This morning, we played one of the myriad pranks on our children that play out year round until they will eventually figure us out.  For St. Patrick’s Day, we set some Leprechaun traps (see last year’s elaborate Leprechaun Trap) and of course, they failed.  This morning, the kids came downstairs to find all kinds of toys, lamps and stools on top of tables and counters.  Powdered sugar was everywhere and those little buggers turned our milk green!  Those mischievous leprechauns got us again!

I started to take inventory of the various fictional characters we employ, partially for our childrens’ benefit, but primarily for sheer entertainment value.  There’s the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, Buggy Monsters and Halloween Spooks. What’s really intriguing is the questions our 5 year old asks us.  He’s very analytical and asks questions like how the tooth fairy gets in his room with windows closed and how the Leprechaun climbs up onto tabletops when he’s so little.  Yet he never figures out that it’s a big joke.  I wonder if some older kid in school will ruin it and tell him there’s no Santa, there’s no Leprechaun and the Tooth Fairy’s a hoax.  I wonder if when he figures out one, it will snap and he’ll realize they’re all fictional characters.

I don’t remember how I found out.  Do you?

How Have Your Children Reacted to Finding out?

Since I’ve been horribly deficient in keeping up with my blogging here, I figure by enacting a weekly segment, that will force me to share my funny kid quotes and other ridiculous behaviors that I’m sure all you parents out there can relate to.  I’m going to start sharing “Why I Love My Kids Wednesdays” and hope you’ll contribute some of your entertaining stories as well in the comments section.  And of course, just contact me if you’re looking to guest post.

2 Year Old Funnies:

Our 2 Year Old has a tendency to get into our things and well, manipulate them to an undesirable state.  The other morning, I was totally grossed out when I got out of the shower and stuck a Q-Tip in my ear only to feel a slimy substance going into my ear canal.  I looked in the jar and saw another Q-Tip – totally yellow.  Apparently, he likes to go into our Q-Tip jar during the day, clean his ears, and put them back in as special presents for mom and dad.  My wife swears she cleans his ears all the time and he just generates tons of wax and apparently this is a routine occurrence.  She said she usually catches them first and can’t get him to stop…or at least throw them in the trash.  For that, I love my 2 Year Old.

5 Year Old Funnies:

Our recently turn 5 Year Old is doing a great job with some speech issues, so we go out of our way not to laugh at him with anything related to his language, even if it has nothing to do with his actual delivery from a speech standpoint.  Anyway, there are a few words he says which just crack us up, which we do in private.

He’s been obsessed with caterpillars lately.  Last year, it was cicada shells, now it’s caterpillars.  Anyway, he knows what happens when they go into their metamorphosis.

The thing is, he blurted out that his caterpillars are going to make a RACOON and turn into a butterfly.

The other recent funny came when we were at a large garden place and he wanted to know what sort of plant we were looking at.

My wife replied, “Hibiscus”.  He said, “HOT BISCUITS!”.

We couldn’t help ourselves and burst out laughing.  You’ve gotta love this age when they say stuff like this.

Until next edition…

Recent funnies include:

Funny Kid Quotes #1 – Classical Music Gaffes

Flushing Toys Down the Toilet – Punishment Time

Help – I’m Enrolling our Child in Enrolling in SAA

To Catch a Leprechaun: St. Patty’s Day Trickery

Is it something I said?

1. Yawn and tell her how tired you are - This is a classic statement that’s liable to send her into a complete frenzy – hide all objects, sharp and blunt alike, and run for cover.  What, like getting up 3 times a night while I sleep like a baby causes resentment?
2. Sleep in while she’s up with the other kids at 7am – Oh boy, when this happened, I had to live down evil stares, snarls and overt insults the rest of the day.  It sure did feel good sleeping late that day, but I paid the price.  I thought about asking her if she cared if I took a nap, (haha), but I knew she was in no mood for light humor.
3. Call a new mom at 7 in the morning for some insipid conversation on the one morning the baby’s asleep at that time and upon the obvious displeasure on the other end of the line, say, “Oh, I figured you were up already with the baby!”  While my wife’s not a spiteful person and quickly forgets such gaffes, I thought it would be fitting to pick up the phone at 1AM, 3AM, then again at 5AM to call back looking to discuss last night’s American Idol and say, “Oh, I was up with the baby, so I figured I’d give you a ring!  You know, like when you called me at 7AM the other morning?”
4. When she asks you to do a diaper, say, “Can’t you get this one? I don’t really know what I’m doing yet”.  I used this excuse once and caught hell. I’m used to boys.  We have two of them.  When the girl came a few weeks ago, I’d been using the excuse that I didn’t know what I’m doing, how stuff works down there, etc.  Well, the grace period’s over and I’m now well-versed on wiping front to back as well; it’s not rocket science.  I can “feel her pain”.  Just once in a while, it’s nice to not have to do a diaper.
5. Ask why she didn’t get an errand done during the day - or why dinner’s not ready.  This is one that’s liable to result in a trip to the ER.  With getting this one to school, that one to speech lessons, nursing 8 times a day and getting the dog to the vet, what they heck, getting my clothes to the dry-cleaner shouldn’t have been a big deal, right?  Well, OK, I shouldn’t have even asked.

