Monday 24 November 2014

The Kazoo Catastrophe

Wow, I kinda dropped off the face of the Earth there for a bit, didn't I? Well I think I'm back. I want to be back. I'd love to be back every day, but that might make things a little crazy. Well, that might make me a little crazy. As it is, I finished the dishes and I thought, Self, you can reconcile your bank account like a good little girl, or you can write a blog post. I'm over a month behind in my bank rec. That's not going to be any different tomorrow, now is it? Kind of like sticky floors. They can wait.

Ah, the patience of chores waiting to be done.

On to the Kazoo Catastrophe.

I picked the kids up from daycare on Friday, and I thought that since it was K2's Birthday Party this weekend, K1 might like to stop at the toy store and pick something out for his brother (and yay, K2 gets to wander around!). 

I laid down the law of a quick visit to a toy store, and K1 (who's 4) agreed with them. K2 of course agreed, but he's just 2, so you always take that with a bit of skepticism. 

Now, this isn't just any toy store. It's not the big-box giant that sells what everyone else sells. It's not the mega-aisles at Wal-Mart. It's a tiny storefront that's jam-packed with real toys like Thomas the Train sets (the wooden ones) and Play Mobil and Melissa & Doug and creative toys (and I'm sorry, I don't have girls so I didn't look in that spot too clearly--probably special dolls and oh! Horses. They had lots of horses) and perhaps best of all, real sets of Lego. Not the sets that must be built a certain way and can only be made in to one thing, but actual boxes of random pieces! Like when I was a kid. Which feels like fifty years ago, but I swear it's not.

So, of course my kids gravitate towards the Thomas table that's set up in the back, and they're playing and not really looking at other toys, and so I drag K1 off to find a bath toy for K2, which he does and it's so cool that I want to have a bath just so that I can play with it (seriously, it's that cool). 

So then I try to round up the kids towards the front. I tell K1 that he has five minutes to pick something out to spend his allowance on, and of course he's too busy playing with the cool baby toys, so I decide that I'll pick, and I spy some Kazoos. Inexpensive, and they sound like fun.

I pay for the gift and the Kazoos, I (literally) drag the kids out to the car after prying toys that we haven't paid for out of their hands, ask K1 politely to get in to the car please, pick up K2 and realize that he's shit his diaper, ask K1 a little more firmly to please get in the car and for the love of all that makes Mommy happy please stop crying I said we had to go. I get K2 in to the back of the car, give K1 a lot of heck for not getting in to the car in a parking lot, hello, get him in the car, change K2's diaper without any wet cloths, yay, in the dark, double yay. Get him in his car seat, get K1 buckled in, and finally oh my goodness, Mommy where is our KAZOO?!

I pull out the kazoos, show the kids how they work (you have to hum to get noise, not just blow air through them), and get in the car. 

Hell. I'm in fucking Hell. But it's kind of a funny Hell, if you have a sense of humour.

I start driving. 

K1: I didn't WANT a Kazoo!

K2: Phhh. Phhhh. Mommy! Phhhh.

Me: Well, next time I say pick a toy, please pick a toy.

K1: But I don't want a Kazoo.. Whaaaawahaaawaaaa. Taaaake it baaaack.

K2: WhaaaaAAAAAaaaaazzzzz. KZzzzzzz. Phhh. Mommy!

Me: We can't take it back. You had your mouth on it.

K1: We can [hic] wash [hic] it!

Me: No. If you really don't want it, give it to me and you can get something else next time.

K2: Phhhh Zzzzzzz Phhhhh.

K1: NOOO! 

Me: Put it in my hand please.

K1: Noozzzzzz (crying in to the Kazoo).

Me: Hey, that sounds pretty good. 

The next twenty minutes are spent listening to K1 cry with and without the kazoo (with is much nicer on the ears) because he hates the kazoo but he doesn't want to give it back and he keeps trying to make music with it, and listening to K2 cry because he can't quite make it work, and every time K1 cries, K2 has to, and I'm pretty sure that by the time we hit the driveway they were both crying on purpose through the kazoo. Wackos. 

Moral of the story: Don't take your kids to a toy store for fifteen minutes on a Friday night when they're tired and hungry and you don't have the proper means to clean up poop, remove the poopy diaper from your car as soon as you get home or you'll hate your forgetfulness come the next morning, and if they tend to be whiny and cry-y on a drive home, get them a kazoo. Crying sounds much better.

Monday 3 November 2014

BMBR: Never Buried by Edie Clare

This delightfully well written mystery was one that I picked up when I was trolling for free e-books, and it was good enough that I bought the second in the series, Never Sorry, for $3.