Sports Bra Anyone?

We were running around the park yesterday soaking in the gorgeous weather. I'm excited for spring! Bring on the sun and the warm!

Salem, Chuk and I were tossing around her big pink ball. It's hilarious to see her with that thing, for one reason or another she gets all giddy when we play with it and she tosses herself at it, falling over and crashing to the ground. She wants me to bounce it off her forehead, not softly either, she wants it to be chucked right at her cranium. This sends her into a frenzy where she just laughs and laughs. She's such a weirdo.

We were rolling on the grass playing with the ball and she turned to me and said, "Mommy!! You're like a big kid!....only with really big boobies!"

Thanks kid! That's not really super embarrassing or anything!

Other Uses for Office Paper

We've all been plagued a bit by winter colds around here. I had a terrible cold a few weeks ago and then bam! I got another one on Friday night. Since Chuk has been out-of-town, I was really worried that Salem would get it and we'd both be sick and miserable. We came home on Friday after a quiet dinner with Mommo and laid down on the couch to watch some Sponge Bob. We both fell asleep around 7:30 and didn't get up until 9 am then next day. What a treat!

I woke up feeling a little better but noticed that Salem had quite a bit of nasal congestion. I asked her to go blow her nose. She did but came back with the same runny nose as before. I decided she needed a little more supervision to get the job done. We went into the bathroom and I grabbed a tissue, while blocking one of her tiny nostrils I asked her to blow hard. I felt something rather large blast into the tissue. I thought I should take a look, as it could be a blood clot or something equally as nasty.

As I opened the tissue, I spotted a 1" x .5" piece of what appeared to be office paper wadded up and covered in mucus. Dude.
me: "Salem? what is this? Did you stick this up your nose?"
her: "I don't know..." She said with a giggle.
me: "It's not funny! You're not supposed to put things up your nose, it could hurt you, now, what is this and where did it come from?"
her: As quietly as she could verbalize, "It's paper from Shady Ladies."
Shady Ladies is the business that my in-laws own and operate here in Chamblee.
me: "Why did you put paper up your nose?"
her: "BECAUSE!!"
me: "Don't sass me, tell me why you did this?"
her: "Mom, you're such a drama queen! Stop bugging me about my paper!"
me: "Well, I guess it's time out then!"
her: "Okay! I'm sorry. I put it up in my nose to stop it from being so runny. And then, I couldn't get it out and I forgot it was in there."
me: "Okay. Thanks for telling the truth, and next time, NO putting anything up your nose!"

The deal here is that I put a roly poly bug up my nose when I was her age. I couldn't get it out either. A day or so later, we were in the grocery store, shopping in the frozen juice aisle, back when the frozen stuff was in those open bins on the floor with no doors, remember that? I sneezed and the roly poly bug shot out and stuck to the side of a 5-Alive concentrated juice can and I thought my mother was going to pass out. It was disgusting and I learned a valuable lesson. Don't stick things up your nose, bugs, paper or otherwise!

Monster Eyebrows

Chuk is out-of-town this week on a business trip. Sniffle. Anyway, Salem and I are a little uneasy by ourselves and we miss him. 12 years with the same person can do that to a gal.

Since Chuk is gone, Salem is a bit paranoid and keeps introducing the possibility of a monster attack in nearly every sentence. I try to assure her that there are no monsters crouched behind every corner waiting to pounce. I told her that they are very afraid of me and would never come around as I would fight them off with my gorilla-like strength.

In the car on the way home from Mommo’s:
Her: “So mom, you are strong, huh? Is it because you work out at the gym?”
Me: “Uh, sure! And monsters know about my gym workouts and see that I am strong.” (Good reasoning kid!)
Her: “So, if I saw a monster, you could kick its head off?”
I just kind of sat there, not really knowing how to respond. No worries, the kid just keeps on rambling…
Her: “And if you kicked the monsters head off, I could kick its bum off!!”
Me: “Now, you’re getting pretty violent with your little monster-talk. That’s enough.”
Her: “And then I could go to the monster’s head that you kicked off and kick off its eyebrows!!”
Me: “Salem! That’s enough talk about kicking monsters, let’s sing a song.”
Her: “Okay.”
Pause
Her: “But daddy would stomp the monster and blood would come out…”
Me: “Enough!”

It’s going to be a long week without daddy.

