Lion Poop

African Proverb - Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up and knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up and knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve.

Yesterday, I was the slowest gazelle. Which, I believe, makes me lion poop today. Sure feels that way.

If I knew it only took a note

So, the son is pushing his sister in her stroller and is running it into something about every 23 seconds. He then pushes the top of the stroller forward so his sister gets violently thrown forward with about the same G-forces the Apollo astronauts had on take off. She then is jerked back by the opposing force. Of course, she has a very good five point harness which undergoes inspection on every outing. To accentuate the impact, the son also yells "airbag" for effect as one of his parents must have told him something along the lines of how an airbag deploying in your face somehow colors the rest of your day along with your face.

Airbag is apparently on the top of the kids' list for fun, fun, fun. As I do not resemble either child, I have a plan to act like I just found them if DFCS comes over to inquire about who is parenting the kids.

So, after walking through at least one half of a very small parking lot slightly larger than a postage stamp, the son informs me he is out of breath. I suggest that perhaps he needs to get some exercise. After at least 5 seconds of consideration, he said that, "yes, he could do that or he could also just write a note to Jesus and ask him for some more breath." So he slowly limps at least two parking places to my car and writes his note on the dirt on the hood. Of course, it was in cursive as he doesn't know how to spell or write in print yet. He also doesn't have any idea how to write in cursive but feels it is much more convincing. I tend to agree as it is clear that an individual's handwriting deteriorates the further along they get in school and, here's the biggie, the smarter they are. This clearly explains doctors' abilities to only write 3 letters that don't appear to be horizontal lines. It also goes to explain my very clear and precise printing and cursive.

So, I consider my options. I can't tell the kid that he shouldn't send it up to Jesus. That would be wrong on so many levels. I can't tell the kid that Jesus called me as he will want the call back number. This kid wants proof. No idea where he may have gotten that trait from. I could tell him I'm hearing Jesus in my head but he will help his father take me to a very special place.

So, I am currently looking for a sample of Jesus's handwriting that will say, "thanks for writing. I would be happy to give you more breath. Think I would have invented treadmills and exercise otherwise?" Although, in my opinion, treadmills may have come from the dark side.

Car Games in California

As all of us are aware, each and every child in America must ask the question, “are we there yet” a minimum of 327,432 times or they will never mature into an adult. Apparently, my son was let in on this factoid and made sure to diligently work to meet his childhood quota while we were on the road in California. As the car was clearly in motion when this question was asked, it seemed somewhat obvious to me that perhaps we were not. But, that is just me. Now, I could have always used my father’s very wise “in ten minutes” answer that he used each and every time we asked the same question when we were kids. Didn’t bear any proportion to where we were or where we were going but, by gosh, we all somewhat figured out after 50 or so tries that it was a rather futile question and quit asking it and moved on to “Mom, he’s looking at me.”

But, always eager to improve on the past, I decided to give my son the answer he deserved. So, I asked for more information. What did he mean by “there?” After all, how could I answer the question accurately if I didn’t know where “there” was? Wouldn’t that be cheating him of the top notch parenting he deserves? So, again I went after his definition of “there”. Specifically, for him did being “there” mean that his basic needs for food, shelter and clothing be met or did he need to be fully self-actualized which I considered might be a little bit of an overreach, even in California where they have that medical marijuana, not that I would know of such things. And, even with the unconditional positive regard of his parents and sister, had he considered existential angst? Would that impact his being “there?” So, what did he mean?

Watching his careful consideration, I could tell he was in very deep thought,and I knew I had taken the right path, especially when he said he needed to have a bit of a conversation with his “guys”, the stuffed animal retinue that accompanies us on our travels. Told him I thought he could get the benefit of brainstorming unless, of course, they fell into groupthink.

So, he moved on and asked each very carefully if they had to pee. Apparently, they did not as he began pointing out cars which wasn’t very difficult as we were on a freeway. Then, another clever although not original idea came to me – the alphabet game as in, find a license plate with an A and then a B and then so on. That used up 2.75 minutes and was good to approximately Q. From what I observed, Q ticked off California in the past and was banned from the state.

