HampoLand

Say “Yes” To Your Kid….Then Clean Up the Mess

This weekend I realized one of the keys to being a good parent is so simple.  “Say yes more than you say no.” 

Kids ask for stuff all they time and they ask for permission, they ask you to watch them, or listen to them constantly. Learn to say yes more than you say no.

This weekend Sandor said, “Can I do an experiment?”

“Yes.” I cringed a little becomes sometimes his “experiments” mean mixing a little bit of everything in the kitchen in a bowl (including cat food and ketchup) and the result is disgusting.

This time he wanted to do something he’d seen Bill Nye do on Youtube.   “Can I empty the big bottle of Sprite into the old milk jug, fill it up with hot water then stick it in ice water?”

If we lost the Sprite I would dump two dollars worth of soda down the drain. It’s bad for us any way so I said, “Sure, go for it.  But you have to try to do it all by yourself.”

He made a huge mess, used up all the ice cubes, the Sprite went flat but he was excited about science.  It was worth the trade.

When he asks “can I pump the gas”, I know the stop for ten dollars worth of regular will take twice as long and he’ll ask me nine or forty two questions in the process but when he pumps the gas for me he…1. Feels like a man, 2. Learns to do man stuff, 3. Thinks about gas and mechanics, 4. He’s learning to be more independent.

It’s easier and quicker to say no but then he just sits in the car and learns how to drool then suck it back up real fast before I get back to the car.

When they ask if they can catch the lizard, say yes. When they ask if they can kiss it…say sure. When they ask if they can throw rocks in the mud puddle say yes, unless you are headed to church. “Can I try to eat this bowl of jello without using my hands?”  “Yes you can.”. And when they say, “Can I roll down the window and scream as loud as I can”. Say sure…then consider joining them. It actually feels really good.

I’m not suggesting it’s ok to say yes when he asks to eat Ho Ho’s for breakfast or dig up a bunch of worms then cut them all in half. As parents we have to say no sometimes. 

And sometimes I think we so “no” because it’s a reflex. We don’t actually think about the request we just understand life will be easier, cleaner and quicker if we say no….to everything. Eventually kids stop asking if they can do science experiments, they already know the answer. Instead they give up and watch tv for hours on end.

But slow down on the nos just a little.  Slow down and say ‘yes”, even though it’s going to be messy and take time. When you say” yes” your child starts to understand things, when you say “yes” they begin to understand it’s ok to ask questions, to wonder and to be curious.

Great things can happen…when you say “yes.”

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That Dolphin Tried to Drowned Me!

Sure, dolphins always look like they’re smiling, are you sure it’s a benevolent smile or is it an evil one, like a pirate right before he makes you walk the plank?

When I was in my twenties I lived in the Florida Keys and managed to land a little job working with an old female dolphin. I’ll call her Sweetie. She lived in a fenced lagoon at an ancient resort on the Gulf side. Three times a day Sweetie was fed buckets of fish as tourists looked on, cheering and clapping.  Sounds sweet, right?  Well, it was…if you were on shore.

Sweetie was a big dolphin,  especially for a female, weighing in at over six hundred pounds. For years and years she had handsome young men dedicated to her care.  They loved her and Swettie adored them.  I was the first girl who had any real contact with Sweetie. And she didn’t like it, in fact, she wanted to bury my ass at the bottom of her lagoon. Nobody realized her intentions during my two weeks of training. She acted like a lady. Then the abuse began.

Here’ s how our show went. First, I would stand on a dock and introduce myself and Sweetie to the audience. I would ask her to do a tail walk and sometime she would….sometimes she wouldn’t.  Then I would ask that beautiful creature to” find me a present” and I would give her a signal. I would point to the lagoon then tap the palm of my hand.

 When the boys, Bob and James, did this trick, Sweetie would swim away then return with something wonderful. Everyday she found them, a pretty shell or rock, sometimes a snorkle, lost jewlery or coins.  People dropped all kinds of stuff into her lagoon.  When I stood on the dock in my bikini and asked for a present she always dropped an enormous glob of seaweed into my hand. Once she even put a turd of some kind in my palm. All I could do was smile while she laughed and spit water in my direction.

