My Thanksgiving Post About Chickens Because Turkeys Simply Don't Have The Gams For The Dance Moves I Choreographed

My town recently passed an ordinance that allows you to keep up to four chickens on your property. When Jon heard, his eyes lit up and he began to imagine the scritch-scratch of little chicken feet running around our backyard and a non hormone free range chicken dinner in his future. When I heard, my eyes lit up and I promptly named one Ticky and the other Tacky and promised to love them and hold them and squeeze them forever and ever and ever!

After 10 years of marriage we finally hit the traditional "I want a pet/I want to eat our pet" impasse.

Unfortunately, this means I will not be able to relate to you the crazy antics of Ticky and Tacky, the chorus line dancing chickens. However, it does mean that YOU can go find some cute little balls of yellow fluff, dress them in rainbow sequined gowns and teach them to peck to the tune of the Do-Re-Mi song from The Sound of Music. But keep your sticky fingers off my chicken names. (I'm giving you an intimidating glare here-just like the one you'd get if you tried to touch my coffee. Seriously. It's scary.) You never know, Jon may become a vegetarian any day now and get over this insane idea that he wants to eat the cutest and most talented chickens EVER and realize that computers are evil and will someday take over the world. He will then chuck it all to hike the Appalachian trail with me from terminus to terminus while performing our favorite show tunes from Glee with Ticky and Tacky in order to earn money to buy gallons of ice cream. We will then consume our massive amounts of Baskin-Robbins Gold Medal Ribbon in one sitting, wrapped in our smelly sleeping bags at the laundry mat, while we watch every stitch of clothing we own tossed against the window of the industrial sized front loading dryers. Dude. I think I just wrote my Christmas list!

It's Kinda Like A Rant. But With Pomposity!

Someone told. Someone or something told Pandora that I was sitting in front of the fire last night doing nothing but reading and eating gingerbread turkeys. I think it's my iPhone. Normally I don't go around pointing fingers, but since I'm pretty sure my phone is like three times smarter than me, I think it's a pretty good guess. How do I know this? Because tonight while eating dinner with Katie and Ellie and balancing a plastic horse on my head Benjamin Gibbard mocked me with the song "You Remind Me of Home." The chorus? "You're wasting your life... You're wasting your life....You're wasting your life...You're wasting your life...." It seriously went on forever. RUDE! I don't need to be belittled by the lead singer of Death Cab For Cutie. It's not cool man. Not cool.

So, in order to prove Benjamin Gibbard wrong (because he was obviously talking about my blog), I've tossed my original post topic of "Why I Would Date Edward Cullen" for the much more relevant topic of "The Thanksgiving Boycott of X-Ray Body Scanners and Airport Security." And you all thought I was only capable of cannibal jokes, Twilight references, mocking Michael Bolton, bashing sci-fi, and throwing out prophetic Buck Roger warnings. (Not to mention butchering all grammar rules. On purpose. Obviously. Alot.)

Heh-hem. (That's me clearing my throat pompously in order to get your attention. You know, like a history professor.)

Heh-hem. (No one ever listens the first time.)

When I was pregnant with Ellie and jet setting around the country (read, I flew to Ohio) I was hoping someone would ask me to sashay my fertile self through one of those new fangled x-ray scanners. Mostly, because when I'm pregnant I walk around with a huge chip on my shoulder. But, they didn't and a little part of my inner grouch died that trip. BUT! I then read about the boycott people are calling for on the day before Thanksgiving and to them I say, "Here! Here!"

We simply can not allow our government to throw money around in an attempt to create a database of fuzzy naked photos of airline passengers. It's demoralizing. And...kinda creepy. Plus, who knows to what use those images will be put in the future. For instance, Katie walks through one and next thing you know some hacker in 2042 finds her photo and pastes it all over the internet thereby totally derailing her bid for the presidency and my chance to find all the secret passages in the White House with my grandson, Hubert in tow. Again, not cool, man. Not cool.

"But what about the Crotch Bomber?" you say. "We couldn't have caught him without the gratuitous use of cancer causing technology or a serious bun squeezing pat down."

True. But what about dogs? Bomb sniffing dogs. Crotch bomb sniffing dogs to be exact. Imagine, there you are at airport security with little Hubert.

Hubert: Mom! Can I pet the dog?

You: Why, yes, Hubert. Yes you can!

And then you just shuffle the family in their airport socks on over to meet Pickles, the nose of airport security!

It's simple. It's effective. It's fuzzy. Cute. And STILL naked! Plus, the average lifespan of a dog is, what, 12 years? Those dogs will totally be dead by the time Katie runs for Executive Office! Score!

Heh..hem.

Maybe I should stick to Twilight.

