Sesame Street Gone Bad

I'm no Nanny McPhee (I'd like to think I have much cleaner teeth, for starters), but I have been babysitting for quite some time. Don't get me wrong - I love entertaining the baby - but there are only so many times I can jump out from behind the door and yell "peekie poo!" before I begin to feel foolish. This is where toys come into play - sing-songy, touch-my-belly-and-I-teach-you-French, baby toys. I love them.

But, as I learned recently, there is an exception.

Picture this: its a peaceful, sunny morning in suburban Raleigh. I'm busy solving my ten-month old's most serious problems: like whether to eat the kind of yellowish-greenish cheerio puffs or the blueish-purple cheerio puffs. It's a hard job, but I absolutely love it. That is, until a little thing called teething came along and rocked my previously peaceful baby-watching world. Avi is one of the sweetest babies I know, and unlike my friends and almost every member of my family, she thinks I'm funny at least sometimes. But ten little pearly whites tearing through her tiny gums made for a couple of pretty miserable days.

This particular day was extra difficult, because the -78 degree temperatures confined us to her playroom. After several hours of making myself feel ridiculous and with no toys left to introduce to her, I was beginning to feel discouraged. And then I heard it. A faint noise from the bottom of the toy bucket: "hee hee hee hee... ha ha.. har har har... hee hee." I was initially excited. A new toy would offer at least 45-50 seconds of non-fussiness and I couldn't wait. I dug past the jack-in-the-box and ABC blocks until I found what would later become my worst nightmare (after the crickets, of course): Tickle Me Elmo.

The concept is pretty simple. You push Elmo's belly (or, frankly, stand within 6.5 feet of the little guy) and he begins laughing. He starts to bend at the waist and slap his knee, and finishes by falling forward and rolling around. Something must be pretty funny. I initially enjoyed trying my own material on the fuzzball and watching as my seemingly hilarious jokes forced Elmo into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. This is when the first problem arose. I'm all for an active toy, but after spending six months trying to teach this baby to sit up and crawl, Elmo's complete lack of respect for gravity and uprightness was starting to annoy me.

For the sake of Avi's entertainment, I let it slide. But nap time was fast-approaching and I suddenly had a crisis on my hands: I couldn't get Elmo to stop. I'm no Albert Einstein, but I'd like to think I have a decent amount of common sense. I was a Girl Scout for much of my life, and can stop forest fires with the best of them. But that day, for the life of me, I could not put an end to the incessant laughing. Besides being incredibly distracting to the baby girl as I was trying to get her to sleep, I became increasingly nervous that Elmo would interfere with the most important part of my day: watching Judge Judy during Avi's afternoon nap. Now it was personal.

I'm pretty resourceful, and I'd like to think I tried everything. My reaction time was slowed and my thought-process fuzzy after little sleep because of the civil war in my house the night before (see my previous entry), but I did have a few ideas. In a moment of frustration, I slammed Elmo against the floor (don't worry, I don't do that to the baby); I tried pushing his belly again (a little reverse psychology for the tiny creep).... nothing worked. I even considered putting him outside on the front steps (the chronically "ooh ooh ah ah'ing monkey met that same unfortunate demise), but I didn't want to face the tundra-like temperatures.

And then I heard it - perhaps the creepiest, but most relieving sentence that comes out of the furball's mouth: "Elmo's sleeeeeeeepy." And for a second you think, oh my stars. This is the moment. This is when the little terror takes a ten minute break and by the grace of god stops laughing. I saw the light at the end of the tunnel and was grateful because the other toys in the playroom needed a rest, too (Scout the "patty-cake" singing puppy works way too hard for his own good).

I only had so much time before Judge Judy in all her fabulousness was going to ruin a couple of lives, so I set about cleaning up the playroom. I was cautious to stay as far away from Elmo as possible; in part, because I didn't want him to wake up, but mainly because I was about 27% sure he was actually possessed. Then it happened. I moved a block. ONE TINY BLOCK, ONE TINY INCH, and the fuzzball was back in business. Laughing, harassing, more laughing, pretend sleeping, laughing...

I can save a choking baby like it's making Easy-Mac in the microwave, but once again could NOT get Elmo to stop giggling. It's like the most terrifying nightmare on repeat and I was beginning to lose it. I was almost positive that other TME owners had experienced this before (although it's entirely possible that the crickets were in cahoots with Elmy boy and were attempting to execute their own personal vendetta). I decided to do some research. I DVR'ed my judge lady friend and set about on my mission to end Elmo's giggle-reign.

