My new post is up at Lifetime Moms. It’s called The Shadiest Disciplinary Techniques I’m Ashamed to Admit I’ve Actually Tried. Have you ever “called Santa” to rat your kids out? That’s not the only depth to which I’ve sunk. Check out the revamped Lifetime Moms to read more and to help me pass “Superfood Side Dish: How to Make Kale In a Wok” on their most viewed chart.
Let’s show those side dishes who’s boss!
jerry-mahoney.com 
My 3yo kept going into the basement and the stairs are steep and it’s unfinished and stuff. So, I may have told her that there is a monster that lives down there that eats anyone under 6. Not my finest hour, but she doesn’t go down there anymore. Sometimes she yells Hello down the stairs to the monster.
Brilliant! I love it! And that she now wants to befriend the monster! Maybe you should put a tape recorder down there so that the monster can “talk back” to her. 🙂
Hahahahahaha. So perfect. I miss parenting little people but living vicariously through you helps. Breathe it all in. Cause before you know it, they’ll be writing their master’s thesis. 😉
Honestly, I can’t believe they’re already 3 1/2.
truly my new favorite blog…I’m in tears!
Thanks!
Heading over. Also, I finally watched Yo Gabba Gabba with my 1YO this week. I want to marry all of them.
Yes, YGG is great, but I’ll warn you — you’ll get sick of it LOOOONG before your kid does. 🙂
Not only did we call Santa – Santa answered the phone and asked to speak to the children. (I love grandpa’s that can change their voices enough for the kids not to know its them)
Growing up, we had a floor furnace and the thermostat was in my room. If I closed the door, the thing wouldn’t read right cause my room would be cold, so the rest of the house would be too hot. In order to get me to not close the door in the winter, my mother told if I did, the house would blow up. Like in the movies. But for real. I have a hard time closing my bedroom door in the winter to this day, waking up from a nightmare of the house blowing up.
Yikes! That’s terrifying! But bravo Grandpa. Sounds like your whole family is one twisted improv group. I love it.
We are pretty spectacular, if I do say so myself. 🙂 HAHAHA!
We all do what we have to do to get through the day. Those parents that follow all the rule books and look down their noses at other parents because we are doing it “wrong” have nannies anyway. and they are no fun either
Yeah, I’m less judgey of other parents since I realized that if you judge me by my worst behavior, I seem like a crackpot, too.
Let me screw up my kids my way and you screw up yours, your way lol
I had the Christmas Bird who watched the kids and would fly off to Santa and tell him when they were being good or bad….at times I would point out the window at a random bird (or nothing) and say did you see the Christmas bird….worked every time….now we giggle about it if I bring it up….my kids are grown up….
I like the Christmas bird. Sounds a little like Elf on the Shelf — man, you should’ve marketed it and gotten rich! 🙂
I once told my son that the dinosaur in the backyard was watching him and the dino knew he was being bad (he was into dinosaurs at that time). He screamed and ran to his room – shaking head to toe – boy did I feel like an idiot!
Delightful. 🙂
I can’t wait to do these (and other “horrors”) to our children!
My worst one is telling the kids that they can’t have a Belgian chocolate because they all have liquor inside them. In my defence, they threatened to call the police to report me for bad cooking.
Ack! I’m glad my kids don’t know how to use the phone yet. 🙂
Calling Santa is a sure-fire tacit to bring a kind in line. Unfortunately, it has an expiration date is mine is about to nearing.
You know what that means… time to get creative!
We might have possibly put a baby monitor inside one of their teddy bears up on the wardrobe… And we may have used our end to tell them to get back into bed every time they snuck out.
I’m saving for their therapy bills now.
That’s brilliant. I should do a follow-up post with some of these comments. You people are twisted!
Superdad v. Superfood. Hmmmm. Well, I know now that you will bribe me with sugar if I view you more times…
My daughter is only 8 months old, but I am going to keep these on file for when the time comes that “No” just doesn’t cut it.
My parents called Santa on me all the time – it totally worked. And when our belly monster is born and old enough to “get” the Santa thing, I’m doing it. But I kinda am in love with the idea of a hidden baby monitor in a stuffed animal. Having suffered through the horrors of a malfunctioning Teddy Ruxpin (he would start telling stories in the middle of the night, and if there wasn’t a cassette in, he’d open and close his eyes and mouth but make no sound), I am absolutely sure that would scare kid back into bed. I had nightmares about that into my college years.
Time to write a horror movie with a malfunctioning Teddy Ruxpin scene. Kind of like the clown in Poltergeist, only worse. 🙂
Up, been there. And the Eatser bunny works too!!