A What Kind of Pet?

Each Christmas, my brother and his wife send a box of packages to the boys. My kids look forward to this with great anticipation (and I with fear and trembling). One year, it was a gigantic, ugly, fuzzy, robotic spider. Last year, there were (@#&^%!) screaming monkeys.

The boys convinced us to let them open them, and I have to admit, my big brother outdid himself this year. Yes, he did.

The first package my four year opened was this delightful "Poopin' Pet". Not a phrase I coined. You tip his head back and stick brown jelly beans down its neck. Pull his tail and you can guess what happens. I won't to go there. My middle son got a penguin, and the oldest got a snowman. All three poop jelly beans--only, white ones for the snowman, and black for the penguin. The boys laughed and cackled and coined some phrases of their own, until my husband threatened bodily harm...

The next set of packages contained marshmallow shooters. One for each boy, who whooped and hollered and danced around with chants of, "Oh, yeah!, Oh yeah!" and "Sweet!!" I thanked Heaven we don't have any marshmallows in the house.

The next was a set of Brain Bender puzzles because all brains need to be bended.

Then came the game, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?. Thanks, Bro. I really need a game to play with my kids which will prove to everyone that I'm not, by the way, smarter than a fifth grader. That should be loads of fun. I will, by the way, be bring'in that game when we come to visit next week, so we can see how smart you are...

Then came the Stomp Rockets and Sky Twirlers. O.K., these do look like fun. But they are definitely NOT indoor games. Since the whole of our outdoor world right now is a skating rink, I didn't feel like risking life and limb to go out and supervise. So these totally cool looking toys got placed, still sealed in their bubble pack and accompanied by much moaning, back under the tree.

This, by the way, was the paper they were wrapped in. It's TWO sided! How cool is that? Too bad the boys trashed it before I realized how cool it was. I am, indeed, a paper saver, and this broke my little heart. With three boys, I'm lucky to save any paper scraps at all, let alone any which are big enough to wrap more than a pack of gum.

Anyway, that brings me to the last present. This little doozy was the one that put my dear thoughtful brother (and his accomplice, wife) right over the top in the eyes of my three sons.

A big bag of marshmallows.

I owe you, big brother...