And then, voila, it came to me. A new game. I called it Ration. Somehow it just came to me as I reflected on the $4.75 a gallon gas in the bear state. All that was needed was several movie size boxes of Jujubes and a GPS and, by gosh, we had the GPS. I made sure it could be viewed by the budding backseat driver who had been putting forth a lot of effort to make sure I was always very well advised on what the speed “number” was and how I was doing in relation to it. Apparently he was conducting some scientific field study as he also queried my father on the same issue on our drive home from the airport in the middle of the night on our return to Atlanta where the official airport slogan is “If you die and go to hell, you first must go through Atlanta.”

But, I digress. So we acquired several hundred of the chewy candies and began playing my new game. Specifically, the rules were that he could have one Jujube each and every time the GPS showed that we had covered two miles. He also had to give his sister half of one and he had to give me one every six miles. As it takes approximately one minute to chew one of those things, I figured that would work well and would only leave one minute for his speed numbers check.

But, I also gave him options so he could exercise his mind. He could play Super Ration instead. He could have one of the globs every three miles, did not have to give any to his mother but the sister requirement stayed the same. Oddly, he wanted to know about Super Super Ration and Super Super Super Ration so I gave him the directions. For Super Super Ration, he and his sister could have one piece for every ten miles shown on the GPS and if he chose to play Super Super Super Ration, he needed to find the most ostentatiously wealthy person he could see and hand over all the candy while reserving none for himself for no good reason. Somehow, he just didn't get that one.

Oddly, after we arrived, the kids seemed to have a wee bit of energy and worked at bouncing on the beds while trying to reach the ceiling. That was, of course, after the little one did her “Dance With The Swimming Diaper My Head” routine. Need to brush up on my traditional Chinese folk dances as I had not been previously introduced to this one.

The Vomit Comet

Went on the most awesome family vacation to California, compliments of my parents. Took the whole clan except for one brother and his wife as they are currently quite occupied with the whole gestating process. And, bar none, it was the most awesome vacation ever. Thirteen of us began the trip together and as we had three cars to keep a safe distance between all of us, thirteen of us returned, albeit one of us with only one good arm when she started with two perfectly fine ones. The vacation was so big and taught us so many exciting and unusual things that I will have to outline it for our remembrance over the next couple of weeks.

One of the important things we learned was that our little clan seemed to have a humongous Mercury Marquis to ourselves all the time even though we offered to switch it up as we drove somewhere around half the distance to the moon and back over eight days. Offered to spend some quality car time with the siblings in their car. Made an exciting offer for others to experience our children’s wonder of the experience while also thinking of new and creative answers to the “are we there yet?” question. Heck, the vehicle had enough room for the four of us and approximately 27 circus clowns. As long as they were the short kind. And, one elephant that wasn’t quite full grown.

Obviously, the perfect car for me to be driving around the mountainous roads. Could get it to bank in the turns which provided a good forum for the Peruvian to show his courage to the kids. He appreciates me giving him those opportunities as often as I can. Can just see it in his eyes. What a learning experience the driving was for them. It was just like driving on the open ocean – lean to the right, lean to the left, lean to the right and so on.

But, there was some unfortunate 40-year old karma at work here. Seems I made the same trip, same road with my folks when I was four. Rental car then too. And, I was such a considerate child. After all, I cared enough not to vomit in the car we owned. At least not on this trip. Nope, saved my vomiting violently for the rental car my father needed to use to drive his business associates around in the next day. Sort of recall that he wasn’t too happy about it. But, heck, if it was the 60’s, should have been easy enough to hose off the vinyl seats.

Now, cars have changed over the years but some things stay the same. Yosemite National Park has some pretty curvy roads to drive a barge around. And this can make folks feel a bit funny. Which is somewhat how Aidan explained to us that perhaps he was feeling a tad odd. Sort of went like him vomiting and then stating the obvious and with great surprise, “Hey, I just threw up” causing me to look in the rear view mirror just in time to see the second explosion coming right at my head. Dead aim. Have to admit I’ve never seen anything quite like it with the exception of that Exorcist scene. I expertly ducked while keeping the car on the road and then pulled over to discover that yes, he had indeed exploded and yes, there may have been some validity to suggestions that perhaps my insistence that the son drink large quantities of water so he didn’t get dehydrated might somewhat have caused the explosion. Mia thought it was rather awesome. You could see the respect in her eyes as she realized that her brother apparently has some kind of fountain built in. Way cooler than that one you run in at the park. She gave him some hearty applause.

