Translation, please

The new big thing at our house: the Pokemon show. I know it's been around a long time, but the three just discovered it. Initially, they were familiar with only one character: We have had a pair of like-new, hand-me-down Pikachu slippers since forever. No one has ever really worn them, save an occasional stomp down the hall when they are discovered in the back of the closet. They were on my list of things to find and donate before the big move to the frozen tundra. Not because I thought they wouldn't be useful, but they fell into the "had it and not used it for six months" arbitrary rule I established for decluttering for this move.

And then, they started watching the Pokemon cartoon. Every evening, 2 minutes before the show starts, Bubba, Stump, and Samantha start running around yelling "Where is my Pokemon!!??!!" Tears ensue if the pair of slippers can't be found and then I have to start running around looking too. When both are found, the boys sit in front of the tv, clutching their slippers and watching rapturously for the duration. Sometimes Samantha wants to hold one of the slippers, but she can usually be pacified with something pink.

I hear no talking while the show is on. But after it's over, they start chattering and reenacting their favorite parts. They all like Pikachu best, but to hear them tell it, there are three characters:

Bubba: Pikachu

Stump: Chikapu

Samantha: Pizza-you



Posted by The Editor.

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. One day late this week...

A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week.

A simple, special, extraordinary moment.

A moment I want to pause, savor and remember...

Joining Amanda.

Who's Sleeping Everywhere?

I read (with fascination) one time that in order for lawyers to memorize all the things they need to know for the bar exam, they build knowledge houses in their heads. The way I understand it, they visualize a room and attach facts to all the objects. Then, when they need to retrieve it, they mentally walk into that room to that object, and there it is! I don't know if they all use this method but it gave me an idea.

Updated to add: After some Google research, I found this is called "The Method of Loci" aka The Memory Palace.


One night at bedtime, instead of a story, we started this pillow game: Who's sleeping everywhere? It wasn't originally called that, the name just evolved. The idea was to verbally walk through the house and see who was where. We used our house and the boys' favorite characters. It started small and has grown into a predictable pattern. Both Bubba and Stump can name all of them when I prompt with the location. So, for posterity, here we go:

Who's in the closet? R2D2
Who's in the shower? C3PO
Who's in the tub? R14 (what Stump calls one of the other Star Wars androids)
Who's in the hall? R5D4
Who's in the vent? Shimmer and Bounce (from Miss Spider's Sunny Patch)
Who's in the ceiling fan? Astro Boy's robot mosquitos
Who's in the other vent? Mr. & Mrs. Spider
Who's in the pool? Ponyo and Quack
Who's in the chair by the pool? Chewbacca
Who's patrolling the yard? Johnny5
Who's in the tree? Daphne, Curious George, and Chirp
Who's on the front porch? The Backyardigans
Who's at the kitchen door? The Little Einsteins
Who's in the van? The Wiggles
Who's on the roof? Wall-e, Eve, beautician-bot, painter-bot, gopher, punching-bot
Who's in the tv room? Freddy and Caillou
Who's in the computer room? Kipper
Who's in mommy's room? Velma
Who's in the kitchen? Shaggy, having a snack
Who's under the kitchen table? Scooby-doo
Who's under the train table? I don't know
Who's in Samantha's room? Just Samantha
Who's in Bubba's room? Astro boy
Who's in the closet under the stairs? Peep


If a 5-year-old can retrieve this amount of information, I think, as a method, it is a success. Stump has started adding information, like, listing all the foods that Freddy and Caillou might be eating in the tv room, but I'll save that silly list for another day.

Posted by The Editor.

Sonic Pirates, the saga continues...

The latest bedtime story installment for two little boys, one with chocolate eyes and cinnamon hair and the other with blue eyes and blond curls... See here for previous chapters, as well as explanations for the members of the dread crew.

It was a cold, gray, cloudy day in the month of April. The ocean mirrored the sky and the air was still. No wind to fill the sails or make waves. The two pirate ships, captained each by a Captain Brown-Beard-Peg-Leg was drifting at the very edge of Ocean Number Two.

Suddenly, the lookout, Captain Skelty yelled, "Arrgh! Ahoy! Seaweed, dead ahead!" The pirates scrambled but it was too late to change course and both ships sailed straight into the giant bed of muck.

The seaweed on the surface was almost invisible, matching the color of the ocean and sky. And if you know anything about seaweed, if you see a little bit on the surface of the water, there will be vast rope-like streamers hanging way down into the depths. Under the water, however, the seaweed was purple, and green, and black with sparkling gold diamond sparkling shimmers, because it was magic seaweed.

