Tuesday, January 17, 2006

All I got for Christmas

We were watching video from this past Christmas last night. One of the twins is opening his first present. He tears off the wrapping paper and comes to the gift box. He says, "Hey, all they got me was a box!"

Why "cool" underwear is bad

Two things every parent should know about 5 year olds and soccer:

1) Most of the kids out there don't get it
2) If your kid wears "cool" underwear to a game, he'll want to show them off

I won't elaborate on #1 since any parent who has had a kid play soccer has a good idea what I am talking about. I just want to talk about #2.

I've got twin boys. One is the competitor the other is the disrupter. Let's call them "C" and "D" for short. C gets out there and goes after the ball while D wants everyone to play tag, cowboys (with finger guns.....feigned gasp), or something other than the game actually being played.

Soccer shorts are baggy and apparently you can grab the side of them and pull them up pretty high. High enough in fact for everyone else to see your underwear. As the kids are standing in the middle of the field waiting for play to commence, D discovers this.

D is wearing his favorite "Batman" underwear. D suddenly yells to his teammates "Look at my Batman underwear!" Before Mrs. Puff can fully instantiate her feelings of mortification that my son is leading the rest of the children down the path to the dark side of the force, the rest of the kids start pulling up the sides of their shorts to show off their underwear too....both teams. One kid, realizing that not everyone can see how really cool his underwear is, starts to untie his shorts....and then the coaches step in. Thankfully.

It was plain white underwear from the next game until the end of the season.

Adventures in "natural medicine"

When we lived in Houston about 8 years ago (has it been that long?), my wife (Mrs. Puff) and I became good friends with a couple at our church. The wife of the couple, Angela, was getting very involved with alternative medicine (mainly herbs and homeopathy) and got Mrs. Puff interested as well.

Well, Mrs. Puff goes out and buys books, herbal supplements, homeopathy, and a rain dance outfit (kidding) just in time for me to succumb to some nasty viral food poisoning.

Side note: it was Mrs. Puff's potato salad served at a "young couples potluck church gathering." Everybody who had the potato salad got sick that night. Shhhh...don't tell her I said that.

I started feeling achy about 10 minutes after we'd gotten home from the gathering. Ten minutes after I crawl into bed I'm running to the bathroom to "purge my body of the offending parasite".....in other words, I threw up. Then I drank some water. Then I went back to bed. Then I ran back to the bathroom. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

In the midst of all this, I develop chills and I cannot get warm. Mrs. Puff immediately consults one of her books and discovers a potential cure my chills.....cayenne pepper pills.

Some time between when she gave me those pills and I actually put them in my mouth it should have occurred to me that since I couldn't hold down water I probably couldn't hold down those pills either. No matter. I took them. Ten minutes later, they came up with the water....however, the pills didn't come up since they'd dissolved......just the cayenne pepper.....along with my cries of "holy crap (wretch), I am on fire (heave)!!!!"

I love spicy food, but there is a big difference when the direction of the spicyness is opposite from the way you typically enjoy it.

Disclaimer: Mrs. Puff is still a heavy practitioner of homeopathy, herbs, and supplements. She has used them on me and the kids and successfully cured all sorts of minor illnesses. I still remain skeptical about homeopathy despite the number of times it has actually worked on me. I am certain my insurance is thankful for how few doctor visits we've had over the past several years even though the bastards won't reimburse me for the stuff.....nevermind. Future post.

Change in direction

When I started this blog, I had visions of being one of those serious, conservative, political commentary blogs a la Polipundit or Right Wing News. Did I say visions? I meant delusions. Whatever......

What I've found is that I've more interest in reading those blogs than writing for mine....as you can tell from the date of my previous post.

So, I'm going to switch gears and blog about other things I care about such as family, religion, culture, and on occasion politics (but only when I get really miffed).

And while I'm at it, I actually may post something.......