Japanese Zombie Game

This may be the funniest video I've seen in months! I love it, almost as much as the Japanese women's self-defense video.

Bonus- It's sub-titled, which is really what makes this video even more hilarious!

A Little Lesson In Manners From A.- sort of

A: Can we watch cartoons?

Me: Ak your daddy if it's okay

Dh: Sure

(we walk into the living room)

A: Is spongebob on?

I flip to Nick.

Me: No spongebob.

Flip to Noggin

Me: But Little Bill is on. Lucky me.

A: Is Little Bill one of your favorites?

Me: Yeah, not so much.

A: Why not?

Me: Because I think he's obnoxious (never mind she has no idea what this means). Much like Ruby in Max and Ruby. She's rude and mean.

A. thinks about this.

A: But you're rude and mean.

Me: EXCUSE ME?!

A: When I'm bad, you're rude and mean. Just like when Max is bad, Ruby is rude and mean.

I think about this.

Me: I suppose you're right. Except that Ruby is sometimes rude when Max is not bad. But good thinking. I love you.

A: (smiles) I love you, too.

When Will I EVER Learn

It all started innocently enough.

Weeks ago, A. came into the living room where I was reading to tell me that she was having bad dreams (although she'd only been in her bed a matter of moments and never really fell asleep).

I must point out that this has become a common occurence in our house.

So anyways, that night I told her to tell the bad dreams to "go away. You're not the boss of me!" She said okay, went to bed and came back less than 10 minutes later.

"The monsters won't listen to me."

Thinking myself to be very clever, I remembered she was sleeping with her princess blanket. And Disney princesses are magical, right?

Me: "Well, tell the monster that if it doesn't leave you alone, the princesses will beat them up."

A: "But, it won't go away!"

Me: "Just try it, okay?"

Silence.

Seconds later, compliance.

And minutes later, she returns.

Of course.

At a complete and total loss as to what to do, I racked my brain for something- anything I could use to get her to make the monsters go away and her stay in bed for the rest of the night.

Ah-ha!

A dream catcher!

Feeling quite pleased with myself for being so brilliant, I promised her we would go to Michael's and find some things to make a dream catcher the next day. I explained to her that it catches the bad dreams and only lets the good ones through the netting. Satisfied with this response, A. agreed to go back to bed and stay there and hold the monsters at bay for one more night.

So the next day we go go Michael's and because I hate buying things like this just for A., I bought a Dream Catcher kit for S., too. Not a terrible idea, though, since she seems to be catching onto the whole "I'll just keep coming out of my room and tell mama I'm having bad dreams until she decides to let me sleep on the couch and/or sleep with me" bug.

I promise you, I did look at the directions on the back before we bought them and it didn't look terribly difficult. It turns out I conveniently ignored the "6+" label as the appropriate age group. Because sometimes the girls can play with things meant for older kids provided there isn't anything to choke on. A.'s past the age of shoving things in her mouth but S. is just getting started (yes, at 3 years old. I know!).

I pay for the kits and we go home to make their dream catchers.

You know what I took out of the box?

A silver ring, a thin purple suede ribbon, some beads and feathers and this flossy type string. I look at the front of the box and notice the (finished) dream catcher is wrapped with the purple suede ribbon. I look back at the contents. The ring and the ribbon were two separate pieces coming out of the box.

Ooooh-kay.

I took out the directions and saw that I had to wrap the ring with the suede ribbon myself, securing the ends with glue.

Alrighty then. How hard could that be?

Yeah, well- it took me more than 10 minutes to wrap that damn ring because the suede ribbon was so thin and I had to keep readjusting. But finally it gets done and satisfied, I move on. I consulted the directions again and notice the nice netting in the ring on the box. I don't have a net to attach to the ring. It turns out, this flossy string- I'm supposed to create the netting by wrapping loosely around the edges of the ring and then wrapping through the loops over and over till we get to the middle.

Fuck.

I grab the flossy string and begin looping it per instructions. It looks like shit but I keep going. Then I began the second round of looping. It still looks like shit. I look back and forth between the box and the dream-catcher-in-progress in my hand. All the while, the girls are pestering me about finishing it, and telling me, "you have to put in the beads and feathers."

Yes, I know that.

Clearly, I am incompetent. In addition, I'm not moving fast enough for them.

After a half hour trying to create a dream catcher net, I give up. I am nowhere near being finished and there's no earthly way the girls can manage this themselves if we want them to be done before they graduate high-school. But I'm so fed up with it already that I just undo the netting, pack everything up and promise to get to it again… some other day.

Of course, in preschool-speak, "some other day" means "now".

The girls are upset that I'm giving up on the dream catcher so soon, and I'm upset with myself for creating not only more "work" for myself, but now a whole new drama because I know they will continue to tearfully admonish me for not finishing their dream catcher soon enough to make the bad dreams go away.

"Sorry, guys," I say. "But I just can't do this right now."

Or the next day- which A. doesn't really think about.

It's not until bed time that next night that she remembers my stalled attempt to create her dream catcher. She tearfully comes into the living room, telling me that if I don't finish her dream catcher, she's going to have bad dreams. I have no answer for this because I'm the one that told her the dream catcher would keep the bad dreams away. So I tell her, "go to bed. I'll work on it later." She reluctantly returned to her room. Peeved, I'm sure, that she must endure another night of bad dreams because I'm a retard who can't pay attention to detail!

Lucky for me, A.'s birthday comes along within days and between the gift-getting and ice-cream eating she forgets all about that damned dream catcher. Its days before she mentions it again, but mentions it, she does. And this time, dh is in the room to witness her distress.

