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For the last several weeks I’ve been trying to make this social story for Elvis about using the potty. Part of the trouble has been images. Photographs are more concrete than drawings, but there are some things that just shouldn’t be photographed. So when it came time to do the pages about sitting down on the toilet vs. standing up, I thought I would have to settle for drawings.
My own artistic skills are somewhat limited, though I’m not too proud to put my lack of talent on display for the sake of my children’s education. However, the best–or least offensive–drawings I could make of sitting on a toilet involved rudimentary stick figures, and I wasn’t sure if Elvis would “get” them or not. I preferred to have a better drawing. So I did something that I knew I should not do. You know where this is going, don’t you?
Right now you’re thinking, “No, girl, you did not–you did NOT look for toilet pictures on Google Images!” Look, I said I wasn’t proud. I knew it wouldn’t be pretty, but I was desperate. I tried to play it safe. I tried to find links via autism sites; they were all broken. I used my inferior Googling skills to try to find the sites the original links were supposed to be linking to. I Googled “toilet training” instead of just “toilet.” I did not Google “sitting on the toilet.” Okay? I’m not that stupid. I am only a little bit stupid. Well, even under “toilet training” there were images I did not care to see. Gentle reader, you would not believe what pictures people will post of their own kids online. No, not those kinds of pictures. But still–nothing you want on your Facebook page when you’re trying to get a job, you know what I’m saying?. ::shudder:: Learn from my mistakes. Do not go there.
So after all this suffering, did I even get what I had come for? No. So I thought, very well, I will use my rudimentary stick figures. At least they aren’t DISGUSTING. Well, to me they’re not. I couldn’t really say what Elvis would think. And that’s when I remembered (later than I would have liked, but fortunately not too late) that I own a digital camera and the Fisher Price Loving Family dollhouse–fully furnished!
Here is where you’ll probably want to stop reading. Heck, you probably should have never come here in the first place. If you’re still here, maybe you get what you deserve. But I feel obligated to post the following photographs as a service to any other desperate parents out there who might be Googling “non-disgusting toilet training pictures that won’t get me arrested if the cops ever search my computer.”
I had a little trouble at first with my model. He’s not the easiest to work with.
See, that just doesn’t look comfortable, does it?
Fortunately, his knees bend.
See, that’s more genteel, isn’t it? And an equally discreet image of the Greatest Joy of Manhood (according to my husband):
And because my children have a particular problem with pooping while standing:
Yes, I realize that the doll’s pants are still on in all these pictures. I’M NOT A SICKO, OKAY? That’s the whole rationale behind this exercise.
Anyway, I’m sorry, I just couldn’t stop giggling this afternoon. Because I’ve lost my mind, Gentle Reader. I have lost my freaking mind.
This morning I was slicing a bagel for my son, and I SLICED MY FINGER WITH THE BREAD KNIFE! No, I didn’t slice it off, but dude, IT REALLY HURT! Correction: it STILL hurts! Who knew that one little knife–okay, kind of a big knife–could do so much damage? Why isn’t there a label on it that says, “WARNING: If you cut yourself with this bad boy, it will hurt like a sonofameanlady. USE CAUTION! NEVER LEAVE FINGER UNATTENDED”??? Gollyfreakamazoid this smarts!
So okay, I’m applying pressure to the wound so I can stop the bleeding and get a bandage on it before my bagel pops out of the toaster. But it won’t stop bleeding. I hold my finger high above my head to slow the blood flow, but the darn thing just won’t quit bleeding long enough to get a bandage on it and darnitall if my bagel hasn’t already popped up and started cooling. Have you ever tried to butter a bagel with one hand while the other hand is bleeding? And don’t tell me that you’re not supposed to eat bagels toasted with butter–it’s the way I like them, okay? It’s not like it’s even a real bagel; it’s some “whole wheat” Oregon bagel from the flipping Safeway, or maybe it’s WinCo, how the hell should I know? I’m bleeding to death and you’re going to tell me how I can enjoy my bagel???
Meanwhile, my son’s bagel–the source of all my misery–is just lying on the counter drying up, waiting in vain for someone to spread cream cheese on it. Are we allowed to put cream cheese on our bagels? There’s some lox in the fridge; if I slapped on some of that, would you be satisfied? Did I mention that my finger still REALLY HURTS?
