You know I’ve spent a lot of time bitching lately about what a little witch Zoe has been, and in comparison to her usual self, she has been. A lot of that is parenting tactics backfiring on me right now, but will in fact -if I manage to get through this period of murderous thoughts - put her in good stead in years to come, so while I’m pissed about it, I will get over it and realise that she is indeed a pretty good kid. Of course I will realise that about 5 minutes after she starts back at school next week! To be honest, I think we’ve just spent too much time together! But thats not the point of this little post here. The point of this is to share with you a couple of the little things I’ve done as a parent to amuse myself, keep my sanity and that I consider to be the best bits of parenting. And all because deep down I’m really just a sick bitch sometimes 
Now I’m not talking about all those cute and fuzzy moments like “I love you mum” and the lovely drawings left under your pillow. Don’t get me wrong, those are great, and I love each and every one of them. But do you want to know what makes laugh so hard I could pee and how I exact my revenge on this little human that I somehow created? Grab a coffee and get comfy…and don’t bother calling welfare, not one of these is a chargeable child abuse offense. Although she could possibly sue me in years to come for therapy bills…
Ok, first up we have the animal noises. You teach your children animal noise early on in their language development. It holds their interest and you can show them pictures and teach them colors and all sorts of crap all at the same time. Here’s how I did it:
What does a cat say Zoe? MEOW
What does a cow say Zoe? MOOOOO
What does a dog say Zoe? WOOF WOOF
What does a pig say Zoe?
I never taught her OINK OINK like you’d think. I taught her the whole snort through your nose pig noises complete with lip lifting and scratching the back of your throat kind!! And it was piss funny! It was like a party joke that I had her do! Only lasted till she went to preschool and they corrected her…DAMMIT! But crikey I got some mileage out of it let me tell ya. If I was having a bad day, I’d run through the above sequence of questions and I’d be guaranteed to feel better once we were all done. Got even funnier when we introduced “What does a chicken say Zoe?” and she answered more with her arms flapping madly in imitation of chicken wings than with the clucking or begerking or whatever she used to do..I was usually laughing so hard by that point I couldn’t hear her answer!
Ok, moving one. Next we have the counting. This one was actually a favorite of my ex brother in law (may his balls rot slowly and dangle by a thread forever and a day) and it didn’t last long as even as young as she was she self corrected as quickly as she was able to. She’d count to ten…perfectly, but couldn’t get her lips or vocal cords around the ‘eleven’ and it came out ‘lull la’ and again, it was piss funny! I’d get her to count just to here that…I guess you had to hear it….
Next we have the “oh look at the rainbow Zoe!” And she’d get all excited and go “where! where!” and I’d respond “Oh you just missed it, it went behind that cloud” and she’d spend the next 15 minutes looking for it again. This was introduced after a rather long (3 days) drive home from visiting rellies and whilst she’d traveled really well, was just getting a tad cranky - albeit understandably - however we still had a number of hours to go and needed to distract her. So chasing rainbows was it…and it worked well, both to distract her, and amuse me 
Until the day we were driving along and she says outta the blue “Hey mum, look at that rainbow!” and I say “Where?!” and she says “Oh you just missed it!” Cheeky little bugger! Too damn clever for her own good, even at 3.
Lately we’ve had another one…I’ve got her absolutely convinced that we didn’t have color when I was growing up. I’m not talking about color television, or photographs..I mean COLOR…she thinks that we only saw black and white when we were kids…I’m wondering how long this one will last, probably not very long if I know her, but in the meantime I’m having a ball with it and figure that realistically I’m providing some funny stories for her to share with friends in years to come as they discuss the things they used to believe as kids! And that’s a good thing right??!!
How about your share your good parenting bits? And again, I’m not talking the fuzzy warm ones. I’m talking the REAL ones, the ones everyone is too scared to talk about for fear of being judged..well that won’t happen here. This is my blog, my way, and I say that the reality is far more interesting than Brady Bunch style parenting. Besides,there’s been far too much reading and not enough commenting lately people and I’m getting bored with it! Speak up! Have your say! I promise I don’t bite, and even if I did, how the hell am I gonna do that through a computer screen?!
