Pet Tiger

"Mama," my ten-year-old son said.  "Can we get a pet tiger?  Two of them?"

I looked at that kid.  "Excuse me?"

"Tigers are cute.  And they'd be good house guards," he explained.

"What about Schultz (our German Shepherd)? He's cute. And he's a good watch dog."

Bubba shook his head.  "Schultz is too friendly.  Tigers would do a better job."

Right.  Does anyone know where I can get a "Beware of the Tiger" sign?

Miz Lemon

Meet Miz Lemon.  At two years old, she is the oldest living balloon.  Miz Lemon has been a very nice family member.  She's quiet.  She stays out of trouble.  And she's very pleasant.  Unfortunately, Miz Lemon is going through an accelerated aging process.  Every day, she loses more air, and her wrinkles become more pronounced.  I'm afraid Miz Lemon has only a few more days to live.

"I don't want Miz Lemon to die!" said my son.  "I'm going to miss her!"

I put my arm around the boy. "We'll all miss her, Bubba."

"Are we going to have a funeral for her and bury her in the backyard?"

I smiled.  "We will most certainly give her a proper burial."

"Good," said Bubba.  "Because she doesn't deserve to be thrown in the garbage.  She was the best balloon that ever lived!"

Owl Talk

This morning, before the sun had even thought about coming up, my son and I were standing at the bus stop.  As we stood, we heard an interesting sound:  Who. . . Who. . . Who,Who,Who,Whoooo!

"An owl!" I said.

Bubba grinned.  "Can I try talking to it?"

"Sure, Bubba.  Go ahead."

He raised his head and called, "Who. . . Who. . .Who, Who,Who,Whooo!"

He listened. No response.  "Never mind.  I don't speak owl," he said.

No sooner were the words out of his mouth, when the owl called back, "Who. . .Who. . .Who, Who,Who, Whoooo!"

Bubba was thrilled. He called, again, and the owl responded. The two carried on their conversation until the bus came.

"I like owls," Bubba said as he got on the bus.  "They're really smart.  That one knew exactly what I was saying!"
 

The Boy and His Box

Last night, when I went into my son's room to tuck him in, I didn't see him.  I wondered where he might be.  Then I spied a giant box on the floor, flipped upside down.  I suspected I might find the missing kid under it. Sure enough, I found the boy curled up in a little ball under the box.

"How did you find me?"  he asked.

"Well, Bubba, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that a box is a good place to hide."

He grinned.  "You know what else boxes are good for?"

"No, Bubba. What else are they good for?"

"Going for airplane rides."  He flipped the box over and sat inside.  Then he opened the flaps on the sides.  "See. Wings!"  He flipped the back flap open.  "Tail!"  Then he proceeded to make airplane sounds.

I just watched, amused by his creativity.

When he was done, he curled up inside.  "I'm tired from all that flying.  So now my box will be a bed."  He closed the flaps over him.  "Goodnight!"  

The Art Project

My teenage daughter came out of her room with glitter all over her face.

"Um, you look a little sparkly," I said.

She nodded.  "Yeah.  I was trying to get glitter on my eyelids, but I ended up spilling it all over the place."

"Oh," I said.  "Was that glitter, makeup glitter?"

"No.  It's the glitter you gave me."

I frowned. "You realize that was supposed to be for art projects, not makeup applications, don't you?"

She looked at me and grinned.  "But Mom, my face is an art project!"

Schultz's Big Escape

The canine you see in the picture has been a very bad dog!  His name is Schultz, and he's our hundred pound German Shepherd.

Yesterday, the beast escaped.  Yes.  He went missing for over four hours.  None of us have any idea of how he did it.  My daughter and I had gone to the mall.  When we came back, my husband and the beast were missing.  My daughter and I assumed the dog with with the husband.  But no.  When the husband came back, the dog was not with him.

"Um, excuse me," I said.  "Where's Schultz?"

My husband looked around.  "I don't know.  I thought he was with you."

"Nope.  Not with me."

Thus commenced the dog search.  I stayed home while the search party went out.  It's a good thing I did, because while they were out, an unfamiliar car pulled into my driveway.  I looked closely, and who do you think I saw?  Yes.  The giant beast in the back seat, taking up practically the entire back end of the car.

I guess he had wandered into another neighborhood, a ways away, and found another dog to play with.  Fortunately, Schultz is a nice dog, and let the other dog's owner put a leash on him, and take him home.

Now Schultz is in the dog house.  Literally.  Let's just say he'd better not try that stunt, again!

(And what did the cat think of all of this?  This picture pretty much sums it up:)

Bubba Bowling

Today, my family and I went bowling.  We got to our lane, and set up the computer keep score.  Everyone was on normal bowl mode, meaning no bumpers were being used.

We started bowling. Everyone did well, except Bubba, my ten-year-old son.  His balls went into the gutter eighty percent of the time.  At the end of the game, he was dead last, and quite upset about it.

"Redo," he said.  "Because something is wrong with the ball."

I laughed.  "Okay, Bubba.  Get another ball.  We'll do another game."  While he got the other ball, I changed the computer to bring up bumper guards when it was Bubba's turn.

That made all of the difference in the world.  Every time the ball was about to go to the gutter, the guard prevented it.  Bubba even managed to get a few strikes.  At the end of the game, Bubba was in second place.

"See, I told you it was a bad ball!"

