Zhu Zhu pet in your sisters hair? There's an app for that!

As I was trying to make dinner tonight, I was constantly getting interrupted by kids wanting to "help" me. Most nights I am all for them helping, but tonight I had a lot of things going on in the kitchen and didn't really want to slow down my "groove".

I suggested to Evan and Hailey that they should get their Zhu Zhu pets and have races in the kitchen so I could referee the races while I cooked. They were super stoked about that idea and immediately ran away to find their hamsters. Not to get off on a tangent here, but the Zhu Zhu's were an impulse Christmas purchase. I happened to be at Toys R Us when they had a shipment in. I knew they were the "hottest toys of the season" so I purchased three of them. One for each kid. They hadn't even been asking for them, but I thought they would like them and if I decided they had enough gifts, I could sell them on Ebay for about ninety dollars each to some poor desperate mother hoping to make her child's Christmas wish come true. Why can I suddenly not stop thinking of that "Office" Christmas episode with Princess Unicorn - "My horn can pierce the sky!" Anyway, they each got one in their stocking mostly due to the fact that I am too lazy and chicken to take the effort to sell anything on Ebay. That is something I hope to overcome in this new year.

Hailey found her Zhu Zhu right away. Evan found Spencer's, but not his. I told him to just race with Spencer's, but my territorial little guy would have NONE of that. So he grumped and pouted around the house "looking" for his Zhu Zhu. I put looking in quotes because his process of looking includes walking around and waiting for the missing item to show itself by jumping into his hands. A few minutes later I hear Hailey screaming. I see Evan with a foam sword in his hand and immediately ask him what he did to her. He tells me he did nothing. Hailey is grabbing at the back of her head and wailing. I rush over to her and find her Zhu Zhu pet's wheels are stuck (I mean STUCK) in her hair. Here comes another tangent. The pulling of Hailey's hair is a really big deal to her. She will not even let me put pig tails in her hair without screaming bloody murder. Her hair is always a disaster because she won't even let me put a brush through it. The only brush I am allowed to use is the soft bristle baby brush that they gave me in the hospital - and she even has a fit about that. I know she doesn't have a lot of hair, but that little brush just doesn't do anything but make it more static-y and flyaway.

So I try to make the Zhu Zhu "go" to see if I can free the hair, but no such luck. The wheels are just winding up her hair even more and she is screaming even louder. I told Spencer to go get the scissors and told Evan to turn on the light behind me. Like I said before, she doesn't have much hair and the thought of creating a giant bald spot in her head a mere two days before her birthday party is not super enticing to me. I start snipping little by little and in about three snips - the rodent is free and her hair is no worse looking than it usually is.

He looks all sweet and innocent doesn't he.


But then you turn him over. And just as I was getting angry that they makers of this toy would not think about a kid putting it near their hair, I notice this discreet little light yellow sign attached to the animal. Can you read it? Or is it obscured by the wad of hair it pulled from my daughters scalp?



How about now? Apparently they had thought of the hair entanglement issue. And apparently I am also supposed to remove that tag before activating the toy. Maybe I should take a little more caution with what I let my kids play with and take heed of the giant exclamation point when it is present?

Since tangents seem to be a recurring theme in this post, Evan was asking me all day when Dad would be home. I thought it was endearing that he missed him so much and was so anxious for him to get home and play with him.

What I failed to realize is that Evan has turned into an iphone junkie. While he and Dad are in the basement "watching" football, Evan is playing all the game apps that Trent has downloaded. When Trent walked in the door tonight, Evan asked him where his apple phone was and could he please buy that deer hunting game that cost four dollars?

I notice in these pictures that Evan is in desperate need of some nail trimming. Of course maybe the long nails help him to push the buttons on the phone more accurately.

I am thrilled that Evan and Trent enjoy his Christmas gift so much and I apologize for my misleading title. There is not an app to de-tangle a Zhu Zhu pet from your sister's hair - that I know of. But I did just google Zhu Zhu pet apps and there is one to play Zhu Zhu pets on the iphone. I also heard a rumor during the Christmas season that there was an app to tell you when stores got shipments of Zhu Zhu pets in.

So after a minor catastrophe, everything around here is back to normal. Well, as normal as it gets around here. Though I am wondering how much Hailey is going to like the Zhu Zhu pet car that she is getting for her birthday? It may be time to get that Ebay account set up. I'll have to get Evan right on that!