This particular bed of seaweed marked a lair of the Sea Witch, who sometimes lived in a cave on the bottom of the edge of Ocean Number Two. She had been waiting for this day--for both pirate ships to sail into her trap. She had prepared by attaching bells to the ropes of seaweed outside her cave and by putting a spell on the seaweed to ensnare the pirates. When the bells started ringing, she cackled with glee. The seaweed started growing (because of the spell) and wound around the bottoms of the two ships, their rudders, up the sides and over the decks. It climbed up the masts and wound around each pirate in its path, first one leg and then the other leg (unless it was a peg leg and then it wound around the wooden leg), around one and then the other arm, the head, the face, eyepatch and mouth of each pirate. They were stuck! What would they do?!

The spell of the Sea Witch, however, only covered the ships and the pirates she knew: 7 Captain Crackerishes, 2 Captain Brown-Beard-Peg-Legs, an astro-tot, 2 Captain Skeltys (the skeleton pirate who was electricified), Frye the pirate pet ferret and Limey, the pirate parrot, and an alien pirate. What she didn't know when she cast the spell was that two new members had joined the crew: a squid and a starfish, so the seaweed did not wrap around them at all because they were not included in the spell.

Captain Skelty yelled (as the seaweed was blocking his mouth):
"SQUMMM! STARFFFD! WRMM IFF UUGGH, AARGGFFHH!"
(Translation: SQUID! STARFISH! WRAP IT UP, AARGH!)

So Squid and Starfish used all their arms/legs to wrap up the seaweed into a ball, superfast, quick as a flash, lickety-split and throw it overboard. Once Captain Skelty's mouth was cleared, he yelled, "AARGH! over you go too, and PUSH!!" So Squid and Starfish jumped into the bed of seaweed, that had no effect on them, and started pushing the boats out of the seaweed as fast as they could. A strong wind blew across the water and lifted the sails and they zoomed away.

Down below, while the seaweed wrapping was going on, the bells by the Sea Witch's cave were ringing like crazy. And then they stopped. The Sea Witch came out of the cave and shook the bells to make sure they still worked, and they did. She then turned on her jet air packs and shot straight to the surface and popped out of the water just as the pirate ships were sailing out of view. The Sea Witch yelled, "Ohhh, meeee, I have lost! Again!" and dove down to her cave to hide for six days.

Meanwhile on the pirate ships, there was much singing and dancing, "Ahoy, Aaargh! We got away from that old Sea Witch. Now let's have some soup! Aaargh!" So the pirates were served soup from the new soup machine delivered by the lego mars mission crystal leaper crew. Each pirate ate three bowls of soup, burped three times and then ate three more bowls, each. Then they went to their bunks to sack out and dream of another day when they could defeat the Sea Witch for good.

THE END.

Posted by The Editor.

Dinner Conversation

When you send your children to school, you think of all the fun, good times, and great lessons they will learn. You may or may not think about the other potentially undesirable stuff, for instance, the potty talk. For the kindergarten/preschool set, apparently it is just funny to refer to it, mention it, sign it, act it, or otherwise immerse yourself in anything related to potty activities and repeat it over and over and over again. Often at dinner I have to remind them it is not appropriate dinner conversation. If they can't control themselves and continue to potty talk, I send them to the bathroom (not together--separate bathrooms-- luckily we have more than one) and I tell them to stay in there and talk potty talk to themselves until they are done and then they may return to the table. So far, that works pretty well to stop it.

At bedtime, when I am putting Samantha to bed, I put the boys in their room and start a CD for a chapter book. We are currently listening to Little House on the Prairie, partly because we are moving to the prairie in June, but also because I grew up loving the Little House books and want them to love them, too. So far, they like the stories really well and we've listened to the book three times over.

While driving to school last week, Bubba asked what a papoose was. Knowing they had listened to the chapter about the Indians, I explained it was an Indian baby that was strapped in a baby carrier and worn on the Indian mommy's back while she did her work, but during the whole explanation, Bubba and Stump were giggling. Not being able to turn around while driving, I thought they were poking each other or something. At bedtime that night, Samantha fell promptly asleep, so I was able to join the boys for part of their story. It was the Indian chapter again. When Laura sees the papoose and wants to keep him, the boys start giggling again and whispering "papoose" to each other. I realize they are finding potty talk in the Little House books: paPOOse, paPOOse, paPOOOOOOse! So far, I am onto these sneaky guys...but for how long?

Posted by The Editor.

Hover craft and other tedium...