Right.  Next time, we're all using gutter guards!  

Killer Bear Hug

Before I begin my story, I wanted to let you know that my book, That Mama is a Grouch, is now available as an animated ebook through the Kobo online book store.  I haven't yet seen it, but someone who has, says it's really cute.  You'd need an Apple device to view it.  If you're interested, you can find it here.  (I've included this link on my sidebar, too.)

Now for the story:

My ten-year-old son loves giving hugs. He's quite the expert. His favorite hug is the "bear hug."  When he was little, it wasn't so bad to get a bear hug from him. His squeeze wasn't too strong.  Now that he's bigger, it's a different story.  Yesterday, he gave me one such hug.  I could barely breathe.

"Bubba," I gasped.  "You need to be gentle, or you're going to break your Mama!"

He grinned.  "You can't break!"  He gave me another hug.

"Yes, I can," I said, wincing.  "You're going to squeeze the guts right out of me!"

Apparently, he thought that was hilarious, and squeezed even harder.

"Seriously, Bubba, you need to be gentle.  Do you want me to die from one of your hugs?"

He thought about that. "No.  But being hugged to death, wouldn't be so bad."

Right.  So, ladies and gentlemen, if I cease to blog, you can pretty much guess that I've been hugged to death. Which would probably make me the first Mama to die that way. What a way to go!  

  

The Odor of Classification

Last night, I was helping my daughter study for her science test.  One of the things she had to know, was the biological order of classification.  I looked at her study guide, and asked her to list them.

"Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Odor . . ."

I stopped her right there.  "Wait a minute.  You have a misspelling here.  It should be 'Order' not 'Odor.'"

She laughed. "No, Mom.  I'm pretty sure it's 'Odor.'  It's the classification for all the boys who have stinky feet and armpits!"

Dog Chat

"Mama?" my ten-year-old son asked.  "Can you play walkie-talkies with me?"

"No, Bubba," I said.  "Right now I'm really busy.  If I have time later, I will.  Why don't you go play with the dog?"

He took his walkie talkies and disappeared.  About fifteen minutes later, our giant German Shepherd, Schultz, trotted by.  Some weird sounds seemed to be emanating from his body:  BEEP...static...BEEP...  Then I heard a strangely familiar voice:  "This is radio control tower to Beta Dog."  It was my son.

I walked over to Schultz to ascertain what was going on.  And what do you think I saw?  Yep.  The boy had rigged his walkie talkie onto the dog's collar.

The voice continued.  "Come in Beta Dog."

I chuckled and pressed the button to talk back to the boy.  "This is Alpha Mama to radio control tower. Beta Dog is experiencing difficulties operating the device currently installed on his collar, and is in need of assistance."

Right on cue, Schultz gave a little bark.

"Roger that!"

(Now if we can figure out a way to train Schultz to press the button when he barks, we might have something that can keep the boys busy for hours!)

The Password

Yesterday, I needed to go down to the basement to get something.  I went to the door, and found my son blocking it.

"Excuse me, Bubba," I said.  "I have to go downstairs."

He shook his head.  "First you have to tell me the password."

The password?  I took a wild guess.  "Please?"

"No, Mama.  That's not it."

I really didn't have time for this game, but since I'm fairly good-natured, I played along.  "All right.  Give me a clue."

"It's a Pokemon."

"Dude," I said.  "There are hundreds of Pokemon!  There's no way I'm going to stand here and try to figure out which one!"

"Okay," Bubba said.  "I'll help you out. I'll give you the first part, and you have to figure out the rest. Snor."

I took a deep breath, a proceeded to add every letter of the alphabet onto the end:  Snora, Snorb, Snorc, Snord, Snore, Snorf . . . I finally made it to Snorz.

Bubba shook his head when I was done. "No, Mama.  You didn't get it,"

"Are you kidding?"  I was a little perturbed.  "I named every possibility!"

"Mama, you forgot to add the 'la' after 'Snor.'  The answer was 'Snorlax.'"

Ugh!

(Next time I need to get past Bubba, I'm going to bring Snorlax along, and have him sit on the boy!)

The Immortal Fly

We had a fly zooming around the house for several days.  It was one of those bugs that had a knack for outwitting every fly swatter and killing mechanism unleashed on it.

"Mama," my son said a couple of days ago, "that fly is immortal."

"Seems that it is," I said.

Well, the immortal fly finally met his match.  Last night, the boy came out of the bathroom with a huge grin plastered on his face.  "Guess what?"

"What?" I asked.

"The immortal fly is dead.  My stench killed it!"

Bubba's Harem

Before I tell my story, I want to give a huge thank you to all who stopped by for the interview with author, Deanie Humphrys-Dunne!  I'd also like to congratulate the winner of the autographed copy of her book - Jess at DMS!


Now for the story.

Yesterday, as I was walking up the street to meet my son after he had gotten off the bus, I saw a strange sight.  My boy was running as fast as he could, while a group of about four girls chased him.  They seemed to be about his age.

I stopped. Two seconds later, Bubba crashed into me.  The girls basically skidded to a stop.

"What's going on here?" I asked.

"We just wanted to talk to Bubba," one of them said.

"Oh," I said.  I turned to Bubba. "Then why did you run?"

He looked at me with a very serious expression on his face.  "Because sometimes I need a little peace and quiet.  These women are too noisy!"