Muu Muu Mishap

A series of funny problems happened to Mel a few days ago. The mess all started when she was supposed to pick up Kylee from Kindergarten at 10:40am.

Problem #1: She had worked at the hospital the night before and slept through her alarm. At 10:44am she popped up out of bed and realized she was late. Panic sets in.

Problem #2: She only had her undergarments on, so she grabbed for the first article of clothing she saw before darting out the door: a hideous, bright pink muu muu. She figured it wouldn't matter what she was wearing. The kids wait outside to be picked up, so she could just pull up to the curb and Kylee would get in the car.

Problem #3: It was cold and windy outside so the teachers took all the kids inside who had delinquent, slacker parents who don't come to school on time to pick up their kids.

Problem #4: Here's the fatal flaw: In her haste to rush to the school, Mel forgot to grab her cell phone. She couldn't just call the school and have them send Kylee outside.

Problem #5: Mel was wearing a hideous, bright pink muu muu.

Mel said that she had a conversation with herself as she sat in the car. "Do I just go inside to get Kylee?" "Should I drive home and get my cell phone?" "Should I run to my mom's house to call the school?" After her debate, she concluded that she was by now 15 minutes late and didn't want to extend her delay any longer.

Problem #6: She walked INTO THE SCHOOL wearing a HIDEOUS, BRIGHT PINK MUU MUU. (I'll give you a minute for this mental picture to sink in.)

Problem #7: A few older kids were walking down the hall and saw her in her hideous, bright pink muu muu. AND GIGGLED!

Fortunately Kylee isn't old enough to realize that she could have potentially been the laughing stock of the school. For your pleasure, here is a photograph of the alleged hideous, bright pink muu muu:

Snuggies Make Me Angry

Snuggies make me angry. There. I said it. I can't get away from this commercial. It follows me any time I turn on the television.



There are so many highly disturbing things about this video:

• The poor dog who becomes a victim of animal cruelty.
• The guy who was raising the roof about his Snuggie. Raising. The. Roof. My soul wept.
• Really? People wear Snuggies to the movie theater? Or a sporting event? Admittedly, I don't have much room to talk after what I wore in public.
• Is this family in a cult?
• Wait. Hold on a second. The dog was reading. Can you imagine the pre-production meeting? Who was the marketing guru who said "You know the shot of the dog? Let's have him reading!" And worse, which people said "Yea, that sounds like a pretty good idea!"
• Um, why does the dog need a Snuggie? God gave dogs fur so they wouldn't have to wear a Snuggie.
• Alright, you make the dog wear a Snuggie. Then you make the dog look like it's reading. But are the glasses necessary? Now that's just wrong.
• Please explain why that guy is so unusually happy because of his Snuggie. Are they marketing Snuggies as an anti-depressant?
• Apparently wearing a Snuggie makes you want to dance and bump your rump with your wife's rump.

I'm Going To New Moon!

I'm going to the movie New Moon.........never. Never. Ever.

The whole Twilight Series, love stories about vampires, women drooling all over themselves. It just doesn't do it for me.

Okay, maybe that's a bit harsh. I would go to the movie if....

• My children were being held hostage by an evil terrorist and I had to see the movie to get my kids back.
• The Diet Mountain Dew manufacturer threatened to stop producing this heavenly nectar unless I saw the movie.
• It were the last movie on earth. Actually, that still wouldn't get me there.
  
• An ostrich grabbed me with it's enormous beak, dragged me to the theater, gagged my mouth with sweaty socks, and bound me to the chair with duct tape.

How To Remove A Tooth

Tonight we witnessed triumph. It happened sometime between the time she started eating the donut and the time she finished eating the donut. That's when Danica lost her first tooth.

This created a moment of panic when she realized that the required evidence for the Tooth Fairy was now passing through her large intestine. I could relate. I lost my first tooth in the midst of a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. Come to think of it, those were some extremely crunchy Cheerios.

I assured her that a note to the Tooth Fairy should suffice. She quickly wrote this disclaimer:

Der tooth farey. I accidentally swolowd my tooth on aksadint. Now I'll show you how I lost my tooth at frst I wigld it then I wigld it the next morning. Then on the next feow days I was reading a book then my dad asked me to show him my tooth then he sade when I showed him my tooth he sade your tooth is gon sade my dad. Then I looked in the mer. Then when I looked in the mer I sade Oh-my-goosh. That was my frst tooth that I evre LOST.

In case you're not well-versed in reading 6 year old gibberish,
aksadint = accident
wigld = wiggled
sade = said
mer = mirror
Oh-my-goosh = Oh-my-goosh
Donut = better at removing a tooth than string tied to a door knob

Recommended Reading

Recently I've read two amazing books that are worth checking out:

NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman.