Busy Body and I used to have very exciting lives before we had children. She worked in CSI and I was an engineer in technology development. Don't ask me what I did, it was top-secret, classified, super-important stuff. Busy Body's work also required a lot of decorum and discretion to carry out the investigations and send those bad guys to jail. To counteract the tedium and up-tightedness we had to put up with every day, we used to email each other all the time on a variety of subjects. One stretch was a series of quizzes based on childhood memories. My favorite one was: how many doors were in the house where we grew up? I won that one (actually, it wasn't a contest, but I remembered them all and wanted some credit for retaining that useless information because Busy Body usually corners the market on it). Busy Body has the results of that somewhere...she used to print out the emails and delete them so it wouldn't take up important space on her computer at work. It sounds silly now, but it used to make laugh and laugh in my dilbert cubicle. Silly in the same way describing some of the things I do now would seem--for instance, Bubba is obsessed with a lot of electro-mechanical devices, usually robots, but this month, it happens to be hover-craft. He has recruited no less than three grown-ups to help him build one.

The first recruit is the neighbor boy who comes to vacuum the pool once a week...he will be starting college to study engineering next year and he couldn't resist helping Bubba for the better part of two hours with the leaf-blower, a pool ring, a pool raft, a small dump truck, and a toy car. They considered their experiments a success, although it wasn't strong enough to ride on, which is what I think Bubba's ultimate goal is.

The second recruit was dad, who was home for a couple of days, and they took two paper plates, cut four small, same-size holes in one, and one the diameter of the hair dryer nozzle in the other plate and then taped them together with a short "skirt" made from a plastic grocery bag. This worked, but it was also small-scale.

I was the third recruit and have failed miserably. We went to a science birthday party (how timely!) where there was a hover board powered by a large motor that all the kids got to sit on and ride. After riding it, Bubba examined it and said, "Mom, you could make this!" Maybe someday, but in the meantime while he is waiting for me to deliver, he has designed a pretend hovercraft big enough for him and Stump and Samantha to journey upon and I have been demoted from inventor to videographer/photographer. The hover craft is a small toddler bed mattress, with an office chair back turned so the armrests form rails, onto that, a small cat scratching post is set with a small fan hooked over the top and a box fan behind it. Bubba stands by the post to manipulate the fans. He says he is the "spirit." Stump is proclaimed the captain and sits in the front. Samantha is the princess passenger and sits securely, sideways, in the middle. Spirit starts the fans and off they go, warding off fish attacks and marveling at the wildlife and scenery.

Here is the magical transport...so much more exciting than a cubicle, yes?

Posted by The Editor.

What's in a name...?

I am amazed that my children actually know their real names and respond to them. This amazement stems from the fact that almost every time Hubs and I talk to them, we call them a new name…not a new real name, but a new nickname. These are some of my favorites:

Little Miss Miss, Little Missy Prissy, Cupcake, Miss Crumble Bottom, Sleepy Cakes, Grumpy Pie, Chicker-Doodle, Messy Marvina, Buzz Buzz, Teethies, Stink Pot, Punky Bear, Love Love

Joy seems to have picked up this habit of making up new names. She likes to play “Babies” and her doll gets a new name each time she plays. Her name changes, too. Sometimes she is Malexica, sometimes she goes by Spina, and there are about 87 others, but my all-time fave is “Baby’s Mama.” I want to die laughing every time she says, “Hi, I’m Baby’s Mama…”. If I mistakenly call her Joy, she corrects me—“No, I’m not Joy, I am Baby’s Mama.” (Got it, Baby’s Mama!)

Barbies get new names on a fairly regular basis as well. The other night we were playing a few minutes before bed time. The Barbies had to go to the doctor. I was the receptionist who had to write their names down so the nurse could call them into the exam room. It was very busy that day. These were the patients who filled up the waiting room: Cinderella (she speaks French, actually—according to Joy, but it’s pretty evident because she prefaces everything she says with “Bonjour!”), Jasmine (Joy: she speaks Spanish—Choco-latte!), then there’s Cornchicos, Fraskie, Gossula (Joy: her pants are a little cranky), Carnsantos, Calanady (she’s the busser lady), Sarah Mohney, Marathona, Katrina, Garagossa, Marilyn, Pashawota, Malexica, Furner, Spina, Lena, Dabinas, Mariposa, Jassee, Jessa, Ashuley, Pinastock, Sheeda, Bistina, Gina, Bonacelli, Fairy Godmother, Seena, Mulan, Tinker, Pancake, Snow White, Melissesses, Painapoo, Sherlock, Ivan, Mitzi, Norco, Pita, and Jazza-Airy.

I am constantly entertained by her imagination and her name-smithing. I am just thankful that she does not completely take after me…

When I was little, or so Gigi says, I, too, made up names for my dolls. My favorite names, however, always started with ‘Sh’, e.g., Shannon, Shana, Sharon, Sheila, etc. That was OK, until I made up a name that rhymes with city. Gigi didn’t like that one too much—especially if I wanted to take her out with me in public!

