Watching Old Sitcoms With Our Kids

Watching “old” sitcoms with our kids.

Do you remember Doogie Howser, MD doing things like an “emergency” pelvic exam…ON HIS GIRLFRIEND?  Well, he does.

Our three boys love watching Doogie Howser, MD with all its nerdy, dated glory and friend Vinny makes them belly laugh.  We didn’t remember the show dealing with such “racy” topics that have required some previewing by us before letting our little guys watch.   If you could have seen my husband and I running for the remote when Vinny was showing off the condom in his wallet he was planning on using that night.

Doogie and Vinny, as played by our 12 year-old IDENTICAL twins, were last Halloween’s hit, (only with adults over 35 who knew who they were.)  It took an entire can of black hairspray to turn Avery into Vinny.

This picture shows how much they look like normally…

“Who wants to watch Little House on the Prairie with me tonight?”

Peter, “Why would anyone NOT want to watch Little House on the Prairie!”

I’m thinking Peter would make an awesome Laura Ingalls next Halloween. You have no idea how happy it makes me to watch Little House. 

Peter wearing my scarf and offering me a poison apple.  Wrong show but you see what I mean with thinking he could rock Laura Ingalls this fall. 

I always find it hilarious when the kids don’t connect that the actors are not REALLY the characters they portray.

We rented Smurfs to watch with our boys.  Peter, then seven, announced when he saw Neil Patrick Harris, “DOOGIE IS IN THIS MOVIE!  THERE IS DOOGIE HOWSER!”

Avery, who is twelve, looked at his younger brother with a very annoyed and sophisticated look said to Peter, “That is NOT Doogie.  I read this book and Doogie is not in the story at all.”

I don’t know if I should be worried about them all but I did what came natural.

I laughed at them all and told them they are all a bunch of DING-A-LINGS!  

I explained, for the thousandth time that these are all actors and that was indeed Doogie but playing the part of another person in a different movie because he is an ACTOR!

Good Lord.  I know one day they will be adults and watch “Harold and Kumar go to White Castle” and I would LOVE to be a fly on the wall when they see all the things “Doogie” does in that movie.

It may wreck my boys forever.

Do your kids watch any “old” TV shows?  You have to love the DVR.  It may turn my kids into super geeks, but I am ok with that.

Thanks for letting me share,

-Abbie, All that makes you smile, laugh, think, love, cry or cry laughing.  allthatmakesyou.com

P.S.  ALF terrified them!  Bahahaha!

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• Want to feel old? Doogie Howser — OK, Neil Patrick Harris — turns 39 today (todayentertainment.today.msnbc.msn.com)
• Happy Birthday, Neil Patrick Harris! (wired.com)

The Trouble With Trends

I will only let our son wear “this” at home and when no one else is around.

The trouble with trends is they come back.  They are cyclical.  A swing of a pendulum and we go from neons to pastels and from pointy high heels to round toe ballet shoes.

Or a trend can come back because an eight year-old boys saw a picture of a guy with a ponytail and he thought he looked tough.

Peter brought this tassel he found in a drawer and asked me to stick it to his head with one of my “things.”  When I asked him what he meant he held it to the nape of his neck and said,

“Here, like the way some boys have.”

I deserve this after I put my hair “feathers” onto unsuspecting people at a concert, (and then took a picture.)

Are there “good taste” camps that I can send my boys off to?

I think a camp that teaches our kids good taste such as…

– Watching Sponge Bob will ruin any future ability you may have to create anything of beauty.

– Listening to Niki Minage may possibly cause your ears to not be able to distinguish between a cat dying, a jack hammer, or actual singing.

– Crazy hair will only cause you to have 5 years of your life being unable to prove due to picture frames spontaneously combusting upon having to hold that ugly a$$ photo of you from 1989.

– “That song” you think will define your summer and generation will actually be just another summer song that the record producers release with planned calculations and you were simply putty in the radio stations hands.

– That you shouldn’t take any new trend too far or invest in it too heavily, (ehhhem…tattoos) because most things go terribly out of style the stronger that they were in style.

I guess I will just let my boys be who they are and try silly things when they are kids, even if it is wearing curtain trim in your hair.

I shaved the left side of my head in seventh grade.  I looked like Richard Simmons after being hazed at a fraternity house.

I try my best to teach our boys to be who they are and march to their own drum.

I have been repeating this quote a lot lately with twin twelve year-olds…

“Be Who You Are and Say What You Feel Because 
Those Who Mind Don’t Matter 
and Those Who Matter Don’t Mind.”
– Dr. Seuss

So here I am housebound until my child who thinks he is Antonio Banderas moves onto something else he thinks makes him cool.  😉

Thanks for letting me share with you and I hope I made you smile, laugh, think, love, cry or cry laughing.

