Gobble, Gobble

I'll Show You a Sign

Alexis has a portable DVD player, but we very rarely let her use it. Frankly, I don't give a damn if she's bored in the car. Back in my day (you know, before dirt was invented) I was happy to be bored. It meant no child labor laws were being broken. However, when we are about to be in the car for six hours, I'm all, "My sanity! My sanity! HERE! HAVE A DVD PLAYER!"

Self-preservation is key.

So, as we packed up the car to make the drive to Indiana, the DVD player was given a First Class seat. I might have whispered sweet nothings to it as I thought about the silence it was sure to deliver. See, when you severely limit your kid's access to TV in the car, sometimes they dedicate their lives to trying to make sure you forget that they have it. Alexis generally refuses to break the silence when she has her portable DVD player out of fear that I'll be all, "Wait? Are you talking? NO MOVIES FOR YOU." It's been that way during every trip we've taken for as long as I can remember.

Which, of course, means that my happy streak has come to an end.

For some reason, the little nerd decided that she would use our most recent drive to Indiana as an opportunity to bone up on her sign language skills. She has a whole bunch of Signing Time DVDs and as an itty bitty baby used to have every sign from every single one of them memorized. Somewhere during the metamorphosis between toddler and kid, she forgot a lot of those signs. She's been learning a few of them in school lately, so it occurred to her that it might be fun to re-remember everything she once knew.

As we started to leave Pittsburgh in our rear-view mirror, Alexis stuck the first DVD into the player and hit the play button. Sweet, sweet silence envoloped me. A tear came to my eye as I thought about how wondrous the next several hours were going to be.

"Momma! Look! I can sign brush!" Alexis slapped the silence away as she tried to get me to look at what she was doing.

I turned around and mumbled something that sort of resembled acknowledgement.

Moments later, "Momma! Look! I can sign pants!" the short person declared.

Another mumbly sort of sound fell out of my mouth.

"Momma! Look! This is how you say dress!" Alexis said.

She continued on and on, each time declaring her knowledge of the word with a level of enthusiasm usually reserved for Sidney Crosby's return to the ice. She was SO. FREAKIN. EXCITED.

For two hours.

For two hours, the kid pestered and bugged and harassed me to pay attention to her every move. FOR TWO HOURS. When I was expecting silence.

Is it legal to strap kids to the roof of a car? I'm asking for a friend who happens to have a 6-hour drive back to Pittsburgh in her future.

Conspiracy Theories

I don't remember the details around how it came to pass, but I do recall that I got exactly what I wanted. In fact, I bribed Mr. Husband into doing my bidding. For whatever reason, I really didn't feel like taking down the Christmas trees last year, so I convinced him to do it.

Anybody have a time machine? Please? I need to go back in time and punch myself in the face for that.

I have a system for storing all of the tree ornaments. It's not really a complicated system. It's just the sort of system that makes it easier to get everything back out again the next year. You know how some people put their groceries on the belt at the register in a specific order so that the frozen stuff will get bagged together? It's like that. Things get put away in a sequence that will make it easier to get them back out.

And for the love of all that is sparkly and bright, the beaded garland MUST be put away neatly.

He didn't put it away neatly last year.

In fact, I think he shook the garland like a Polaroid picture, used it for batting practice, and then let the Bulldog wipe her butt all over it before he put it in the box. And then he shook it around some more.

The garland was so tangled that it took me THREE hours to untangle it. THREE HOURS. That's like three episodes of Sesame Street, you guys!

I started the project at 11:30 Saturday night with the thought that it would only take a minute or two. As Saturday Night Live faded to a really scary Bret Michaels concert, I started to realize I should just go to bed. When the Bret Michaels concert faded to an episode of Cash Cab, I started to realize I should just throw the stupid doucheface garland away and go to bed. When Cash Cab faded to Cops, I started to realize that it was much better when I didn't know just how bad middle-of-the-night TV is. I am now afraid for all of humanity because of those hours of exposure to the Dark Side.

Really, people? We haven't learned that you should NEVER take off running when you see a police officer? Seriously? Because that ALWAYS ends the same way and it's with somebody going to jail for having a month's supply of weed shoved in every crevice of their being. Walk, drug dealers! Walk!

Anyway, I finally managed to untangle the garland at around 3:00 in the morning. Sleep is for the weak! And I'm weak and wish I could manage to get some once in a while!

While I managed to untangle the beaded garland in the middle of the night, I didn't actually put it on the tree. I figured I would wait a day for that, which was a Big Huge Mistake. Just as I was about to grab the pile of silver and white sparkly things and wrap them around the tree, Mr. Husband sat down next to it and started fussing with it. As he passed it back and forth from hand to hand and back again, daggers shot out of my eyes.

"Put. That. Down." I demanded.

"What?" he asked as he grinned from ear-to-ear.

You guys, I think he tangled that garland on purpose. For that I demand a refund on that bribery. Plus interest.

Oh, and could somebody please tell this little furball that the ribbon isn't in the house purely for his personal entertainment?

Because he spent two hours pulling it off of the tree just as fast as I could put it on.