Sucker-Punch Joe's

We were at Monkey Joe's yesterday for a birthday party. For those of you who do not know of this place, here's a brief description: A large warehouse packed full of those giant inflatable gyms, the kind where neglected kids jump in for hours at state fairs. You know; the big vinyl-covered biohazards reeking of urine that attract every runny-nosed brat within a five mile radius? Yeah, that's the stuff.

The place is usually ass-to-elbow with the four to seven year old crowd, the kind of kids that eat Snickers bars for breakfast while washing it down with a two liter of Mountain Dew. These kids are like micro-bulldozers, crushing whatever and whoever is in their path as they barrel down the slide, splitting the backside of thier Hannah Montana jumpsuit pants.

As you could imagine, my 25 lb 3.5 year old does not stand a chance at "Monkey pound-your-eyes-out Joes," she tends to get tossed off the ladder like a bird frying on a powerline and her head stomped by the boy with the chocolate milk moustache. It's like she's in a giant washing machine and she's just being thrown around like a tiny napkin. She gets excited to go, but when we're actually there the gravity of the situation gets the best of her and she becomes nervous about getting abused in the inflatables. I reassure her that she'll be fine, give her a little pep-talk, football coach style and set her loose. She usually comes back with tears running down her face describing a tale that invoves shoving, trampling and stomping. I feel for her, I really do. She wants to play, but man, it's a war out there.

I was talking to Chuk during the birthday party, as I am concerned for her. She just goes off by herself to play, it's kinda sad. It's got to be because she thinks the inflatables full of kids = broken jaw. So she finds herself a nice, quiet inflatable to claim as her own. But, it was something that she said to a parent of a party-goer that really got me wondering about her. A parent asked her if she was having a good time and she responded flatly, "Uh, yeah...I like creepy stuff though."

What is that supposed to mean?

Wheels-a-churnin'

"Hey mom!" Salem shouted from the living room while I was in the kitchen preparing dinner tonight.
"Whats up?" I answered.
She looked over at me, tapped her finger to her head and announced, "My brain is thinking!"
"It is? What is it thinking?" I asked enthusiastically.
"Yeah, it is! I don't know what its thinking but I feel it working!" She said confidently as she bounced down the stairs to play with her toys.

Spa de Sally

It’s winter here in the ATL and we’ve just had another bone-chilling blast of arctic air breeze into the city. It’s 22 degrees right now, not exactly ‘Hotlanta”. When winter hits, the air in our house dries out and our home becomes a desert. I’m constantly chugging water, squirting eye drops in my eyes, and running the humidifier as to avoid drying out our sinuses. A dry sinus = face-clawing pain and suffering. Salem wakes up in the middle of the night and shouts out into the darkness, “MY NOSE! I NEED NOSE MEDICE!” Since she was a teeny baby, she’s very much welcomed nose drops in the winter. When she was learning to speak, she called all medicines ‘medice’ and still does to this day. It’s cute and I love it.

We have a humidifier running in her bedroom for the duration of these dry months. It’s a big ol’ sucker, takes about 3 minutes just to fill it up. For one reason or another, the tank has been off the base for a couple of days, I think I was supposed to clean it or something? Wow, I’m an awesome mom. The base is rather hefty too, it’s about 16” long and about a foot wide and sits right next to Salem’s bed on her little wooden drawing table. Chuk and prepared the kid for bed last night and was about to read a story when I noticed that I had not brought the tank back up. Inside the base, Salem had taken 4 Barbies, stripped them of their clothing and seated them in a circle around the inside edge.
Me: “Salem,” I said laughing, “What are these Barbies doing?”
Her: “Yes! It’s a Barbie hot tub! The only thing, I can’t find them any of those beers to drink.”

At least she knows how to party.

Thanks Dudes

I wanted to give a shout to all who offered suggestions on how I can get a handle on the whining. Thanks guys!

More on Whining

I had such a great response from you about my dog query, I decided to open another discussion. Salem is a big fat whiner. It’s really that simple. She whines all the time, especially when she’s at school or if she is required to eat something other than Cheetos or candy.

