Learning Worm

One of our old neighbors was sending some stuff to the D.I. the other day and asked if we wanted to look through the toys before she sent them off. One of the "new" toys we received was a purple worm/caterpillar with 26 legs... one for each letter of the alphabet.

Well, of course, Betsy and I end up playing with this worm just as much as the kids do. I mean, c'mon. It's a new toy and it's pretty cool. It has a few different settings on it. One setting will say the letter of the alphabet when you push on the leg. Another setting will play a short song for each leg. The most enjoyable setting is the one that says the sound of the letter when you push the leg.

We don't really need to discuss how this ended up happening or anything, but at some point Betsy and I decided to push three letters in rapid succession and see if it sounded like the worm was actually SAYING the word we were spelling.

Here I am sounding out the word "fun":


Then we tried the word "car":


Doesn't work quite as well because it says the wrong sound for "a".

Eventually we got bored spelling normal words and decided to see have the worm say some nasty words. I really hope that other parents do this kind of thing. I actually think it's funny to picture my parents doing stuff like this with my toys when I was five years old. I don't know if my parents did this or if Betsy and I are just weird that way.

Apparently, the makers of this Learning Worm figured that an older brother (or maybe a parent) would try to spell bad words so they programmed in a "safety".

This is what happened when we pushed "c", "o", "k":



And "f", "u", "c":



Betsy even got creative while I was taping these and said "When it says the 'f' sound, it doesn't just go 'fffff'... it actually says "fffu'. So let's just try 'f' and then 'k'." Well we tried that, as well:


That's right. The makers thought of everything. It doesn't say the last sound. Instead the worm giggles and says "That tickles." It totally ruined all our horrible parenting fun. Those savages.

Fizical Flaws

Almost every day I look at my wife and wonder how on earth I was able to score such a hottie. I'm not just saying that, either. I really do wonder what I did to get her to fall in love with me. I mean, I've always prided myself in my kissing ability, but once you get married that kind of thing dies down... so she must love me for something besides my sweet succulent lips.

Whenever I ask her, she goes down the usual list of positive attributes and qualities. The other day I told her I was thinking about doing a blog post about my physical flaws... you know... like my lack of pectoral muscles. She was not excited at ALL about this post and she fought it every inch of the way. Every time I'd mention something about myself she'd have some sort of rebuttal to try to make me feel better. I kept asking her for contributions, but she refused to participate. She just sat on the couch and shook her head and tried to make me feel better while I was making my list.

What I've decided to do is write out my list of flaws, followed by the reply my wife gave me when I brought it up. Here we go:

C: My feet turn out a little bit when I walk... kinda bow-legged.
B: Lot's of people walk like that. It's not like you had braces on your legs or anything.

C: But I also slouch when I walk which makes me look kind of goofy.
B: Yeah, but didn't your brother have a bit of scoliosis? That's probably what it is.

C: My nostrils are different shapes.
B: No they're not.
C: Yes they are. Look.
B: (looking) I've never noticed that before. I'm sure no one else has either.

C: My arm hair stops in the middle of my upper arm. There's like a line where it stops... like I shave my upper arms or something.
B: But when your shirt is off, people are looking at your arm muscles... not the hair on your arms.

C: My lazy eye still does it's own thing occasionally.
B: It mostly did that before your lasik. I haven't noticed it at all since then.

C: I have these fangs that all the primary kids used to make fun of.
B: Nobody has said anything since the dentist filed them down, have they?

C: I have a bald spot on my chin that prevents me from growing a beard or bitchin' goatee.
B: I hate facial hair anyway. I never want you to grow any hair on your face.

C: I don't have a butt at all.
B: I think your butt is so cute. I wish I had your butt.
C: That doesn't make me feel any better.
B: But it's so cute when you dance around and wiggle it.

C: My wiener is average... at best.
B: It's all I can handle, honey.

C: My fingers are so dainty and girly. Guys have actually told me that my hands are "so soft".
B: I love how smooth your hands are. Callouses are gross and scratchy.

C: I have really patchy, random, shoulder hairs that are black and curly and gross.
B: You don't have that many and I'll pluck them out whenever you'd like.

C: Sometimes I get a sour stomach when I'm stressed and when I burp it literally tastes and smells like poo.
B: (long pause) Yeah. That's true. That's a good one. Write that one down.

My wife is awesome!

Bad Mom!

Sometimes I'll be at work and Betsy will call me to tell me how her day is going. Sometimes she vents for a while about how hard our kids are being... and occasionally she'll say stuff like, "I've been so mean to the kids today." or "I'm such a bad mom." I try to make her feel better by telling her our kids deserved whatever they got, but it seldom makes her feel better.

We have this program on our new computer that lets you do funny stuff with the built in camera. Our kids have figured it out and they'll spend hours taking pictures and video of themselves.

The other day I was up pretty late and I stumbled across the file that stores all of the images and video. I browsed through it and really got a candid sense of what actually goes on while I'm at work. I came to the conclusion that even though Betsy feels like a bad mom every once in a while... a TRULY bad mom doesn't do this stuff.

Season's 3

Shut Your Fat Face!

"Shut your fat face or I'll shut your fat face with my fist in your face!"

-Season

Rearranging our furniture is kinda like finding buried treasure at the landfill. 

In Vegas.