Things I never would have imagined needing to say...

...that is, until I had kids.

I just wanted to share some of the incredible weirdness that goes on around here. I'll tell one of the funniest things one of the older girls said to a younger sister,  let you in on some of the wierdest statements I've ever had to say, a couple of the interesting (as in, warning bells are going off in my head) things I've overheard and what has to be the all time strangest conversation I've ever had in my life.

First would be a comment, or rather a command made to Bree by Ri a couple of years ago. Drumroll please...
"No!! When I said drop him, I meant on this side of the deck rail!!!"
I'm sorry, there is just no way not to laugh when this is told. And no, the neighbor boy wasn't hurt. Ri did stop Bree from dropping him over the deck.

Here are some of my favorite things that I never thought I'd have to say.
1) Do Not put your sister in the dryer!!
2) Under NO circumstances do you turn on the dryer if your sister is inside...ever again!!
3) No, you may not use the clothes dryer to dry the cat. NO! Trust me, she would not like it.
4) Do not roll the bowling ball at the (console) TV!
This was shouted to one of the kids midsentence of a phone conversation with my mom. There for a few minutes, she couldn't breathe for laughing. While still laughing, she was mumbling something about it being so nice to be on the other side of one of those oddly interrupted phone conversations.
5) Stop surfing down the stairs on your mattresses right now!!
6) No, I do not care that Bree's mattress was the fastest staircase surfboard. By the way, did any of you notice the metal and glass table that sits just a few feet from the bottom of the staircase??
7) Quit walking/jumping around your room on the tops of all your furniture, especially the (very narrow) top rail of the bunk bed. Yes, I'm sure it was neat to be able to walk around your room without ever touching the floor, but you still can't do it again.
8) Do not put anymore popcorn kernals, or anything else, in your ears.
9) Are you sure that lizard is dead? (For the record, it had been brought in the house to scare a sibling.)
10) You just spent 10 minutes holding that lizard when you thought it was dead. Now go pick it back up and take it outside.
11) Do not feed your sister anymore paint! (Thankfully, it was non-toxic, but she had some colorful diapers the next day.)
12) Unzip that suitcase and let your sister out!!
15) Don't put anymore horseshoes in your nose. (Does that seem impossible? Explanation below.)

For those of you who are parents, I'm sure you'll understand that certain something that clicks in your brain sometimes. It happens during times you're not really listening to the kids, but somehow there's a part of your brain that zeros in on particular word combinations and causes you to go instantly on high alert. The next few things are examples of that phenomenon, the last one setting off my all time strangest conversation.

Youngest two children are passing when you overhear, "Let's go stand in the bathtub to cut it on."
Your brain picks up on "cut it on" and bathtub. Since you normally 'cut on' electric objects, this goes straight to the high alert section of the brain. In this case it was a battery operated glow in the dark thing, and apparently the darkest spot in the house is in the bathtub, with the shower curtain drawn, and the bathroom door shut.

Youngest three children running through the den when one says to the youngest, "Come on! It's your turn to be the target!"
Guess no explanation is needed for why this one made it through whatever I happened to be focusing on at the time. I can't remember now what exactly was being throw at the "target", but I remember being assured it was soft. I also remember nixing the idea.

And my all time favorite:
Youngest two (are you seeing a pattern?) are walking past me in the den, when one asks the other, "How did it feel when you pulled it out of your nose?"

For those of you who don't have kids, or your kids are still small and you haven't sampled this sort of thing so far (If your kids are grown and you never went through any of this, just don't tell me. That way I can still assure myself we're not totally bizarre.) this is one of those moments when your brain slows everything down so that an amazing amount of debate can rage inside your head in just a few seconds. Let me explain. Sometimes there are situations that, while they are certainly out of the ordinary, are not, oh, shall we say, life threatening, so you just let them pass. This happens most often when you are very tired, or everyone is getting along, and things are reasonably quiet. You just do not want to rock that boat because those few, treasured moments are more important than, for example, an object that has apparently already been taken out of someone's nose. So, this is what happens:
The players: Mom, Mom's mind (envision the quintessential devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other), Thing Kid One, Thing Kid Two
Kid one: "How did it feel when you pulled it out of your nose?"
Mom's head jerks up and her mind says "What???"
Kid two: "It kind of tickled."
Mom's mind: "What?"  "You do NOT want to go there."  "I've got to ask."  "No you don't. It's already been pulled out of her nose. Everything will be okay."  "I've just got to know, there may be something else in there."  "Noooooo!"
Mom to Kid two: "Wait a minute. What, exactly, did you pull out of your nose?"
Kid two: "A horseshoe."
Trust me, for a nano-second your brain goes absolutely numb.
Mom: "A what?"
Kid two: "A horseshoe." Kid one is nodding furiously.
Mom's mind: "There's no-way a horseshoe was really up her nose."  "I've got to ask."  "No you don't. There really is no way a horseshoe was in her nose. Relax, let it go."
Mom: "Ummmm. Can I see this horseshoe?"
Kid two: "I don't know where it is now."
Mom: "Are you sure whatever it was is really out of your nose?"
Kid two: "Yes." Kid one is nodding again.
Mom's mind:  "See, nothing is really wrong. Just Let It Go."  "I can't do that. I need to find out what was really in her nose and tell her not to put things up there."
Mom: "How did you get a horseshoe in your nose?" Mom's mind: "Do we even have horseshoes?"
Kid two: "I just put it there."
Mom: "What horseshoe was it."
Kid two: "I don't know. Just a horseshoe."
Kid one: "It was one of those, you know, Barbie horseshoes."
Mom's mind: "The Barbie horse is still pretty big and I didn't think it had detachable horseshoes."  "So see, you can let it go. Please let it go."
Mom: "The Barbie horse has horseshoes?"
Kid two shrugs. Kid one: "Well, it's not really the Barbie horse, it's a Stacey, or one of the other small ones."
Mom's mind: " What?? We have something like that?" "I'm telling you, for the sake of our sanity...LET IT GO."
Mom: "Okay, okay. Let's just say you really did put a horseshoe in your nose." Kids one and two are nodding. "Why?"
Kid two: "Because it was blue."
Mom's mind: blank again for a split second, then... I'll admit it. The weaker part of me finally won out.
Mom: "Okay, go play, and don't put anymore horseshoes in your nose."

This conversation made absolutely no sense whatsoever until about two weeks later when I was passing the computer armoire and spied something small and blue right against the bottom edge. I bent down, picked it up, and low and behold, it was a very small blue horseshoe. Turns out it was to a small Kelly doll that had a horse with an entire "take care of the horse" kit. I'd had no idea it actually came with detachable horseshoes. When I brought Kid two in to ask her about it she confirmed it was the horseshoe she had used and that what she had done was put it on the edge of her nose to make it look like a hoop style nose ring she had seen on someone recently in the grocery store. She was showing Kid one what it had looked like. Ahhh - the world makes sense again...for a split second anyway.
Then one of the other girls shouts, "Ewwwww mom! Your holding that thing she had in her nose!"
See? I told you, all was once again right with the world.