2022 in Quotes

Our kids are now 11 and 8, which turns out means they're big kids. More responsible, more independent, more understanding of the way the world works. So whereas many of our quotes from when they were younger was us creating rules (like my favorite: "if you're going to put a lizard on anyone's penis it has to be your own") or explaining to them the way the world works ("pop is my dad. That's how we know him"). Now, however, I feel like it's more of us saying WHAT are you doing? You know that's not how the world works, or I no longer have answers for your questions as you've grown smarter than me. Here are our 2022 parent quotes, taken out of context. 

You can name your dog whatever you want when you’re twenty. 

You can only have one communion. I don’t know the protocol on getting seconds on the blood of Christ. 

Sex is not a bad word. Alcohol is just for adults, does that make it a bad word?

Garbanzo, not Cordoza 

I don’t think you can get lice in your nose hair. But honestly I’ve never considered it. 

Whose toothbrush case has Chex cereal in it?

Passengers are not allowed to ride in the trunk, I'm pretty sure. 

I don’t really want to put a video on the internet of y’all fighting over a pancake mustache!

You have to actually move the toothbrush 

Did you use all the wax for your brother's braces to make candles?!

You shampooed your arm pit? With shampoo?

Are you brushing your teeth or playing a flute?

Today is March. So we don’t have to decide today, in March, what you want to eat on NYE. 

You don’t need to take a jump rope to a rodeo.

You have to wear underwear for a field trip. Every time. 

Put the flute down and brush your teeth. 

Everyone just gets one birthday a year 

I don’t think the chickens are going to let you lasso them. 

If you are playing a flute you aren’t brushing your teeth. 

I can’t make a restaurant show us their potatoes before you order. 

If you are playing the flute you are not brushing your teeth. 

When you walk in circles around the kitchen while you eat your rice it spills everywhere instead of in just one spot. 

If you want an ice cream sundae you can be a teacher when you grow up and you can get an ice cream sundae during teacher appreciation week. 

Why is there a lizard tail on the kitchen counter? 

We don’t have to decide while we’re at the ER in June how and when we’re going to celebrate your birthday in august 

You’re not going to need a light saber at a funeral 

Why did you bring dental floss to baseball practice?

I’m not really sure if flies have necks or not 

You’re not eating hand fulls of ice out of the freezer 

But is it really sharing if you said he can’t touch any? 

No one wants to sit on a pile of toenails. That would be a terrible surprise. 

I don’t want to argue with you about the physics of a crescent roll. 

I don’t think a vet will give a mouse a rabies shot. 

You’ve had all day. Why do you need to be "superior to oz" right at dinner?

You don’t poot on our counter!

We can buy some dishes for you to “customize” but you are not going to draw on my good china. 

You can’t brush your teeth with gum in your mouth. 

I told you to get a snack bc you didn’t eat breakfast and it will be awhile until we have lunch…and you chose cough drops?!?!

My job is to keep you healthy and safe. It is not to cut every stick you find into the perfect size. 

How did you get a splinter in your tongue??

I don’t know much about dog belly buttons.

Link to 2021 quotes here if you want to see the historical quotes. 

2020 in Quotes

Yes, these are a year late. I found them saved on my phone from the post I meant to do last year. These include lockdown, digital learning, working from home, and so much togetherness. 

2020 quotes 

• Yes prissy is a grown up, but you can’t stay home with just her. You have to be with a human grown up. 
• You can’t wear sweat pants to a funeral. 
• You don’t need to trade toys at school, and you sure don’t need to trade your brother’s toys. 
• No one is naked at a funeral. 
• How did you hurt your eye when you were peeing?
• Quit trying to blow dry your testicles and come eat breakfast. 
• How did the wash cloth end up in the toilet?
• You don’t have to pull up my dress to brush your teeth. 
• Germs are real. Cooties are not. 
• No one in our family is a bounty hunter. 
• It’s cheap whiskey, not cheese whiskey. 
• No pogo sticking on the stairs, please. 
• A mole is much smaller than a human. 
• Nintendo is not the boss of you. 
• No, clicking on the terminix ad doesn’t count as your schoolwork for today. 
• When I say go brush your teeth, there isn’t any learning to play songs on the keyboard in that request. 
• Did you agree for him to kill you? 
• You’ve got to take a bath if you get spit on by a llama or sneezed on by a buffalo. 
• He’s crying bc he punched you in the nose?
• Do not kill anyone else today. 
• People aren’t going to want to come over to play if you try to hurt them.
• You don’t have to narrate your burps. 
• Humans don’t sniff each other’s butts 
• I’m not in charge of what other people name their stores. 
• Don’t lick your hands before you hold someone’s hand. 
• You don’t have to narrate any vomit, no matter whose it is. 
• You don’t need a ukelele to brush your teeth. 
• Did you get bacon grease in your eyes? Don’t rub your eyes with bacony fingers, I think that’s why you’re thinking you're blind. 
• Don’t video anyone getting out of the shower. 
• No more splits on the stairs. 
• If someone is trying to tell you about your day tomorrow, you don’t interrupt them to talk about lemurs. 
• You can’t hug people in football. 
• I do like that galloping but right now it’s time to get dressed. 
• Somebody is probably more likely to snuggle with you when you’re not naked 
• Oh, I did say we need a whole egg. But actually we need to crack it first. 
• Why is there a beef jerky ion my bed?
• Why are you riding the kitchen cabinet?
• When I’m trying to concentrate on driving safely on a busy highway I can’t turn around to look at a food family. 
• Handcuffs without the chain would just be bracelets. 
• You’re lucky I’m ignoring you. 
• One stilt is harder than two stilts. And I need you to come inside for lunch. 
• The wisemen didn’t wear hoodies. 
• I still need you to pull up Google classroom even if your ear is folded.