Working in the social work and therapy field, I've read lots of books about parenting over the years. But this one ranks among the best. The research brought up by the authors is fascinating and has definitely made me take another look at what I do as a parent.

Some of the best topics of the book include 1) The inverse power of praise, 2) Why kids lie, 3) The science of teen rebellion, and 4) Amazing research about teaching kids self-control. If you have children, this is a book you need to read.

Have A Little Faith by Mitch Albom

I loved Albom's book Tuesday's With Morrie but never read any of his other books. Mainly because I knew I'd be disappointed. There is no way you could top Morrie.

I took a risk and decided to take on his new book Have A Little Faith. The story revolves around the preparation he makes to deliver the eulogy of his rabbi. I don't know how he did it, but Albom managed to write another book that is just as good.

The story is engaging and has profound ideas about life, death, and believing in something bigger than yourself. I guarantee you will love this book.

Jon Schmidt Concert

Before last night's concert I told Jon that my kids think his music is way cooler than mine. His response was classic. "No man is a prophet in his own house."

Last night we took the kids to Jon Schmidt's concert in St. George. They are all taking piano lessons and were ecstatic to go to Jon's show. Earlier in the day they told the nurse who gave them a flu shot. They told someone at the grocery store. They told their friends.

Jon's music and technical ability at the piano are brilliant. His way of entertaining and engaging a crowd is even more brilliant. It's rare to see an entire theater completely mesmerized like they were Thursday night.

My saving grace was a guy who came up to me after the show and said "Are you Cory Reese? I love your music!" Had this not occured, I am confident that my kids would have asked Jon to adopt them.

Be sure to check out Jon's site HERE for some amazing tunes. Success couldn't have come to a nicer guy. Jon quickly became a prophet in the Reese household.

Me In Middle School

I saw this odd/funny video on a friend's blog. I have a nagging hunch that I resembled this youngster when I was in middle school. I didn't know he had been in my house raiding my closet.

Although I'll never claim being able to do The Robot this good.

Pumpkin Pie Vanishing Act

I'm a little embarrassed to share the following picture with you:

This is documentation of what has transpired over the last few days. This nearly empty pie tin WAS a Costco pumpkin pie. And do you want to know why I feel a little bit sheepish?

I'll tell you: Not one solitary soul ate another piece of that pie besides me. NOT ONE. And it only took me a few days to polish it off. I'm drooling whipped cream. Ahhh, the sweet caloric goodness of autumn.

In case you haven't had the pleasure of indulging in a Costco pumpkin pie, let me tell you something: these pies are big enough to feed a small country. You can see from the picture that this piece of heaven dwarfs our 4-slice toaster.

Mel noticed the empty tin and bought me another pie yesterday. It is reasonable to expect that my blood stream is turning orange.

Man At Work

It's happened every Tuesday night for years. And it will continue to happen every Tuesday night so long as we both shall live. I turn the music up loud, get my game face on, gather my supplies, get in the zone, wink at myself in the mirror, roll up my sleeves, and send the kids upstairs because papa has an important job to do. At our house, Tuesday Night = Floor Night.

Somewhere along the course of our many years of marriage I became in charge of mopping the floors. I do my chore every Tuesday like clockwork. With a dog and three rug rats, one week is about as long as the floor can go before it feels like you're walking on a compost heap.

It's not like I'm an expert mopper, but I get the job done. Although I'm confident enough in my work to follow the Ten-Second-Rule when I accidentally drop a Lemonhead, I certainly wouldn't advocate eating Thanksgiving dinner off the floor.

I'm proud to say that in my house, I wear the mopping crown. I am the mopping Master of Disaster. I have a Ph. D in mopping. I am the mopping CEO. All hail the Commander in Chief of mopping.

My Frightening Costume

I looked simply ridiculous. You have to be immensely comfortable with your manhood to wear a Bert costume......to work, and........into a gas station. When it's not even Halloween.

As you are well aware, Halloween was on a Saturday this year. But I couldn't break my streak of dressing up at work for Halloween. One year I was a nerd (I know, not much of a stretch). Another year, a rapper. This year - Bert from Sesame Street fame. Therefore.....costume on Friday. It was a challenge fighting all the hot babes off me. Understandably, girls go wild for a guy wearing a Bert costume.

This year Danica was a devil. We pulled out the Halloween bin and she fell in love with this costume which my mom made for me when I was Danica's age. Ahhh, how sentimental.

In the break room a few days ago people were talking about saving old Halloween costumes. I said that Danica was wearing a devil costume that I wore as a kid. I commented that this costume seemed fittingly appropriate for her.

Without hesitation, a witty nurse said "I'm sure your mother thought the same thing when she was making the costume for you."

She Has A Big Chest

Every girl should wear a dress. Always.

