2013-06-04

Ketchup Toes

It’s not as gross as it may sound. Ketchup Toes: Add this to the list of kid games we would be better off if we had never invented.

You should know first off that we’re Toe Biters. (Babies ONLY.) 
And yes, my husband always says "Two damage" based on this card from the Harry Potter Trading Card game (we did not make the HP card game up) I have talked about it before.
from trollandtoad.com
Baby toes = adorable. Adult toes = barf. (That is why you won’t see a picture of even my kids cute feet posted here, because the internet can be a disgusting place, especially anytime feet are mentioned. If you’re not a weirdo or a perv, do NOT accidentally google anything with feet.)

Anyhoo, back to the kid games and WTF is Ketchup Toes. We always tease my toddler, Lola, that she’s delicious, mostly just to her say yell: 

“NO! I NOT 'licious!” 

and then we pretend we’re going to gobble her up because it makes her laugh. And because we’re weird. The other night at dinner, she was cranky waking up from nap, so my husband Count Comfula thought it would be funny if he put ketchup on Lola’s toes before nibbling them. You had to be there. It was funny alright. Hilari-ASS. Lola laughed and laughed, and LOVED it so much she has not stopped shoving her feet at us and saying “Put ketchup on em!” I can’t wait for her to do that in front of strangers at the grocery or a restaurant.

It was funny for a long time, but now we find ourselves trying to explain about joking, which 3 year olds can't really wrap their giant heads around.

As we've done so many times, we reminded ourselves we should THINK before we do this crap. That got me thinking about the weirdo games we have invented over the years.

Here is a look at some of our favorites that I can remember:

Rocket Launcher. 
This was my son’s favorite, as well as every niece and nephew I would watch at my house. This started out with what everyone does with babies and toddlers, flying them like Superman. 
DOING IT WRONG from dailypicksandflicks.com
Then as the kids got older, and heavier, it morphed into me balancing the kids on my shins, and mostly PUSHING them, but also kind of lifting them, to "launch" them forward. I would lean further and further back….until…..*foop* LAUNCH! Oh, did I not mention you need to secure a soft landing spot first? Whoops, sorry kid. It’s only a flesh wound. 

We usually did this onto the couch when they were little, and onto a mountain of couch cushions and pillows when they were a little older, and then onto my bed when they were preteens. (My bed was 2 mattresses on the floor, otherwise I would not have been able to hoist kids up there.) Once the kids hit the teen years, yeeeeaaahhh the game got pretty awkward.

Now when I play with Lola, (she's 3) we play a modified version because she is too scared to be really launched yet. I just Superman fly her and gently toss her on the couch. She calls this “Fly Like a Frog.” When she first started talking, those words sounded HILARIOUS so we encouraged her to say them over and over. Now it’s just weird because it doesn't sound funny, and she doesn’t look like a frog, and my teenager says “Frogs don’t fly” but like all ComfyTown nicknames, it just stuck.

Box Ball. 
This is a modified version of volleyball Tinny & I made up using a cardboard box, with random rally-point scoring. It's super fun, you pretty much just take a box and start a volley, usually on your knees but eventually we played standing up too.

You might think any old box would do, but you would be dead wrong. If you used too heavy of a box, or too light of a box and then thought it would be a good idea to cover that box in Duct Tape, you would have red, raw wrists and hands. This a really bad idea, unless you’re going to modify the game by adding boxing gloves. If you do this, PLEASE take video and email to comfytown@gmail.com Thank you.

We discovered after SEVERAL prototypes that the perfect Box Ball is as close to a square as you can get. For us, it was a case for soda or beer, specifically the thicker boxes for 30+ cans.
from fresh.amazon.com

24-can case boxes will do in a pinch, but they are more of a rectangle and they fly off in strange directions. 

After some play, you may have to use scotch or Duct Tape to hold any pieces that come loose, or any sharp edges, but again too much Duct Tape and it’s painful to hit.

Tinny loved this game so hard, he wanted us to get a mat for the garage floor so we could play on our knees, and cover the walls so we could turn our garage into a Boxball Stadium, and have Boxball tournaments year-round. You might think we could just play in the basement, but once you tape up a box and start volleying it around, you really can’t have anything valuable, or breakable, pretty much ANYWHERE in the room.