{ 9 } Thoughts
A few years ago we hit a moose with our minivan. Totalled the van, my hubby was hurt the worst but not life threatening, and the kids were totally freaked right out. My youngest, three at the time, told me that he thought the moose ran into us because she wanted our van. I told him that the moose didn’t need our van, she just forgot to look both ways before crossing the street and that was why he was supposed to hold my hand when we crossed the streets at home. :idea: You should have seen the nurses trying not to laugh!
It worked for about a week!
LMFAO!!! Thank god I wasn’t drinking a coffee when I read this or I’d be still cleaning up my screen! This is exactly the sort of stuff I’m talking about…REAL PARENTING!! Thanks for the laugh Jennifer…
Kelly
notice no mention about hoses and wax and being sick?
Oh but you see that’s a whole other post entitled “messing with apop!”
Kelly
My comment is a parenting comment as i am not a parent yet, However… I am sure that Apoppy and Ananny will back me up when i tell you that this little joke was let to go for a few years too many. at nearly 21 i STILL cop shit about it!
You know how when your a kid eating your dinner, and your full, but your really not full you just dont want to eat anymore cos you dont like it or whatever… well for the larger part of my childhood, my lovely APOP and ANANNY let me go about thinking that i had different sections in my stomach for different food. Thats why when i was full of veges i always managed to have space for a drink or ice cream.
makes sense in my mind.. id have enough to eat but ‘i still have room in my desert column daddy!’ or ‘but dady my vegetable section is full up, but i think i could squish in some lollies in my lolly section’…. They clearly got thier kicks outta letting me believe it was true and still take the piss outta me to this day about it… 
at least i can laugh about it now…
And the tradition continues, Zoe has recently learned about the dessert tummy
Kelly
hey, in theory the idea works! its not until some know it all science teacher goes and blows it outta the water in a biology lesson that it doesnt come off so good… but me and zoe cant be the only people to think that it makes sense can we?
I don’t think that one makes sense…I always liked the one where desserts and fizzy drinks just filled in the gaps between all the good food
Kelly
Heh, i can tell you a tale that will guarantee you never let me babysit Kel *grin*
I was about 15 which means the brother in question was about 7 (god that makes me even more evil, I’ve never sat and worked it out before) Basically I was trying to read my book and he just kept bugging me, it ended up with him coming into the house and squirting me with a water pistol - or something..
I chased him outside and when I caught him I handcuffed him to a lamp post then went back inside - I fully intended to only leave him for about 5-10 minutes as a lesson.. But after I finished my book about FOUR HOURS later i was sat wondering why it was so quiet and where was Kenneth.. and then I remembered.. the guilt was indescribable - but seriously, you should’ve seen the miserable little wretch when I went out LOL
He was a dejected mess on his arse on the floor, dirty face, angelic golden curls drooping, tears in those big blue eyes.
I just unlocked the handcuffs telling him that it served him right and that next time I’d leave him out there all night.
I took him back inside, gave him an ice lolly, read him a story and put him to bed.. Lets just say he always calmed down and did whatever I said after that incident.. mum always wondered why she couldn’t handle him as well as I could..
I still feel guilty about it though and that was 15 years ago.
LMAO!!! I can see something like that happening really easily, especially with siblings and especially at 15!!
Kelly
P.S. your spelling sucked so I fixed it
I thought my parents didnt have colour either (and came to this conclusion all by myself) It seemed to make sense, colour TV came in the year after I was born, therefore everything before i was born was B&W, I just knew I brought colour to the world!
Evan you’ve bought color to many a world darl! I remember thinking that public meant only for certain people and wondered why they had their own toilets…
Kelly
a-pop just can’t help himself can he? didn’t mention the blu-tak though??? must have kraft hey kel??
as for the waxing, well i’m waiting for fly boy to be told…surprised it hasn’t happened yet!
No he didn’t mention the blu-tak, but I certainly will when doing my post next week
Oh and I think I have told Tony about the waxing..
Kelly
ooooo wicked people
I can’t say I have ever participated in that kind of thing, but it sure gave me a giggle reading all of yours!
LMAO!! Wicked we are, but sane too and thats just as an important virtue in parenting I believe
Kelly
I just left you a really long message and believe the computer ate it. Maybe I’ll have time to repost it later, or maybe it will just show up in cyber-space somewhere. Later!
I don’t know what happened
bad wordpress!!! It may show up again, stranger things have happened you know!
Kelly
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