If you want to keep going, you can find the 2019 quotes here

2021 in Quotes

When our 16 year old beagle died during lockdown, I tried to write a post about her. I mean I did write it, technically, but I never finished it.  Then I didn't want to come back to the blog because it wasn't finished and I couldn't finish it. So I wrote nothing for over a year, but now I'm back with my list of quotes that the adults in our family have said out loud in 2021. 

• If a restaurant has a jackelope that's usually a clue that it's not fancy. 
• We're not avenging anyone today.
• It doesn't matter if you put a Rubik's cube on your nuts or if you just made someone think you put a Rubik's cube on your nuts, go put it up. 
• I've never seen a bird penis either but I think they exist.
• I don't think people can have groundhogs as pets. 
• We are not paying extra for Alexa to have additional types of farts. 
• I don't think there's professional putt putt. 
• Please stop burping on my back. 
• You don't need a balloon pump to go to bed. 
• I don't think people will pay for cow bones. 
• It's okay if you want turkey feathers in the house, just please don't leave them on the table. 
• I don't want to see a toilet trick during dinner, okay? 
• I don't think there are bandaids specifically for Komodo Dragons, but I'm not sure. 
• Crayons are not made from earwax. 
• When I'm driving I can't keep turning around to watch your carrot. 
• You're sitting on meat and such. 
• I don't think they do make muzzles for humans. 
• I'm not going to let you put a live goldfish in your mouth anyway. 
• No, let's not yeet that sucker into the yard. 
• Is "rat nostrils" the best dinner conversation? 
• You cannot sprain your face. 

And, since I didn't write anything in 2020, I have those quotes here also. 

The Life and Adventures of Prissy Watts Magness

Yesterday we had to put sweet Prissy to sleep. She was 16 (almost 16 and a half), and we've had her for 15 years. Fifteen years. I've got human friendships that haven't lasted half of that, and friends who have put up with a lot less. When we got her, she was afraid of newspapers and men in hats, which we thought might be a sign she'd been mistreated. She trusted us anyway. 

I got her in 2005, when I was out of college and working my first grown up job. The Husband (who was then The Boyfriend) got her for me, after we found her on a rescue site. Our adoption was delayed because she was recovering from heart worms and was supposed to be resting for 6 weeks. We didn't know at the time that she would have heart worms two more times, and Novartis would pay for her third round of treatment since she had been on preventive medicine at the time. After the second round of heart worms I asked the vet if we really had to keep doing meds, because what were the chances that a dog would get heart worms a third time? She said "you're actually the patient we tell other patients about when we suggest they keep using heart worm prevention after they've been infected." Apparently she was remarkable. 

She has also been quite ambitious. When she was younger she used to jump up in a chair at our kitchen table and eat things off the table. Once she knocked over a beer, spilt it in the floor, then drank it all off the floor. She got into a cake that was cooling on the counter. She has eaten LOTS of food out of my children's' hands, and ate coffee ice cream out of the trash. She ate Hershey kisses leaving the entire wrapper intact and precisely unfolded. She once jumped out of the window of my moving car, with her leash on and still attached inside the car. She jumped in our friend Marvin's lap and peed on his pants. She's run away multiple times, always to return with a smile and a wag of her tail. 

She had that beagle bay that was loud and persistent and beagle-y. When she used to have a dog door into a fenced back yard at our old house, she would come and go a dozen times an hour, and announce her presence to everyone every time. God forbid a neighbor would walk by, or a dog or a squirrel or a leaf. She'd announce all of that too. We got a bark collar that sprays a puff of citronella when a bark activates it, so it deters barking but isn't painful. The first time she barked in the yard, she was afraid of that spot and wouldn't return over there again. It took her a while to realize it was the barking causing the citronella spray. Bless her sweet self. 

In about 2008 my BFF Kati and I were in New York City on a trip that Kati won on The Price is Right the year before. (It was Kati's dream to be on TPIR before Bob Barker retired, so we flew to LA and slept out on the sidewalk all night to get onto the show. Then Kati ended up getting called to "come on down" and she won the whole showcase showdown. Since I had joined her on her dream to participate on TPIR, she took me on one of the trips she won). Since the flight and lodging were all paid for, we were living it up in NYC- shopping, eating, seeing comedy shows, making memories and taking the world by storm. We were shopping in a department store one morning on this girls trip when The Husband called to say he had found Prissy under our bed, unresponsive after chewing on some AA batteries the night before. He had taken her to the emergency vet and they said she was in anaphylactic shock. They administered epinephrine and kept her overnight. It was touch and go, and we didn't know if she would make it. "Do anything and everything you can" I said to him, as I started hanging clothes back on shelves, clearly not wasting money on fashion with a sick (and expensive) girl at home. That Christmas, we paid vet bills as our gift to each other. 

When I was pregnant with The Boy Prissy wouldn't leave my side. If I was at home, she was beside me. If I was in the kitchen she was in the kitchen right up under me. If I was in the bedroom she was in the bedroom. When I'd take a bath in our small bathroom she'd lie down on the mat beside the tub. I swear she knew there was something going on, and she was keeping a close eye on me. When The Boy was born we brought a baby blanket to her so she could get used to his smell. She had a hard time with the change, and I was surprised that it was harder on both of us than I'd imagined. She stopped eating and wasn't acting like herself, and she would take any bottles or pacies she could get ahold of outside and chew them up in the yard. We took her to the vet and she started on antidepressants, which helped. I think it was just one more way in which she was aware of what was going on and feeling the same way I was. In time she improved and came off her meds. 

Despite her hesitancy to embrace change, she was tolerant of The Boy. She was curious and patient, even when he pulled her tail and poked her eyes. She used her dog door to escape when she'd had enough, and when he was old enough to have an awareness of her, he was in love.