My Kids Are Smarter Than Yours*

I've been reading other blogs lately. Many of them are "Mommy Blogs" and I noticed something. Most of them dedicate at least one post a month to gushing about the wonderfulness of their children and how much they love them. Then I looked at some of my previous posts and realized, dude, I don't do that. In fact, I'm way more likely to make inappropriate cannibal jokes about eating my own children. Which Jon informed me are not funny and that I "might want to think before I type". First I was all, "Whatever..." But, it is cannibalism, so maybe I should clear this up:

People! There is one thing I DO NOT want to do. I do not want to fry my children in the worlds largest skillet and eat them while drinking copious amounts of coffee. Whew. Dodged a CPS bullet there! Wait. Are CPS jokes appropriate? Dang....This is harder than it looks!

Anyway, I decided, if those other mommy's could do it, I could too. I was sure I could write a post that shot rainbows, unicorns, red balloons on a long black string, flowers, kittens, pink elephants and the like right out of my computer. Easy peasy. But guess what? I can't. No. Really. Seriously. It was baaaad. Oookkaaayyy. Fine. Read it for yourself, but don't say I didn't warn you!

Like the colors of the rainbow, so are the children in my life. If a rainbow only came in two colors, that is. OK. That didn't make any sense. But whatever,this post isn't about science, it's about love. Motherly love. It's what brings us together today. The joy their laughter brings into my life sounds like the Dora theme song-sweet and adventurous and a little multicultural. Except no one speaks Spanish or, heck, even Hindu in our house. Although Katie is learning sign language at preschool so it's basically the same thing.

Ellie's baby talk reminds me of the shore birds that wing over the watery horizon on a Spring day and her poopy diapers smell sweeter than the dead crabs they leave on my deck.

And that's how far I got, because Ellie is highly susceptible to the power of suggestion and I was thinking out loud during that last sentence. But then Jon came home and told me all about this study that someone did where they concluded that if your child is not very physically talented in their early years it coincides with a higher IQ later on. So, basically, the smarter your child the more walls they ran into as a toddler.

Guess what? Katie totally ran into five walls today! And Ellie? She ran into two**!

Now THAT'S the kind of bragging I can really get into!

*But not YOURS, obviously. I mean theirs. (points finger in opposite direction)

** Ellie can't walk yet, so I had to help her out a little. But it will totally pay off later! Can you imagine how intelligent Katie would be now if I had started running her into walls when she was five months?! Ellie is going to be a GENIUS!

When Mommy Entertains Herself...

Sometimes I get bored. To combat the onset of Mommy boredom, I mess with my children. But just a little. Or a lot. It really depends on your parenting style. (I wanted to say sense of humor, but I didn't want to offend anyone. So I didn't.)

While walking behind Katie as she rides her tricycle through the park we shout out syllables:

Katie: Hel!

Me: Met!

Katie: Hel!

Me: Met!

(I'm helping her with reading skills people! She'll thank me one IOWA/WASL test day.)

Playing with Ellie and her teething toy while waiting in line for my coffee:

"Eat the duck! Eat the duck!" (pulling the toy out of Ellie's mouth) "We don't eat ducks!"

(Because vegetarian brain washing can never start too soon.)

As we pile into the car at church:

"Who wants to play a drinking game?"

(Water people. IT'S JUST WATER!!)

Messing with preschool minds:

Katie: Moms know everything!

Me: They do?

Katie: Yep!

Me: Do I know everything?

Katie: NOOOOO!

(Wait a minute. Did I just use my child to insult myself? Naahhh...)

Unfairly categorizing Katie while on a walk through the neighborhood:

Me: Which would you choose, Katie?

Katie: Why?

Me: Because I'll buy you a donut. If you choose wisely.

Katie: That boy. (points to Jacob)

Me: Not this one? With the cool jacket? (points to Edward)

Katie: NO! That one! (points to Jacob again and stamps her foot)

Me: Really? Not... (indicates Edward with a Vanna White hand flourish)

Katie: NO! I like the boy with the green shirt!

Me: (walking away, sadly shaking my head)

Katie, donut-less but proud new member of Team Jacob!

While helping Katie remove her little bottom from the toilet at Target:

"Oh shake, shake, shake! Shake, shake, shake!

Shake your booty! Shake your booty!"

(The song brings a little sunshine to my day.)

While encouraging Katie to eat the raisin bagel at Fred Meyer:

"WOW! Look at the raisins on this guy!"

(Huh. Maybe this is why I get so much unsolicited parenting advice from the retirees at Fred Meyer.)

And by the way? I don't want to hear any flak, people! It's not like I'm throwing my children into the world's largest frying pan in an attempt to make them into tasty kid flavored pancakes or anything!

No matter what kind of photographic evidence there is!