Today marks the return of Whiteboard Wednesdays. If you have no idea what this is, neither do my kids. So know that you’re not alone.
Basically, Whiteboard Wednesday is when I write down something semi-idiotic that I said while parenting in the past week. This is easier than it seems.
Some past Whiteboard Wednesday comments include the following (click on the picture if you wish to go to the original post).
This week’s Whiteboard Wednesday moment occurred while Vivian and William were having a bath. The water was up to their belly buttons. I was multitasking, managing to simultaneous keep an eye on my seven-year-old twins whilst tidying their bedroom way down the hall.
I heard silence. Then giggling.
Then silence. Then giggling.
My spidey-senses started to tingle.
I walked back to the bathroom.
Vivian was putting her face in the water and inhaling. Intentionally.
William was in hysterics.
I asked Vivian one of those stupid rhetorical questions. (Some teachers likely told you there were no such things as stupid questions. They lied. There are a lot of stupid questions. Most are rhetorical; most are asked by parents).
This was my rhetorical question:
Like most kids, Vivian didn’t realize that my stupid question was rhetorical. So she answered.
“It cleans my nose.”
My seven-year-old had invented a bathtub-size neti pot.
And then, because I sometimes lack the ability to bite my tongue quickly, I added:
“Mom!” Vivian exclaimed.
William laughed and started his own personal demo.
“Did I say that out loud?” I asked.
“Yes,” Vivian answered while William picked and flicked.
And another rhetorical question bites the dust.
Since it’s Whiteboard Wednesday, I have to ask:
What bizarre things have you said or heard recently?
I am so glad Whiteboard Wednesdays have returned. I’ve started my morning with a good belly laugh. Thanks!
You’re welcome! Thanks for taking the time to comment. Hope you found some more laughs too.
How funny! Unfortunately, the most bizarre things I hear come from politicians. Especially the ones who want to be president. Thanks for the laugh.
Yes, many politicians need a whiteboard, where they could erase their ridiculous comments.
Yay for the return of Whiteboard Wednesdays! One of my favorite things is being on the phone with a friend and hearing what she says to her children while trying to imagine the scene in my head. She says things like, “Stop putting that knife in your sister’s hair.” Oh the things parents say to children. Take them out of context and they’re uproariously funny. 🙂
I’m laughing at the knife-in-the-sisters-hair image. Funny! (Especially when it’s someone else’s child).
So happy to have white board Wednesday back! Yesterday we hit the pool for one last day of summer. I turned my head just in time to see my son with bloated cheeks headed towards his sister. Unable to intervene fast enough, I could not prevent him from giving her a lemonade shower. When he realized I’d seen him, he came over with a huge grin. “What?,” he argued, “it was lemonade, if she’d opened her mouth she could’ve caught it, and then she might have liked it.” I was speechless. My white board was empty. I could definitely use a bit more of your quick wit. Happy Wednesday.
Sometimes quick wit can bite you too, as I know all too well. A lemonade shower sounds sticky, and without a Superbowl trophy to show for it, too…
Happy Wednesday to you too!
I have also told my kids to stop using their head to climb the stairs. Huh. Must be a kid thing. I say all kinds of crazy shit to my kids, but immediately forget it because it makes sense in the moment, but taken out of context, sounds like I need a special jacket. You know, the one with those extra long arms so that I can’t harm myself or others. A padded room would be nice right about now as well. I could use a nice long nap.
Laughing. Yes, a padded room: sometimes for the children, often for the parents…
“Do Not put the Cheese-Whiz on your cousins face!”. Too late.
Child #4 (who is almost 13) wanted to surprise his cousin with his new food find. (Cheese-Whiz is not even a food. eww) So, his trusting cousin (9 years old) sat down on the couch, closed his eyes, opened his mouth and….
ended up with Cheese Whiz in his mouth and all over his face.
Would someone PLEASE call CPS and take my children away?
Well, they do say Cheez Whiz goes with everything and that it’s highly spreadable…
Your last line made me laugh. Sigh.