Okay, if by some small chance you are concerned about the health of my vital appendages, I’ll tell you that I finally found some gauze pads and taped them really tight around the offending ouch, and hopefully this finger can be saved. Seriously, how much blood can come out of a single finger? I must have sliced a major artery. Who knew there was a major artery in the third finger on the left hand? They don’t tell you that on the box the knife came in!
The worst thing is that I’m going to have this stupid bandage on my finger for who knows how long, and I hate having bandages on my finger because with two children still in diapers, I wash my hands approximately 300 times a day, and I have to keep putting new bandages on. Yes, I suppose I should invest in some “waterproof” bandages. I’ll do that just as soon as I’m sure that it’s safe for me to drive.
Oh, the humanity!
I don’t take the daily paper anymore, so I’m not up on the comic page controversies. Apparently there was a mild kerfuffle when Scott Adams introduced a new character named Jesus (pronounced “Hay-Soos) in his Dilbert strip the week before the Holy Week. I say “mild kerfuffle” because it was apparently a genuine controversy among a certain segment of the population, but I would never have known about it if I hadn’t followed a link on a sidebar of a Mormon blog that told me that the Daily Universe, BYU’s student newspaper, had opted not to run the strips. Apparently some students were horrified that the Daily Universe would censor a comic strip. Personally, I was horrified at some of the grammar in the DU’s editorial explaining its position, but that’s neither here nor there. All of this reminds me of a story.
I didn’t get my higher education at BYU. I went to a small Baptist college in southern Virginia that no one has ever heard of unless they live in that town and/or attended that school themselves. (Don’t bother guessing which school it is, because you’ll only guess some school somebody’s heard of, and you’ll be wrong.) It’s a good little school, and I enjoyed my four years there. It was not Baptist school in the same sense that BYU is a Mormon school. It was affiliated with the Virginia Baptist General Board, which I believe gave it some of its funding, or at least provided scholarships, or something–really, I didn’t and don’t know the particulars, but it sufficeth me to say that the affiliation was mostly a historical one. Baptists being what Baptists are, the school enjoyed much more sovereignty than BYU ever has.
However, the trappings of its religious affiliation were still present. They held (non-compulsory) chapel services and six credits of religion classes (including one on the Old or New Testament–quelle horreur!) were required for graduation. All dorms were single-sex, and no one of the opposite sex was allowed in the dorm after 11:30 p.m. (2 a.m. on weekends). It was also a dry campus (absolutely no alcohol allowed on the premises). Lots of students, unfamiliar with the meaning of the term ”private school,” complained about the religion requirement and the draconian visiting hours (hey, they never said you couldn’t have sex in your dorm room, just not after 11:30 p.m., 2 a.m. on weekends). But mostly they complained about the no-alcohol policy. Ostensibly there was this Puritan vibe emanating from the trustees’ office or something, but in practice, aside from the alcohol thing, the students had the freedom to engage in a fair amount of debauchery, so long as the old ladies from the alumni association didn’t find out about it. And there was academic freedom on a scale that BYU professors can only dream of. But more on that later.
I think it was my sophomore year that Residence Life began sponsoring Movie Night on Fridays (maybe to make up for the fact that there was nothing to do in town and also no alcohol to drink). Among the first movies they decided to show was Henry & June, which you might recall was a NC-17-rated romp for people who wanted to pretend they’d read Anais Nin (or Henry Miller, for that matter). Anyway, they had posters for it up all over campus and the dorms, until one student, who happened to be majoring in religion so she could go on to study at a seminary, complained that this film didn’t strike her as consistent with the school’s Christian mission. Bottom line: Henry & June was summarily cancelled. I think they replaced it with The Lion King. I don’t really recall.
This was a disappointing turn of events. (Damn straight my friends and I were planning on going–what did you think?) But oh well, what are you going to do, right? Wrong. A bunch of students rose up and swore they were not going to take it. They put up posters about free speech and censorship and blah blah de blah, and there was a story in the student newspaper, which quoted some English professors saying it was really so silly, as they discussed things in classes that were much more shocking and revolutionary than Henry & June and that this whole incident made the school look like a Mickey Mouse organization–or something. One professor–the History department chair, actually–was so distressed by the school’s Gestapo tactics that he walked into class with a TV and VCR and showed the offending movie to his Western Civ class, just to “prove a point.”
