WW: Behold My Beautiful Baby's Big Beautiful Buddha BELLY

WW Challenge: Shadow, Forgotten, Texture, Reflection

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 2^nd 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?!

WW3: Get on the Bus, Gus

80's Prom Pictures, Totally Tubular

Prom blog by You're My Favorite Today inspired me to look for my rad 80's prom pictures. They crack me UP. 

These are the pictures I talk about in my prom blog post called “Prom-a Drama.” < -- click those words to be brought to that post if you haven’t seen it. It's kind of funny and tells the back story. 

We’ll wait.

Okay, now that you know the back story, here are the pics. FYI: I heart the 80's. Mayhap you, like totally had to be there, dude. Try listening to 80's big hair band sensation Poison while you look at these. Here, click the link below, read while this song plays. It'll set the mood.

I found one without any ad. You're welcome. 

In my defense, it was the 80’s, I was 16 and 17 in these pictures, and my sisters weren’t living at home to help me and my mom was.......well, a truck driver at one point in her life and she kept that “look” throughout her life.

The quality of the pictures is bad, scanner down, I took a picture of the pictures with my phone. Once again, bask in my hi-tech glory! If there is not already an award for "Worst Blogger Ever" someone may just make it up for me. 

This is my Senior Prom. The back of my hair is tied into a scrap of ribbon from a Christmas present, held underneath with a bobby pin. That was a trick my oldest sister taught me and the ONLY trick I knew on fancy hairdo’s. 

"This is like, totally gnarly."
"No duh."

Mullet? Yeah, it was like, the 80’s, dude. Totally. Just remember that if these styles make you want to like, gag yourself with like, a spoon. Even my DRESS is a righteous mullet: Business in the front, party in the back! Same as my boyfriend's tux tails.

I think everyone got tux tails then. Do they still? I wouldn't know, my son didn't go to his Junior or Senior prom. Most people opt OUT for tails at weddings these days.

That thing on my right leg, that makes me look like a battered woman? Is a velvet champagne glass with rhinestones in the bubbles, attached to the panty hose. People loved evil panty hose in the 80s, so much they made them in white and blue and red, and people CHOSE to wear them. That's right, even in their own FREE TIME, not just to work and not just as part of an assigned uniform.

I found them at a store that was only open for about a year, they specialized in special occasion hose, you could get WORDS put on them for an extra charge. The dress was from some wedding I don't remember, and is also the same dress in the phone below of my Junior homecoming, and probably in 87 of my family's wedding photos. 

This dress came with the shoes! Uh maw GAWD, the shoooeess! In the 80's for weddings, people would always have lace shoes DYED to match the color of dresses and if it was the first (or even the sixth) time you wore those damn things, the ink would bleed onto your panty hose. It would slowly bleed up your panty hosed leg, and your feet would look bruised and battered for weeks. 

It was a simpler time, regular everyday people didn't have cell phones or the internet, or talk about condoms openly. Explains a lot, doesn't it? Sorry about that burning sensation when you pee. 

This one is my Junior prom, as explained in the prom post, the guy I was dating was down state or at state, or regionals or whatever. This is my Junior year BFF and her brother, with a killer fully-loaded mullet and 80's porn-stach. I'm wearing the dress I wore to be a bridesmaid in my oldest sister's wedding. Bolero jackets were hot.

"This backdrop is radical."
"I'm so sure."
"Psyyyych!"

p.s. I thought the city landscape background picture was SOOO BODACIOUS!

This next one.....Ugh. My Junior Homecoming. Is it just me? This picture gives me the heebs decades later. 

"Dude, like bag your gnarly face."
"Eat my shorts!"

I do apologize if this Grody to the Max image haunts your dreams. What is seen can't be unseen. I've learned you can't gouge out you're mind's eye. 

The creepy clowns in the background, I mean, what the hell kind of theme was it? Circus? For a high school homecoming. Good job, Dance Committee. Or whoever makes these decisions. 

I look like a ghost, and my date looks like a pedophile. I decided at the last minute to go with this....person let's just say, (because I feel like someone on my Facebook page might still be in touch with him in whatever minimum-security prison he currently resides,) to homecoming my junior year. He is the winner that showed up late, with a HICKEY on his neck from someone else. We were not dating, but still. A class act.

I didn't know from makeup in high school. I still don't. I was so skinny, but I probably thought I was chubby or something. Because high school.