So, let’s hear it Moms and Dads

What are some of your favorite stories of anger in the new mom phase?

Since our kids are young and gullible, we try to seize the moment and do something silly each holiday.  Perhaps you’ll find some of these to be fun ideas to do with your kid…or you can shake your head at our family.  While Christmas is the proverbial Santa Claus and reindeer banging the heck out of the bells in the attic each year, St. Patty’s Day is all about leprechauns of course.  So, we decided we’d try and catch was a leprechaun during the course of the night and see if he’d leave us some gold.  This required a rather elaborate arrangement of course, because our 4-year old kept questioning how the trap would hold him, how much he weighed, how tall he was, etc.  After making it through the interrogation, we finally arrived at a suitable trap for the leprechaun.

Leprechaun Logic:

• First of all, it’s well-known that leprechauns are mischievous.  Therefore, we had to have something around that they’d want to make a mess out of – that’s the bait.
• I devised a trap using my kids’ toy tent and some yarn.
• I used the upstairs banister as the pulley to pull the tent up and trap the leprechaun should he be foolish enough to step into the tent.
• As bait, since we know they’re mischievous, we used a bag of foam blocks that any respectful leprechaun would want to knock down at first glance.
• Now, the trap is set.  And he bought it! We’ll see what happens tonight.

Here’s a visual demonstration:

In the morning, we intend on leaving a pile of gold coin chocolate candies in the trap.  The news will be bittersweet.  On one hand, it’s the leprechaun that got away.  On the other hand, he had to depart without his valued pot of gold!

I know, this is totally corny if you don’t have a kid at an age that will believe this stuff.  However, if you do, you’ll probably find this to be similarly amusing.

Please share your ridiculous holiday rituals; I’m sure there are some great ones out there!

Make sure to sign up in a reader or email updates to catch future holiday ruses and tricks.

Since our 4-year old has a penchant for saying the funniest things (to us at least – he seems distressed when we bust out laughing at his proclamations), I’m going to post on some of these funny kid quotes as they come.  This will also serve as a good repository for these treasures since I haven’t done the best job of writing them down and I don’t want to lose track of them.

Greensleeves

This is a baroque song you often hear around Christmas time.  I was goofing around on my classical guitar one time playing it and Kevin asked what the name of the song was.  I replied, “Greensleeves”.  The other day (several weeks later), his little brother was watching Little Einsteins which is chock full of classical music.  One of the songs sounded reminiscent of Greensleeves.  During the song, Kevin proclaimed:

“Daddy, Daddy…It’s the song you play on your guitar – GREEN SHIRT!!!”

I just keeled over laughing and he had that embarrassed smirk on his face. He had no clue why I was laughing.

Mannheim Steamroller

That brings me to tonight’s encounter.  While we were in the car, I put on some classical music for him while we were driving.  We were talking about classical music.  He wanted to know who made up different songs and of course, the conversations went right to “Carol of the Bells” since it’s his favorite song.  He loves the Mannheim Steamroller version especially.  Someone must have told him the name of the group and tonight he proclaimed:

“Yes, and I love that music from Einstein Steamroller!”

Again, cracking up and he had no idea why.  Somehow, all things classical must be associated with the Little Einsteins.

Did your kids recently let any funny ones fly?

This video’s making the rounds now and is absolutely hilarious.  The kid asks if “this is real life?” and tells his dad he has 4 eyes.  Hilarious.  And I think the dentist is going to be in trouble after this one: