Wednesday, October 08, 2008

He's always, always right, if only you listen

Sage and Thyme are currently going through a fearful phase. Each morning, when I enter their room, I am greeted with a litany of their current fears.

"Mama! Go 'way, eah-pain-ah!" Sage cries and gestures to the blank wall.

Said blank wall was once occupied by a cool-looking Ikea print of an old-fashioned airplane. After a certain point, it simply had to go. That certain point happened shortly after Sage noticed that airplanes, in all their scary, noisy glory, fly over our apartment approximately 342,567 times per day.

"Airplane all gone!" I announce, kissing the top of his head.

"Mama! Heatuh?" Thyme chimes in.

Ty and I had two or three quasi-sleepless nights before we realized that it was the space heater that was terrorizing our children. The silent, barely-visible space heater. We mistakenly believed that our children would prefer this unobtrusive object to having icicles form on the ends of their cute little noses. The heater now occupies the valuable real estate in our bedroom closet, and my suits have been relegated to the living room.

"Heater all gone!" I announce, kissing the top of his head.

"Gunn?" Sage asks.

"Gunn all gone!" I reply.

Don't twist your knickers--no, I do not expose my children to guns. The Gunn in question is my beloved Tim Gunn bobblehead doll.




I once thought that my fussy children would find him entertaining. So, I trotted him out and told them that he found them FAB-U-LOUS! He promptly scared the shit out of them.

Ever since then (approximately two months ago), it's been, "Go 'way, Gunn!" or "Gunn gone?" About 18 times a day. However, Mr. Gunn made an appearance last night at dinner.

It was probably about the fourth or fifth time I was crawling around on my hands and knees under the high chair, tracking seltzer and organic red peppers and antibiotic-free chicken with my sweatpants-clad knees. Ty and I had asked the children to STOP THROWING THEIR FOOD ON THE FLOOR at least 24 times. Finally, we had had it.

"If you throw your food on the floor one more time, Tim Gunn will come back," we told them.

Sage, aka The Instigator, looked me right in the eye and tossed a lovingly-cooked black bean over his left shoulder, brazenly tempting fate.

With that, Tim Gunn was placed before them, head wobbling back and forth, telling them to "Make it work!" Much like Kenley before them, they did NOT like this. He retreated back into the bedroom, but not until he had told them that they had to stop throwing their food on the floor, as it was "messy" and "boring" and "cheap" (having borrowed his costar Heidi Klum's three favorite comments--fortunately, he didn't tell them that their boobs were in the wrong place).

I think dinner will be a little bit neater tonight. After all, I can't want them to succeed more than they do.

2 Comments:

Blogger Mignon said...

Can you come banish the scary things from my bedroom? Especially the box fan that looks like a monster at 2:30 am.

I love Tim Gunn the Enforcer. Nothing could stop Quinn from throwing his food, aside from removal of the food. In fact, we couldn't eat a family dinner until a couple months ago because of the mealtime shenanigans of both kids. I need me some Gunn.

12:24 PM  
Blogger Tink said...

You are not even going to believe this... That disturbing auctions site you sent me, the first listing of the boy with the hot dog? I have that EXACT sign! I bought it forever ago because I thought it was hilarious.

3:00 PM  

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