Pop Tart

Last night we had dinner at Mommo's house with Pop Pop and Gramma. It was a rainy day, thank the buddah, as we need it so bad here in the ATL. Pop Pop brought his umbrella and left it in the car port when he arrived.

After dinner, it was time to shove off and head home. Salem noticed the umbrella on her way out and asked, "Hey Pop Pop, is that your Umber-ella, ella, ella, eh, eh, eh?" It was perfect, just like Rihana.

Thanksgiving, A time for Large Families

We had a lovely Thanksgiving holiday; we headed up to Richmond to visit my best friend, Stephanie. The 9 hour drive up wasn’t too terrible as Chuk purchased the Shrek trilogy to watch in the car. That kept the kid occupied most of the time, in between the periods of her begging for chocolate milk and Cheetos.

Richmond is a great place to visit as there is a ton of stuff to do and Stephanie lives right in the middle of everything. We ate turkey, played in the park, enjoyed much libation, went shopping, visited museums, and made sure to fit in a healthy dose of Guitar Hero. It was the perfect vacation for us.

On the way back, we stopped at a Mexican fast food type restaurant. I was impressed as all of the patrons were from that area of the world, a good sign as restaurants go, so it must be pretty authentic. After dinner, feeling quite satiated, we got up to leave. Salem noticed a very large party sitting at a table. It was a Hispanic family of at least 10 people; children, babies, mom and dad, aunts and grandparents. Salem walked right up to them and said, “Hey! You guys have a really BIG family!! How do you all fit in your car?!”

I don’t’ think they understood her, or even spoke the language. Salem’s query went unanswered but the family returned the gesture with big smiles and kid-friendly waves.

I thought I might not post this incident as it might be misconstrued as racial generalizing. But you know? I really don’t think a 3 year old is capable of being racially biased. And sheesh, haven’t we all thought about that a time or two?

Brian Fellows Week

Salem is with her alternative caregiver this week as school is out. We often to refer to her as Brian Fellows; as she tends to yell while speaking, gets confused while using commonly known phrases and is generally unintentionally entertaining.

She has a small "daycare" inside an apartment decorated with tapestries, framed "art" and rugs sold by those street peddlers standing outside of ballgames. The whole place smells like jiffy store incense or cherry cigars; she insists the odor is from cleaning products.

Getting back to my point...I don't look forward to the days when the kid's school is closed and I'm forced to fall back on Brian Fellows, as she tends to talk my ear off and expects me to hang out with her for an hour when I pick the kid up. I just want to get home and chill, you know?

Chuk got the iphone. Dork. Earlier this week Brian saw it and FREAKED OUT. She said, "Ooooh! Curtis think he got a good phone, but that phone takes the CASE!" (replace "case" with "cake")

This morning Brian, on one of her jumbled rants told my husband, "You guys have done such a great job with Salem, I appal y'all." (I'm hoping she meant applaud)

The one really good thing that comes from a week spent at Brian's is that she makes lunch. I know that sounds stupid but making lunch for the kid everyday is really hard. I'm sure that the lunch she gets with Brian is more likely made up of Little Debbies and hot dogs filled with processed cheese, but hey! It's only once in a while.

Headless Americans

her: "Hey mom?"
me: "What's up?"
her: "Why don't the Americans have any heads?"
me: "...what?!"
her: "Those Americans?"
me: "Babe...I have no idea what you are talking about."
her: "You know how we were in that store today? Those Americans were there and they are fake. They didn't have any heads!"
me: "Oh, yeah, when we were in Old Navy? They had Americans without heads?" "Oh!"

I realized finally that she was talking about the headless manikins that they have to display the clothes.

me: "Babe, those are manikins, not Americans. They don't have heads because they are made for people to focus on the clothing on display and the head doesn't matter."

her: "That's just silly."

Laughing at Ourselves

Chuk always comments on how I bathe our entry level family unit (ELFU), saying that I’m “all business”. This is true, but lemme tell you something, I’m a busy woman and I really don’t have time to sit in the bathtub and play shark boy and lava girl with the caps of shaving gel or hold a mini swimmeet for the Barbie mermaids with bitten-off tails. (Yes, she has bitten off or pulled off all the tails from any mermaid she has ever owned. Now they look like Barbie-windsocks instead of mermaids.) But when daddy gets to bathe the kid, it’s like a trip to Whitewater Six Flags Waterpark.

