How To Get Rid of Annoying Cartoon Characters

I didn’t think much of it when they tied the Puppy to a string, hoisted him up about 4 feet, and gave the nearby 2-year old a baseball bat.

No, it wasn’t until the other kids and adults, including an old grandmother in a wheelchair, circled around her with their arms in the air and started yelling things like “Come on, honey! WHACK that Puppy real good!!”, “Hit that Puppy hard right between his eyes!!”, “Aim for his neck! Aim for his neck!!” as if witnessing a death match of a known violent criminal.

The 2-year old stood there and smiled, almost laughing, at the smiling Puppy piñata bobbing up and down as if he were playing with her. I imagined if that Puppy could talk he would have been saying something like “Hi there! My name is Poochie, what’s yours? Let’s go play together on a rainbow and eat jelly beans all day, OK!” all while my daughter and about a dozen other eager kids were anxiously waiting to feast on the Puppy’s innards of unknown candy.

Poochie never had a chance when a large 5-year old with a debatable mustache and real looking tattoo had a turn. With two large swipes Poochie the Puppy looked as if he had grown wings and had flown about 10 yards away from the death arena. Then the mustached 5-year old with his posse of admiring fans, ran over and started pounding the Puppy on the ground all while yelling and screaming.
Given the looks of he and his parents, I swear I overheard him saying things like “Why don’t you ever listen! Why do you always laugh at me!! I don’t like it when you drink so much!!!”

The 2-year old birthday girl was nearly in tears. If she could speak much more clearly I think she would have said something like “Goodbye, Poochie, I guess we’ll never get to play on that rainbow after all…”
She quickly got over it when her mom picked her up and tossed her into the mob of screaming kids with spilled fluorescent packaged candy.

They even let her fill the severed puppy leg with candy.

When the mustached 5-year old stood proudly smiling holding the decapitated Puppy head, while his parents were congratulating him taking his picture, I wondered where in the world did this concept come from. Who in their right mind thought it was a good idea taking cute animals or a kids favorite cartoons character, fill them with candy, hang them, and then beat them up with a baseball bat?

It’s just bizarre, mean, sick, and demented!

Then the next day when the TV was left on unattended, the perfect piñata for any birthday came to mind:

Your exploring days are numbered...

Toddler Peer-Pressure And A Birthday Party From The Viewpoint Of A 2-year Old

We went to yet another kid’s birthday party over the weekend, but this time was a little different because my daughter insisted on bringing her Fisher-Price toy camera along. You know, the one Santa gave her for Christmas and was interested in for about a week and then decided it wasn’t worthy of attention anymore because she thought a cheap Happy Meal toy was much more appealing…

Figure 1: Happy Meal Toy
(Uh, what is it and what does it do? Oh yeah, make annoying noises...)

Well, I’m not sure what caused this sudden interest of picture taking again but it seemed as if she wanted to take the camera everywhere. To the store, park, pool, bathroom (while I was using it), etc.
The wife and I suspect that she saw one of the neighborhood kids or somebody on TV using a camera. It’s strange, if an older kid or character does something – she’ll want to do it too. Except, of course, pooping on the potty.

Her giving into peer-pressure scares me. For instance if Elmo told her to steal my credit card, passport, social security number, kidney, and send them to him she would do it in a heartbeat. By the way, that’s exactly why I sleep with the door locked at night.

Anyhow, she wandered around the party with the camera taking pictures for about an hour or two until she filled the 1,300 picture capacity memory card.

A few birthday pictures with added titles:

" Child with Long Mysterious Shadow"

"Sand detail and its shoes"

"Untitled, with clouds and bars"

"Rocking Horse with No Friend to Share Ice Cream With"

"The Man Imposing His Rules on the Little People"

"The Unknown Climber"

I knew she was done when she walked up to me while I was eating my Jell-O and cake, handed me the camera, and showed me her index finger saying “Look dad-DEE!... Booger.”

And then she wiped it on my pants and ran away.

What To Do When A Child Stops Believing In Santa?! And Kids Birthday Parties Marathon

Yes I know I haven’t posted in awhile but between getting ready for Christmas, prepping for our Disney World vacation in two days, and the 5 birthday parties (3 in one day!) we’ve been to in the last week alone -- their isn’t much time for anything else.

The most interesting birthday party of the bunch was a Scooby Doo themed one in "the hills" with a Scooby and Shaggy impersonator.

