Dark Side Cookies and Other Family Vocabulary

Dark Side Cookies - Kid-1 and Kid-2 were at the library. Before they came home, they were on the library computer and sent me a series of silly messages. One of these resulted in Kid-1 telling me to "be careful or I will go dark side on you!" to which I replied, "Come to the DARK SIDE - we have cookies!" Well, Kid-2 jumped on the bandwagon and asked if they could go to the grocery store in the same plaza as the library. "Why? What do you want from the grocery?" (I have issues with them hanging out in stores for no apparent reason.) DARK SIDE COOKIES! (oreos) Well, I busted out laughing (a true LOL). A short while later, they returned with Mint Oreos. So now we don't eat Oreos, we eat Dark Side Cookies.

Squirrels - This comes from the t-shirts that say, "I don't have ADD, it's just --- OH LOOK! A SQUIRREL!" It refers to when any of my kids (though most often Kid 1 and Kid-2) have blond moments or totally space out. It is most often in the context of warning people of the kids' mental state at the time. "He's in a good mood, but we're really fighting the squirrels today."

Click-Click - This is an inherited vocabulary word. It is used to describe a situation that should have been blatantly obvious but took the person a while to catch on. My parents have this bedside lamp, had it since they got married. After 17 years of marriage, my mom went to turn it on one night and turned the switch twice (click-click). At that point, the metaphorical light turned on as well. The lamp was a three-way light. It was supposed to have two brightness setting, if it had the right kind of bulb. Despite the click-click for 17 years, she had never made the connection. Click-click...

Male Time - I believe it is a universally known fact that guys cannot estimate how long something will take. It's kind of like the joke about why women cannot estimate lengths accurately. ("What do you expect? We've always been told that this {holding fingers two inches apart} this six inches!") The thing is, with almost every guy I know, not only is a guy's estimation of time to complete a project wrong, it is predictably wrong. And there is a formula for determining a much more accurate time frame. The formula for male time is Time Given By Guy times 2 plus 10 minutes.

Absolutely Not. - This is pretty much a Mommy-Thing. It must be said with a completely straight face when permission has been asked for something where it is nearly a given factor that the answer will be yes. It means, "You can do it but not until after you give me hugs and kisses." I suppose this isn't sending a very good life lesson message to the children. But it's fun and cute and they can tell when what I mean is "Give me hugs" as opposed to me telling them no. (Although sometimes they try giving me hugs and kisses to change my mind.) I justify it to myself that they are learning that sucking up does do good.