Next, I walked to a diving board and stood 15 or 20 feet above the tropical water holding a fish by the tail.  Sweetie would swim a couple of laps to get her speed up then leap, like a gymnist with a blow hole, straight up, grab the fish from my hand, then fall back into the water with a magnificen splash. It was a georgous sight.

Next, I did an elegant swan dive into the warm water, waited for her to find me so I could grab her dorsal fin then she’d pull me back to the dock.  She slid past the boys gracefully, slowly, gently, so they could easily grab her fin. When I dove in the water, Sweetie circled the lagoon like a bull then “accidently” hit the back of my thigh at twenty or thirty miles an hour like a 600 pound torpedo.  She dropped the boys off inches from the dock. She generally left me at least fifteen feet away, so I had to swim in, wondering if she was going to hit me again.

 The back of my leg was purple and black for weeks, as though I’d been hit by a car. Still, I had to smile as I climbed up on the dock and waved to the tourists. 

The final trick of the day was easy, I touched my cheek and asked Sweetie for a kiss. When the boys asked, you can bet the kiss was a sweet thing, perfectly placed on their cheek, with a light touch.  When Sweetie kissed me it was a little like getting punched by Mike Tyson.  She felt the need to get a running start then hit me with astonishing  force that made the audience gasp than laugh, thinking it was part of the act.

After three weeks the marine mammal abuse was too much.  Jack and Mary were only two and three years old at the time, but I wouldn’t let them come to the show and watch….it was just too violent.

You know, we always hear about the dolphins who saved sailors and shipwrecked swimmers, but we never hear about the people dolphins drag out into the depths. Because they ended up drowning, or eaten by sharks!

yeah, dolphins are really really smart. My career as a dolphin trainer ended as quickly as it began. Sweetie won and my hands still smell a little fishy.

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Nipples the Pregnant Cat

First, cats in heat are repulsive. Santa brought a skinny little kitty with spots and a broken tale to our house on Christmas. It was tiny, scrawny and kind of mean. There was a not from Santa explaining to the kids, “Dancer stepped on this kitty’s tail, that’s why it’s all funky and crooked.”

Fast forward seven months. The scrawny cat is writhing in front of the door, clawing, begging to get out. Desperate to find a boy cat and love. Every time we open the door the cat tries to shoot out, ready to get “some”. The slut. Kitty ho’, Sleazy feline.

We slammed the door and she started rolling around on the floor having some kind of “kitty sex fit”. It’s embarassing…shocking even.  I thought I brought her up better than that.

Three damn times the cat escaped. Just three and twice we managed to chase her down. We trapped her in a corner or under the car. But once, just once, the hussy was too fast and disappeared into the bushes. Ten minutes latter we heard the howling and screaming….then she came home. Completely satisfied

Now, it’s mid-August and the cat is still skinny, almost bony, but her belly is so engorged she looks like she swallowed a bowling ball. I used to keep her food bowl on top of the dryer. Now, when she tries to jump up there, she misses by six inches and slides back down like a cartoon cat.

A month ago she was a sleek hunter, now she’s a rolly polly hungry bitch, who’s way too young to raise babies. She’s so selfish and self absorbed, how can she raise children?

Everyday Sandor is stunned by the change in her nipples. He calls them teats and no matter how many times the cat scratches him in the face (he even contracted true cat scratch fever) he thinks she’s “soooo cute”.

Sandor and I were keeping the cat’s pregnancy from my husband Alex. He doesn’t notice much because he’s a dude. But, after two weeks of being a way my daughter Lexie walked in the house and screamed, “Oh my God, the cat is soooo knocked up.”

There will be kittens. And in a few months you will see me with a cardboard box full of super cute. And you better take one of these kittens off my hands.