(By the way, we were sheltered when I was growing up. I didn’t know any “bad” words—unless you count stupid and shut up as bad words, which warranted soap in the mouth. One time one of Gigi’s friends came over to visit with her. I always thought this friend was a little wild and a little dangerous—she smoked AND said naughty words. One time she was telling Gigi something and she said “There was $h_t all over the floor.” I went over and whispered to Gigi, “What is $h_t?” Gigi quickly explained it meant poo poo. That grossed me out and made me not want to say or hear that word again. So, my point is that I wasn’t trying to get away with saying a bad word. The name was completely innocent.)

According to Juliet, “What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet”.

That’s right—unless someone is trying to call you “$h_t_y!

Posted by The Editor for Busy Body.

Note from The Editor: It is entirely possible that Busy Body gagged when Gigi told her the definition of $h_t. Busy Body does not have a strong stomach, er throat, when it comes to these things. It is perplexing, though, how she can actually change a diaper and worked in CSI prior to becoming a mother. One year when we lived together in college and then I had to go on travel with work, I would have to come home periodically to clean out the drawers in the fridge (she couldn't touch rancid food) and take the trash out to the dumpster room in the alley. The dumpster room was pretty bad, in my opinion, but you could open the door and launch the trash and run away and miss most of the cloud of stench. However, it was the thought of the cloud that would make her gag and thus, I would make the three-hour drive back periodically to save her from retching...

The Swinging Song

It is the simple things the children love.
When we go to the park and they swing, I sing this song while I push them:

Samantha, Samantha, Samantha is a butterfly*.


Samantha, Samantha, Samantha is a butterfly.


Samantha, Samantha, Samantha is a butterfly.


She flies up into the sky.

*If it's Bubba or Stump that I am pushing, they are a dragonfly, bumblebee or any flying creature of their choice.


Posted by The Editor

Grandma Tales

She was born into royalty. There was a tiara on her bassinet and everyone called her princess—and so it was so. By the age of three, she was asserting her regal rights. She had everything defined and catalogued. It was by her whim and approval that things were done. . And so it was on a certain afternoon that she decided to move the royal entourage from inside the house to the backyard. The impending plan was to take all the babies (stuffed toys, dolls, plastic figures, and paper playthings) to the deck chairs and then formulate a game to play with them. On the way outside, she came up with the perfect “pretend”. “Let’s pretend the babies are sick and you have to call emergency (*royal term that means 911, ambulance, personnel or hospital) and they have to come and get the babies and take them to the hospital.” It had been a long day of play and this sounded like something that Gigi could accomplish with her mind in neutral and so she willingly agreed. By this time, all the babies were in a deck chair and Gigi was sitting in another chair beside them. Princess Joy almost never sat and so she was out in front giving directions as fast as they came into her mind. “O.k., pretend the babies are sick and you call emergency.” Gigi says,” brring, brring,. Hello, we have some sick babies, please come and get them.” The princess starts jumping up and down in excitement and yelling “here they come, here they come to get the babies. O.k., now pretend they’re going to the hospital.” Gigi starts picking up babies and plopping them down in the chair on the other side of her (which does not require her to stand up or walk). “No, Gigi, that isn’t the hospital, this is. “ She’s pointing to a chair three spaces down (which WILL require standing and walking). “ They are exactly the same kind of chair. “Why can’t this one be the hospital? “ “ Because it isn’t, Gigi..” Gigi sighs a sigh of defeat and picks up an armful of babies and starts to put them in the hospital chair. “No, no, no, they are really sick and they have to be taken one by one so they don’t get sicker.” “ I am being very careful and I think the emergency (*ambulance) can hold this many at once.” “ No, no, no, Gigi, you have to do it this way.” “ Why?“ “ Because it’s just pretend and just pretend is whatever I say it is.” Royalty speaks; commoners obey. For the next half-hour, sick babies are transported from one chair to the identical chair farther down. During that half-hour, Gigi learns that you take the little babies first and then the big babies, but you have to put the big babies in the back of the group and the little babies in the front. This presents another problem of arrangement, because the ones you transport first sort of get put at the back. The babies have to be evacuated to another chair and then rearranged in the hospital chair. But even a princess sometimes tires of her kingdom and so she decided to leave the babies for awhile in order to make chalk pictures in some appealing squares of concrete. Gigi wanted to be the idea person and let Princess Joy have all the fun, but the princess said, “Just pretend that you are my friend and this is our work. And you have to work too, because it’s just pretend and can be whatever I say.” Thankfully, there were some bottles of bubbles by the chalk, and the princess decided to blow bubbles up in the sky. She didn’t have time to wait to give the new directions on how to play this game, but sent a few bubbles quickly skyward, when her attention was drawn to formation after formation of migrating birds. She came over and crawled into Gigi’s lap and they took in the wonder. The princess thought they must be blackbirds because that was their color. Gigi agreed…distance and color perception shouldn’t be explained when it required all the senses to revel in the splendor of the sight. Minutes passed and she asked in a quiet voice, “Gigi, do you know where they’re going?” Not waiting for a reply, she continued, “South. They’re flying south.” “Where in the south?,” Gigi asked. “ I just told you” was her quick response, “ South.” She said it confidently and affirmatively in the way she would say the desert or the ocean or the top of the mountain. South. The formations were beginning to be scraggly and she hopped down and thought of a new idea. “Let’s blow bubbles up in the sky and see if they’ll look like the blackbirds, and they can fly south with the blackbirds, o.k., Gigi? “ Gigi thought this was the best idea of the day: After all, this COULD happen in the realm of just pretend-- An orderly universe, an agreeable companion, a wondrous sight on a storybook day.

