What A Way To Go

If you ask Dr. Google which dog breeds are the dumbest or hardest to train, you'll find a photo of Meg staring back at you. English Bulldogs. They don't do what you tell them to do.

I can attest to the fact that actually Meg isn't as dumb as she plays on blogs. She understands words just fine. She just chooses to ignore them. All of them.

Which is to say, she's not allowed on the furniture, but that's like saying oxygen isn't allowed in the house. Go ahead and try to enforce that rule. I dare you. I'll be over here holding your dignity and sanity because you'll lose them both if you take them with you when you try to train Meg to do anything. Or not to do something. Whatever. It's like talking to a wall, except that the dog will start snorting at you if you make eye contact.

So, it's no surprise that Meg spends the vast majority of her time sitting on the couch. She does it to annoy me, I'm sure, and because she finds amusement in me continuously telling her to get down. She ignores most of my demands, but throws me for a loop by occasionally getting down on command, only to jump right back on the couch INSTANTLY. Like a yo yo.

During tonight's yo yo-palooza, Alexis was trying to put away her Barbies. She's really very good about putting them away each night. No, really. They belong in a box that goes on a shelf in our family room and she actually does put them there every night. It might have to do with the fact that I will throw away any toys that are not put away before she goes to bed. I'm not bluffing and she knows it. The other reason Alexis is good about putting away her toys in the family room is that she gets REAL pissed when the dogs break something.

You would think that Alexis would have learned by now that the couch is not a safe place to set her Barbies. You would be wrong. At least once per week I fix a decapitated Barbie because Meg jumps on them and rips their heads off. I kind of enjoy the whole thing, so I let it go on. Anyway, tonight Alexis set a Barbie down on the couch while she picked up a few others. As often happens, Meg jumped up on the couch and parked her fat butt right on top of the Barbie.

Alexis flipped out. Of course. THAT reaction just never gets old.

Alexis tried to grab the Barbie out from under Meg. She tugged. She pulled. She yanked. She yelled at Meg to "Moooooove, please!"

Nothing.

Finally, Alexis started making threats. "Meg, you better move before I get to three. One . . . two . . . "

I was DYING to know what was going to happen at "Three." My money was on nothing.

"Three. Meeeggggg! Moooove!"

Meg just sat there snorting.

Alexis stood there silently, trying desperately to figure out what she could possibly do to punish the dog who weighs more than she does.

I saved the kid from her own imagination by giving Meg a little shove and pulling the Barbie out from under her. Handing it to Alexis, I said, "You shouldn't leave your toys on the couch." I like to state the obvious as often as possible. Obviously.

Understanding spread across Alexis' face as she started to walk back towards the box where the Barbies belong. "Thank you, momma," she said. Then, suddenly, she started to cry.

"What's wrong now?" I asked. I left my patience in Florida. The weather was better there.

"My Barbie," she sobbed, "It smells . . . like . . . my Barbie smells like dog butt." She choked out the words in between sobs and shudders.

I would have been laughing at that point, but I know what that particular brand of dog butt smells like. It's not good, people. It's really VERY bad. I had no idea what the cure would be.

I tried Lysol.

That made things MUCH worse.

I tried a little air freshener.

Roses and dog butt scents blend quite well, but only if you like rose-scented dog butt.

I tried soap and water.

The dog butt. It would not leave.

Later, as Alexis was saying good night before heading upstairs to go to bed, she reported that she had cleaned up everything in the family room. "I know you'll throw away anything I didn't put away," she said.

Suspicious.

I looked around the room. She had done a better than usual job of cleaning up. Not a single Barbie shoe or crayon or piece of paper was anywhere to be seen.

Except, there was a lone toy right smack in the middle of the carpeting.

Dog Butt Barbie.

So long, Barbie. I'm sorry it had to end this way.

Dancing With Skeletons By The Cool Moon Light

It's amazing how kids manage to find just the right words to leave you feeling like they stormed into a once hidden room, ripped open the closet door, and started tossing your skeletons all over the place. A femur! A tibia! A skull! Those skeletons go flying left and right as you stand there trying to figure out just the right way to make it all stop.