-Abbie, allthatmakesyou.com

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My Boys Put Me on a Dating Website? I’m Married!

Hmmmm…I see a bunch of Match.com emails.

I dismiss thinking it is spam.

Then I see I have people liking me.

Shut the front door!  Seriously?

Do I open and risk it being a virus or do I risk finding out I am SOMEHOW on Match.com?

I open.

They are welcoming me and show me the 18 WOMEN THAT ARE INTERESTED IN ME! I am a MAN who is interested in 18-27 year olds???

My zip code is listed and these are LOCAL WOMEN!!!

Oh…my…word!!!!

These kids must have used my computer and created an account by clicking a Match.com ad?!!!!

Find girls? Why sure if I am a little boy! I will click you and log onto your website via my mom’s accounts because she doesn’t have passwords on HER computer.

I do now AND what bothers me most?

They don’t know my birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!

You may also enjoy this story…

Said from a mexican restaurant men’s bathroom, “What did we ever do to you mom?!”

–Abbie and I love sharing with you, “All that makes you smile, laugh, think, love, cry or cry laughing.”   allthatmakesyou.com

Moment You Realize You Have Done Too Much For Your Kids…

One of the downfalls of trying to be good parent is perhaps you have helped them TOO MUCH.

One of the older boys was voicing great frustration while replacing his shoes laces after I washed them.  When I told him to just try again, (I have shown him how to do it right) his reply was, “I have tried it three times!”

I cannot help but laugh.  I could make a tiered red velvet cake at his age, alone.  I remember my mom handing me the keys to her Mazda when I was eleven and her saying, “Go get some bread and milk.” And I did.  Doesn’t mean that it was right, but I could do it.  He genuinely could not get his shoes laced up.  He was mad and he was mad at me for not doing it for him.

Here I am at a much younger age than my son and I guarantee you I laced all of those shoes.  I mean if I was going to go to school with THREE PAIRS OF SHOES, I had to know how to lace them.  Why did I need THREE pairs of shoes for one day of first grade?

So am I a good mom or am I the dreaded, “helicopter parent?”

I show him, again, how to start the laces.

Has anyone else found boys around twelve to be completely exhausting?  I try so hard to make them try and use their brains and figure things out and to learn to look for what they feel inside is the right thing to do.  They are such a funny mix of little boys and big kid.  They seem to have no common sense.  Is it me or does it seem like we had more commons sense when we were our kids age?  

For instance at Christmas they were mad we wouldn’t get them an iPhone, (what planet are they on and if they are telling the truth what planet are ALL of their friends parents on?)  When we explained why and data fees and that twelve year-old kids don’t need one their reaction was, “Fine, then I will ask Santa for one!”

Let me know how that turns out.

Is it because so many things are easier and simple to do that our kids are lacking the daily drive to “make something work?”  What do you think?

– Abbie allthatmakesyou.com

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Teenagers? I just want to survive two, twelve year-olds.

We watched “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” with our boys last night.  Honestly,  the thought of watching it didn’t appeal to me as I don’t like sad movies.  We are going through some growing pains with our twin twelve year-olds and we thought it might be a good idea to make them realize WE MIGHT DIE AND YOU SHOULDN’T BE SO STINKING MOUTHY TO YOUR PARENTS!  Messed up, isn’t it?

People kept telling us how lucky we were to have all boys.  It was going to make the teenage years so much easier from a parenting perspective.  They said things like, “Boys are a handful when they are toddlers but the teenage years will be so much easier.”  No one said anything about what two, twelve year-olds might be like.  I can tell you what I have observed in our home.

If you are ALMOST a teenage boy in our house…

– You are getting man parts but you still have to pinch the end “of it” to talk like you have done since your diaper came off.

– No one else’s feelings matter if you don’t get what you want.  This includes your little brother who has caused all of the worlds injustices because he cannot reach the upper kitchen cabinets to help unload the dishwasher.

– You don’t know how to make jokes and the results are horrible, awkward moments for your mom when you tease a friend that you think they are checking out your mom or you think it’s funny to tell visiting family members about the time your mom had to bring you underwear to school because you “tooted” and you “released a hostage.”

– Your voice is getting as loud as a mans but you are still yelling at the frequency of a little kid.

– The entire world revolves you and your desires.  This means no one should ever have to clean up after themselves and your mom should be waiting by the stove with her oven mitt in one hand and a skillet in the other.