When I heard about this, I thought a couple things. First, it wasn’t really fair to those students who paid their tuition on the assumption that they would be learning about Western Civ in their Western Civ class. Sure, a bunch of them probably thought, “Excellent! No Greeks and Romans today!” But others may not have been pleased that they hauled themselves down to the lecture hall just to get an eyeful of Anais Nin’s goodies. (And not even the real Anais Nin, but someone pretending to be Anais Nin. And who was Anais Nin, anyway?) The second thing I thought was, if we regularly discussed shocking and revolutionary things in class, why was it such a big deal that we show Henry & June, which was, after all, so much less consequential than the shocking and revolutionary things we ordinarily preoccupied ourselves with? It wasn’t as though Henry Miller or Anais Nin appeared anywhere on any of our professors’ syllabi, so how important could it have been for us to know them intimately?
In other words, I thought it was a whole bunch of silly. And the silliest part was that these kids were crying “censorship!” when they had no idea how easy they had it. I confess I waxed a little Grumpy Old Man and told them that this was nothing compared to the oppression my people suffered at BYU, where watching Henry & June in the privacy of your own apartment (which must be university-approved) would probably get you called up on an Honor Code violation–and I never even got to the part where BYU students weren’t allowed to drink ANYWHERE, EVER. Their heads might have exploded.
See, I think censorship sucks and all, but what frosts my cupcakes is when people waste moral outrage on issues that are essentially trivial. If you wanted to go to a college where Residence Life would sponsor screenings of arty sex flicks, maybe you should have gone to a non-religious school. That you are entitled to watch a particular movie–any movie–as part of your educational experience makes about as much sense as being entitled to play ice hockey in P.E. Nothing against ice hockey, but did your college have ice hockey and if not, did you protest? Even if you went to school in Florida?
Moreover, it was not possible to escape the irony of the fact that cancelling Henry & June–which, I reiterate, was a movie sponsored by Residence Life as a recreational activity–at the request of a student (on the basis of it being an inappropriate event for a nice Baptist college to sponsor) resulted in this huge uproar, but when the college incurred the wrath of the VBGB for sponsoring a female minister’s lecture on God and gender, there were crickets chirping. Probably because she didn’t use any pictures in her presentation. But also because academic freedom doesn’t inspire the same passion as recreational license.
Now, probably the BYU students who were upset about missing their Dilbert that week also get upset about some other, consequential stuff that goes on at BYU–stuff actually related to the quality of their educations. At the same time, lots of people go to BYU so they can live and learn in a Mormon environment and not be bombarded with stuff that offends their religious sensibilities. These students have a hard enough time with Nietzche and Faulkner. How crucial is it that they pick up a paper to relax with the news of the day and have their eyeballs seared by a Dilbert Jesus cartoon?
Perhaps I’m just sympathetic to the editors of the Daily Universe, as I used to work for a newspaper, where my job description entailed fielding calls from readers irate about something they’d read in the funnies. Those calls were unpleasant and frustrating. People have strong feelings about the comics. Also crossword puzzles. And don’t you dare take away their bridge column. Oh, no–but I digress. My point is that I understand why the DU folks decided to just pre-empt the whole controversy, even if they did follow up with a self-serving editorial justifying their decision. (Hey, I do self-serving stuff myself all the time, so who am I to throw stones?)
On the other hand, talking about my newspaper experience reminds me that we had a janitor there named Jesus. Yes, it was pronounced “Hay-Soos,” but let’s be honest–who doesn’t see the name Jesus and read it as “Jesus (not Hay-Soos)”? Not me. Which is why it used to amuse me to no end when we’d get messages on the network computers telling us that Jesus would be cleaning the bathrooms between 4 and 5 p.m. Because that was comedy gold. I like to think Jesus himself would have appreciated it. (Either of them.) But then, I look at these Dilbert comics and I don’t see what the big deal is. I imagine if Jesus were to pick up the Daily Universe and see these comics, he wouldn’t just stand there somberly with a tear rolling down his face. He might chuckle at a couple of them, even–in a “heh heh, very well, Scott Adams, touche” kind of way. But no outright guffawing because eh, they’re just not that funny. Definitely not worth protesting over, in any respect.