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“Whatever…It Doesn’t Matter” Said The Idiot

I am an emotional hurricane. My emotions are excessive and it drives me crazy. There are days I catch myself acting exactly like a fourteen year old even though I know it’s moronic.  I don’t actually roll my eyes, but I sigh, walk away and say ‘whatever” in my head, over and over. The difference is I know I’m not supposed to be a sullen, snarky teenager, but I can’t help it. Most of the time kids don’t actually know how stupid they are acting so it’s easier to help them through their idiocy.

Here’s what happens.   I get my feelings hurt, I feel unappreciated or slighted. But I don’t tell people how I feel, so they can’t fix it. Instead, I try to forget about it or I act like I don’t care. BUT I REALY DO! Then I do the really stupid teenage thing, I say “Whatever, it doesn’t matter,” over and over in my head. Just like a silly 13 year old girl with braces and too much eye-liner

But It Does Matter…Of Course It Matters. You hurt my feelings;   so I go into self defense mode.

And the fact  you don’t know you hurt my feelings or made me feel bad makes everything even worse… so I “turtle up” . I say the dreaded words….”what-ever, it doesn’t matter” over and over like an old record album with a scratch.  It gets stuck. The mantra of “whatever it doesn’t matter”  is my shield, my chain mail amour, my un- breechable (that’s apparently not a real word, I just made it up but I think it’s a good one) wall. My shark infested moat. You get the idea. If I keep repeating that annoyingly immature phrase they can’t  hurt me anymore..

Teens do the exact same thing for the very same reasons.  But most of them don’t realize their motives. They get hurt, then mad, then really pissed off. They cross their arms and say, “Whatever” then roll their eyes and sigh.

I have lots of names for my immature behavior. I “wall up” ,  “close the blinds”, “turtle up”,  “shut the gate” .

Grownups who don’t have any of my immature problems kind of make me crazy. They seem too perfect, too controlled, too grown up.  Where’s the passion? Hey, I could use a little company in my playpen.

So, if you see me act like an idiot, be patient. Like a teenager, the madder I get the more I care.  If you really piss me off, you can be sure I love you. I’m an emotional hurricane but storm season generally passes pretty  quickly.

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Stupid Men and Mind Games

Men and women are both stupid and so different. This becomes painfully apparent every time I get mad at a man.

When Alex gets upset with me he generally walks away, starts reading or watches a dumb CSI type tv show. 

 When I get mad I let him know it. I do crazy things to show him  how up set and angry I am.

I don’t set up the coffee pot, so it’s not ready for him in the morning. (So Evil)

I don’t fold his clean laundry, instead I leave it in a heaping pile on his dresser.

I move all the good pillows to my side of the bed when he’s not paying attention.

Wicked right?

I have a good friend who happens to be a man and I get mad at him ALL THE TIME!  When I’m mad and he texts me…I send back one word answers.  I put stuff on his desk without talking to him.

I feel as though my red hot seething lava like anger is so obvious, they would have to be absolute idiots not to notice. But guess what? The men in my life never ever notice my angry gestures. The empty coffee pot means nothing to Alex. He might grumble about it but he never connects it to my anger. He just figures I forgot.

Women, if you are mad at a man, he’ll never know  unless you do one of two things.  1. Tell him   2. Break his windshield with a cinder block….then tell him.

If you stop talking to him, burn his toast or leave the room every time he walks in…he will not make the connection.  He’ll just think you’re having hormone problems and want to be left alone.

The strange thing is, women never play these stupid emotional mind games with children.  If we are mad at our kids….we tell them….instantly. We don’t give them soggy cereal or show up late for their games, we don’t give them the silent treatment….we tell them what we expect, what they did wrong and then we move on….we get over it.  Why do we play coy games with our men but not our children?

The truth is, most guys just don’t get it…Or maybe they do and evolution has changed their DNA. Maybe over thousands of years they’ve come to realize there’s absolutely nothing they can do to appease us when we are ticked off.

We think they don’t talk to us enough, they aren’t romantic enough, they don’t appreciate us enough, they don’t spend enough time with us.  Guys think all these requests are kind of pathetic and they have no intention of changing.

 DNA and life experience has taught them, they can’t rationalize with an angry woman,  so they might as well find a bad tv show, figure out how to make the coffee and  fold their own laundry.

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