Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Pants Partiers and Other Things that Freak Me Out

Apparently, a lot of people are having parties in their pants these days, because in the past week, I've gotten about twenty hits for "hay una fiesta en mis pantalones y te invito." Which you'd think would just be the same pants partier visiting and revisiting my site except that he'd have to be able to teleport from city to city in a matter of minutes.

Either that, or I am a victim of a practical joke designed by a hacker with no idea what a good practical joke is.

Anyway, moving on: Son has been on a pretty bad streak with the picking out of the library books at school, probably because I have the strange feeling that he's walking to the shelf, grabbing a book, shoving it in his bag, and getting on with bigger and better things.

He may take after me in the Halloween obsession category, but not so much in the could-live-in-a-library category.

Last week, he came home with a chapter book about colonial girls making Christmas gifts. That went over well, let me tell you. This week, it was dinosaurs. Excrutiating, annoying dinosaurs.

Let me explain: Slayer and I don't buy dinosaur stuff for our kids if we can help it. Because, see, dinosaurs eat people, or at least they used to, or at least the non-herbivores did. Sheesh. I know this is shocking, but stick with me here. You don't buy your kids Serial Killer Barbie, with quick stabbing action, right? You don't buy babies crib mobiles decorated with man-eating tigers and pointy-toothed piranha, with little dangly human skulls to provide textural interest, no?

Okay, I admit it. The crib mobile sounds kinda cool. But still.

But for some reason, the whole dinosaur thing is okay. Yes, it gets kids interested in species development and history and things like that, but there are probably other ways to do it that don't creep me out. This is not to say that I forbid son from the dinosaurness, because I know exactly what will happen then: he will become a rabid dinosaurite. So I stumbled through the book, reading small type upside down (and yeah, one of the dinosaurs was the lepowhateverus). People have given us dinosaurs, and we've let him keep them. To my pleasant surprise, he lets his Jedi and Batman figures chop them into kibble. But otherwise, I'm just not up with the dinosaur thing. They rank up there with Barney and the Teletubbies on the list of kids things that freak me out.

17 comments:

Ray Veen said...

Gosh, Carrie, what did dinosaurs ever do to you?

(and if they ate someone close to you, then I apologize for my callousness)

Marcia said...

Boy, Carrie, even your spam is funny. And all I got this week was a fake UPS message telling me to go pick up a package they couldn't deliver, but first I should open the attached virus -- er, invoice. No and no.

Michelle D. Argyle said...

Teletubbies are much scarier than dinosaurs. Much. That sun with the super-freaky baby head in it was what did it for me on the freaky-scale. *shudders*

Rena Jones said...

LOL @ the pants. My boys like dinosaurs, but they're not obsessed with them like some kids are. Nathan is a bird fanatic. I love watching birds and I love taking pictures of birds, but frankly, birds scare me. I had bad experiences as a child that left me scarred forever. Thank goodness it wasn't dinosaurs! :)

K.C. Shaw said...

I had a pet shark when I was very small. I mean, it wasn't real (although I pretended it was). It was a big rubber shark that was hollow inside so it could swallow other, smaller, weaker toys. Man, I loved that shark. I wish I still had it. But I guess the important thing about sharks vs. dinosaurs vs. people is that you can decide not to go swimming.

Carrie Harris said...

BPV: Are you implying that I'm prejudiced against dinosaurs? Because... uh... maybe I am.

Marcia: The saddest part about that is that some people actually fall for it.

Glamis: Yeah, but think about how much freakier it would be if it was a dinosaur baby head, and it reached out and ate all the teletubbies. Okay, that would be cool, but it would still be freaky.

Rena: You had traumatic bird experiences too? I did. Made watching Hitchcock really interesting.

KC: That's oh so true. Or you could swim in a shark-free pool. And then the dinosaurs might crash your party and eat you, but at least you'd have fun first.

Jamie Eyberg said...

I was a dinosaur fanatic when I was a kid. I haven't eaten anybody yet, although the body in the freezer will take a while to thaw out.

Michele Thornton said...

Dinosaurs didn't actually eat people, since they predate humans. Except in Jurassic Park. Which my six year old daughter watched and LOVED. She laughed at the people eating scenes. I'm such a bad mommy.

Carrie Harris said...

Natalie: Yeah, but that's a funny mental image, so it doesn't count.

Jamie: Well, if you want it for Thanksgiving, you better get it out now.

Michele: Yeah, should have been more specific. When playing with them, children, or more specifically my kid, will make them eat everyone. Which is scary.

Kelley said...

I don't know. I'd take blog hits like that. I've been getting "how to get fish oil out of pants"..."the scent of elves"... and "eyeball earmuffs." I kid you not.

Vikki said...

I don't mind dinosaurs so much. But Teletubbies FREAK me out. Try and convince me that the people who created that show weren't completely high.

Jim Danielson said...

I've got to tell you I'm glad Teletubbies were out after my kids were the right age to watch them (They're 21 or more now).

K. M. Walton said...

Alright, I'm going to bust on you a little bit...

I'm nearly certain that dinosaurs and humans didn't coexist. At least that's what I taught my 2nd graders back in 1994 when we did our dino timeline.

My youngest son, Jack, was insanely into dinosaurs so I feel your pain about reading Dino books - YAWN.

Carrie Harris said...

Kelley: I get a lot of freaky moms hits, especially from people who can't spell freaky. So I'm right there with you.

Vivi: Yeah, mostly dinosaurs just annoy me. But in some ways, yeah, they freak me out. Not as much as Teletubbies, though.

Jim: We just put my son in a bubble for the first few years. Actually, that's not true. But we didn't get cable, which is kind of like being in a bubble.

KM: That's fine. I'll bust on your right back, because Michele already said the same thing. ;) And I responded to her that I should have been more specific: naturally they didn't, but when played with by son, they absolutely eat people. And those cannibalistic tendencies scare me. Make more sense?

Suzanne Casamento said...

Speaking of the list of things that freak me out, #1 is the pic of the Dragonlady's fingernails you posted.

Elizabeth said...

Yup my boy loves the dinosaurs. And superheros. And teletubbies.

I love the Night Garden crew and have you seen Boohba?
That is freakiness incarnate.

Carrie Harris said...

Suzanne: Yeah, those are stunt fingernails since I didn't have a camera with me... at the gym. Probably I should have, since Dragon Lady was dressed for it.

Elizabeth: This is why I use the Teletubby names as swear words. Because it's only natural.