I’m in the market for a good novel. And by “good” I don’t necessarily mean Man Booker Prize good. I mean “will this entertain me and keep me off the streets?” good. Generally, I like to alternate between deep, profound books and pure swill. Occasionally I go for the in-between. So please recommend a book that you enjoyed. Not one that you think I will like, because you don’t know what I like. I’ll read anything. I’ll read epic stories about dysfunctional immigrant families, spanning seven generations, borrowing heavily from the work of Ezra Pound. I’ll read about Satanist sorority sisters and their sadistic sexual exploits. Truly, I have no standards when it comes to the written word. It’s a character flaw I like to pass off as eccentric charm.
So go ahead, recommend a book to me. If it sucks and I hate it, I won’t hold it against you. My husband told me to read Lord of the Rings, and we’re still married. Of course, I never finished Lord of the Rings. I won’t finish your book, either, if I hate it that much, but you shouldn’t take it personally. Feel free to tell yourself that I’m really busy and my mind is going, and I just can’t appreciate good literature like some people can.
There’s no prize, per se, for recommending a book that I end up loving. Just the joy of knowing that you’ve enriched my life.
No matter what book you recommend, each time I see that book I will think of you and I will either say, “I will always be grateful to so-and-so for recommending that book to me” or “Thanks to so-and-so, that’s four hundred pages of my life I’ll never get back again.” Either way, you will live forever in my memory. Who among you can resist immortality of that order?
I thought as much.
After twenty-eight months of breastfeeding, Girlfriend–aka Madhousebaby–is officially weaned. It is a bittersweet day.
More like a sweetbitter day.
And it would appear that to get back at me, she has taken up snoring. Fortunately, she has her own room.
Also this weekend, Girlfriend has started sleeping in a big-girl bed and wearing big-girl Thomas underpants that actually fit her. Before I know it she’ll be having bowel movements in inappropriate places and going off to college. ‘Scuse me while I wipe this tear from my eye.
1. She knows when her diaper is soiled and requests to have it changed.
2. She starts imitating adult grooming behavior, e.g. applies deodorant to her stomach.
3. She insists on wearing her brother’s Thomas the Tank Engine underpants, despite the fact that they’re two sizes too big for her.
4. She will not wear just any diaper, but only diapers with Winnie the Pooh on them. And not just any old diaper with Winnie the Pooh on it. It must be the diaper with Winnie the Pooh hanging from a red balloon, with Tigger riding a tire swing on the back. The diaper with Eeyore on it is so last week.
Oh, honey. I just don’t think so.
I heard this morning that Jennifer Lopez hired a masseuse and a color therapist for her newborn twins. I thought that was wild. A masseuse–okay. I guess. Color therapist? Not sure what that’s about. I mean, obviously, I know what it’s about. I just can’t relate. That’s what I mean. So I was intrigued and wanted to learn more about the lifestyles of rich and famous babies. From ShowbizSpy:
The ‘Jenny From The Block’ star, whose twins Max and Emme were born last month, have also reportedly ordered 600-count Egyptian cotton cot linen, designer Babygros, diamond-engraved rattles and, two small Shetland ponies for the youngsters.
So 600-count Egyptian cotton–that’s good, right? I have nothing against buying quality cotton linens, even for babies who are going to urinate and spit up all over them. I mean, good cotton feels so nice. Lucky babies. I don’t think I’ve ever slept on 600-count anything. I don’t know what a Babygro is. I suppose I have to Google it. Okay, I guess it’s clothes? Designer clothes for babies. Fine. I mean, you want them to look good and be comfortable. I dig it.
I wouldn’t even say she lost me at the diamond-engraved rattles. They’re collectors’ items, eh? I assume she doesn’t intend for the babies to play with them. They’re just to look at–fondly, when they’re much older, and they can think to themselves, “Damn, Mom sure had a lot of money, didn’t she?” That’s cool. And I bet they could even sell them to support their drug and/or gambling habits later on in life, should the need arise. (Not saying it will. Just saying “if.”)
