Quirkee.com

“Grab your lunch and let’s go to work!”

It’s that time of year again when summer comes to an end and the kids go back to school. If you haven’t done so yet, this is always a good time for a “Take Your Kids to Work Day” so they can see what you do while they are at home watching countless hours of non-educational, low quality programming on the electronic babysitter. Make them earn their chocolate milk for a day!

If you are like me then your kids get to go to work with you all the time…even on the weekends! I have the situation where my wife goes to the beautiful land of fluorescent lighting and acoustic ceiling tiles during the week, and I stay home with the kids while running a business on eBay. My kids get to go to work with me every day whether they like it or not! Poor things. There is more excitement at a Laundromat than there is at my job. The most exciting part of the day lasts about 15 minutes when auctions start to close. It goes something like… “C’mon!!! Go up another dollar you cheap people! What is wrong with you? Those are $300 shoes and you are stopping at $50? They’re Italian!!!”

Help me! My room is a mess. I have stuff sitting around that has not moved in well over a year. In my wife’s defense, none of the stuff is really hers (except some shoes); it’s mostly mine. There are stacks of magazines, two semi-retired lamps, a 3-in-1 printer that doesn’t work with Windows XP because the software is outdated, books that don’t fit on the shelf, a box of something…hmm…what the heck is in there? Sometimes I do what my mother finally did when I was a teenager. Shut my door.

Every now and then we’ll have all of the laundry put away and the furniture dusted. The floor usually gets cleaned by the vacuum, pushing around the endless piles like a bully who terrorizes the nerdy kid on the playground at school. I should know. Watch out bullies, karma will get you back someday. I can’t steal your girlfriend or date your sister now that I’m married, not that I probably could anyway, but you can bet that somewhere down the road you will get what is coming to you. Maybe your kid will be the geek on the playground getting his underwear yanked up around his ears.

Our son had his third birthday a few weeks ago and I got so many great new toys! Umm…I mean HE got so many great new toys! He got classic games like Chutes & Ladders, Candyland, and Hi-Ho Cherry-O, a Thunderbirds Jet Kite, and a whole lot of golf stuff. It was a golf themed birthday party because he is infatuated with the game and plays every day. I put a cup and flag in the front yard so I…I mean HE can practice his pitching and chipping. We also got him a new driver and putter that were more his size (not my size!) than the other clubs he has been playing with.

One cool toy that I played with the most on my… I mean HIS birthday was a giant Monster golf club and ball. It is a little heavy right now for our son, but is a good weight for me to hit across the street at our neighbor’s truck. It’s a little game we started with regular practice balls and clubs where we try to hit into the bed of each other’s truck. We live on a wide cove so there is not much traffic to worry about. It is the perfect distance for a 9 iron with a plastic golf ball!

There is this magical place where all pets and other animals go when they die. It is called animal Heaven. There is doggie Heaven, kitty Heaven, fishy Heaven, zoo monkey Heaven, run-over-squirrel Heaven, bug-on-the-windshield Heaven, strangled-so-we-can-eat-it-chicken Heaven, etc.

Since there are no bad pets or animals in the minds of kids, I guess there is not a “Why-won’t-that-neighbor’s-dog-shut-up!” Hell, or “That-stupid-bird-crapped-all-over-my-car!” Hell. That’s too bad. Some animals should spend some serious time thinking about what they did on Earth when they were alive. Maybe there is an animal Purgatory for them. It could be called the “What-the-Hell-was-I-thinking Halfway House for Critters.”

Having little ears around can be difficult sometimes. Recently, my baby girl spit up (more like a mini barf) on the floor, herself, and me after gulping down a big bottle of breast milk. My initial verbal reaction was, “Ahh, damnit!”

I quickly ignored my cursing so as not to draw more attention to my foul mouth. It was too late.

My three-year-old boy asked, “Emmitt? Did Emmitt do that?”

“Yes. Yes he did," I replied. “Bad kitty.”

I don’t want to grow up. I’m a Toy’s R Us kid. There’s a MILLION toys at…

Are you singing that commercial from the 80’s now? I thought so. Let’s go ahead and finish it…

…Toy’s R Us that I can play with! From bikes to trains to video games, it’s the biggest toy store there is! Gee whiz! I don’t want to grow up ‘cuz maybe if I did, I wouldn’t be a Toy’s R Us kid! More games, more toys, oh boy! I want to be a Toy’s R Us kid!

Have you seen all of the stuff they sell these days? I mean, come on, how many different Lego castle fire station farm spaceship boats need to be on the shelf? Do you need to have a different kind of Elmo for each day of the week? Believe me, if I were a child I would want it all at my house. Who am I kidding? I want them all right now!

The kids and I were walking down Sesame Street the other day on our way to Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood when we heard The Backyardigans having a party! I don’t know if you have ever partied with them, but they get wild! The last one they had got out of hand when Barney & Friends showed up uninvited and everybody wanted him to leave. You know how annoying that purple dinosaur can be. But, the kids love him so he was allowed to stay as long as he didn’t sing any of those awful songs that make the parents run screaming to the margarita machine.

This shindig had just started when we arrived so The Wonder Pets had not had a chance to gobble up the vegetable and cracker tray. In the far corner of the yard the Teletubbies were jumping on the trampoline with The Wiggles trying to make them spill their Foster’s Lager. I don’t know how he does it, but Jeff was asleep during the game. We walked back there and yelled “Wake up Jeff!” and he dumped his beer all over himself. We laughed so hard! Buster caught it all on video for his Postcards.

As adults, have you ever wondered how most of us survived our childhood without all these new laws put in place by our hard-working governments? Our parents drove us around without seatbelts. We used to jump our bicycles off plywood ramps or from dirt bowl tracks down by the creek without even a hat on, much less a high-tech fiberglass foam cushioned helmet!

In Austin, former Mayor Bruce Todd has proposed to bring back the bicycle helmet law for adults that he was able to get passed when he was in office. Some of you Texans might remember for a few months it was legal to ride a motorcycle in Texas without a helmet, but not a bicycle in Austin. Yes, the other states laughed at us. No, former Mayor Todd didn’t laugh when a bicycle helmet saved his brain from being scrambled.

This bicycle helmet law was soon revised to make it illegal only if you were under 18 years of age. So in other words, no freewheeling down the street pumping your neighbor on the handlebars of your Mongoose bike with playing cards in the spokes to make it sound like a motorcycle – without wearing your melon protector.

I’m going to make this the only article about poop. Let’s get the poop out of the way.

There is a common practice among our species to pass along your baby/toddler clothing once your child has outgrown them. This is a wonderful thing as clothes are expensive and babies grow out of them so fast! We are fortunate to have a few friends and family with children that were born in the same season as ours so we have a ton of nice baby outfits. I have often wondered, “How do these clothes not have any poop stains on them?” I know stain remover works pretty well, but can it really be that good?

At least two times a week our daughter poops out her diaper and up her back. This, of course, soaks her cute little flowery pink outfit with poop. I have heard it said many times that breastfed baby’s poop is not bad. Yea, right. It still comes out of a human body and it’s not cute when it gets on their clothes. Don’t get me wrong, my baby girl wiped poop on her face one day and she was as cute as ever. She was, not the poop she streaked across her cheek.