Fun Fact: My sister and I saw this guy years later at a bar in our home town and she was IMMEDIATELY creeped out. She made us bring our drinks to the bathroom with us so he didn’t try to put something in them! That is a good practice at bars if you’re not with a group you know, as gross as it may seem to bring your drink into the bathroom it’s better than waking up in a bathtub full of ice or something.

So here they are. 

Do you still have your prom pictures? Funny old wedding photos? Awkward Family Photos? Anything funny or interesting to report?? I love 90's, 80's and before that style. I'd love to see yours if you have them! 

Email any you have, or think are funny to comfytown@gmail.com 

WW RaNdOm Spring Pictures

Comparison: 1st Anniversary to 5th Anniversary

Friday was our 5^th wedding anniversary. We didn’t do much, because let’s face it when you have 3 kids including two toddlers and a teenager, every day is just one big, romantic celebration. In case fonts don't translate on your media reader, that was big fat, hairy Sarcasm. With serifs. 

Our Vegas wedding was a total blast but as I’ve said before, I am always more excited about the anniversary of our first date in October. The 18^th…ish. Neither of us can remember the exact date. This must be why couples make the biggest deal out of their WEDDING DAY anniversary, that's the only date anyone can remember because you have to fill out actual paperwork, send out invitations and schedule things.

Anyway, years of marriage and two children later, here is a quick comparison of our 1^st anniversary vs. our 5^th 

1^st Anniversary Celebration: We threw a Vegas-themed party with cards, borrowed a felt-covered covered black jack table and I actually bought card-themed decorations. I found Bellini in a bottle, similar (kind of) to the Bellini drinks they make at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. For dinner I made crab legs, which he loves but hates de-shelling, so I made them early and removed the meat from the shell so he came home to pile of fresh crab meat already taken out of the shell.

5^th Anniversary Celebration: I tried all day to get to the grocery store to get food for a nice dinner, but wound up on the phone talking to everyone at my teenager’s school about what his consequences were for blowing off school AGAIN. (He has a possibly terminal case of Senior-it is.) I was still unloading groceries when the Husband pulled in after work. D'oh!

1^st Anniversary Libations: We had a champagne toast and talked about our wedding trip to Vegas, and our favorite parts of our trip and our wedding day.

5^th Anniversary Libations: I just barely remembered to get rum and pineapple juice to make the Count Mai Tai's at home, which we chugged over the screams of 2 crabby, hungry kids who were sick of grocery shopping.

1^st Anniversary Preparation: I made sure my hair was freshly dyed and cut, wore a nice shiny Vegasy shirt for the party and busted out the expensive from-the-mall makeup I purchased a year before for the wedding.

5^th Anniversary Preparation: My last container of pressed powder fell into the toilet a couple weeks ago when the 3 yr old tried to get her own toothbrush out of the cabinet. I captured to share with Facebook, the world should be inspired by our grace and beauty in ComfyTown.

Life metaphor?

I did take a bath with that kid that day, so at least I didn’t stink. I grabbed a clean shirt (pretty sure) and clean underwear. I think I shaved this week, but really it doesn’t matter.

Overheard at dinner 1^st Anniversary: 

“Remember how we always used to say ‘EVERY day is a honeymoon when you’re married to your best friend?!’”

“Tee hee” *Dramatic winking*

“Barf” “Yeah, barf” *Smiling and smooching*

Overheard at dinner 5^th Anniversary:

"I want noga bar!” --Lola, age 3

“Aaaahhh!” --The baby

“Look, the kids are starving, this needs to get done so either take over the cooking or get the frick out of here. Too many cooks in this kitchen!” --Me

“AAAHH!” --The baby

"I can't like this!" --Lola

“Who cares if she won’t try it? We’re better off if the kids DON’T like crab meat. More for us!” --Count Comfula

“I made TWO poo poo’s today, Daddy!” --Lola

“AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!” --The baby

Couple Stuff at 1^st Anniversary:

Probably not, we had been trying to get pregnant for a year and at that point, couple stuff becomes more about Science than Romance. Calendars, alarms, thermometers, ovulation predictors, beakers and Bunson burners and whatnot. 

Couple Stuff at 5^th Anniversary:

The only action the Hubs wanted is for me to make a big pot of coffee in the afternoon, to stay awake after the kids went to bed, to play Game of Thrones card game. I couldn't stay awake through one whole round. ZzZzZzZzzzzzzzz

We're not getting older, we're getting COMFIER.

Here is us at our 20th Anniversary:

Except we already are too old.