Bacon Juice

Here's another one that Jamie Oliver can try on for size...

I know I'm an evil man when it comes to nutrition. My personal philosophy has always been that just as many people have heart attacks while jogging as people eating big macs, why not enjoy yourself? My proclivities for "creative" menus are well documented. But this morning, I really tried. I pulled some bacon (a very rare treat) out of the fridge and cooked that up.

How big a treat is bacon? I gave them chocolate cake for breakfast...they didn't even say thank you. I put bacon in the pan and they started a parade between the kitchen and dining room while chanting, "Bacon! Bacon! Bacon!"

They like bacon.

Since I didn't have an empty can in the garbage, I poured the grease into a mug and set it on the counter while scrambling the eggs. I put cheese on the eggs, and poured the milk and the kids were in heaven.

While they ate, I sat down to work on my first post. After a while the kids came in looking for seconds and Reaggers found the grease mug.

"Hot Chocolate!" she shouted with glee.

"No, it's not", said Peff. "That's bacon juice."

"Even better!" Reaggers shouted. "Uncle Fatdaddy, can we drink the bacon juice?"

I cave in to that, and I'll have a "Reaggers Has a Heart Attack" post to go with "Dad Has Two Heart Attacks". Tempting, but no.

I quit.
Again.

Things That Are Fun To Do

Puzilla came home from school yesterday and gave me permission to tell her funny story. I think the lure of fame overcame her embarrassment of people laughing. I'm really glad because I wasn't going to break my promise but I really wanted to record this one.

We went to church on Sunday, and right after the meetings, our neighbor cornered the Boss. This neighbor is a very funny lady who loves to be a wise-cracker. Example: I have a large BYU decal on the back of my van. Her "Fatal Flaw" is that she likes the Utes.

****Editor's Note
Anyone who doesn't live around here needs to know that in Utah you are a Red Utah Ute or a Blue BYU Cougar and that's about it (I know Bircher Bunch; there are about twenty five or thirty Aggie fans, but even the Utah State guys choose sides for BYU-Utah). It is a bitter, mean spirited, ugly rivalry. Think Redsox-Yankees, but if they were forced to live in the same house. More along the lines of Celtic versus Rangers, but without the firebombs (at least so far).
****

This neighbor loves to stop by the house now and then, take the BYU magnet off the back of the van and bring it to the door. When I answer her knock, she tells me that some miserable teenage vandals have been defacing my auto with vulgar and obscene graffiti.

I told you; she's a real pip.

And as my wife so perfectly framed it, she and Puzilla are "matches and gasoline". Their goofy senses of humor are nearly identical. So on Sunday, the neighbor cornered the Boss and told her this classic.

"I was leading the music in Primary and we were singing 'Fun to Do'".

****Editor's Note
"Fun to Do" is a cute little song they sing in Primary now and then that is designed to get small children to focus their attention and have them ready to listen to that week's lesson. It's a fill in the blank song with an easy, catchy, tune. A child gets chosen to pick something they like to do and then all the kids sing, "________ is fun to do, fun to do, fun to do! _________ is fun to do, to do, to do, to do!"
Then another kid gets to pick something new and they sing it again with the new fill in the blank. They do this 4 or 5 times, and the kids will all be paying attention and sitting quietly in the hope that they'll get to pick the next thing that is fun to do. Then they can start the lesson.
****

The neighbor then tells the Boss that she was looking for someone to tell her what they like to do when Puzilla's hand shot up like a rocket. So she called on her and Puzey said "Drinking Pepto Bismol!"

****Editor's Note
Don't ask me, I'm just the Stay-at-home Dad. I have no idea where the H she came up with that one. I'm going to go with...she was raised by wolves.
****

The neighbor, being who she is, decided that this was absolutely perfect ( I warned you...Matches and Gasoline). So she led the entire primary (forty or so kids) in a rousing verse of "Drinking Pepto is fun to do, fun to do, fun to do, Drinking Pepto is fun to do, to do, to do, to do." I seriously doubt if any of them had any idea what Pepto is for, and only my little Puzey would think that drinking that chalky, peppermint goo for an upset stomach would actually be "Fun to do".

I guess that as soon as they were finished (don't ask me how the adults in there kept a straight face, there is simply no way they were not rolling on the floor), Puzey shot her hand into the air again.

Not wanting to miss any more gems, the neighbor called on her again. Puzey purportedly said...

"Um...I think I made a mistake. I said the wrong thing. It was supposed to be drinking Amoxicillin."

Apparently time (and the inability to stop laughing) did not allow for a second verse.

It's OK, sweetheart. I get you. It can be tough to keep all those delicious, pink medicines separate, can't it? It's probably for the best. "Drinking Amoxicillin is fun to do" just doesn't have the same pep (pardon the pun) as "Drinking Pepto is Fun to do".

The story is even better if you've had a chance to hear Puzey's faint, wispy voice tell it. She got a little embarrassed because she wasn't trying to be funny, but she sure as heck was.

****Editor's Note
The extra punch for this comes from the fact that my mother happens to be good friends with the nice woman who wrote "Fun to DO". How ironic. I'll bet nobody has ever hit the spirit of her message quite as well as Puzey. She's nothing if not one of a kind.