"You've got to finish those dream catchers." He tells me.

Really? I think.

"Yeah," I say instead. "But you don't understand how much work those fucking things are!" (or something like that). He laughs because I've done it again- gotten myself in over my head with a project that was supposed to be for the girls but ends up being for me. I'm a fucking genius, I tell you.

I just can't bring myself to finish it. Because I feel like, if I have to spend one more second creating a fucking net out of dental floss, the floss would somehow end up wound around my neck, instead of in the ring- and that could lead to something tragic!

But now A.'s back to (consistently) reminding me about her dream catcher, and how I need to finish so that she doesn't have bad dreams. And all I can think of is… fuck. Because not only do I have to finish hers, but then I have to start on the one for her sister!

I should have just gone to some nearby reservation and bought authentic ready-made dream catchers! It may have cost me a little more cash-wise, but the sanity I would have maintained would have been priceless.

Just priceless, I tell you.

In Which We Learn A. Doesn't Have Shoulder Joints

Thinking that, perhaps, this really can't be that hard, I attempt to do it, too (just pretend like the mess in the background isn't there):

Triumph- Finally!

Ha ha! Those stupid mice couldn't outsmart us for long!

Dh finally found the rotting, stinking rodent corpse the other day, and he didn't even have to take the car apart to do it! He took the Merc to a car wash as he was waiting for our order from Subway on Saturday, and as he was vacuuming he hit something underneath the back left passenger seat. He lifted it up and wha-la! The missing mouse trap was revealed- with a jerkified mouse corpse inside pressed up against the smoky plastic. The cause of the offending odor was thus removed to the trash can, the car was thoroughly cleaned out and is now free of rodents (alive and otherwise) and mouse poop.

Yay!

I got the wonderful pleasure to drive the rodent-free vehicle this weekend and it smells lovely!

We finally got those mice bastards!

The Birthday Letter and Music hell

A. turned 5 today. Yes, 5. In six months she will be boarding a big yellow school bus and officially become a kindergartener! Wild.

Because I've been feeling super crafty and sentimental lately, I sat down last night and wrote her a letter about some of the things she learned to do in the last year. Realizing that 3 pages might be a bit much for such a young child to sit through, I told her she could stop me anytime she wanted and I would put the letter away.

I got through the introductory sentence.

Over 12 hours of labor 5 years ago, 2 hours of writing last night and 3 pages of effort and I get stopped at the introduction!

I know, I know. She's young and the letter won't really mean anything to her until she gets much older but I would have liked her to know what I wrote, anyhow. I think I must have had a vision of angelic smiles and huge, heartfelt hugs after reading her the letter. I was seriously delusional.

So, A. says "stop", and I fold up the letter, put it in the envelope and toss it onto the (growing) pile of books on my night table. And even though I anticipated a little bit of a lack of interest, I was still a little upset by the haste in which she wanted me to stop. And the speed in which she hopped off the bed and out of my room...

Oh, well.

Moving right along-

Have you ever gotten a song stuck in your head? I have just a touch of an obsessive personality, so songs get stuck all the time. They're not even always good songs either. Or grown up songs. Which is why this is particularly annoying, I think.

I've got a kids song stuck in my brain! It's like an illness, really.

Today I am being victimized by this cd of silly songs for kids (Wee Sing Silly Songs) I got for the girls. I was playing it for them this afternoon and somewhere around 20-something tracks in, a song came on called "The Green Grass Grows All Around". It's one of those songs where you build onto the verse and then put them all together before moving on.

It started somewhere around 3 pm. And it hasn't stopped. In. My. Head.

It played in my head as we got ready to go to dinner at 4:30, as I ate dinner about 6, on the drive to Coldstone Creamery at about 7, and then again as I navigated my way around Target buying pillows and carpet shampoo (approximately 8 pm).

And because misery loves company, I'll give you a glimpse of what the hell is break dancing around my brain. Since I love you all, though, I'll just cut right to the end (which is really the bulk of what's looping around my head, anyways):

"On that bug, there was a germ, the prettiest germ that you ever did see;

the germ on the bug and the bug on the feather

and the feather in the wing and the wing

on the bird and the bird in the egg

and the egg in the nest and the nest

on the branch and the branch on the limb

and the limb on the tree and the tree

in the hole and the hole in the ground

and the green grass grew all around, all around,

and the green grass grew all around."

There. If you made it this far you have officially entered my hell.

Welcome! I'll be bringing drinks around shortly.

What I'd like to know, though, is how the hell a bug gets into an egg?

What Crawled In Here And Died?!

It's been 3 weeks and we haven't had any more traps disappear. As a matter of fact, we haven't had any mice at all in this time. So this means we win, right?

WRONG!

Wrong because it seems that some rogue mouse died somewhere in that stupid SUV. It seems this way because the truck REEKS! I mean like, something seriously crawled into some hidey hole and died! We took the truck to the Renfest on Sunday, so we were in there for 4 hours total with no foul smell. But it's been heating up into the 70's this week. So dh's theory is that the mouse may have been there for the last several weeks, but was basically refrigerated. And now that it's warming up, well, you know…

Ewwwwww!

He's been driving around with all the windows open (we switched cars for a few weeks) so he doesn't suffocate in the disgustingness! So the plan? He's going to go through the car, maybe start taking apart the dashboard and what not to see if he can't find the decomposing mouse. *shudder* Better him than me cuz seriously- I think I would be so disgusted when I come across the rotting mouse that I would be puking for days. And then I'd be in therapy for more days, because I'll start having nightmares about skeletal mice chasing me into a plastic cube with a one way door, where a slice of yummy chocolate cake awaits as bait…