Toilet Tales

A day without upsetting at least one of your children is a day wasted as far as I'm concerned. Grady has graduated Loyalist and is back home. Let the games begin. This morning was a golden opportunity we couldn't pass up. Rob and I are in the kitchen when we hear a bedroom door open and close and then the bathroom door do the same. We're not sure which of our children or their significant others has risen so early, but our question is soon answered. "Dad" a frantic bellow (Grady) "'There's no toilet paper" Queue the laughter. Rob dutifully grabs some toilet paper and Grady tells him to leave it outside the door, but he doesn't say which door. Rob gleefully leaves a pile of toilet paper on the opposite side of the hall and retreats to the kitchen. We wait expectantly at the bottom of the stairs as the bathroom door opens "Dad" he roars "You prick. Why did you do that ?" The door slams. Rob relents and moves the toilet paper closer. Grady is so ungrateful, he actually called us both assholes when he finally emerged. 

Strike 2

Strike 1 was the Santa clock, Strike 2 is the motion activated snowman, strategically placed near the front door. This happy little snowman stands about 3' high holding a lighted wreath. You can record your own festive message which is set off by its motion detector. I envisioned "Merry Christmas", "Ho, Ho, Ho" or even "Welcome to our home". My mistake was allowing Grady to record the message ... so now the first thing anyone hears as they enter the house is Grady's dulcet tones telling them to "Fuck Off". One of the dogs noticed it today - Sid had gleefully added the batteries much to Rob's dismay - so for 20 minutes all we heard was "Bark, Bark, Bark", followed by "Fuck Off" as Ren tried to attack it. All my children inherited my weird and warped sense of humour, so while Sid and I are convulsed in laughter, Rob is doing a slow burn in the kitchen. Just wait until Strike 3.

The Clock

Oh dear, Rob's Christmas is ruined. I just unearthed my Santa clock, every hour Santa pops out with a loud Ho Ho Ho followed by a cheery snippet of a Christmas song. Rob detests this clock with a passion and every year I am forced to bargain with the devil in order to add this item to the Christmas decor. This year Rob gleefully announced we were out of batteries, and happily rushed to return the clock to its box, only to have his hopes dashed when I triumphantly revealed a new packet of 20 AAs. The clock reigns supreme. Merry Christmas

The Good ???? Old Days

Grady's school is huge with 4 large parking lots, the school, one south, one behind and one in front the school. There is a fair distance between the north and south lots. So, yesterday afternoon my sister calls, offering Grady a ride home from school as she will be driving by as school lets out. She tells me she is parking in the north lot by the goal posts. I text Grady to let him know and he trots off in search of his aunt. Several minutes later Grady calls, he can't find my sister. I explain she is by the goal posts at which point Grady tells me 3 of the parking lots are near goal posts. Surmising she has actually gone to the the south lot he treks back. I call my sister, it turns out she hadn't actually made it to the school yet and she is just about to pull in - to the north lot. I call Grady, but he doesn't answer, turns out his phone was on vibrate and he didn't feel it. Never mind, he calls me a few minutes later, exasperated because Jackie isn't in the south lot either. I've lost it by this point and convulsed in laughter I explained what had happened and direct him back to the north lot. He is none to pleased and rants that he could have walked home by this time. There were a few expletives in there, but you get the gist. As I'm finishing that call, my home phone rings, it's my sister. The entrance to the north parking lot was blocked, so she drove on past the school and parked in the south lot - you've guessed it - the one that Grady has just left. I try to call Grady, but again he doesn't hear his phone. By now I have tears streaming down my face and when Grady calls back to say he is back in the north lot and still can't find Jackie, I can barely squeak out what has happened. He is apoplectic, convinced we have conspired against him and hangs up on me, but not before I received an earful of a few choice words, well actually it was only one word, but repeated several times with great gusto. I call my sister to tell her to stay put because Grady is on his way, looking at the clock I realize he is right, under normal circumstances he would have been home by now. Jackie had been talking to me through her Bluetooth, and Grady told me afterwards that as he reached the parking lot he could hear my laughter from inside the car, with doors and windows closed. He was so not impressed. Gotta love my family.

What's In The (mail) Box ?

It appears that I don't need my children home for excitement. This morning Rob had taken off to get groceries and I head out on an errand of my own. I see the cat has a dead baby bunny. Nothing I can do, except curse at the cat and head for my van. As I'm backing down the driveway I see the not so dead bunny go lickety split over the front lawn with two cats in hot pursuit. I screech to a halt, throw the van in park and race across the lawn. Well, with two dodgy hips it was more of a hobble, but you get the idea. As I'm lurching across the grass waving my arms in the air and screaming at the cats, I notice the neighbours over the road hightail back indoors. No doubt my latest antics have cemented my reputation as the local nut job. I locate the bunny, prone in the grass. Fearing the worst, I scoop it up only to have it come alive in my hand and start squirming. As I'm standing there in the middle of the front lawn clutching a wriggling rabbit, it slowly dawns on me, WTF do I do with it now ? I can't set him down, the cats are circling like sharks. I can't take him in the house. - the dog is salivating in the front window, and I can't chance a repeat of the chipmunk debacle. I do the only thing I can and shove it in the mailbox. I call my husband, who isn't picking up his phone so I shoot him a text and tell him to answer his effing phone, and then follow it up with instructions DO NOT OPEN THE MAILBOX, and head out on my errand. I make it back home before Rob who arrives as I'm cuddling the bunny. He takes one look at what I'm clutching and said "You're NOT keeping it". I can't say I'm surprised, I wasn't allowed to keep the chipmunk, nor the baby squirrel I rescued, so I'm not sure why this would be different. Rob marches the bunny down the garden where he is unceremoniously dumped in the woodpile. And all before my first cup of coffee.

Grady The Grass

The time that Sid was inexcusably rude to her father, so Rob took a leaf out of my play book and insisted she write out lines. She was up in her room, desperately trying to tape three pens together, thinking she could beat the system. We knew this because her brother snitched. Rob just trippled the number of lines she has to write. Game on.

Please, Don't Ask.

Friday afternoon and Grady is hopping up and down in the rose garden. It would appear that he had lost a shoe on the roof (and no I didn't ask). Lindsay seizes this opportunity to lock him out. Did I mention it was raining ? In a desperate attempt to dislodge his shoe, he hurled a pointed stick at the roof which promptly boomeranged off and narrowly missed impaling him in the chest, as he fell in the rose bush to avoid it. Now it was getting interesting, so Lindsay and I pulled up a chair in the front window to watch the drama unfold. We didn't have to wait long, as Grady raided the garage and found an old floor lamp. Charging down the front porch like a knight in a joust he attempted to knock his shoe off with the base of the lamp. Although he is just shy of 6' he was still coming up short. Not to be defeated, he hauled out a recycling bin and upturned it in the garden. He is still hopping on one foot, and teetering precariously on the box he grabs the outside Christmas tree for balance. As it threatens to topple over, Lindsay opens the window and hurls obscenities at him (I think the word she used was F*******). After a few nerve wracking minutes when I wasn't sure if he would break the tree, his leg or the front window, he managed to reclaim his shoe. It was at this point, as he stood triumphantly on the recycling bin in the midst of flattened rose bushes, clutching the floor lamp, that his father pulled in the driveway with Sid. To Rob's credit, he didn't give Grady a second glance, and that people is how we roll in our house.