Why Your Sons Should Not Play Karate Games

So I carried on last night about how my boys had their Butt-kicking
Festival in the dining room and I ignored it. Missed that? Shame on you
for not being a better cult follower. Read about it here . So we have
already established I'm not up for a MOTY award. Well, how about the
World's Biggest Loser Award where I have to walk around with the
word LOSER stamped on my forehead and have my parental rights
revoked? Well, maybe not the forehead stamp....

Earlier yesterday, Aiman was doing God only knows what in the
boys' room and this required him to stand on Hamo's footboard in socked
feet. He slipped and racked himself, mostly on the backside but apparently
a little further forward, too. He told me he hurt his butt on the bed but
didn't mention any further details. And he wasn't crying, coughing, bleeding
or singing the high notes, so I asked for none. Blah blah blah. The day
continues and eventually ends with the shirtless free-for-all we discussed
earlier above. About two hours later, Aiman came in crying that his "butthole
is hurting on the left side." Okay. So I told him to go rinse it off in the bidet
hoping that his verbage was mistaken and that hurting really meant itching.
Nope. "It didn't work! My left butthole is still hurting me really bad." So
thankful for the previous hygiene advice, I went ahead and inspected. He
was right. The left side of his anus was swollen about the size of a half dollar.
So I put an ice pack on it. What else was I supposed to do? It was 2 am and
it's not like you can run to the nearest pharmacy and ask for the usual
prescription one receives from half a swollen butthole. He lasted 30 seconds
with the ice. Finally, he went to sleep.
Today when he got up he was walking funny. So, I asked him, "Hey, how's
your butt today?" And he said it still hurts. So I re-inspected and wow! The
half-dollar sized swelling was up to a couple of bucks....the swelling was about
the size of my hand now and included most of his left cheek and was extending
downward. I got him dressed and took him to the hospital and the pediatrician
there said, "I'm pretty sure he just hit himself pretty hard but I'd like to refer
him to a surgeon just to play it safe." SURGEON? Not the word you want to hear
when dealing with your kid's lower levels. So, I put on my brave face and wore
it for the rest of the day. Egypt is a fairly nocturnal society. You're lucky if you
can find a doctor around during daylight hours. So we had to wait until tonight.
I took him to a different hospital where I knew the two surgeons. By this time,
it was 9 pm and the swelling had increased now to include the entire left testicle.
He was so swollen that he had to walk with legs way open and he was in pain if
he sat down too hard. This doctor took one look at him and wrote up a referral
for a sonogram...across town. We caught a cab to the radiologist and the place
was packed. Wall to wall sick people. Yuck. We finally got seen and got his films
and got out of there around 1 am. YAY. Only needing a prescription and no
need for surgery as nothing was twisted or broken. Of course, the radiologist
gave Aiman and Ismail (who was along for the ride and PROBABLY the one who
kicked him in the ding-ding in the first place though he swears he didn't) a stern
speech about the dangers of karate kicks, chops, and punches to the testicles.
Aiman is only 8 and these types of questions don't enter his mind. But Ismail
will be 11 next week. And after seeing his brother's junk swollen 4 times it's usual
size, asked me, "Will Aiman be able to have kids still when he's old?" And I told him
God willing. The doctor did reassure me that he's okay down there but he MUST
be careful in the future.
I wonder if I buy three cups at the same time if I can get a discount. I'm sure the
wrestling around may stop temporarily but I don't think it'll last forever.

Life and Death Reasons to Fist Fight OR Why My Kids Woke Me Up Early Today

**Due to over-the-shoulder-editing by one of my kids, I will refer to them in NO
PARTICULAR ORDER as Kid A, Kid 2, PITA, Brat and HeyYou. That way no one
will be able to identify which one irritated the crap out of me most today and Kid
A will get over his complex of having people know stuff about him.***

