There are hundreds of dollars worth of toys in this house. Toys that light up, talk, sing, roll, bounce; toys that even drive themselves. I'm beginning to think we've wasted every hard-earned penny spent at Toys 'R' Us. The little Beast would rather play with arbitrary, decidedly non-toylike items he finds around the house (like this). Case in point - I left the little Beast alone for a nap, and this is what he did instead of sleeping.


What the %$*#?! Yes, those are diapers. A LOT of diapers. In a mix of types and sizes, which made it a pretty difficult mess to pick up. Oh well... at least they were clean.

What the %@*#? Wednesday

Over the weekend, my dear husband (DH) spotted the little Beast chewing something while glancing around furtively. "What are you eating?", he asked. The little Beast offered the standard toddler response to that question, which is to clamp one's mouth tightly shut and paste the most wide-eyed, innocent look one can muster onto his face. Not fooled for a second, DH pried open the little Beast's jaws and fished this out:


"What IS that?" you ask? Ummmmm.... yeaaaah, THAT is the rubber cap that's supposed to cover the bolt that holds our toilet to the bathroom floor!


What the %@*#? Look how filthy that bolt is! Why would he choose to seek out the dirtiest, most germ-ridden object in our entire house and suck on it? I'd like to be a fly on the wall of his brain for one day, just to get some idea of how his thought processes work!

Tune in next week for another fun installment of What the %@*#? Wednesday!

Glue On a Dog

The other day I left the little Beast unattended in a room with my sister's dog. In a few short minutes, our evil genius managed to let the dog out of her crate, find and open a bottle of Elmer's school glue, and squirt said glue all over said dog. Of course, I reprimanded him, but he was probably confused by my laughing demand that he re-enact the moment so I could capture it on camera for all of you. And here it is:


the Re-enactment

Tattletale!

Not long ago, the little Beast was struggling to fit an arm into the nose hole on his Mr. Potatohead without success. Frustrated, he threw the toy to the ground and growled, "Daaammit!".

Shocked, I asked him "What did you say?"

He repeated it clear as a bell. I tried to stay disapproving, but could barely hold back laughter. I said, "Go tell Dad what you said."

I followed him into the kitchen where he repeated the curse to Dad. Dad asked, "Where did you learn that word?"

I thought for sure he was going to blame Dad or Auntie or some character on television, but no. Without a second's hesitation, the little Beast pointed an accusing finger at me and said matter-of-factly, "From Mommy."

Oops. Busted by a two-year old.