Iron my shirt, bitch!

En route to his soccer game, the Inch, the mm, and I were listening to "John Barleycorn" by Traffic. I asked him "How old do you think this music is?"

"Very."


After the game he was talking about one of the parents who incessantly criticizes every player, ref, and coach throughout the game, "...and I was like, 'Stuff a sock in it, dude!'"

Today the mm said "I'm done drawing, I don't know what to do next, and don't tell me to read! (a few minutes passes) I think I'll sketch."

I'm running a Water Polo Skills class at the K-8 school. one hour first thing in the morning each day this week. I have a 3rd-grader who clearly does not meet the prerequisite of having passed a deep-end test (but she's damned determined and decided to hang in there) ... but when we were discussing it and I asked her why she picked the class when she hates getting her face wet and ball games she said "I thought it was Marco Polo Skills"

Marco Polo Game for the uninitiated

I don't know if I should :lol: or :facepalm:

My dad, the physics prof, once briefly had a student who signed up for his quantum mechanics course because he wanted to learn how to fix cars.

He would only be able to work on these:

Attachment 49449

Toyota Quantum. And only in South Africa.

That looks big and functional.

Today in the car the mm was telling me about some people in the audience of a play she watched the previous night:

"...he was the brother of the girl with the red, flowing locks."

I think she may be reading too much.

is that even possible?

Did anyone else notice that mini-vans are now at least as big as full size vans used to be?

And full size vans have become as big as delivery trucks used to be. Must be something in the water.

They have a six hour per day limit.

:eek:

Excellent!

I thought Common Core was put in place to prevent that sort of frivolity...

That and Fahrenheit 451.

Attachment 49595

:drummer:

Minifob has gained a reputation for asking somewhat insane questions in class, and the teachers regularly share them with me. The other day, his music teacher is talking about orchestras, and all the different instruments, and how the different sounds combine to make the overall music.

Minifob raises his hand in all solemnity, and asks, "How many orchestras were there in the world, in 1970?"

It's important to note that there had been zero references to 1970 or any other specific year during that class, or any other class in recent memory.

That's probably as far back as he goes, after that it's all the same. Sort of like when we think of when the dinosaurs lived or the difference between one and two light years. In other words, fucking far away and a long time ago.

That is funny, though.

It's a trap, he's researched and knows how many, so he can tell if she's lying. :haha:

I read a thing recently revealing that the Tyrannosaurus was closer to us in the timeline than it was to the Stegosaurus. Or maybe not those two, but it was some pair of well-known dinosaurs, anyway. The idea was we forget that "the dinosaurs" spanned hundreds of millions of years and instead just sort of lump them all together into one spot in history.

This:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=...d=0CCIQMygEMAQ

Or this.

Very cool, it looks like if R. Crumb were teaching science.

Me: Glad you're feeling better, seems that fever was just your body fighting off whatever is going around
Thor: Yes, I do seem to have rather a hardy immune system

:lol:

Ha! 'a rather hardy immune system.'

:lol:

Great kid!

Kids have interesting views of themselves. I remember Ripley saying, very sincerely, that she was "cute on the outside, but crazy on the inside" when she was 7 or 8 years old.

I see 5 of my grandchildren pretty regularly as their family lives only a few miles away. Both parents work so I often get asked to watch over sick kids or when they are out on a school holiday or half day. That being said, I do enjoy it. I always liked being the father of 5 kids and interacting with them as they grew into adults and now I get to sort of do it all over again! My feeling is as they are my grandchildren so I try not to interfere much with the mom and dad's parenting style. I don't always agree with their style but parenting doesn't come with a handbook so as long as no one is mistreated I figure they can figure it out as they go along.

My son in law calls just about everyone "Dude" in conversations, even his mother. I don't know why, I don't think it's a Jeff Bridges kind of dude thing as in The Big Lebowski. I think he got it from being a grunt in the Air Force with other grunts. Recently some of my younger grand children (ages 8 and 10) have referred to me as Dude in a moment of telling me something in an exited tone. I usually stop them and reply. "I'm your grandfather, your father can call me Dude and I could call him Dude. I don't call you Dude so please don't call me that."

The other thing is my 10 year old grandson has started saying "Jesus Christ!" when a sibling does something wrong or unexpected. Both parents use some pretty course language, but the kids know not to use most of those words. I guess he thinks "JC" is ok though. I told him, "I'm not much of a follower of Christianity or Jesus and I'm ok with it if you aren't either but I'm pretty sure if your teacher hears you say that at school or you say it to mom and dad you will be in some pretty big trouble!" I encouraged him to say something like, Gosh Darn or Holy Smoke.

I guess we all use inappropriate language around kids from time to time. I can remember a moment when I was working under our family car with a big repair and my 5 year old son went inside the house where his mother asked him where I was. He responded innocently enough, "outside under the God Dammed car!? ;)

Dude.

I call everyone dude, all the time. Half the time it's not referring to the person directly, it's just an interjection like "whoa."

I use "dude" much in the same way Clodfobble describes.

I use dude only on my son when he's doing something pretty dumb or annoying. Along the lines of "dude, what the fuck?" But without the wtf part.

Dude, srsly?

I have adult offspring. They are all in their 20's now. We are Italian... colorful language along with the accompanying hand motions is sort of a requirement around these parts.

Chris, you're talking about young children - nope. no way. Not unless I hit my hand with a hammer or something, then all bets are off on what word(s) are gonna come outta my mouth.

Mother of fucking GOD...is what would come out of my mouth. Yeah, I'm going to hell, even though that phrase makes no sense at all. :lol:

lol - I posted that in the wrong thread.