I love just pretend!


Posted by The Editor for Gigi

Sonic pirates, continued

See here for part one and here for part two.

It was a cold, clear, still day in the month of December. The Skelty Jolly Roger ship and the Crackerish Jolly Roger ship were sitting in Ocean Number Three. Sitting because there was no wind. When there is no wind, there is nothing to power the sails and push the ship along so it just sits in the water.

The pirates were bored. They were just sitting on the deck of the ship which was sitting in the water. They needed something to do, "Arrgh, me hearties, I have just the thing!" shouted Captain Brown Beard Peg Leg (one on each ship). While the rest of the dread pirate crews sat on the deck, SJR ship=Captain Skelty, Captain Crackerish, Alien pirate, Captain Brown Beard peg leg, and Frye the Ferret, CJR ship=Captain Skelty, 5 Captain Crackerishes, Astronaut pirate, Captain Hank Hawk, Lemon-lime pirate, Frye the Ferret and Limey the Parrot, the two Captain Brown Beard Peg Legs descended into the deep dark depths of the ship's basements into the corner closet where the Christmas tree was stored. They sneezed a few times in the dank and dirty dark depths, but they carefully dragged the trees to the deck, one on each ship. The pirates ooohed and ahhhed and arrghhed over the trees, because they really enjoyed Christmas decorations. The trees were left decorated each year and just shoved into the lower closet for storage, so they were a little crumpled and crooked but the pirates knew just what to do to fix them up right.

On each ship, the pirates sat in a ring around the tree, and because it was a still day, they didn't roll around and could keep their balance easily, they used their feet to fluff up the tree and straighten the decorations. It was lots of fun to sit and talk pirate talk while decorating with your feet. Then Lemon-lime pirate, one of the lesser pirates, said, "I have an idea! This is fun but it would be even more fun if we took off our pirate boots and used our toes to decorate!" Yes! Yes, Arggh! they all agreed. So the boots came off. One thing you must know about pirates is, they never wash their feet. So when the boots came off, a great stink spread across the deck of each ship. PU! Wow, arggh, does that stink or what!?! Ewww, I think your feet stink worse than mine, let me smell...argghhh, cough, argghhh! Another thing you must know about pirates is that they like stinky smells. So they were happy stinking and smelling and decorating those trees with their toes. Except astronaut and alien (who are not proper pirates) argghed and choked and declared they had lost their appetites from the stench. They others decided that whoever had the longest, hairiest, stinkiest toes would have the privilege of straightening the star on the top of the tree. They all looked around, and sniffed, ewww! and Captain Brown Beard Peg Leg said, "it's me! I have the winning toes." So each Captain Brown Beard Peg Leg on each ship straightened the star and all the pirates sat back and admired their handiwork, er, I mean footwork. They were hungry after all that work, so they ate many bowls of soup (except alien and astronaut) and sang some Christmas Songs. This was their favorite: "Oh, Christmas Toe, Oh Christmas Toe, how stinky smelly are you..."

And thus passed another day on the twin pirate ships on Ocean Number Three. THE END.

Posted by The Editor

Sonic Pirates, second tale

See here for part one.

It was a cold, clear day in December when the Skelty and the Crackerish ships sailed through the Fifth Ocean, also known as Ocean Number Five. The air was crisp and the crew started shivering. Then they heard bells and "Ho, ho, ho."

"Ay, mateys! Did you hear that?!?" said Captain Crackerish 4. "Arggh, arggh, yes, yes, what is it, arggh?" chimed the rest of the crew (2 Skeltys, 1 Lemon-lime, 6 other Crackerishes, and 3 Brown-beard peg legs and their pets, limey the parrot and frye the ferret, astronaut, but alien was still missing, presumed overboard.)

"Ay, it be time to get your pirate hats, your pirate gloves, your pirate scarves, and your pirate jackets. We be sailing near the North Pole." said Crackerish 4.

"The North Pole? What?!?" said they. "Yes, the Fifth Ocean takes us near the North Pole, where it is cold, and snowy and icy. Santa Claus lives there. At this time of year, he practices with his sleigh and reindeer in preparation for Christmas" said Crackerish 4. "But, Beware, me hearties, there is a danger of getting icelocked."

The youngest pirates, limey and frye, said, "Ooh, ooh, tell us, what is icelocked?" Crackerish 4 shook his head and said, "It be a bad thing. I don't even want to speak of it. Captain Skelty, you tell them."

So, Captain Skelty, boarded the Crackerish ship by jumping over from the deck of the Skelty ship and all the pirates huddled around to hear. "Icelocked. I've seen it once before and never want to see it again. The ship sails into cold waters that turn to ice and freeze the ship. The ship is squeezed by the ice and can't move. The wood of the ship groans and moans and screams like a woman until it cracks and splinters into tiny pieces. You might escape if you have snowshoes and an ice pick and can jump off the ship onto the ice and wait for a helicopter to pick you up. But if you don't, you will never be seen again."

The smallest pirates hid their eyes. The other pirates yelled, "Ahoy, Arrgh, turn the ship, QUICKLY! Put up all the sails and get us out of here." So the brave pirates, turned the wheel to turn the ship and harnessed all the power of the wind to speed away from the dangers of the ice. And they sailed out of the Fifth Ocean on to another day. THE END.

Posted by The Editor.

The Sonic Pirates

So we've never taken Bubba, Stump or Samantha Jean-Pocket to Mickey D's to eat. We did drive through one time on a cross-country trip from Texas to California. They were hungry, we had no choice, it was the middle of nowhere. Previously, they had asked sometimes to stop at McD's because they would see the playgrounds and it looked like fun to them. We would always tell them, "Oh no, we can't eat there. The food at that place gives you gas." And they bought the explanation, especially when the drive-thru experience resulted in just that. They said they never wanted to eat there again.

Before you think we shelter them too much, you must know they haven't missed out on the fast food experience altogether. We have visits periodically to local burger joints and they do love a good corn dog and french fries. They also have an affinity for Sonic Drive-in. We do not go there for the food, we go for the prize that comes with the food. One thing about Sonic, you can choose tater tots or french fries. Nobody likes tater tots, so we always get fries. But sometimes, the prize is a little soft, stuffed doll that looks like a tater tot with a face, costume, and legs. Prizes change frequently so we've accumulated a little herd of said tot dolls: Astronaut-tot, Lemon-lime tot, Alien tot, and from a recent campaign, a large crew of pirates. You can also request a prize suitable for children less than three and then you get a baby tot in pink, blue, or yellow--we have a small nursery of those, too. And another set was small soft pets, a ferret named Frye and a parrot named Limey. The boys wanted nothing to do with the tot dolls. They would moan and groan when they received one and would pass it off to Samantha. They liked the compasses and telescopes and paper pirate ship, but THEY DID NOT PLAY WITH DOLLS!

Until, somebody had the idea to make the bed a pirate ship and mama could tell stories and we could use our props!

So, after all is said and done and teeth are brushed and water cups filled and blankets and quack are collected, we all head upstairs for a story. Bubba and Stump build a ship on the bed by pushing a blanket into shape and fashioning a crow's nest of sorts with a second layer of blanket. They arrange the crew and I spin the yarn.

This is the first installment for two little boys, one with chocolate eyes and cinnamon hair and the other with blue eyes and blond curls.

He was six. She was somewhat older. The other one was four, almost five. Age didn't matter. The dread pirate crew had been carefully recruited from the wacky packs of the Sonic variety.

There were 7 Captain Crackerishes, 2 Captain Brown Beard peg legs, an astro-tot, a lemon-lime tot, Captain Skelty (the skeleton pirate who was electricified), and Frye the pirate pet ferret. There was also an alien pirate, but he was missing, perhaps overboard.

They waited until the sea princess had sailed off in her pink ironsides to lala land and then they built their ships: two dark blue fleece blankets, one quilt, one light blue fleece blanket for the crow's nest, the light from the old Christmas walk jack-o-lantern and a stick for the mast, stored in the corner of the room for just that purpose (or sometimes a bird habitat.)