A bathtub-sized neti pot…both awesome and gross at the same time!
And it beats the hell out of a NoseFrida…any day.
Hooray for White Board Wednesdays!
XO
Thanks, Julie. By winter, we’ll all need bathtub neti pots..
This weekend our large extended Colombian/Mexican family got together to celebrate birthdays and Labor Day. My father-in-law, whose first language is Spanish and speaks to us in a mix of both Spanish and English was turning 70. The kids pitched in and bought him a new televsion. As I was doing my best to wrap the box, my 7 year-old walked in and asked what was in the box. I told him it was a tv for his “abuelo.” He looked at he box and asked, “Is the TV in Spanish?”
awesome.
Love that! Thanks for sharing.
oh man i laughed through this entire post. yay for the return of white board wednesdays!!
i have 3-yr-old twin cats and i told Francis to stop sniffing his sister’s butt. but then i realized, hey that’s what they do… and it would have been much funnier if they were 7-year-old twin people…
LOL. Probably what you say to your cats isn’t any different than what I say to my children. Your furry friends, however, may listen slightly better.
“Hey! You know better than to sit on your baby brother’s face!”
Maybe I’m new at this parenting thing, but that seemed like a weird thing for me to say.
Weird…yes. Plausible…yes. I think I’ve also said “stop sitting on my face” which sounds way more whatever than it is…
Your spidey senses are most impressive.
I don’t have anything bizarre that sticks out in my mind. Just the usual, “get in the {{fucking}} van right now!” (in which {{these}} indicate words muttered half under my breath since I was in the presence of one who remembers all things I want him to forget and repeats them verbatim in public places)
Silence always gets my spidey senses a tingling.
Ahh, yes. The silent expletive. That could be another post (or book!)
Yea, White Board Wednesday! This cracked me up. I love a bathtub-sized neti pot. While reading to my little one this week, my rhetorical question was “Why are you licking me?”
ROFL. See? It’s like you were talking to Kristen’s cats (see comment, above)…
To my ten day old son, who was freaking out:
“Calm down, Buddy. Wild boars are NOT trying to eat you. They only come on Tuesdays, and today’s Thursday.”
My wife: “Today’s Wednesday.”
Me: “Whatever. Where did you put the sleep?”
That dialogue kind of sums up the first 6 weeks of parenting. And the next 606 weeks, too.
Howlingly good post – love this idea! Our two daughters, ages 10 and 7 respectively, have a Polly Pockets world down in our finished basement. Needless to say when they’re done playing down there, it usually looks like a Pinata massacre – but we always make them clean it up. However, the oldest has taken on more responsibility recently and has started tidying up things on her own without our asking, which sparked the following. During a particularly long playfest this holiday weekend, we overheard the younger yell, “Taylor! Stop messing up my mess!!” It’s not cosmically funny, just the only thing I could remember.
Thanks, Tor.
And “pinata massacre” is the best image I’ve read for a while! Pretty sure I’ve vacuumed up over 100 Polly Pocket pieces.
Oh Glorious Day! They’re back! So excited. I can’t think of anything whiteboard worthy, but I did drop an entire box of really heavy spiral bound materials today.
I had been carrying them on my head. You know, like women do in Africa and India where they grow up practicing that.
Anyway, that was how I entered my class today. With a really loud thud.
I spread my arms and said, “Hello and welcome to my show!”
At least you got laughs.
You are a woman who knows how to make an entrance. I hope they helped you pick them up. But I’m not betting on it. Sigh.
I think next to stand up comics, teachers have to think on their feet the most. Even more than politicians.
And you did it brilliantly, my friend!
Hooray for Whiteboard Wednesdays! We refer to my cat’s catnip toy as crack. My female dog gets ahold of his crack mouse and empties its contents. She finds it very distasteful but she figures if the cat savors it, there is some as yet undiscovered bliss to be found.