No, where she lost me was the Shetland ponies. Seriously, what the heck? THEY’RE BABIES. Why do they need Shetland ponies right now? Couldn’t that wait until they’re, I don’t know, able to sit up on their own? It’s not like they can even watch the ponies and get enjoyment from them that way because THEY’RE BABIES. They don’t even know where they are or what’s going on yet. They’re still learning how to tell the difference between the masseuse and the baby burper. They have no time to pay attention to other mammals. What is she thinking??? Says a source close to the celebrity:
“It may sound excessive but she’s only got her kids’ best interests at heart and wants to give them the start in life she never had.”
Ordinarily I don’t take issue with how rich people choose to spend their money. Being a good Republican and all, I’m sure that this diamond-engraved rattle and color therapist business helps the economy and makes the rest of us feel good about how thrifty we are in comparison. And I can totally get behind her spending $600K on extra security. Keep the babies safe, it’s all good. But I must confess, it’s stories like this that make me think that some people might have too much money. Not that there should ever be such a thing as too much money, but seriously–Shetland ponies for newborns? Not to get all social-gospel on your a**, Jenny-from-the-Block, but you couldn’t think of somewhere else to put that money? Something to help less-fortunate newborns get the start in life you never had? If you really felt like spending money on ponies, maybe you could have thrown a pony party for some starving children–that would have offered them a much-needed diversion from their dreary lives, and afterwards they could have eaten the ponies, assuming they were still hungry. I don’t know. I don’t know.
But enough picking on Jennifer Lopez. Let us examine the beams in our own eyes. What is the most frivolous thing you spend money on? And what is the most frivolous thing you can imagine spending money on?
Me first. Let’s see–frivolity, frivolity…It’s probably food. I’m willing to spend a lot of money on food, if it’s good. Well, let’s face it. I’m willing to spend a lot of money on any food, if I feel that I must have it. I spend $2.00 twice a week to buy my younger children a small bag of Ruffles potato chips and a package of Starbursts, just so they won’t hassle me while their older siblings are in swim class. That’s like a $16-a-month habit. $16 could feed a family of eight in some remote village of Africa for a week, or something. It’s a total waste of money, when I could very well just tolerate the hassle of two small children with a killer sense of entitlement and nothing to do. That would be character-building and more nutritionally sound. Everyone would win. But do I have any intention of mending my ways? Nope. Negative, Rampart. And our anniversary dinner last year that cost, like, $200 or something almost as wrong (or slightly wronger)? Worth. Every. Penny. I’d do it again. In a heartbeat.
Mmmm. Steak.
Anyway, the most frivolous thing I can imagine spending money on is…gosh, this is hard because I’m still thinking about food…okay, I’ve got it. I would hire a professional organizer to do my whole house, including garage–maybe even my car–and I would buy everything she told me to. Everything. Because if there’s any weakness that can rival my weakness for food, it’s organizational merchandise. My husband won’t let me set foot inside a Storables without supervision because he knows it’s like sending an alcoholic into a liquor store. I can’t visit the web site because it’s like porn for me. I could ruin our family with my storage-box addiction, if I didn’t suppress my yetzer hara. I would buy storage boxes just to house my kids’ potato chip bags. It is that bad.
Now it’s your turn to talk Shetland ponies.
This is disappointing.
You Are a Dash |
 Your life is fast paced and varied. You are realistic, down to earth, and very honest. You’re often busy doing something interesting, and what you do changes quickly.You have many facets to your personality, and you connect them together well. You have a ton of interests. While some of them are a bit offbeat, they all tie together well. You friends rely on you to bring novelty and excitement to their lives. You excel in: Anything to do with money You get along best with: the Exclamation Point |
If you’d asked me, I would have said parantheses. I still say parantheses. “Dash.” Psh. Whatever.
Dear Madhousechildren,
If you want to take your shoes off, you must place them in or on the shoe shelf by the front door. NO OTHER SURFACE OR REGION OF THE HOUSE IS ACCEPTABLE. NO EXCEPTIONS. If I find one of your shoes residing in an unapproved location, I reserve the right to beat you over the head with it. Thank you.
Love, Mommy
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