Ellie and the corpse

Last night we attended the funeral visitation of one of Nick's friend's Dad.

If you don't have children, let me just tell you that getting a 1-year-old, 5-month-old and 34-year-old all ready for an event where you have to be wearing more than tighty whities and a sandwich board takes roughly the same amount of thought and coordination as constructing an outlet mall.

There were tights, jumpers, bows... then I had to figure out what to put on the kids.

We were running out of time so I had to do something that I really hate doing... I put Ellie in her playpen and flipped on the electric nipple. I tuned it to the only childrens' show I find acceptable for her to view - Yo Gabba Gabba. It's like a big acid trip for toddlers.

However, when I got out of the shower and walked into the bedroom I saw Yo Gabba Gabba had ended and she was now watching Wonder Pets.

Like the name implies, Wonder Pets is a show filled with evil and elicits feelings of hatred. There's this duck and this weasel (or something) and they go around singing a song that if it passes your ears will be stuck there for all eternity:

What's gonna work? Teeeeam work! What's gonna work? Teeeeam work!

AAAAAAAHHHHHH!

I quickly changed it to Cops but it was too late. Like a zombie witch, Ellie looked at me and began to sing:

what's gonna work teeeam work what's gonna work teeeam work!

I started sobbing because this basically negated the hours and hours of my precious time spent teaching her the value of street credit by whipping her hair and smacking her booty all at the same time.

Anyhoo, Nick finally got home and the weather was horrible and we were stuck in gridlock traffic pelted by a wintery mix for over an hour. By the time we got there we were all starving but I know how these things go - it would be like two weeks before we got to eat.

I was waiting in the lobby with the kids for him to park the car when suddenly I got a funny feeling. The ground began to rumble, I heard thunder outside and I saw the pictures on the wall start to tremble.

Oh God.

It was happening.

Horrified, I slowly looked down.



Demon child was here.



Scratch that... demon children.



By the time Nick parked the car there were full fledged body thrusts, screaming, head spinning and levitation. Ellie would only stop screaming if she was on the ground and every time we put her down she elbowed her way through the crowd to make a bee line for the coffin.

I wasn't so much worried about Ellie having any lasting mental damage from seeing a dead body; I was more worried about her making the dead body her bitch and slapping him around before she pocketed any valuables he might happen to be wearing.

The minute we picked her up she would launch into a full on scream, complete with kicking aimed at balls.

If we would have walked in with a chimp riding a bedazzled elephant we would have made less of a distraction.

We were literally in the parlor less time it took to park the car. Nick briefly expressed his condolences to his friend and we made a quick escape, taking our starving stomachs to the only restaurant where screaming kids are welcomed with open arms. Applebee's.

As we were walking down the empty hall towards the door, Ellie's demeanor immediately changed. Her fangs and horns retracted, and she said in her sweetest little one-year-old voice:



This kid is a hell of a lot smarter than I could ever give her credit for.