Like any responsible researcher, my first stop was youtube. I typed in "Tickle Me Elmo," and it should come as no surprise that the first few entries were various parties, men and women of all ages, setting the little creature on fire. I'd by lying if I said I wasn't a little satisfied. Of course I knew that one resource wasn't enough, so upped my game a little and googled...

WAIT. No. This can't be happening. The results streaming from the google search were worse than I could have imagined. News stores and toy stores announcing the release of "TMX: Tickle Me Elmo Extreme." Naturally, images of screaming children and cities burned to the ground immediately entered my mind.

I dared to read more. Just when I thought catching dysentery on the Oregon Trail was the worst way to go, I read that Mattel was releasing the TMX with "hidden surprises" (read: evil minions and weapons of mass destruction). I had to do something.

Long story short, I ended up finding a box of old stuffed animals on the basement floor and hiding Elmo in there. I initially feared for the blue bunny and one-eyed bear's safety, but again, Judge Judy is serious business. I sealed up the box and climbed the two flights of stairs back to my giggle-less oasis.

I told this story because anyone who knows me knows my first priority is the safety of others (well, that, and adjusting my bearded dragon's diet so that it doesn't include crickets). But also because something coincidental yet terrifying happened this morning. Avi's mom found a great place with thousands of inexpensive toys and took her there to find some treasures. Hours after her arrival at the market, I saw the picture she posted online from her outing:

And I knew, at that moment, that Elmo was in that box buried deep in the basement, getting the last laugh.

Cricket Coup 2k11

I have recently had the honor of becoming a first-time parent. I know, I know - I'm young - but I have significant nannying experience and have watched countless hours of Toddlers & Tiaras. My scaly little guy remains nameless (I don't know who the father is), but for now we'll call him VeryHungryBabyBeardedDragon (VHBBD). As much as I wish I could share my fettuccine alfredo with the little guy, for the first six months of his life he eats crickets. Terrifying, too-many-legs-and-or-antennas, jump three feet in the air crickets. I'm nothing if not a sacrificer, so I braved the insect world and was housing 1,000 of these monsters in my laundry room (perhaps if they had learned to separate my whites from my colors, this story would've ended differently).
The crickets started off small - 3/8 of an inch according to the completely normal cricket seller at the Reptile Convention, but after one night, JUST ONE MEASLY NIGHT, of eating cricket food, they turned into these:

Okay, maybe a slight exaggeration, but they were getting too big for my sweet little VHBBD to chomp on. I was faced with the biggest dilemma since having to decide whether to watch Bad Girls Club or Jersey Shore the night before - how do I dispose of these seemingly steroid-ridden creatures?
I don't know much about cricket ears, but apparently they are large and work very efficiently. As soon as I began plotting the cricket massacre, a funny little thing happened. I was playing cards with several of my friends at the kitchen table, when someone pointed out a cricket hopping across the ground. I brushed it off as "the one that got away"; little did I know there was a miniature mutiny going on in my laundry room. The next morning was like any other morning. I woke up my VHBBD with the typical "Riseeeee and shineeee and give God your gloryyy gloryyy" and turned on his heat lamp. Assuming that the escapee cricket's little cricket friends saw his cunning stunt, I was excited to teach them all a lesson by feeding 15 or so of them to the VHBBD. I opened up the laundry room and found what can only be described as real-life nightmare: crickets lined up, like a little cricket army, on TOP of their cage. Ladies and gentlemen, these sneaky little suckers had grown big enough to jump to the ceiling of their container and escape through the slits.
That sounds pretty terrible, right? It gets worse. These weren't just silly little insects hopping about - this was a cricket militia:

Needless to say, I needed to act smart and fast... so I screamed like a little girl and slammed the door shut. Scenes from Braveheart and 300 flashed through my head and I prepared for battle. After putting on my armor (rubber kitchen gloves sealed with rubber bands and a garbage bag over my clothes), I ran into the laundry room, picked up the cricket community (I should copyright that), dropped it into the garage. I placed a piece of cardboard on top (that's right - two steps ahead of you, cricketmen) and returned inside. After a hot bath, which was as close to the therapy I needed after my experience as I could get, I decided I would venture back into cricket land so that VHBBD could have supper.

I don't know if this is a horror story or more of an action tale; whether the crickets tragic flaw brought them down or it was the heroine's supreme courage.... but I do know that there is now a cricket graveyard in my too-cold-for-insects-to-survive-in garage:

Jordan- 956, Crickets - 0.