During their whole comedy routine about 99% of the parents (entertainment-types) were standing in a nearby tennis court networking while this one mom and I were sitting near our scared kids. They were pretty frightened of the Scooby Doo -- I think maybe because his costume looked like it had a rough night in Tijuana, or maybe because he was holding his tail like a baton and would start hitting kids on the head with it.
When he came close to my daughter she jumped up, screamed and ran away into the crowd of schmoozing parents.

The best part was hearing these two sugared-out kids talk to Scooby:

Boy#1: (around 5 or 6) Hey Scoob! Do you smell your own butt?!
Scooby: (in his breathy Scooby voice) Whaaaat?
Boy#2: (around 5 or 6) Hey Scooby! You’re not going to smell my butt, are you?!”

(all the nearby children start laughing like the Charlie Brown/Peanuts kids…)

Scooby: (in a Brooklyn accent) Leave me alone kid.


Potty Training Update: The Santa Method

My patent-pending Santa Motivation Method (code named: S.M.M.) is starting to lose steam. I’m not sure where I went wrong, but my daughter doesn’t seem to care anymore about Santa bringing her presents on Christmas by going poop on the potty (Darn! A kid stopped believing – what do I do!? What do I do…!?)

In desperation, I made it a point to pass by Santa Claus in the mall today. Standing near the flimsy cardboard fence I knelt down to her level, and in a calm voice gave my recurring line “Remember, Santa only gives presents if you do poopy on the potty…all the time”

She looked at me, and then him. I could tell the wheels were turning (Come on, come one…take the bait...)
She looked me straight in the eyes and excitedly said, “That’s O.K., Santa bringing YOU lots of PRESENTS!!”

Birthdays That Last A Week, Bikes For 2 Year-Olds, Gymboree Party, and Contributing To Harry Potter’s College Fund

One of the benefits of my daughter being an only child (for now) is that her birthday has turned into a week long celebration. Every morning it's the same greeting "It's MY birthday!" To strangers she announces, "My Birthday!". I still don't think she really knows what that means.
On her actual birthday my wife made birthday cupcakes, had a small party with her weekday friends, and our sitter. And later we took her to one of those places with nothing but bounce-houses. We also gave her a gift - a bike. She’s been asking for one for about a month now because the bigger kids around the neighborhood have them.

Skip The Tricycle And Go For the Well-Design Bike!
The wife and I have had some disagreements about the type of bike we were going to buy her -- she wanted to get her one of those normal tricycles with like Princesses or Dora on it. I on the other hand wanted to get a balance bike, LikeABike, that trains toddlers how to ride a real bike (skip the tricycle phase.) And because of the minimalist design I wanted customize this bike myself with stickers I create. Oh, and did I mention the bike looks cool too?
I did end up buying the LikeABike knock-off at Target (only $50 compared with $270 for the “original” Sorry, LikeABike - the difference is $220… that’s a big deal.)
While putting the bike together, my daughter was jumping all over the place like an excited monkey. That’s until I put it on the ground and put her on it only to find out she’s about 2 inches too short to hold it up (I guess that’ll go in the closet for a few more months…)

A Birthday Party At Gymboree (Without Elvis)
This time last year, I sold my kidney for cash on the black market, recruited 8 extremely creative friends and together we put on a huge 1 year-old party for my daughter that made the ones from Cookie Magazine look like a get-together BBQ with leftovers (I’m never doing that again…) This year, we invited about 90 less people and did a simple, low-key party at Gymboree (Play & Music). It was great! 14 kids under 5 and their parents had a ball playing on the equipment, making music, dancing, singing, face-painting (boys called them “tattoos”), and running around under the parachute – perfect for kids this age.
The only drawback was the entire event was only 2 hours long so we didn’t have time to open presents (we had a no-gift party last year) other than that, success!

Harry Potter Rocked The Casbah
Ever since the job started summer hours on Fridays (out by 1), I feel like a normal person again. The wife and I actually get to see movies once more since our daughter was born. This week it was Harry Potter – which by the way, was great. I know the movie leaves out a lot of the book, but if they made that movie this thing would have been 8 hours long. For what it is, they did an excellent job, especially the effects at the end and professor Umbridge’s office (plates on the walls – nice touch!) The only weird part is seeing how big the kids have grown. Ron is looking more like a 50 year-old alcoholic while the others look like normal teenagers.

Planning My Daughters’ ‘Numero 2’ Birthday Party - Scaled Down (Without The Elvis Impersonator)

My daughter will be 2 soon (when did she get so old!?)

I can’t even believe its been nearly a year since her 1st, 10o guests birthday extravaganza (read about it here .) This time last year I was trying to decide whether the impersonator should dress as Blue Hawaii Elvis or Las Vegas Jumpsuit Elvis. I chose 'jumpsuit' because at the time my daughter started getting into that shiny things that sing stage. It didn’t matter though, she was still afraid of Elvis (maybe it was that violent shakin' ..)