A New Haiku By Haggis

"A Scene You'll Never See in a MouseHouse Film..."

As my Prince rides up
I realize he's not right
And so I shout..."Next"!!



The kid's a regular Wordsworth, ain't she?
Just a Stanza from her Old Man's "lyrical ballad".

She had her teacher laughing like crazy over it and got it read in front of the whole class.

Jesus and the Blond Man

I have a really funny story to tell that happened yesterday, but I have sworn not to post it until Puzilla gives me permission. It is highly entertaining, but when the Boss told me the story, the first words out of Puzilla's mouth were, "Dad, please don't post this on your blog!"

So I told her that I wouldn't, but since it is so hilarious and classic Puzilla/funny, I asked her to think about it and tell me when I can post it. In the mean time, I'll entertain you with a couple of similar moments from Destroying Angel Lore that are common knowledge in the family, but have yet to be recorded in Blog post form.

A few years ago, when Moe was 3 or 4, she had a series of terrific stories when she would come home from Primary (for the uninitiated, Primary is Mormon Sunday School for small children). Some we heard from her directly and others came from her teachers. Of those that came from the teachers, our favorite is this:

Primary teacher: "Your daughter Moe said something very funny today. We were talking about happy families and what they do for fun. I said that parents often go on dates together to have fun. Moe raised her hand and said 'My parents don't date, they hate each other.'"

Me: "Wow".

Boss: "Where'd she come up with that one?"

Teacher: "But you guys seem so...(Laugh)...happy...(snicker-giggle-chuckle)".



And from those that Moe told us herself we have:

"Ramona and the Paper Plates"

Me: "What did you learn today, Moe?"

Moe: "We learned about Ramona and the paper plates."

Me (Growing curious): "What's that one about?"

Moe: "There was this guy Ramona who burried some paper plates in the ground."

What she meant:
She was trying to retell the story of how the last Prophet to write on the Golden Plates (that would later be translated into the Book of Mormon)took the record that his father Mormon had abridged, and buried it for safe keeping. The Prophet's name was Moroni, not Ramona, and the plates were gold, not paper.


And lastly (for now) and my personal favorite (for obvious reasons)...

Boss: "So what did you learn about in Primary today, Moe?"

Moe: "There was this guy in the bible, and he was blond, and he went to Jesus and Jesus spit into the dirt and made some mud and rubbed it on the blond man's eyes, and then the Blond man could see and he was happy."

Me: "Are you sure it wasn't Jesus and the blind man?"

Moe: "No, Daddy. He was blond. But he couldn't see."

Me(thinking that it's time to start writing this stuff down). "Gotcha."

Babysitter Bank Robbers.

I'm glad it's raining outside today. It discourages pedestrian traffic past my house. And that's probably for the best this morning. Someone out for an early morning spring stroll might misunderstand the voices floating out of my windows and call the cops. What I mean is, what would you do if you were walking around and heard someone yell...

"Sit down and shut up! The next person to talk is going to get hurt! Nobody moves or else!"

Yeah, that's what I was thinking too.

The girls are off school today. The Boss and Beak both had to work. Beak dropped Reaggers and Bub off at the usual time and I told her, "I'm turning them over to Haggis and Moe and going back to bed."

Twenty minutes later, I hear the beginnings of a strong arm robbery going on upstairs. Moe has a ridiculously awesome tone of command (where the H-fire did she get that from?) and a natural ability to get kids her age and younger to do what she wants. And Haggis is taking drama at school, so her work with voice projection seems to be paying off.

Now don't worry if you've hired Haggis to babysit your children in the past, she wasn't really threatening anyone with death (this time, haha). They were playing a game. The little kids were laughing their butts off and having a grand time trying to sneak off the couch when one of the girls would look away from them. It was pretty funny; I just wouldn't have wanted someone to overhear and get the wrong idea. I'm sure that none of the neighbors have ever heard screams from our house before and would have been shocked at the blood-curdlers issuing from it this morning.

****Editors Note
Have I told the story how after the BYU Oklahoma football game last year I went out on to the porch to let out a war whoop and scared the crap out of my neighbor who was sitting on her porch swing enjoying a late summer evening? I was pretty hyped up and used my very best "Coach voice" and caused her to jump about fifteen feet in the air. You can still see the scratches on the raingutter from her fingernails. I laugh every time I think about it.
****

My family is a lot of things. Quiet ain't one of 'em. And I like it that way.

Did You Live Under Power Lines as a Kid?

Here's an emergency post from the "Wow-I-never-thought-I'd-have-to-say-that-to-one-of-my-kids" department.

Just got home from the grocery store. While at Wal-mart, we had done a little pipe-dreaming in the paint section on the off chance that we can do a little improvement in the upstairs bathroom. We looked at a few different colors and then went about our grocery shopping. Squizzle felt that he had been pushed about as far as he was willing to go and by the time we got him through the line and out to the van, he was, as my father likes to say, "a bear with a sore butt".

