moments: I collect them

I once saw some cutesy crafty sign that said something really profound.  In its adorable fake-cross-stitchiness it stated:

Life is a collection of moments.

Wow.  That's deep.  Like pass the Doritos I am having a Dazed and Confused kind of moment deep.  Not the real "deep" where you have actually said something actually profound.

But I do agree, none the less.  Life is a collection of moments.  And they can be categorized thus:

Moments which are just funny.  Period.

and

Moments you have to find the humor in in order to keep the sane facade up.

For example, when Thing 1 was newly minted and only a couple weeks old I took him and Cindy Lou Who to a store which will remain nameless.  So while we were at the "bulls eye" store and I was still a new enough mom that I was bringing multiple pacifiers with me because I believed they needed boiled after contamination, Thing 1 in all his precious baby-ness had a melt down and started screaming.  Cindy Lou had a very autistic reaction to the shrill baby screams, so she had a meltdown of her own.  There I stood right in front of greeting cards with one baby screaming and one sister shrieking in response with everyone staring at us, mouths agape, and of course blocking the aisle so I can't drag the two out and make my escape.  So I had to find humor and said loudly, over the screams of the two little darlings,

Hi, we are a roaming PSA promoting the use of birth control!  Could you get the helloutta my way now please?

When a friend posted a facebook update recently stating that clearly her two year old had seen her opening a beer because she had pulled her shirt over the lid of her apple juice in order to twist it open I see that as a naturally funny moment, and damn practical.  Parenting fail?  I think not!

Thing 1 seeing me holding his brother while doing dishes one handed, child perched on  my upraised knee  stating that I am doing a, and I quote, "Captain Morgan?"  Um, fail?  Thing 1 played with an old  Copenhagen container that held three beer bottle tops and was sealed with glue as a baby.  At least it wasn't mine, that would have been really redneck.  As it is, it was classy.

Thing 1 also used to say "Whaaaazzzzzuuuupp?" just like the Budweiser commercials cuz we thought it was funny.  I'd like to say that all of this was because I was a really young mom, which is true.  But I am not that young anymore.  Kinda normal mom-aged I guess.  And Thing 2 is fascinated by beer bottles.  Clearly, its not the age but the person.  The me factor.

So life is a collection of moments.

Hopefully my kids won't need to spend too many of theirs re-living their childhoods on a therapists couch.

Woody, bringing SexyBack

There are times where perfectly acceptable things are happening, but once taken out of context that perfectly innocent and okay thing suddenly seems deplorably sick and wrong. Usually, I am all over sick and wrong, I think sick and wrong stuff is hilarious 99.999% of the time, and I am quite often the one perpetrating sick and wrong.

But my sister, Cindy Lou Who, is an even greater master at sick and wrong than I am. I have to give credit where it is due, the child is a genius.

She will laugh her pasty pale tail off at a perfect stranger who faceplants in a store. This usually leaves you desparately explainging yourself to the very offended and possibly injured person, and for the record there is never an explanation that makes that scenario okay if you are the one who fell. Nothing in this world is more funny than body functions. Unleash a belch, or weld your gas and she'll laugh in admiration like nothing in the world could be funnier. Unless you happen to fall flat on your ass while doing it. If you could swing a minor injury while breaking wind and maybe sneezing you've got yourself a new best friend.

In reality, CLW has Angelman Syndrome, and a wicked sick sense of humor. She also has no concept of right and wrong and has way better things to do with her time than worry about stupid crap like social constraints and acceptability. She's just too rock star for that. She's usually too busy eating pop tarts or playing with one of her 14 Woodys.

Wait, what? Yes, you read it right. Now who is sick and wrong?

Okay, still me, I lead you there, quite on purpose. It illustrates part of my point actually.

CLW loooooves Woody from Toy Story. Loves him, downright obsessed with him. Its adorable, I assure you, but when you have seen Toy Story -- any of them -- as many times as any member of my family has you either go a little insane or you try to find some humor in the situation. Or both.

So the Woody jokes, we've done them all, said them all. Or so I thought.

While taking CLW to school today I had the radio playing because it usually knocks Thing 2 out. CLW has a giant stuffed Woody (seriously drag your mind out of that gutter) with her and is making him dance to whatever is on the radio.

We pull up to a stop light, and she is in such a good mood, and really its quite contagious. So a new song comes on the radio, SexyBack. I haven't heard this one in a while, love love love it. So I am tapping the rhythm in my I have no natural sense of rhythm way on the steering wheel while she makes Woody jump up and down to the music. She hands him to me, wanting me to do something silly that will make her laugh. And I am a good sister, so I oblige. I do the most natural and reasonable thing possible: I make him dance. Not just the bouncy dance she was doing, I am moving his arms, singing along and making him really work it. I think I had him doing the Madonna Vogue arms at one point, and there was some definite jazz hands, as much as a two foot tall stuffed cowboy can pull off.

Now lets roll play for a moment. Picture that you are some cool guy on a motorcycle at a stop light. You are waiting for the light to change, maybe feeling impatient wanting to get where your going ... who knows, maybe you're late ... when you notice something out of the corner of your eye. The woman in the car next to you is holding a two foot tall stuffed Woody from Toy Story. And she is making it dance. I mean really making it dance. Making it dance and sing. To SexyBack.

I'm bringing sexy back. Them other !#$%ers don't know how to act ...

Yeah, of course it was at that part. No, I did not say "them other exclamation point, pound sign, dollar sign, percent don't know how to act."

Back to being me in my car, with my laughing sister, who for all intents and purposes appears to be maybe 15 or so. In reality she is in her 20s, but between the two of us we clearly do not look like either of us should have a stuffed doll. Making it sing and dance is a whole new level of strange. Add to that the song ... yeah I am sure this guy thought we were massively weird.

At least, given the stunned and slightly disgusted look on his face I am guessing so.

And somewhere around a water cooler today ...

No seriously, it was sick! And when it got to the "you can whip me if I misbehave" part she made the doll wiggle its hips ...