People have been asking me “Hey! Crazy-insane “new dad” – what are you planning for #2? Tom Jones and live monkeys with water guns?” To them I answer, “That’s a good idea. I’ve always liked monkeys, especially armed ones” But in reality, I’m never doing that again.
When you hear about parents who've gone too far with their kids' party, well guess what? I was one of them (and the wife just sat back and watched me.) It was fun and memorable, but in reality my daughter didn’t know what was happening. It didn’t need to be that big.
The next big party I throw for her will be her wedding - in maybe 24.2 years to somebody I approve of and who isn’t a football/basketball/table tennis player, Elvis impersonator, drug/car dealer, multi-level marketing anything, aspiring race car driver, or actor (the list keep growing....daily.)

This year we’re planning a small 2-hour stint at our Gymboree with about 4 or 5 of her (non-cranky) friends she sees on a regular basis (asks for them by name all the time) and their parents, and maybe (still not entirely sure) a few family members with little ones under 5. The family can get a little weird if they know another family member was invited to something and not them (I can just hear it now “Why wasn’t I invited?!? and then my response "Save the DRAMA for yo' MAMA!" *grrrr*...then run away.)

I know the "big 2" birthday plans aren’t very glamorous and some family and friends will be disappointed about not getting invited. But I have to remember that these parties aren’t about me, the wife, and our friends. They’re about a little girl who gets nervous with too many adults around staring at her to perform when all she wants to do is run around and play with other kids.

But when it’s MY birthday, when then – start the disco music, send in the monkeys and let that chest hair breathe...!

Kid Birthday Parties at Chuck E Cheese's: Sit Down! Shut Up! Eat and Leave!

Somewhere, sometime, maybe long ago, or just recently, Charles E Cheese became very angry at the world. I’m convinced of it based on our experience over the weekend.

We were invited to a birthday party at the local Chuck E Cheese's for our neighbors’ 4-year-old daughter. We haven’t been to “Chucks” in awhile and the place is definitely much different since I was a kid. It wasn’t the sticky carpet, cardboard pizza, or odd smells coming from the play area that bothered me - that's all expected. Nope, it was the assigned, angry, 18-year old Jo Polniaczek type hostess who was obviously forced by her parole officer to work there in the kids birthday party department. Why did I sense this? Because everything she did was with resentment, like she wanted to get back at the world for canceling G.L.O.W. in the eighties (I know that feeling all too well.)
Just after eating our half frozen pizza she had the kids line up near the front of the stage (where those scary looking animatronics are) and paced back and forth while yelling like Sergeant Slaughter:

Chucks Bodyguard: Chuck will be visiting! Please follow these rules or Chuck will remove himself from your party! Do I make myself clear?! (kneels down a little, staring at all the kids one by one..)

Kids: (scared) …yes…

Chucks Bodyguard: (pacing again) Rule #1 – Do NOT touch Chuck, unless he touches YOU first. Rule #2 – Do NOT approach Chuck, unless he approaches YOU first. Rule #3 Do NOT make any sudden moves around Chuck. Rule #4 Do NOT yell at Chuck…
...Am I making myself clear!?! ?! (kneels down again, staring at all the kids one by one..)

Kids: (scared) …yes…

Chucks Bodyguard: (turns around and yells at the pizza ordering counter) PRESS PLAY!!

The creepy animatronics started singing “Happy Birthday” totally off sync, twitching and jerking like a bunch of crack addicts, and then Chuck comes walking out inadvertently hitting the stage and walls along the way as if it was the dudes first day working the costume.
After the birthday song was over, the kids were standing there looking around in silence, next to Chuck, a little confused and frightened of him - trying not to make eye contact, possibly out of fear of getting beaten or deported. Chuck’s Bodyguard then ordered them to stand around him with their hands ‘firmly’ at their sides. She then pulled out a bag of tickets (the kind you win from those cheesy games) and started pelting them at the ground like chicken feed, or rocks, while yelling, “Pick them up! Pick them up!!!” All of the kids were on the ground trying to peel them off the sticky floor, some almost in tears. It was sad.
Afterwards, our daughter walks over and hands us a little handful of tickets (which were strangely soggy, wet, and smelled like cigarette smoke…) while the older kids followed, hoping she would drop them.

When the cheerful festivities were done, Chuck’s Bodyguard then yelled over at the birthday girl’s mom, “Do you want the bill now?!”.
I guess that’s her way of saying, “Chuck wants you all to leave.”