As I began to bathe her last night; Chuk came in accusing me of being all business again and said he’d like to join us. He and I began to splash her and she splashed back--the splashing escalated from there. She got daddy right in the face with a cup full of water and laughed and laughed. He then poured water on her head. She rolled up into a tight ball, put her hands over her face and screamed “MY EYES! MY EYEEEES!!” like a character from a film noir horror movie. He and I just started laughing. When she noticed that we were amused by her prima donna antics she started laughing too.

I believe this “water-in-the-eyes" is a pivotal event. I believe it marks the beginning of her ability to laugh at herself. If she’s anything like her mother, she had better be ready, as she will need to find humor in her quirks for a lifetime.

Job Title (beta)

I'm going to start referring to the kid as the "Entry Level Family Unit" or ELFU for short. It kills me, I love it. Thanks Ryan!

The New Way to Play

I think the term "play date" is lame. What ever happened to "Hey! Let's get together and the kids can play." Or "Can Billy come over? Ling Ling would love to play hide and seek."

It's just another attempt at making a perfectly normal aspect of a child's life sound SO much more important. Why don't we give our children job titles too?

Moz

I went to see Morrissey on Monday with my good Friends Olie and Venessa. She got some great pics with her iphone. My camera phone pictures sucked, my photos looked like bacon frying in a pan, no trace of Morrissey or the stage at all.

I saw him last in 2004. I was with a bunch of architects coming in from their big open house party. One of the architect dudes jumped up on stage and hugged Morrissey; the show ended shortly after. The next day on a radio interview, Moz said he had to stop his show abruptly as he was "attacked by an audience member."

I swear, why do I always attract nutty people?

Next year

Salem is still infatuated with Halloween. We have one of those cheap make-up kits containing photos of people that have “supposedly used” that make-up to create their perfect theatrical monster faces. But, we all know that when applied with the crayon style make-up pencils from those kits you look more like someone smeared Crisco and charcoal on your face and finished with a crackling compound. By the end of the night I always end up looking like a drunken hobo clown no matter if initially I was supposed to be a vampire or a ghost. But, that may not be on account of the make-up alone.

Anywhoosles, back to Salem. She keeps getting the packaging out and looking at it and scaring herself half to death. Little kids love to be scared, it’s so strange. She’ll ask to look at the photos and then pretend to be frightened. She told me that she has big plans for next year. She’d like to go as a bloody hand for Halloween. At first, I thought she said “bloody ham” and I was like, “Huh, that’s weird. Why would a kid want to go as a bloody ham?”
“No mom, a BLOODY HAND!”
Okay, so back to the point of it being weird. What’s worse? A bloody hand or a ham?

More Salem Halloween Quotes

Salem: "Me and Daddy are pirates and Mommy is a Vampiper!"



I made sure to take a half-day and decorate the house for Halloween, as Salem was very excited about the idea of the house being "creepy".

When she got home from school and saw the giant spiderwebs and carved pumpkins, she leapt around the yard waving her arms and shouting, "OUR HOUSE IS CREEPY! OUR HOUSE IS THE SPOOKIEST!".

...Though on the way back from Trick-Or-Treating, she pointed at a house and said, "No Mommy, I don't want to go to that house, its SCARY." Mommy made her go in though, since it was our house.

-CHUK

Halloween

Halloween was fun at Chez Vinson. I even dressed up, not a normal procedure for me, even though I’ve been known to dress up for other occasions that don’t require a costume. I’ll wear a wig when I go shopping at the Kroger, or make up a silly jumpsuit to play whirly ball in but Halloween, sheesh, who needs to dress up for that? Salem and Chuk were a success as pirates, she loved it. Chuk even drew a little gotee on her face, it was adorable. I went as a ghoul or a vampire lady or “lady’s Halloween costume X”. Spooky long grey hair, black lipstick and eyeshadow and a black dress was all I came up with. Salem begged me not to be too scary, putting in a special request that I do not add any “bleed” to my face like what she had seen as examples from the Halloween makeup kit.

My friends and their kids arrived at the house to pre-game before the big trick-or-treat debauchery. Chuk had completely decorated the front of the house with big spider webs, tons of jack-o-lanterns, a shrunken head, strobe lights and a fog machine. No, he’s not 8 years old or anything. My friend Amy whirled into our house with tons of food and cheer while asking Salem about the scary décor. Salem replied: “Yeah! Do you wanna see something REALLY scary? Go look at my mom’s FACE!”