Well, cars no longer come with vinyl seats to easily hose off. At this point, I’m thinking that is a retro fad we need to bring back along with those vinyl couch covers that your legs stuck too. But, I digress.

Ever resourceful, we stopped at the next completely out of the way gas station to begin the process of clean up. Don’t know how much they appreciated me washing the floor mat in their windshield washing bucket but since they didn’t stop me, I figured what the heck, I’ll do it and then accidentally kick it over which worked swimmingly. Fortunately, it was a dive of a place. We bought an $8 roll of paper towels; a $10 box of Clorox wipes, and then locked ourselves in a bathroom with a utility sink – especially designed for hosing down children of all sizes and apparently emptying mop buckets or who knows what.

All while we were using their store as a kid wash; the operators stood behind the counter and watched the activity which somehow made it a bit more sick fun. Would have taken bets they would have at least asked what the heck we were doing but, nope, we walked back and forth in front of the counter on the way to the utility sink, carrying wet clothes, a wet car seat, and a wet kid. Guess they figured it was a bit more info than they wanted.

Finally finished up and considerately suggested to the kids that they could finish the ride in the trunk. They were game until I explained that little problem me might have with Eric Estrada or whomever has replaced him on the California Highway Patrol. So it was back into the barge to continue our tour.

And those people are...

Yep, we're those people who think that trading our personal dignity for a free chicken sandwich is a fabulous idea. Had the kids perfect their "moos" before the first run which happened to be lunch. Of they went with the husband who wore just a hat. Didn't qualify for a combo. Just for clarity's sake, he did also have a shirt, shoes and pants, they just weren't bovine friendly. Would have qualified for something else without them, I'm sure. Unfortunately, I hadn't been available to quality control the bovine wear as I was kept away by this pesky thing called work.

But, I returned in time for dinner. Ramped up the costuming by stringing some advertising around everyone's neck. Explained the concept of "totally dressed like cows", quality controlled and then headed out. We wanted those combos, by gosh, and there was no stopping us. The fries were ours.

Cow Appreciation Day

So it apparently Cow Appreciation day this Friday and the crowd just can't wait. The Peruvian does appear to be trying to catch sick to be exempted but what kind of family would we be if we allowed that to happen? Not wanting him to miss the excitement, we will roll him in, if necessary.
Monday, while still apparently on California time, I just got all caught up in the excitement at the local Chick-filet. Couldn't avoid it what with the balloons, cow hats and the promise of free food for all cows on Friday. Got the kids jazzed up when I informed them that we were going to dress up like cows on Friday and then venture out into our nearest Chick-Filet for FREE dinner. One even called me at work the next day to see if I could just take all of Friday off so we could exploit the free food deal by taking our three meals at three different stores all while dressed like cows. Apparently, he is beginning to think like his mother which seems to be of concern to his father. Some muttering about not being able to handle "your mother" in stereo. Of course, that will not be necessary as the son and I will quickly bring Mia into the fold so their father can hear with BOSE type clarity- sound from all direction.

Chick-filet suggests that their cows are white with black spots. Of course, that may be true but as the son pointed out, they may also be black cows with really, really big white spots which is good because the husband somehow has managed to misplace every single piece of white clothing in the house since my annnouncement of this family celebration Monday evening. We'll give him the good news 2 minutes before departure when we start sticky taping white spots on him. Of course, if Mia is responsible for this task, all of the spots will be at 24" or less but we can always tell the Chick-filet folks that he is a mutant. Wouldn't want him to go hungry after all. May even get him a happy balloon.

It's not 10:00 pm in China

We're going to Yosemite next week, all 12 of us in my family. Of course with any trip, careful and thoughful planning ahead is the ticket. Not a ticket that I would normally have punched but there is some tent camping, bear lockering and the issue of what animal cry I will be trying to pass Mia's yelling off as to consider.

So I begin. Checked out the Yosemite tent cabins we will be residing in. Find that they have the folllowing posted policy:

Quiet Hours : Because of the nature of the tent cabins, it is imperative that everyone respect the quiet hours which are posted from 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. Failure to comply may result in disrespectful guests being asked to vacate the camp.

So, I am envisioning the rangers dragging us off as I explain to them that it clearly isn't between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. everywhere in the world and hey, they didn't specify a time zone on their sign. That should do it.

And, there is also Chickie the Miscreant and the issue of bears to consider. I'm sleeping on that one.