Censorship for kids!

When we were kids growing up, there were many things our parents put the kibosh on and kept us sheltered from : rap music, rock music, any music found on mainstream radio, The Simpsons, horror movies, crack smoking, swearing, vodka shooters and any movie with a rating higher than PG. Looking back I can certainly understand the extreme measures they went to to ensure that my brothers never saw a set of boobies before the age of 21 and I never saw a mans 'danger zone' until at least 3 years after I married.

I still remember going through the annual 5lb JC Penney catalog as a teen trying to find my style, and realizing that my mother had ripped out the 'lingerie' section in order to keep my brothers from fulfilling their curiosity by viewing middle aged women modeling granny panties or maternity bras. Very enticing.

When it came to movies and television, my parents were very guarded about what we were and were not allowed to watch. These rules lightened up quite a bit by the time my youngest brother was a teenager, but I had to live my younger years without the likes of "Roseanne" or "The Simpsons". Not good for a kid trying to be cool in the 5th grade.

Any time we watched a movie, my mother would sit in her chair, poised with the remote control to scan forward in case a woman were to dance bare chested across the screen. There had been more than one occasion where we would be watching a movie as a family when a love scene would suddenly appear and out of the corner of our eyes a small figure clad in flannel kitten pajamas would move in slow motion from the side shouting "No-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!!!!" and block everyones view with her nightshirt. It was quite a picture.

Now-a-days we are used to seeing every movie imaginable with my parents. And I believe that they have become used to having grown children whom they don't have to censor movies for. It is because of this new and more grown-up life that we got caught in a sticky situation on Thanksgiving day.

As usual we were looking for a movie to go and see after Thanksgiving dinner. My dad suggested "The Four Christmases" with Reece Witherspoon and that guy that Jennifer Aniston once shouldn't have dated. I thought it looked funny and we decided to all go, Mr. Hot Pilot and Munchkin included.

We should have known something was amiss when we didn't see any other elementary aged children in the audience. Then Mr. Hot Pilot whispered "are you sure this is rated only PG?" to me as the rather grown-up previews flashed across the screen.

I hadn't even thought about what rating this movie was. I'm not accustomed to even thinking about it.

Then the first scene of the movie flashes up and after the two characters begin ripping each others clothes off in a bathroom, I realize we have trouble.

Without a second thought, Mr. Hot Pilot had Munchkin in a football hold and was racing down the steps and out of the theater. Looking back it was rather funny, although I was quite embarassed that we even went to see the movie with Munchkin.

Luckily we got our money back and all was right with the world again.

Maybe, just maybe, I will become the mom who will wear flannel kitten pajamas and ensure Munchkin never sees any womans bits and pieces until he is at least 35.

The Death of a Christmas Tradition

My family is a family of many traditions. Traditions that my mother and my father put in place in order to create a deep rooted sense of family, security and lasting memories.

As of yesterday, tradition is dead in my family. Officially DOA when I walked in the door last night from a long and un-eventful day at work.

For as long as I can remember, we have always bought a real christmas tree for christmas. And not just any live christmas tree, mind you. A lush, gorgeously scented Frasier Fir christmas tree. Each year after thanksgiving, my family would pile into the minivan or SUV and drive to one of two primo christmas tree lots to pick out our tree for the year. We would often stand out in the freezing cold (with the exception of one wacked out year when it was actually around 70 degrees - and unicorns were dancing through the backyard whilst singing show tunes from 'The Wizard of Oz') and walk through row upon row of deeply scented christmas trees in order to find just the perfect one. Not too fat and not too skinny. Certainly not too sparse or too short. It must be the right height for our living room. It was acceptable however to buy one with a nasty patch, as long as it could be hidden discreetly in the corner.

My mother and I would then walk up to look at the wreaths and pay for the tree while my dad and brothers made sure the tree was packaged up and trimmed to our specifications. It would then be tied to the roof of the car and driven home where it would sit in a bucket of water for a day or two to ensure no needles were lost in the process. Of course being a family of five with many opinionated and stubborn individuals, there were a select few years when I remember tensions were running high, and I especially remember the year that my mother told my father he didn't know his arse from a hole in the ground.

Funniest. Phrase. EVER.

When decorating day would arrive, my mom would be sure to set up a mini family party complete with egg nog (of the non-spiked variety) cookies and other treats. She would then turn on the christmas CD and we would all decorate the tree from our boxes of ornaments. It was great to see the 'Baby's 1st Christmas' ornaments from both 1980 and 1981 for myself. You see, I was born at the butt end of December 1980 and my parents had been CERTAIN I would be born before christmas that year. I however had different plans and celebrated my first christmas 5 days shy of my first birthday. How many of you can say THAT?

