I don’t know why it surprises me. They come from a long line of weirdos on both sides of the family. But seriously. Some of the things they come up with are just bazaar.

There is a discount store in town called Walls. My kids like to call it “Waaaaaaah-ulls.” As in, “Are we going to Waaaaaaah-ulls?” Only they put just a little bit of a gargle in it so that they sound like Chewbaca from Star Wars.

Then there are some of the pretend games they play. One of the most popular is where they pretend that they are “part dog” or “part cat” or even “part robot” or “part transformer”. They announce to anyone and everyone they meet—stranger or not—that, “Hey, I’m part-dog. WOOF WOOF!”

My three year old climbed up into a kitchen cabinet and found the Elmo toddler harness (the one we tried to use with him when he was 18 months old ONCE and only ONCE because—uh yeah—that was a total nightmare). Then he had his five year old sister help him put it on and he got down on all fours to pretend he was a dog and she led him around the house, occasionally hooking the end of the leash to a door knob while she went to do something. He just sat there and panted.

They also have a secret hand shake they have worked out with their cousin. It involves bumping their booties together. But I think that one can safely be credited to the cousin.

Then there’s their absolute refusal to get rid of anything. If a toy is broken it cannot be thrown away. The amount of paper my oldest is hoarding is getting out of hand. He keeps every single scrap of school paper, restaurant coloring sheets, or anything else he has ever written or drawn or glued on.

If something goes missing, I am looked at with suspicion and accused of throwing it in the trash. So what if I have been guilty of that from time to time? (Read: Every chance I get.) Their attachment to all these things, even if they don’t work or are totally trashed evokes the fear that I’m raising three future pack rats. Not the normal run of the mill pack rat, I’m talking about the pack rat disorder where people have houses full of boxes of newspaper and plastic bags and thousands and thousands of broken dishes or toys because they cannot bear to throw anything away and drive cars crammed full of things scavenged from dumpsters. Dude. That’s a fire hazard.

Speaking of fire hazards, the three year old has been walking around the house turning out all the lights because “they will start a fire.”

Whenever visitors come to our house they run around like fools, showing off and yelling at the top of their lungs, acting like they’ve never seen another human being before let alone had one over to their house. Serioulsy, it’s as if I’m raising three very hyper rat terriers. Either that or three future attention-hound comedians.

Finally, my five year old daughter reminds me of Amy Poehler’s “Caitlin” character. She does the voice and when she’s bouncing off the walls she does an amazing impersonation of this character for someone who has never seen the sketch:

These are only a small sample of the oddities going on around here every single day. And they wonder why mommy needs some alone time?

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