The Crackerish Ship sailed around Balulalula Island searching for lost treasure while the Telescope Ship, also known as Captain Skelty Ship, was accosted by a parched, croaking bird who needed a drink of water before delivering a message. The pirate crew was aghast that a bird could talk yet they made haste to help their brother ship in trouble. They did not know the bird was under the spell of the sea witch and their brother ship (Crackerish Ship) was not really in trouble, the sea witch just wanted to capture them so they would take the treasure.

The Captain Skelty Ship rendezvoused with the Crackerish Ship and shared their telescope so Lemon-lime pirate and Frye could climb into the crow's nest to look at the island for a proper beach landing. Alas, there was none to be found because of the witch. She lived in a cave under the island under the water guarded by 7 octopi, 10 stingrays, 8 jellyfish, and 50 sharks. With many "AARGHS" and popping up and down, the Captains collectively devised a plan to capture the witch and get the treasure. Then one Captain Brown Beard Peg Leg spoke up and said, "Aargh, it will never work, her magic is too strong." Captain Skelty said, "Let's just get her and throw her in the river." But Captain Crackerish 3 stood in the prow of the boat to explain his plan. He said he had built a "grrr" and a "grrr" and a "grr, did you hear that?" "What is it," asked Skelty. The Crackerishes 1,2,4,5,6,& 7 said, "Arrgh, it's me stomach, I'm hungry, let's have some soup!" for soup is the favored pirate meal on the Skelty and Crackerish ships.

Crackerish 3 brought out his soup kitchen invention and fed them all, efficiently and generously. Then he explained his plan (without growling stomach interruptions.) He had designed a magnetic robot that could be attached to the anchor and lowered in front of the sea witch's cave to blast her out and capture her without destroying anything else. Crackerish 5 wanted to give the sea witch to the bird so he could fly her out to the middle of the Black Ocean and wait for the whirlpool to start and then drop her in when the lightning flashed then she would go down to the bottom of the ocean and her magic would be broken. Skelty said to just flush her so they could get the treasure. So, Crackerish 3 said he could make a wizard robot that would take the witch's magic and undo her spells and use her power for good.

They all agreed heartily and Crackerish raised the robot's power and broke the witch's spell. The bird reappeared, had a pirate drink and turned back into a pirate. Then Captain Crackerish 3 buzzed over to Balulalula Island to pickup the treasure: a fancier soup kitchen helper robot. Captain Skelty also made a trip for gold coins and they celebrated on deck with many pirate songs and much soup. THE END.


Posted by The Editor.

Sanky

Someone gave Joy a makeup bag to play with. It kinda looks like a doctor’s bag. Since the moment she got it I have coveted it. Not that I have anything to put in it—Joy has swiped all of my makeup out of my bathroom drawer and uses it (multiple times, daily) for her, her dolls, her Barbies, and sometimes for miscellaneous projects that she has contracted herself to do. Nevertheless, I dream of the day that I can have a bag like that, filled with pretty little vials and compacts and bottles and palettes of beautifully colored makeup. A girl can dream.



Anyway, THE bag is in the loft, otherwise known as ‘the toy box’ in my house where most of the playing gets done by my girls. (My backyard was rudely taken over by a pool, and while I am grateful for it in the summer, the rest of the year it is grossly underappreciated and even resented.) Back to THE bag.



Joy just brought it to me and said, “Mom! I think there’s a bug in my bag!” (I am not afraid of bugs, spiders, dead bodies—I was a CSI in a former life—so bring ‘em on! Just DO NOT make me have to deal with vermin. Anything mouse or rat-like gives me the ick and causes me to crawling skin which perpetuates the problem because I then imagine that something vermin-y is crawling on me.) OK, so, being the bug slayer that I am, I reached into THE bag to pull out the bug. By this time both Joy and Marlo were concernedly and apprehensively watching to see what kind of bug I was going to pull out of THE bag.



I could feel that it was just a piece of lint, so when I pulled it out I pretended that I let it go and said in a loud, shrill voice, “Oooh-hoooo!” I thought this might startle or shock them a little, but no. This little outburst was apparently the funniest thing both of them have every experienced to date. So now I have done it 272 times and it never loses its novelty. Joy fell down on the floor, with big belly laughs shaking her whole body. Marlo was laughing so hard that she couldn’t shut her mouth and a long strand of drool started to pool in THE bag. (OK, maybe now I don’t want that bag anymore.) But pretending to throw a pretend bug at them is very funny.