Excedrin headache number twelve was blooming at the base of my shriveled brain stem and this bear was feeling a little chapped himself. The boss buckled him in and in an effort to keep him from splitting my skull, handed him some spare papers from her pocket. The boy got quiet and by the time we got home, he was silent.

We pulled into the drive, got out of the car and started to bring in the groceries. I was just opening the tailgate when I hear Haggis say "Squizzles, why are you eating paint chips?"

It seems one of the papers the Boss gave him to keep him quiet was one of the sample paint cards. The boy felt that it was pretty good eatin'.

All I can do is shake my head. As if the boy didn't have enough challenges in the brain department with me as his old man.

Chew away, Squizzle. Just stay out from under those powerlines.

A Discussion With Puzilla

Just had the BEST conversation with one of my kids in about a week. I was downstairs cleaning the bathroom (see today's post for the how's and why's of that) when Puzilla comes down.

"Dad, can I say the H word?"

Now I am a do as I say kind of Dad not the say as I say kind. My own word selection is oft discussed ("disCUSSED". Ha Ha Ha, that's pretty good word usage!) but I don't let my kids swear.

Yes, that makes me a hypocrite.

Anyway, if my shy little waif of a thirty-pound-soaking-wet-in-all-her-clothes daughter thinks she has a compelling reason to cuss and is willing to ask my permission, I am willing to listen to her.

"Why, pray tell, would you need to say the H word?" I asked her.

"Because Haggis (my brothers nickname for the Eldest) and Moe are supposed to be helping me clean the living room and they won't listen to me. So I want to tell them to get the "h" on the stick. If they hear me swear, they'll pay better attention."

Having subscribed to this theory myself on a plentitude of occasions, I was forced to agree that she was probably right. And frankly there is a large part of me that would be highly amused to see the improbable sight of meek and tiny Puzilla cussing at anyone.

But fortunately it is not as large as the part of me that knows I shouldn't be cussing myself, let alone granting permission for my kids to do it.

So I told her that I was sorry, but she could not.

After all, I wouldn't want us to both wind up in the H word when we die!

Reaggers Gets a Good One

It's been a while since one of the kids had something funny to say, but Reaggers broke the slump this morning.

It was about 11:30 and even after eating donuts all morning, the locust horde was hungry.

"Make some sandwiches,please."
"What's for lunch?"
"When do we get to eat?"

Ah the default protocol of the four year old. "Let's eat"

So I got up and turned on the sandwich press to make grilled cheese. On a side note, as much as I love the biographies of Joyce and Wilde that I got for Christmas, the sandwich press and Paula Dean Cookbook for kids are far and away the most useful presents ever!

I grabbed the bread from the pantry and cheese from the fridge. Then I noticed that the garbage can was doing its best impersonation of an avalanche so I stopped to take it out while I waited for the press to heat up.

Reagers comes in and says to me, "I thought you were making sandwiches."

"Yep, but I'm going to take the trash out first."

"That's not making sandwiches" she said with her angry face starting to show.

I put on my best Buddhist monk voice and said to her, "Patience; Grass-a-hoppa".

She was not amused.

"I'm not a grasshopper, Uncle Fatdaddy."

"That's OK", I said laughing. "You're not very patient either."

The kid is very composed. She didn't blink.

"Just make the sandwiches, Please."

What could I do? I made the sandwiches. You have to love a kid that knows what she wants.

And now I gotta go take out the trash. It's good to be me.

The Fearsome Lizard

Every so often I envy the imagination of these kids. The other day when Motor was over, they were playing with the little plastic sword that Peff had gotten at FatCats. Motor had a plastic toy bucket on his head for a helmet and he was giving instructions to the other kids.

"Peff, you are the King. You sit over there. Reaggers, you are the Queen and Bub is a prince. I am a knight. And Squizzos is a fi-o bweathing dwagon!"

Right on cue, Squizzle the fire breathing dragon stood up in the baby jail and hollered, "Bwa, blah, da, ma!", which I can only assume is dragon for "Step forward, Sir Knight and we shall strive by blade and claw to determine the supremacy of power and fortitude."

Or it might have meant, "Dude, I could really use a bottle and a clean bum."

I'm gonna go with the first one.

Another New Type of Post

I keep getting ideas for new categories of posts. Thinking about Peff's classic "Don't call people names, you Nerd!" made me think of all the other ridiculous things that I have heard/said to my children over the years.


Everyday I hear a new one. Today Peff fired off this keeper:

Peff: "Guess what, guys? I had an awesomest dream!"
Reaggers: "What was it?"
Peff: "I don't want to talk about it."



Some of my other all time favorites:

Primary Teacher: "Do Moms and Dads love each other?"
Five year old Moe: "No. My parents hate each other."

or:

Four year old Moe: "Today we learned about Jesus and the Blonde man."
Fatdaddy: "Are you sure it wasn't the blind man?"
Moe: "No! He was blonde! But he couldn't see."


Fatdaddy: "How many times do I have to ask you not to drink the bath water?"



If you have a moment, share your best "out of the mouths of babes" stories in the comments and we'll gather them up and post them into a new category.

I think I'm going to call it Speaking the Angels Tongue.