Her teacher is constantly telling me that Salem cries and whines nearly daily over just about anything. It starts around lunchtime, as you may guess, is not her favorite part of the day and escalates there after. I have no idea how to handle it. I told Salem that whining is for babies and she needs to learn to behave at school like a big girl. I’ve given her goals to meet; for instance, I told her if I got a clean ‘no-whine’ report from her teacher for a week, she can go and play at her friend’s house or have a sleep-over at ours. It works for a couple of days, but she always falls short. When I try to talk about her missing the mark, she gets really embarrassed and starts balling uncontrollably. I don’t want to give her a complex at such a young age, but enough is enough.

I’m thinking it may stem from her being an only child; she’s used to getting one-on-one attention from us at home. School puts her in a snit, there are just so many variables: feeling included with the other kids on the playground, daily chores, eating (a big issue), paying attention in class, ect. She’s a lefty, which is really cumbersome for craft activities.

I’m feeling a bit backed into a corner on this one. Any suggestions are welcomed and most definitely encouraged.

Dog Park, brought to you by Cheetos® Brand Snacks

The sun was out in full force yesterday and we decided as a family that it was time to step out of hibernation and venture forth into nature. Don’t be fooled, the closest thing I get to nature is usually the grassy median in a Target parking lot, but I digress. I had been suffering from a terrible cold last week and had coughed so much that I had laryngitis. That was worse than the cold, as I usually spend most of my time flapping my gums to just about anyone in earshot. To not speak is probably the most evil I’ve ever been able to endure. Back to the story of nature….

We took the Jones to Piedmont Park for a picnic and some good old fashioned ball-playing. We spent the first half and hour begging our child to eat her lunch. I’m not sure what to do about this, the kid hates food. It’s almost like when she sees food, she starts to shake, her eyes bulge and she'll start whimpering. It makes me think of Superman and Kryptonite. She’ll fall over and curl her tiny arms out in front of her face and scream “No! No! No! Not food! I don’t want that! It’s too much! NOOOOO!” Needless to say, it was really fun, trying to get her to eat. The park was jammed full of people and I was really concerned that someone would think we were beating our child to death to listen to her protest her lunch with such fervor. The only thing she’ll really eat right now is Cheetos, and man, they are gross. When she eats them, her teeth become covered in a milky-orange paste and a thin layer of orange film surrounds her mouth. Her fingers get covered in that napalm-orange powder and I find little hand prints all over the walls, on the electronics and even in strange places like the cat's food bowl. Nasty. Back to the park….

Because we were out of the house, it put the Jones in a crazy mood. We brought a large ball to play with and she kept running and tripping over it, sometimes even throwing her short and skinny body at it like a water balloon. Her silly antics spread over into shoving fistfuls of Cheetos in her mouth while trying to get one of us to smell her Cheeto-ie breath. We were on the picnic blanket and she removed her shoes and slapped her bare foot in my face demanding that I smell it. She was shouting a very forcefull “Smell it! Smell it mommy!” This really disturbed me. Chuk was pre-occupied with his constant picture taking that he didn’t notice she was about to pounce on him. “Smell my foot! Smell it daddy! C’mon dad, you want to smell it!” He shouted, “No Salem! Nobody wants to smell your foot!” Just then, I looked up and met eyes with a dude walking by our blanket. He looked down at her and said, “I don’t want to smell it either!” This freaked her out. Others could hear our private foot-smelling argument! she became so embarrassed that she asked to leave the park.

On our way back to our car it was hard to believe the amount of dogs visiting the park with their sassy, midtown, ultra-hipster owners in tow. It seemed as if everyone had at least one dog on a leash, it wasn’t unusual to see three dogs per person. Am I missing something? Does everyone have a dog but us? At this level of dog saturation, for the first time in my life I started to think that perhaps we need to get a dog. Chuk would like a wiener-dog and I would consider a Great Dane. That’s food for thought. What do you guys think?

Everything Tastes Like Chicken

Salem was brushing her teeth the other night:

"Yum!" She declared. "I love this toothpaste! It tastes like strawberries, and bubble gum...and...chicken!"

I'm not sure if her toothpaste tastes like chicken or if she had eaten some and had brushed it out of a nook within her teeth and tasted it. I have no clue. Maybe I should try to rub some of that toothpaste on her green beans, perhaps then she'd eat something.

Super Busy=Not Funny

Hey guys,
It's your friend Ashley. I'm sorry I have not posted anything in a while. Truth is, I've been super busy at work and Salem has not said or done anything that has been particularly humorous. I think we all have a bad case of the winter blahs. Anywhoosles, there will be more to come...