So I went to bed around 3am after staying up late with my hubby watching a really
lame movie (View From the Top with Gwyneth Paltrow, Christina Applegate,
Candace Bergin, Mark Ruffalo and a cross-eyed Mike Myer.) I got up around 9 to go
to the bathroom and was overjoyed to find the whole house still asleep. Happy, happy,
joy, joy! in the immortal words of Ren and Stimpy. For a brief second, Responsible Me
thought, "Hmmmm. Now would be a good time to get up and hit the vegetable market
with no one to whine "buy me some cookies while you're out" or "can I come????" or
"It's myyyyyyyyyy turn! You alwayyyyyyyyyyyss take PITA with you!" ResponsibleMe
also thought, "you can beat the scorching humid heat, too, if you go now." But then
SelfishNeverPassUpTwoMoreMinutesOfSnoozeTimeMe said, "EFFF THAT! Get your
arse back in bed!" And I did.

An hour and a half later, I heard a body slam against my bedroom door and PITA comes
flying in with a stuffed Clifford the Big Red Dog toy in hand and Kid A hot on his heels,
shrieking. PITA took a running leap across the footboard and bounced off my left ankle,
causing me to sit up in bed and yell, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING????!!!" Hubby
faked like he didn't hear anything and rolled over because...well, that's what husbands do,
isn't it?

Kid A started screaming, "HE TOOK MY CLIFFORD! It's MINE, I tell you. Baba bought it
for ME! And he TOOK IT right outta my hands!" PITA countered with, "THAT'S A LIE! I
had it first and HEEEE is not sharing with me!" After a few more exchanges like these and
decorated with various insults and bad words, I finally yelled, "GET OUTTA HERE YOU
FIGHTING FREAKS! One more fight over that stupid toy and I'll rip the stuffing out of it
and throw the shell away after burning it!" This, of course, was followed by screams and
wails of "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Exit fighting boys.

Twenty minutes later, I heard another body slam against the door which then slammed
against the wall. Only this time PITA was chasing KidA and both were shouting insults
and bad words at one another and threatening to kill the other. HeyYou came in just as
I closed my eyes and asked for strength. KidA and PITA ran back out to finish brutalizing
one another in a different room. HeyYou climbed up between Hubby and me and I
smacked him on the back of the neck and said, "Look, if you're gonna tease your brother
go get the ass-kickin' you deserve and stay outta my bed!" He cried. It was then I realized
that I truly AM blind as a dingbat without my glasses. Poor HeyYou! He didn't do anything
to deserve that. So I let him cuddle with me and I apologized for smackin' him and then
excused myself to go beat the hell outta his brothers. I took the Clifford toy away from
whichever of the two had it (remember, I couldn't see still, no glasses) and hid it far away
from both of them. (Only HeyYou saw where it went and was sworn to secrecy!)

Then I realized no more sleep for me and both Brat and Kid 2 were on the couch watching
cartoons and waiting for breakfast. So, I got up, made breakfast, returned the toy 9mm
plastic gun with suction cup arrow-type bullets to HeyYou (he'd had that taken away from
him because he kept shooting the tv screen with it, as well as, PITA used the same gun to
shoot KidA in the face when KidA refused to give him a quarter they were fighting over.)
I am in search of vitamins that bring on maturity in teenagers. If anyone has any idea if
Flintstones makes a chewable vitamin that makes teens act their age and wards off tantrums
the likes of which would make 2-year olds shudder, PLEASE e-mail me fast! or leave me
the info in the comments block! Thanks!

What I WON'T Be Doing This Summer....

THANK GOD AND GREYHOUND, THEY'RE DONE WITH THE FINAL EXAMS!!!!!!

Finally, I thought this school year would NEVER end. It was like one
of those horrible nightmares where you think you woke up but didn't...
like the dream sequence in An American Werewolf in London. At any
rate, I'm gonna give the kids a whole two days to live it up...I'm even
planning a trip to one of the national parks here (they have HOT DOG TREE
HERE!!! yeah, they're really IS such a thing.) tomorrow for a picnic and
soccer and running around and playing with some friends of ours. THEN, I am
going to blindside them with chores. See, I let them slide all academic year long.
But summertime is "help a mother out" time. I figure it this way, if I have to
endure your asses all summer long, complete with fighting, whining, spraying
each other by pointing the bidet spray out of the toilet when someone unlocks
the bathroom door with a spoon from the outside and walks in on the other for
taking too long....then dammit I'm getting some recompense outta the situation.