– You openly discuss what you have learned in health class and want to talk to your mom about sperm and “wet dreams” because you still tell your mom everything.  You scream at her things like, “I just want to know if this “SPERM” with the “FISH” that is going to shoot out of my pee-pee is a liquid or a solid?!”

– You get mad at your mom if she laughs or thinks anything is funny, (including the massive concern over the diameter of sperm.)

– Your parents are morons and you mumble under your breath that everyone is an “idiot” which doesn’t matter because your mom is one too and she wont notice.

– You have amnesia that you just got in trouble for calling people an “idiot” and act like you didn’t know your not supposed to.

– You scream that your parents are not letting you make your own decisions and you still sleep with an arsenal of stuffed animals.

I cannot wait until fall when our twins turn thirteen.  I hear it gets much easier.

Abbie, allthatmakesyou.com

Don’t mess with the Mama or her son who inherited Mama’s sense of humor…CRAP!

This morning we had a particularly hard time. Big boys were wild. It was like a fraternity party. Running around, snapping each other with rubber bands and laugh/screaming in the car on the way to school. My regular requests to “tone it down” and quit yelling in small spaces was met with smart comments, eye rolling and then belly laughs at comments that weren’t meant for me to hear. I decided I would give them a taste of their own medicine.

Remember, I am not even allowed to say goodbye when they get out at the drop off line at school.

As soon as that door opened up under the school awning, and in front of the middle school students, I began yelling in a crazy muppet voice, “Bye, bye, bye, BYE!!!! Buuuuyyyyieeee!…”

Only one of the twins were out of the suburban and the other was half way out. The one that was out pivoted and face dove over his brother that was in process of exiting the suburban. I had a giant “twin meatball” rolled up and they somehow managed to shut the door.

Then the frantic, “What are you doing?! Are you crazy?!”
I’m holding up the whole line and kids are looking at me in my pjs in the drivers seat. I was invisible every day before when I never talked. No one ever noticed that I was in pajamas and was wearing yesterdays makeup.
I calmly say, “That is how you guys act. You never listen to me when I ask you to dial it down. Now get out and go to school. What I did was funny and every kid knows what it’s like having a parent. Now get out and have a good day.”

They open the door and this time I made sure they shut the door and I locked it while simultaneously rolling down all the windows. I yell, (again) “Bye-BYE! Bye!!!!!!!!! Bye!” They never listen to me the first time I tell them something either. They are run-walking down that sidewalk towards the school.

Flash forward to my awesome afternoon. I have spent the day getting a much needed root canal that was leading me towards a life in prison due to my very short temper and lack of patience with three boys. The kids are home and I am sharing the front porch with Mitchell.

He says, “You know that crap you pulled on Avery and I at school today?”

I say, (with a very coy smile) “Yes. Do you get my point?”

He says, “Yeah, you were right my friends did think it was funny…when I told them you drink ALCOHOL the whole way to school in the morning.”
Never mind root canal relief…I’m sure I will get a shortened sentence due to first offense.

I may be on the “No Chaperone” list after this field trip.

This is the ridiculous story of how I may be banned forever from chaperoning any field trip at school again. It is the story of how when faced with someone’s probable MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT OF THEIIR LIFE I am standing with someone else’s son trying to determine whether to tuck her boobies back in or RUN...

This little corner of the Renaissance festival looked like an Ewok village from Star Wars. There were old-fashioned street vendor carts selling things scattered around. Some were open like the one in the above picture and some were closed like an old-fashioned wagon. This one in particular looked like the fortune-teller’s wagon in the Wizard of Oz. It had a little metal side porch for the person inside to get in and out. It had been raining fiercely and it was letting up. There was a woman who sold perfume in the porched wagon and had peeked her head out the window to see if it was safe to come outside. She then decided to step out onto the metal stoop of the wagon and held her hands to the sky, palms up to determine whether to venture out further.

Renaissance festivals are bawdy by nature and the costumes are made for every size and shape. It is a very “one size fits all” costume assortment. This woman was dressed like a peasant in a long brown dress with a large elastic boat neck and elastic waist. This woman was on the larger end, (I have to say it now so you understand later) she was at the largest end of the peasant dress spectrum. While this boy and I were bee lining it to the porta-potties we were also walking directly towards the bottom of the wagon stoop steps as the peasant lady decides to venture off the wagon and takes one step down and the back of her dress catches on the metal stoop.

The back of her dress catches but she continues the downward momentum but her center of gravity shifts and she is now going face down, feet up SPLAT into a mud puddle…but her dress stayed on the top of the porch. Well, most of it did. The neck was around her ankles. and she was face down in soppy, soft mud.