When I was little we went somewhere (the whole family) and stayed in a hotel. And we all stayed in the same room. For some reason I want to say that The Editor and I slept in a bunk bed. (Are there bunk beds in hotels or did my over-active imagination just make that up?)* Anyway, there was a book on the desk with inspirational stories or something like that. And so The Editor was reading to me from this book and something had been written by someone by the name of Sanky. And for whatever reason, that was the funniest name we had ever heard. All night long we laughed and giggled about Sanky. (I am giggling right now—don’t ask me why.) We drove my parents crazy. To this day, all The Editor has to do is whisper “Sanky” to me and it starts all over again.



And so, seeing my girls laugh, over and over, at something that isn’t really all that funny, makes me smile because that secret “language” of sisters is one of the most beautiful things in life. And if you can’t have makeup, well, you gotta get the beauty anywhere you can!


*Note from The Editor: It wasn't a hotel room, it was a church retreat at Camp Arrowhead, I think. But some hotels do have bunk beds, Gigi and The Norwegian (Gigi's husband and The Editor's and Busy Body's father) and me (7 months pregnant) and my husband (The Italian) and Bubba and Stump spent the night in a room with bunk beds. We were supposed to stay awhile and we checked out 6 hours after we checked in. But, that's a story for another day.

Note from Gigi: I used to tell Busy Body that I was praying that someday she would have a daughter just like her, because then, and only then, would she understand some of my reactions. That I have lived to see the day has brought me great joy (through Joy--and Marlo) Don't you think my previous phrase is a vast improvement on "I told you so".


Rebuttal from Busybody: If I apologize profusely and with all of my heart will I be able to un-do the sassiness and the antics that I now have to deal with daily?

Posted by The Editor for All

Grandma Tales

He was four: She was somewhat older; Neither of them calculated or cared about the difference in age. They were friends. They played well together. Each of them conceded to him the final decision in all matters. They played Thomas the Train: She could never be Thomas. They played robots: She could never be the designer or the finished robot. They built wonderful toys; although, sometimes, she got the pieces snatched from her hands and an impatient, impromptu lecture on what’s proper construction procedure and what isn’t. He especially liked that she never wanted first choice of the best toy, but left that to him. They played and played and played. They could play for hours with the game getting bigger and better and more skillfully executed and then be interrupted, only to return at the same point the next time they were together and there be no noticeable interruption.

He was moving; she wasn’t. The hours of play became more important. She knew it; he sensed it. The garage was full of the clutter of living and accumulating, and, more recently, with the frenzy of moving. Return this…give away that…throw that away (oh, or shall we keep it?)…too much stuff with no seeming order.

He had an amazing idea. Amazing ideas struck him frequently and they always were amazing—to him, and to her. Let’s play pirates in the garage! She wanted to, but there were quite a few obstacles. He saw her look and started nipping the excuses in the bud. Don’t worry; I know how to do it. Just follow me. Remember, she was older and bigger and didn’t always fit into the spaces he consigned to them. (There was that tent made on the backs of two dining chairs that he wanted to virtually live in for over a week. Her knees knew the price of compliance.) He started into that garage maze with the confidence of B’rer Rabbit diving into the briar patch. She was not quite so confident. Wait, Wait, do we really need to go over the top of that chest of drawers that isn’t stabilized by anything? His eyes take on the quality of imminent disappointment, No, but it will be more fun. Well, hey, fun is the reason for this, isn’t it? Somehow she makes it over the top and down the other side. Now we have to get down and go under this stuff like a snake. You remember how to be a snake, don’t you? It’s easy, like making the letter S on the ground. C’mon. It didn’t take ME that long. Now we just need to climb up on this shelf, and scoot sideways on our bottoms (Aren’t you proud that I said bottom and not that other word?) until we get to the middle shelf and then we take that rope off the wall and I climb up first and pull you up after me and then we stack those two big boxes on top of each other and make steps up the very top shelf right under the rafters. His amazing plan worked. This is great, huh? The precariousness of getting there wasn’t great, but then she did have to admit, it felt just like being pirates to sit there and see everything that was going on in the neighborhood without being seen. They were grandiose adventurers. They were pirates extraordinaire. He remembered that they didn’t bring snacks or swords—maybe they should go get them. She thought they were just fine, and just this once, he agreed. Look, the mailman is coming. They giggle. They poke each other with the camaraderie of being together in a secret. They look at each other with knowing looks and winks. The mailman drops the mail in the box at the front door and as he goes in front of the garage, HE WAVES. They giggle. They poke each other with the camaraderie of being together in a conspiracy. They look at each other with knowing looks and winks. Being discovered is as much fun as being hidden.

Their descent will be another story.

Posted by The Editor for Gigi