Each kid will have one day a week to do dishes. While ideally I should have had
7 kids so I'd never have to do dishes, the ole uterus crapped out on me after 5,
so we had it scrapped. And since Randa is autistic and has issues with bubbles
unless she's blowing them with gum or sitting in them in the tub, I'll still be doing
dishes 3 days outta the week. BUT 4 days outta 7 I'll NOT have dishpan hands.
Woohoo.

Also, since Hamo and Ismail like to beat the hell out of one another from the
time they get up in the morning (an hour or two before I do) until they go to
bed at night, I've decided that another thing I won't be doing this summer is
buying bread. No sirree, Bob! I'll get out of bed long enough to hand each one
a bread basket and a one-pound note and send they're argumentative behinds
down the road to go stand in the bread lines for me. I'll be under the ceiling fan
dreaming blissfully of childless days of yore on the beaches of Mykonos, when
my thighs were firm and my ass hadn't fallen and hit me in the back of the knees.

The third thing I'll NOT be doing this summer is "vacationing" at my sister-in-law's
beach villa on the northern shores of Egypt. I lost 4 kilos in 10 days working my
butt off there last year and left pissed off, sunburned and not speaking to any of my
husband's relatives for 6 months afterward. No reason to burn bridges again.
Besides, I swore to God Almighty that I'd never go back to that place again. We'll
just go to the local beaches or rent a place by ourselves and have fun the way we
want with no familial differences.

What I will be doing is finishing the mosaic table top that the kids and I started two
years ago, sewing, painting with the kids, and taking them on as many outings as I can
manage without losing my so-called mind. I'm thinking museums, beach, parks, maybe
a soccer game at the local stadium provided the visiting team is NOT from the UK!
I think we'll have a boatload of fun...Happy Summer.

p.s. Only 90 more days until school starts again.

Re-runs (0ct 9, 2007) The Wedgie Fascination

Note: I'm beginning a short series of 're-runs' of blogs that I'd previously posted on
myspace. I decided that I don't like myspace so much and decided to move my stuff here.
I've dated the re-runs with their original composition dates so as not to confuse my adoring
fans with incorrect dates and ages, etc. Please feel free to comment on the hilarity of me and
what a great writer I am....or not. Just please don't spam me to death with ads for sexual
enhancement medicaments. PLEASE!!!! Thanks in advance. Here goes:


Since the beginning of man wearing underwear with separate leg-holes, the males of our species have been fascinated with the wedgie. Cotton fabric being jammed as tightly and highly up one's hind region as is allowable by physics, is viewed as a source of pride among wedgie-givers worldwide. Although the practice, seemingly, tends to have been perfected in the United States, wedgie giving is alleged to date all the way back to a rather moody Japanese tailor, who one day just snapped as a result of having to look at yet another naked behind of the national Sumo wrestling team. Legend has it that he jerked the fabric so tightly into the wrestlers crack, that he went on to be the world champion by accidentally winning 10 of 10 matches when he was, in truth, only trying to uncrank the cloth from his colon. Since that time, the wedgie has travelled from continent to continent and has developed into the "Super Wedgie", "Hanging Wedgie" and the ever-feared "Atomic Wedgie." This six-letter word can bring even a 30-year old computer geek from Microsoft to tears, as it triggers dreaded memories of high school nightmares gone by.
And my sons, ages 6, 9 and 12, carry on the legend of the wedgie behind me as I type this right now. The Japanese tailor would be so proud.

P.S. (3 oct 2008) I just thought of one of my all time favorite wedgie scenes in movies....It would
have to be in that movie with Steve Martin, Queen Latifah and Jean Smart where Queen Latifah gives Steve Martin's sister-in-law a serious thrashing in the women's room at the country club and then hangs her up by her one-piece bathing suit on the doorstop on the upper corner of the changing room door. Definitely a wedgie worth respecting.