Do none of the people who work these festivals believe in bras? Is this the hidden underworld of the traveling renaissance people? Is the “Renaissance World” not about history but about women who don’t believe in wearing undergarments?!

I am standing there. This woman is laying there with one boobie off to the side and pointing straight at us and the other boobie is pointing down towards her feet and she lifts her head and spits out the mouthful of mud, (with the same shocked expression and manerism as if socked by a pie in the face) and I just realized this boy I am chaperoning is going home and telling his mom and dad that. “Mrs. ______ and I were alone at the field trip and we saw a naked woman.”

I am frozen. The boy is frozen. We are both frozen with eyebrows raised and eyeballs hanging out. Do I reach down and tuck her boobie that is closest to us under her? Or the other boobie that is further away? Do I lift her up and let her boobies hang where they are supposed to be for all to see? Her head is at our feet and she is looking at me.

I then realize this boy is now going home and telling his parents, “Mrs. ______ and I were alone at the field trip and we saw a naked woman and Mrs. _____ touched her boobies.“ I turn my head and look at this boy just as strangers began throwing their rain coats on the poor woman. Thank God. He and I walked briskly forward to the bathrooms not saying a word.

I failed. I am the girl who if there is a possibility to get a curling iron stuck in your hair it will stick in mine. Like stick “Lucille Ball style” on the top to your scalp and you don’t have to hold it because it is holding onto the roots and is perky like a cartoon curling iron.

Like a cartoon curling iron hidden under a towel turban until you unveil it to the hairdresser for help. Like so embarrassing you have to send flowers to the salon the next day as bribery hoping they forget your name.

Here is a naked peasant woman with boobies trying to run away from each other and I froze. Perhaps when I have to answer for this God will understand. Perhaps there is a “pass” for “curling iron girl” or “exploding egg girl”. For now I will have a moment of silence for “Peasant Woman” and say a thank you for the people who did come to her aid. I bet they never had rotten eggs explode on them and get stripped naked and hosed off in the front yard. I bet they never had to bribe a hair salon.

https://allthatmakesyou.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/exploding-eggs-and-nakedness/

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First half of this story from the day before

Chaperoning boys school field trip and the unthinkable… (allthatmakesyou.wordpress.com)

The exploding egg story

Exploding Eggs and Nakedness…Typical Sunday with Family

https://allthatmakesyou.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/exploding-eggs-and-nakedness/

Chaperoning boys school field trip and the unthinkable…

Stay with this story until the very end. I don’t even know how it is possible that it is true, but it is. I could not have ever dreamt that a moment this embarrassing wouldn’t happen to me but instead happen in front of me to witness. It was my chance to show the world how to help or assist someone in that instance that they realize that everyone is looking at you, your face is hot and your ears are ringing and it will be a while before you can laugh about it. It takes exactly two seconds for a spectator to laugh I learned, even if on the inside.

It was last fall and I had volunteered to chaperone my twins sixth grade field trip. This was a big day for them as well as me. It was also their twelfth birthday and probably the last time they would actually want me to go on a field trip with them. Their school makes you jump through a ton of hoops to get “permission” to drive yourself, (not drive the kids or ride on the bus with the kids) to a public venue and spend the day with YOUR children. I had to have a background check. Well, the background check, I am assuming, is required if your going to walk around with your children and someone else’s children. Don’t get me started and yes I know that better safe than sorry but by the time I am done “getting permission” to spend the day with my kids I might be homicidal. After what one little boy saw while with me they may revoke my privileges…

It is a windy, cold and rainy fall day in the woods at a…renaissance festival. Let me try to paint a picture…

Like Woodstock Wet

The entire sixth grade gets off the buses and I am assigned my two boys and a handful of other boys to keep track of. This festival is in the most beautiful woodsy setting. The walking paths carve through the trees and there are little clearings with vendors in carts, rides and food. If it weren’t a giant mud-ball it would have been a perfect birthday, day with my boys.

I had been well versed the night before on how to “act cool”. I already decided the day would be filled with, “SURE! I will buy that for you, it is your birthday!” I would bump my boy’s status up a notch so that when I was in the drop off/pick up line at school my boys classmates would walk down the sidewalk and give me the sideways deuce with their fingers and a head nod to say, “wassup.” My boys would stop asking me to, “not talk when the car door opens.”

This is how the day really went.

We were wet and cold and muddy. I was in charge of holding everything that each boy bought. If anything that belonged to any of them became saturated with water I was also in charge of carrying that as well. I was to stand outside of all temporary mens bathrooms and wait while a half-dozen little boys continually peed out the sugar products they consumed non stop but not ever at the same time.