Hahaaa, so did I, apparently. Could you fix that for me, or quote me cross-thread or something? I'm so confused! :blush:

nah ... fuggit! lol

Please, don't do this. "Holy Smoke?" srsly, dude? stuff like that sets kids up as targets. At least come up with something more current. Maybe ask the parents what they would prefer him to say?

I took the position*, when my kids were young, of saying that there wer no such things as "bad words" only inappropriate audiences. We went through a lot of discussion about who might not appreciate hearing what words. It did a couple of things, it took the power away from "naughty words" and it helped them consider how others might feel or think of them by the way they spoke.

Occasionally I'll drop the F bomb when driving and my son has made it clear that he doesn't like vulgar language so I try to respect that unless in the heat of driving or working. When he was under four I told him those were special work words and only to be used by carpenters and other tradesmen.

Now I wish I could remove 'like' from their vocabulary.

*Taking a page from Lenny Bruce's book.

The concept of "bad words" is weird. It can be justified for, say, insults like racial epithets, but how does a word stay "bad" when there's no such justification, and we don't even know the real etymology?

A word can't be bad unless everyone agrees it's bad. Not most people agree, it's not a majority rules thing, everyone. You know that ain't happening. :headshake

shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker & tits.

felch.

since he's been able to make it clear to you that he doesn't like vulgar language, and you've demonstrated the success of such clear communication, why don't you try the same with him?

Tell him you don't care for the way he uses "like" (however he/they is/are using it). Show them that respect for simple requests goes both ways.

just a thought.

Oh we talk about that a lot and catch each other using it. Maybe we should start a LIKE jar...

Yesterday we went shopping at BJ's, our local members only buying club type place (Costco, Sam's Club et al)

We are cruising down the aisle past some carpets all rolled up and standing in a corral and the inch says "That's just wrong." I turn and see one of the carpet rolls has collapsed and can't get what's 'just wrong' about it. Then he points to the sign under the carpets that says "Dream Shag"

Clearly "Big School" has paid off.

Surely he's still innocent; he doesn't know about rug burns, right?!?

eta:

you crack me up footfootfoot.

I can only hope.
:eek:

Probably knows about rug burns, but from driving his dinos and trucks around the living room rug, not what we perverts immediately think of. http://cellar.org/2012/nono.gif

9 yo: I'm going to be an astronaut when I grow up.
13 yo: No, you're not.
9 yo: Then I'm going to be a space terrorist.

*snort*

Two recent gems--said in all seriousness--by the Minifob:

"So, say a kid went to school. And class had just started, like the teacher had just barely had time to write her name on the board.

And then she turned around and breathed fire on him, and burned him up into ash.

Would he be counted absent for the day, or not?"


...and...

"You know what would be the most painful thing ever? If you broke your femur... while giving birth."

I'd love to see an animated cartoon of the thought process leading up to those statements. :yesnod:

The mm (the girl) is going to be a great dad one day (by measure of this dad-worthy joke)

She invented a soup recipe in her dream (I think she meant imagination, but whatevs) and wrote out the recipe, since it wasn't entirely insane and something she might possibly eat, I made it for dinner. We were dining casually in the living room so I shouted from the kitchen: "MM, do you want some of your soup in a bowl?" (vs a cup)

She shouts back, "I want ALL of my soup in a bowl."

Recipe if you are curious:

qt. chicken stock
"alphabetical noodles" aka ABC noodles
corn
green beans
thinly sliced hot dogs
parsley
rosemary
soy sauce <-- my addition

Cute.

And that soup sounds nice.

I was sitting at my computer entering some things in my family tree program and my 7 and 9 year old granddaughters were watching and wanted me to show where they were in the tree.

That in of itself takes several clicks since I have to go to my wife and her first husband who is deceased, then to their 2nd son but to his 3rd wife for the 7 year old and then over to the mother and her first husband for the 9 year old... They are an American family in the fullest sense, sisters, brothers, half and step sisters and brothers.

So the 7 year old asks "well who was Uncle Phil?" I replied that it wasn't Uncle Phil but it would have been Grandpa Phil. And I went on to explain that he was Grandmother's first husband, the father of their dad and his brother, Uncle Tim. I went on that he died of cancer and if he had not died he would be their grandfather.

"So you and he would both be our grandfathers?" "No" I said, "if he had not died I would never have married Grandmother and I would not be a member of this family at all."

They both looked panicked and replied, "But we LOVE you!"

It made me feel good to hear that and I tried to use it as a teachable moment that things can be very different if they happen differently, if people don't meet other people or do something different.

An alternate history is just a butterfly flap away. ;)

Rejected Titles for Kids Say the Darndest Things.

Kids Say Whatever Moronic Thought Comes Into Their Heads

It’s So Irritating How Kids Take Everything So Literally

Kids Often Misconstrue Colloquial English

Kids’ Brains Aren’t Sufficiently Developed to Deal With the Subtleties Of Language

Kids Repeat the Terrible Things Their Parents Say In the Home

I Wish Kids Wouldn’t Say the Darndest Things

My Child Keeps Embarrassing Me In Front of Education Professionals

Kids Spoke Only When Spoken to In My Day

Kids Make The Craziest Allegations!

Something My Kid Said Alarmed His Teachers Enough to Raise Suspicions About Me

Kids’ Testimonies are Suspect

Kids Say the Darndest Things When In the Presence of a Court-Appointed Guardian

The Mini-Mes* and I were buying some supplies for T-bird day on Wednesday. Of course, every dick and his dog were also there. As the spoor and I slowly wended the aisles we kept passing this other family headed toward us as we both worked to the other end of the store.

After several aisles, they felt like old friends. At one point just as the mom was rounding the corner away from us I hear her say to her youngest, "Yes, it's just like Black Friday, but for food." The kids and I barked with laughter, and she shot us a grin.