As we grew older, we grew less and less enthused about tree decorating. By the last couple of years my mom would have to guilt trip us into decorating the tree, or even make it a mandatory chore for my brothers and I. We would then balk at this and my mom would get mad and then someone would begrudgingly decorate the stupid tree. And then complain of how they were missing "The Office" or some silly crap like that.

So I suppose I shouldn't have been too surprised when I came home from work late last night to find an intruder sitting in a box on the family room floor.

An artificial, pre-lit, 7ft tall FAKE AS FAKE CAN BE Frasier Fir tree.

As soon as I saw it I looked accusingly at my dad and said "Christmas is dead. You both have just killed it."

My mom then went on to say that it is our turn (us kids that is) to be buying the christmas trees for our own homes and that she wants grandkids. Like, today. Or else. Because she isn't getting any younger. And my ovaries are going to fall out soon, so "Carrie Anne you had better use those suckers to the best of your ability".

I'm beginning to see that maybe this whole fake christmas tree thing was just a sick ruse to get one of us to use our God given talents to produce grandkids.

Maybe christmas isn't dead after all, but just in a vegetative state for the time being.

Listen all y'all, its a sabotage!

As I have mentioned in the past, I am part of a long distance relationship. Mr. Hot Pilot is a military officer who lives far, far away in (what seems like) a third world country complete with border jumpers, questionable water and absolutely no Target store within a 150 mile radius. Because of this long distance, I frequently (as in every other week) fly the friendly skies to spend time with him and Munchkin. I am lucky enough to work a job where I only have to work 3 days per week, and then have the remaning four days to do with as I please - lounge in bed until all hours of the afternoon, workout (HA!), work from home for my old job, shuttle drugs back and forth across the mexican border and spend time with my boys. On the weeks that I shuttle drugs back and forth go to visit my boys, I try to maximize my time with them by flying out of BWI as early as humanly possible on Monday and flying back in as late as possible on Thursday in order to drag my butt back into work on Friday morning.

In addition to my maximization of time, I must also note that I am a master procrastinator. Because of my earning a higher education in procrastination, I tend to leave my packing to the night before or the morning of my flight.

On my most recent trip to the little border town Mr. Hot Pilot affectionately calls home, I woke up before the butt crack of dawn could even be seen, and began getting myself ready. Now I don't live in an old house by any measure, but sometimes even in the most well maintained houses, you run into plumbing issues.

My plumbing issue was with my toilet.

I'm sure you would love to hear a story about how I clogged the toilet and caused serious carnage, however this is not the case. Instead I just gave the toilet a slight sideways glance complete with an early morning yawn and the darn thing overflowed.

Spontaneously.

Being that it was too freaking early in the morning for me to drag out a mop and clean the mess, I decided to do the next best thing and throw my used towel onto the toilet water that had collected on the bathroom floor and call it a day. I then shoved the towel behind the toilet to collect any straggling water and left for my flight.

I had a fab four days in Texas with my guys complete with high-larious moments with Munchkin and lots of smooching with Mr. Hot Pilot. I then returned home late Thursday and crashed in bed.

The next morning I awoke to get ready for my weekend at work and noticed my fresh and clean towel that is normally hanging on my bedpost was missing. I walked into the bathroom to see if I had left it there prior to my trip and found a similar towel hanging neatly on the towel rack. "Ok" I thought, "someone must've hung my towel up for me, sweet!" When I got out of the shower, I took that towel off of the rack and began drying off my face and body. And then it hit me like a homeless redneck hits their crack pipe.

The Funk.

This was no ordinary neatly hung towel. The funk eminating from the towel told me as much. This was the towel I had used just four days earlier to mop up TOILET WATER. I had been drying my face with TOILET WATER. And I don't care what state of clean the toilet that that water originated from is...all toilet water to me means one thing.

Poop water.

And I knew the culprit to my poopy facial. My dear old dad.

I quickly jumped back into the shower for a scalding, soapy, de-contamination and then ran like a fool downstairs to confront the evildoer. I discussed the present situation with my mother who found it to be all sorts of insanely funny.

She then passed the word on to my dad who told me that he just thought that I must like to RANDOMLY LEAVE CLEAN TOWELS ON THE FLOOR and hung it up for me. (Turns out my mom had taken my previously fresh towel and thrown it into the wash while I was away.) I was sure I had been set up.

When I pressed for a bended knee promise to pay wads of cash for pain and suffering an apology, this is what I got:

Dad : "Sorry, but if its any consolation, I read somewhere that people are paying big bucks for bird poop facials".