This was fine at my tiny, crappy almost studio apartment, but in our current 2nd Official ComfyTown House? It wasn’t going to fly. So to speak. Not with all of my super awesome creepy African masks on the walls. Someone would get REAL HURT.

Back to other weird games, some of which I wish I never invented.
from attackofthefanboy.com

Ow, Duck! 
This game was super fun and hilarious the first time I played with Lola in the tub. 
We tossed rubber duckies at each other in the tub and she said “Ow, duck!’ and CRACKED UP each time. We laughed so much, the Count heard us upstairs and was tickled by how much fun it sounded like we were having.
The next time? Was less fun, as she started to really whip the ducks at me harder and harder, and by the time she figured out how to get the big Mama Duck off of the tub faucet and whip that thing? The “game” became more of a stoning, with rubber, duck-shaped stones.
from moden.us.com
She was obsessed, EVERY BATH became a Shit Storm of ducks. She likes to do the same things over and over, so when getting her into the tub, I tried hiding the ducks, but she would ask and ask for them. I changed the game into Yuck, Duck.

Yuck, Duck! 
Instead of throwing the ducks, I encouraged her to fill them with water and squirt the water at each other. She of course yells "Yuck, duck!" Hey, at least it’s just water comin at ya, Bro. Except now when I think we’re going to just take a quick bath and I won’t have to wet (and then have to dry) my hair? WRONG.
3 Little Speckled Ducks
This is just singing that song with 3 of the ducks, when you get to the “…jumped into the pool…” part we change the word to “tub” and drop one in the tub. She HATED this at first, Lola is a creature of habit and doesn’t like change. Sometimes with persistence you can get her to be flexible, so I continue to try. Plus, once she started with this game, it got her mind off of playing Ow, Duck! Phew. My duck-shaped bruises are all pretty much healed.

Watch Out For That Tree
This is what Lola SCREAMS non-stop now from the stroller during our walks. Again, it started one day when she was crabby while we were walking, my husband started singing “George of the Jungle” and when he got to “…watch out for that TREE” he would run toward a tree and swerve or stop at the last minute. She and the baby are HUGE FANS of this. As all games, it was hysterical at first, but now we have to pull EVERY trick out of our sleeves to distract her from screaming about trees louder and louder and panicking everyone within a 4-block radius.

Nose Shirt
This was one of those things you probably had to be there for. When anyone passes gas, or if any sound anything like that is heard, my husband will put his shirt up over his nose, which Lola finds hilarious and yells out "Nose shirt!" 
The game is either:
A.) For Lola, and now the Baby as well, to pull his Nose Shirt DOWN, and he yells things like, "NO!" or "Ah, it's too stinky" or something like that. Kids love to hear adults talk about things that are stinky. (Seriously, tell a little kid he/she has stinky feet or is generally stinky, they usually find it hilarious; 

OR

B.) Whenever Lola hears a noise like gas being passed, or when we are changing the baby's diaper, she will say "I need a Nose Shirt!" and pull her shirt up, trying to get us to pull her shirt down. Good times. 

I know I’m forgetting others, but I started this over a week ago and my memory shows no signs of improving any time soon. There are lots of silly things we’ve made up, so many I can’t even remember them all, and a lot of them never got official NAMES, like when I was little and my brother & I took turns literally pushing each other down the stairs IN SLEEPING BAGS for whatever reason. Yes, we went into the bags head-first, so the lack of oxygen probably explains a few things about me.

There are tons of silly things like rhyming,
“Would you like goatmeal or boatmeal?”
“I want coatmeal!” and whatnot.

And your typical,
“the first one to the door gets to pick the cartoon” or
“the first one to name 5 states picks the bedtime books” etc., they change as the kids get older.

Not to be confused with my brothers’ torture “games” like:
“Name ten beers and then I’ll stop punching you.” I don’t think my babies can name five beers yet. We always buy the same two.

What? Doesn’t everyone make these up?!


19 comments:

  1. Bahahaha! Love it! Too cute! We do the same thing!

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  2. you were nominated by one of your readers for the 4th of July Hostess Queen award.. We will let you know if you win.. you can check my blog later this week as to how you can host your own (giggle snort) freaking party.. and we will leave you an example of what we did years ago when we hosted parties.. the snarkier.. the better.. he he

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    1. Sweeeet! I don't know what any of that means, but I'm a HUGE fan of anything snarky!