And every dress should have a big, beautiful bow. Always.

Just ask my daughter Danica. She loves to draw. She loves to draw girls in dresses. She loves to draw girls in dresses with big, beautiful bows.

At least she claims they are bows. Is it just me, or do the cute little girls look more like well-endowed stick figures?

My Wrinkly Pumpkin

My pumpkin is getting wrinkly. It reminds me of an old man who forgot to put his dentures in.

The kid's pumpkins have already rotted to the point where it looked like someone had vomited on our porch. Despite the "smiling-barf-with-a-stem" look the pumpkins had acquired, the kids were still distraught when we decided it was time for the pumpkins to meet a garbage can.

To deal with their immense grief......they adopted my toothless senior citizen.

Scary Moments

There are a few times in my life when I knew some guardian angels were watching over me.

***One night when I was 20 years old I was out on a walk with Mel. We were on a bike path and it was very dark outside. Suddenly, in the distance we heard a motor start. It was too dark to see what it was or how far away it was. A few seconds later I saw movement rapidly coming toward us. I grabbed Mel’s arm and yanked her off the path a split second before a truck flew by.

Later, police found the teenage boy who was driving the truck. He said he didn’t turn on the lights because he was hiding from some friends. He sped down the bike path because he thought they were coming from the other direction and he didn’t see us. I walked away with only some scraped up knees.

***When I was 16 years old Mel and I left her house to walk across the street to the high school. She lived on State Street in Salt Lake. The cars were speeding by when finally I thought there was a break in the traffic. I went to run across the street and stepped one foot over the white line when a car rushed by, coming so close that it hit my arm.

There was an RV to the side of me which had blocked my view. The driver slammed on his brakes after he hit my arm to see what had happened. Because of the limited view, he hadn’t seen me either. If I had been a few inches farther I would have been crushed by a car going 45 mph. That makes you think about life a little differently.

***Another guardian angel moment happened yesterday. I was driving to work and noticed my car acting strange. I stopped at a gas station to put air in the tires and saw that a front tire was completely worn down and I could see the metal thread popping out. There was a rip in the tire and I didn’t know how it was staying inflated.

We dropped the car off at the mechanic who later told Mel that he was surprised the tire hadn’t blown out between our house and his shop. The scary thing is that the day before, I drove with my brother-in-law and Jackson to Parowan to take some pictures of the changing leaves. I had driven more than 200 miles on the freeway. It’s unsettling to think of what could have happened while we drove down the road.

I’m thankful someone was watching out for us.

More Than Messy

Our upstairs is a disaster zone. You have to wear a bio hazard suit to enter the premises. I don’t know what happened up there. It could have been:

The remnants of a bomb explosion.

The aftermath of Hurricane Offspring.

A hungry wolverine scoured the closets looking for little children to eat for supper.

A group of homeless carnival workers moved in and tried to turn stuffed animals and crayons into a Ferris Wheel.

Or maybe it’s because we have three little kids.

The bedrooms and family room upstairs are in such a state of disarray and chaos that all you can do is shake your head and go back downstairs. It isn’t even worth getting mad at the kids. It is so messy that you get depressed even thinking about where to start cleaning up. You consider the possibility that the damage is beyond repair.

How did this happen? I thought we were attentive and involved parents. Judging by how our upstairs looks, you’d think we went to the Bahamas for two weeks and left the six year old in charge.

I’m considering starting a fire upstairs to take care of the mess. Then we can just start over again. Let’s start from scratch. I’d roll in a bulldozer if only the mess were on the bottom level of the house. Please….pray for our family. And call the Red Cross.

Does this happen at anybody else’s house?

CSI: Hurricane

My spouse loves the show CSI. I truly can not understand why. It's violent. The acting is horrific. The plot is amazingly predictible. Every terrible show is the same. But she likes them all. You name it: CSI New York, CSI Las Vegas, CSI Miami. She's a fan.

I have come up with some story lines if they ever want to do a show about my home town: CSI Hurricane, Utah.

Episode #1: Who stole Brother Hall's tractor?

Episode #2: Breaking up the fist fight at Walmart over the last can of food storage rice.

Episode #3: Man is taken to jail for wearing sandles over his socks.

Episode #4: Police respond to a disgruntled woman upset that the neighbor's roosters wake her up every morning.

Episode #5: A certain neighborhood petitions the court to increase the legal limit of yard art.

Episode #6: Did he actually PAY for THAT haircut? (The violator: the Mayor who is also the city barber.) (Disclaimer: I've never heard any complaints about the Mayor's haircuts. Please....please don't raise my taxes.)

So there you go. CSI.....you're welcome. Feel free to pass on any royalties. I'll need them to pay my tax increase.

Did I miss any episodes?