Kids mean no harm. They just don't understand the concepts of "emotional baggage" and "questions best left un-asked."

I have no secrets. Absolutely none. If Alexis asks a question, I do what I can to answer it. However, there are some stories that aren't really mine to tell. There are times when the explanation needs to come from someone else. I don't like to speak for people when it's their skeletons and their emotional baggage hanging out on the clothesline.

Alexis' definition of "emotional baggage" probably involves throwing a favorite toy into a backpack and dragging it around all day, occasionally peeking in that backpack and smiling as a rush of happy overcomes her. She can't possibly understand the cut of her some of her interrogations.

There's no rush of happy when she starts digging through the emotional baggage. Why are her grandparents no longer married to each other? ASK THEM, KID. It's not my story. Where is my dad? FIGURE IT OUT, KID. I'm not going to tell her how she should judge him. Do I have any brothers and sisters? JUST GRAB A KNIFE, KID. Poke around until blood is drawn and I'll still be left thinking there are other people who are in a much better position to explain all of the complications and history. My mom? NOT FAIR, KID. She's not here to explain why she spent so much of her time hidden in the closet dancing with her own skeletons. Do I really have to try to answer for her when it is all so very twisted and angst-ridden?

I like things simple. I like the skeletons neatly hanging and the closet door closed. I like looking at that toy that fills me with happiness.

Alexis just doesn't understand what she's asking when she starts digging at those skeletons. I'm left to take a deep breath and charge ahead with some sort of answer.

If You See A Leprechaun, Punch Him For Me

There is a lot of evidence that proves that I'm an idiot.

If you had managed to see me working out in the yard today, you would have witnessed me digging a hole, putting a shrub in it, burying the shrub's roots, and then digging that sucker back out of the ground and moving it a few inches one way or another. Several times. As in, I spent an hour moving a bunch of plants over and over and over because I wasn't smart enough to go get a tape measure and do it right the first time.

A few weeks ago, my head was filled with cursing and doomsday predictions because I was certain my car was making a not-good-very-bad-aw-hell-that's-going-to-be-expensive noise. That "noise" turned out to be Alexis clicking her tongue, but I only figured that out after turning off the radio and driving in silence for five minutes. Do you know what it costs to get a kid who never stops talking and singing to be quiet for five minutes? It costs a Britney Spears album, people. Although, now that I think about it, she wasn't exactly quiet for that five minutes, so I've been suffering through Brit-Brit's latest atrocities for nothing. Which, for the record, just proves that whole I'm an idiot thing even more, now doesn't it?

Because I'm an idiot, it doesn't come as a surprise that I have caused a disaster of monumental proportions. Where once there was peace and bliss, now there is misery and mayhem. I don't even need to kick myself in the face over the whole thing because Alexis has been doing it for me.

Literally.

Alexis is back in our bed at night. And, she has been punching and kicking me in the face all night long every night since St. Patrick's Day. I DESERVE IT.

Alexis had finally mastered the art of staying in her own bed all night long. Weeks and weeks and weeks had gone by, peace and nightly bliss finally ruling the land. But then came that stupid-face leprechaun and it all fell apart.

I partook in some St. Patrick's Day shenanigans and Alexis thanked me by developing a leprechaun phobia. As in, she is now afraid to go upstairs at night because she is convinced that the leprechaun that escaped her trap is waiting in her closet and will eat her face if she goes in there alone. She can't stay in her bed because the leprechaun will crawl under the closet door, teleport his way up her bed so he can rearrange her eyeballs and nose. She can't sleep at night because the leprechaun is waiting for her to close her eyes so he can murder Justin Bieber and Troy Bolton in her bedroom and then paint her walls with their blood.

I might be exaggerating. Except for the part where THE KID WON'T STAY IN HER DAMN BED.

Let's review. A fat guy in a red suit who smells suspiciously like booze and hangs out with freakishly short people is fine. The freakishly short people who make toys are fine. But! But! The freakishly short people who share her love of rainbows and gave her money and candy are evil soul-sucking harbingers of doom.

I should have predicted it would happen.