This is how it began…

While walking through one of the little clearing the boys stopped to do this…

We actually picked one up for Peter for Christmas. He had been asking for a “horn blower” for years.

While they were all doing this (swapping spit on animal parts) one of my brood announced he had to relieve himself. I turned and said to all of the other boys, “The bathroom is right over there. You all stay right here and you can watch me walk him over and we will be right back.” This is another one of my “I know God has a sense of humor” because of all the kids that this had to happen to he may be the one it would shock the most. He is the kid who is a little extra awkward for an already awkward age of twelve. He’s the one who shuffles when he walks and likes to fake seizures to get out of gym class I’m told. My boys have known him for years and he’s a sweet boy who will grow into who he is supposed to be…if this day with me didn’t ruin him forever.

Part 1 of 2
Follow me 🙂
Here is the second half…

https://allthatmakesyou.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/i-may-be-on-the-no-chaperone-list-after-this-field-trip/

Let me know what you think. I am enjoying my first blog. Trying to give people a place to go and read a funny story for a smile or laugh. Follow me with the button above and visit daily after you have read the news on your mobile while waiting for an appointment or the court to empty. Want to give people a place that they can relate to because we are all part of some kind of family All that makes you smile, laugh, love, think, cry and cry laughing.

Thanks for coming by. Its so sweet. I am already loving the WordPress community. Just trying to figure out where I fit in, if at all. Suggestions welcomed.

“The Place Between Where The Babies Exit Out” -Said From A Highly Intelligent Mom

Mitchell, “You know mom we start health this week.”

Both boys looking back and forth at each other like I don’t know what they learn in health.

Avery, “We need a new binder for notes”

Mitchell, “Yeah, the teacher said were taking a LOT of notes.”

Avery, “Notes about SEX. Everyday, talking about sex, sex, sex, sex.“

Mitchell, “Yeah we need a BIG binder.”

They are smiling so big that they are getting to say the word and that they are making me uncomfortable I just kept cooking dinner so as to not give them any satisfaction.

About a week later…

I’m busy cooking, again. Avery and Mitchell are in the living room whispering and giggling.

Finally, Avery announces, “Hey Mom! (all three giggle) Hey Mom! Do you know what a Fall-la-va-gees is?”

I already know what their working on trying to say even though they are acting, (again) like they are smarter than me.

So I say, “No.” and keep chopping up vegetables.

They continue whispering and giggling and then Mitchell says, “No… not that. It’s called a VEE-C-chay. Do you know what that is?”

Avery is beside himself laughing.

I am not helping them with this one!

I have been avoiding teaching them THIS WORD with the same tenacity I had in avoiding teaching them to open the fridge when they were toddlers and with the same rabid avoidance when everyone else was giving their kids the family internet password so their kids could surf the net. I managed to explain the birds and the bees without teaching a house full of boys THIS WORD.

It is now out of my control as apparently the big boys have learned the proper term for what we WERE calling “the place BETWEEN where babies exit out”.

I have one more day until they hear the word again from their new health class at school. I have one more day until I hear them squabbling and calling each other the “V” word and giggling…BUT FOR TODAY I say, “No. I have NO idea what you are trying to say.” I then exit the room and join JR in another and we whisper and giggle.

Do you think WordPress would actually “Freshly Pressed” a post about the benefits of NOT teaching your child the anatomically correct names for body parts? I guess only if the person doing the choosing was the mother of multiple boys.

Said from a mexican restaurant men’s bathroom, “What did we ever do to you mom?!”

 I am amazed at how primal it is for little boys to be distracted by a pretty girl.  JR was working and I was left with the three boys and Peter’s little buddy.  It seemed like a perfect night out for mexican food with four little boys and me.

The entire time all the boys are enamored with two teenage blond girls two tables away. We are talking giggling, whispering, red faces and a “This is the best lunch ever…we get to look at them while we eat!”  

They all get up to use the restroom and when they walk back to the table, I have the two girls sitting in our booth!  Bahahahaha!  Mortified, Avery and Mitchell run back to the bathroom.  Peter and his little buddy leap into the booth next to me and bury their faces in the seat while making embarrassed chuckles and squirm.  Avery and Mitchell keep calling me from the bathroom asking what they did to her to deserve this. When they finally come back, the girls have returned to their own table and Avery asks, “So did you ask them how old they are?” I answer, “18” and Avery (12 years old) with huge disappointed sigh says, “Crap, I was hoping they were like 14.”

Before you think I scarred them for life, they really did find it very funny.  They are pretty shy boys and the girls very sweet and it was fun for them, (mostly me).