How China is responsible for the appearance of loose bowels in my living room.

For Christmas, I bought Mike an ipod speaker dock/ alarm clock.  Which sits in our kitchen, but coincidentally, still functions as an alarm clock.  For me.

Every morning, my husband has been getting the kids out of bed, shuffling them downstairs and starting their breakfast.  At which point, he then plugs my phone into the dock, finds some Bruno Mars and BLASTS it through the kitchen ceiling and straight into my brain buds.  It is *potentially* an awesome new therapy for awakening coma patients.  And it is a helluva lot more pleasant than his normal routine of snapping back our curtains and throwing a child upon my face. 

Anyway.  I have had a bit of a head cold this week, and I moved into our guest bedroom around 2 a.m. last night, when it became fairly obvious that I was about to wake our deceased beagle with never. ending. coughing.  And without a direct overhead access to B. Mars (or a functioning clock), I slept until 10 a.m. this morning.  It was glorious and panic-inducing all at the same time.  Unknowingly losing 2 hours out of my day makes me jumpy.  Apparently.

As I was rejuvenated and weirdly hyper, I decided we needed an activity.  Now, I have wanted to take my kids to our new, scary-shack-of-a-bowling-alley-near-the-railroad-tracks that we discovered a couple of months ago.  But as we have been Wii bowling for the past 4 days, this option seemed to lose its luster, for a couple of reasons:

1.)  We just bought a machine that allows us to bowl ALL THE DAMN TIME, and if we play 12 more games on it, I believe the Wii will pay for itself *if* you compare the cost of actually playing this sport in real life.

2.)  The kids have been throwing down scores in the range of 150 per game.  Which makes us all infinitely more AWE-some at bowling if we do it virtually.  Playing in real life would be kind of a buzz kill at this point. 

So.  I decided we would head to the Art Museum.  Because we rarely go there, it involves NO inflatable jumping machines or large crowds of petri dishes (children) carrying the ebola virus.  AND it's free.  We spent about an hour there, I took some clipboards and oil pastels, and the kids had fun drawing and copying works of art in the abstract section. 

As an added bonus, we headed to HEAVEN ON EARTH.  Also known as "The Fountain on Locust".  Fantastically-modern soda shop.  Specializing in ice cream drinks.  That's right, I said ICE CREAM DRINKS.  As in milkshakes and malts and MARTINIS.  I split a milkshake with Little J, but have had a dreamsicle martini before and ohmygod it is a spiritual experience. 

Then we headed home and walked in the door and I immediately started barking orders for the kids to CLEAN THIS PLACE UP!...when suddenly, I heard liquid splattering upon liquid.  Because Little J was tossing his milkshake in the toilet.

Which, coincidentally, makes him the FIRST Denckhoff child to ever puke IN A TOILET.  We had LOTS of vomit on the floor directly in front of the toilet, and even the cabinetry in the near-vicinity of the toilet.  But never the ACTUAL bowl.  Impressive.

Also.  Aside from eating 8+ hotdogs (don't ask how I know this) dairy products are quite possibly the WORST food you can have prior to pukage.  The. Worst.  It is most remarkably similar to this summer's milk spill/chocolate cheese debacle in the mini van.  Gag.

So I disinfected the bathroom, some doorknobs and the holy-grail-wii-remotes. And then GUESS WHO decided to crap small puddles of diarrhea in various areas throughout the living room.

That's right.

The NOISY PUTTY.  A $1 stocking stuffer gifted  to Big J.  For some reason, it's brown, it's slimy and when palpitated it makes sounds like a gassy colon.  Which I saw fit to purchase and gift!  Oh!  And when you leave small pieces of it ON MY SOFAS AND CURTAINS it *looks* like a glossy squirt of poop, when in fact it has dried and leaves something resembling a skid mark upon cleaning. 

And yes, it is MADE IN CHINA.

Now.  Some of you *may* be thinking that it's not China's fault that my 8-year-old has been inadvertently dropping noisy putty turdlets on my upholstery.  To which, I will remind you that G is one-quarter Okinawan.  NOT Chinese.  But close enough. 

Asia is taking the blame for this one tonight.