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  3. 1. My husband always wants to put babies' feet in his mouth. It's so strange, but I feel a little better about it after reading this post. He says they're so cute he just wants to nibble them.

    okay, that still sounds creepy.

    2. The box game sounds awesome, and challenging. We didn't have much growing up, so we made up all kinds of games like these, and this post brought back so many memories of that. My favorite game was butt ball, which was where one of us would go to the end of the hallway and lay with our butt in the air, and the other one would take turns trying to hit it with a Koosh ball. (Remember those?)

    I would be a much bigger target now.

    3. I'm now going to be singing the "George of the Jungle" song the rest of the night.

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    1. 1. We have met other Toe Nibblers, he is NOT alone! They are adorable and as Lola would say "Licious" why? Not sure. That's like to explain why rainbows look so beautiful.

      2. Butt ball sounds AWESOME, and when we were pre-teen my BFF & I used to play weird games, one we called (I'm not kidding) Vulva Ball because we rolled a ball back and forth and it morphed into trying to hit the other girl in the lady parts, and you had to be your own goalie to block it. I kind of feel like you & I are going to find out we are related somehow.

      3. hahahaha could be worse. My husband gets the WORST, most annoying songs stuck in his head, and then he gets them stuck in MY head. His fave? Ugh, is "Summer Breeze" I shit you not. He LOVES the melody, always hums it and often sings it. SO ANNOYING!!!

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  4. LOL, you almost lost me with "Ketchup Toes" - two of the things I hate most, tomatoes and feet, all mashed up in one title.

    But that is hilarious - I have to constantly tell my husband "little kids do not GET sarcasm" when he says something ridiculous and they think he's for reals.

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    1. hahahahaha I hate adult feet, BARF! But baby feet? Come ON.

      Yeah, these babies do NOT get us. However my 3 yr old, even though she has NO idea what they mean is randomly working these phrases into her daily vocabulary:
      "What are you talking about Willis?" (she says 'Wullus')
      and
      "You're killin me, Smalls" (This made my sister CRACK UP at our party on Sunday.)
      SO FUNNY.

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  5. I was glad to read only the baby feet are 'eaten'!!!! I agree - love baby feet.... And I LOVE that you mentioned giant headed little kids! Mine were particularly giant headed!!! Thank God for c-sections (times 4!!) LOVE LOVE LOVE This!!!!!

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    1. hahahahahahaha My philosophy is "They'll grow into em" (they're giant heads.) That baby Chee-Dubs (Cheesey Weenie) that I watch? His parents are so worried about the size of his head, they want to get him a helmet :( I think the head and eyes just are the size they are, and we grow into them. That's why it always looks like baby eyes are SO BIG. Maybe they don't grow much, so they look huge on babies.

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  6. Baby toes to about 5 years of age toes are cute and sweet. But by the time first grade comes around I want nothing to do with those feet ever again. EVER!

    That said when Hayley was little we would play "Kiss The Foot". It started out like most of yours, a way to make the baby laugh on a crabby day. She would be cranky and I would tell her to tell daddy kiss my foot. It progressed to her sticking her foot into the air every time we said it and making Mike kiss her foot.

    Now days it's evolved to her trying to gross out her fathr (shes 6 now) by putting her feet on his face.

    I feel for her future boyfriend/husband.

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  7. And to think we have been playing Nose Shirt all these years. We just didn't know the name!!

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    1. Yeah, I think that is a pretty common game, I just love the way Lola says "Nose Shirt!" :)

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  8. I'm guessing this is spam, b/c "Boxing Equipment" is a pretty WEAK name for a blog, yo.

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  9. This reminds me of what we used to do to the first one to fall asleep at a slumber party. Ketchup on the toes. I know - gross!

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  10. Ha. Well, I have definitely heard of much WORSE things done to the who falls asleep (or passes out in our older years) at a slumber party.
    My older sisters have some horrible drunken stories about Sharpie markers, including notes left in lipstick, a Sharpie watch and Sharpie marker GLASSES on someone's face. Yikes.

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  11. Making up games with kids are fun! You seem to really have some fun games going on!. Lovely memories...
    Thanks for hooking up to the Hump Day Hook Up

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  12. We used to make up all kinds of goofy games like these when we were kids. Too funny. Some are better than the ones to purchase in the stores.

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  13. We used to make up all kinds of games like these when we were kids. Some of these are better than the ones on sale in the stores.

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