We were on the back porch discussing the quantity of crack we had left in the bag. I went on to add, “We have TWO addicts to supply so we may as well stock up if we find it on sale.” Alas, we heard the neighbor’s screen door slowly open and close and then the sound of the sliding glass door being closed and locked. We stared at each other…eyes bulging from our sculls, mouths hanging open, unable to speak. The cops haven’t visited us yet, but we’re reasonably certain our neighbors are house hunting. ;}
That is hilarious, Teresa. How To Get Neighbours To Move 101. I love it. And I love your description of why the dog empties the catnip. They’re so human, really.
Well this was such a funny, well-written post. I loved it.
I have been far too busy spacing out this week to recall anything wittily funny that I said to my kids but here’s one I said a while back:
“Swallow first, then chew.”
And:
“Don’t chew with your mouth full.”
(-:
That is funny. I mix words up all the time. (And syllables too!)
Thanks for commenting. And hope you find some time for you this weekend!
This is the first time I’ve visited your blog and I think I’m smitten. Your post is hilarious and so true it makes my sides ache from laughing.
I’ll be back, definitely. I’ve got to know what you say next week!
Thanks for commenting, Tameri. And I love the word “smitten.” I think I have to start using it more often. I’ve been overusing “swoon”, so it might be my replacement. Thanks!
Two of my recent gems:
“I have to be honest or I won’t tell the truth.”
and
“I thought it in my brain.”
I love the Department of Redundancy Department. Really.
“If you don’t take dance, you will end up like me and trip a lot.”
My 6 year old is now taking dance. The horror of ending up like me worked! Now I get to schelp her around to dance lessons and recitals. Why do I want her to take it again?
I like your logic to get your children to do something by comparing them to you. I might have to use that approach.
And good luck with the hair-in-the-bun thing. That’s the main reason my daughter is not in dance. 🙂
A recent one around here, from 13yo son to his 5yo sister: “Stop kissing my butt.” She of course gets a rise out of exasperating him–so the butt-kissing continues. Kids!
Sometimes, my son and I will have insult contests. We try to rapdily escalate the gross factor–to see which of us can out insult the other. The object of the game is “pwnage.” Last night, even though I won, I let one out of the cage (that probably should’ve stayed in the zoo); I said “Douche-nozzle. Did I just say that out loud? My bad.”
“Don’t tell mom.”
“Don’t tell mom”: words that bond any father and child relationship. Hilarious. Part of me can’t wait until the insult competition stage, but part of me can…
🙂
Welcome back Whiteboard Wednesday!
My contribution comes from a recent session of trivia at our local pub. The questions was: “According to the schoolyard joke, what kind of people are always in a hurry?”
In a serious effort to work out the answer I commented to the team – “Well it’s going to be something funny, isn’t it?”
I couldn’t understand why everyone howled with laughter at my comment until Wolf Brother wiped a tear from his eye and advised me that it wouldn’t be a joke if it wasn’t funny…
Quiz nights! I used to go to them when I lived in Bahrain. I sucked generally because “I don’t know what I know.” I’ll be the person in the group who says the most famous movie poster is not Gone with the Wind but Casablanca. Then they’ll say, “Are you sure?” And I’ll say no. And it’ll be Casablanca.
I love your obvious answer. It’s brilliant in its own way!
The whiteboard rules!
🙂
My au pair said something this morning to my son that is totally White Board appropriate . . . at breakfast, my son was talking with a full mouth of food, and she said, “Don’t eat with your mouth full.” I thought that was worthy of the white board. 🙂
Indeed. Though it’d be a good weight loss strategy for me to eat with my mouth empty.
My 10 year old daughter was watching a Shrek movie were Donkey was hitching a ride on his wife Dragon. She blurts out to my husband “Dad, you should have married a dragon” to which my 15 year old son says “he did”. Don’t you love teenagers!
Okay, I didn’t say this but what I said started it off.
Me: Goedemorgan! (good morning in Dutch and no, I’m not Dutch)
Son: (not looking up from his Cheerios) You know I don’t speak Latin.
Me: That wasn’t Latin.
Son: Well, I don’t speak Vietnamese either.