Fat Toys and Snuggle Tummies

The world needs more honesty.  Luckily,  the world is filled with children.  Precious, honest children.

The other day Robyn's brother came over to visit.  He brought 3 of his children and we had fun visiting and playing.

My 4-year-old niece had just made some very important acquisitions.  She had acquired a set of toys based on the various characters from Disney's Tangled.  Of course, if you had just obtained a collection of such value, you would want to show it off, amiright?  She was doing just that, she was showing us all of the toys, one by one.  With each toy, she told us who it was and gave us background information so that we could truly understand the character.

As she went through, she was saying things like, "This is Maximus, he's a horsie."  "This is Rapunzel, she has long hair, like me."  "This is her mom, she's not nice."

She got through all of them, and then she came to this guy:

She held him proudly in the air.  She looked right at me with a giant grin and a sparkle in her eye and said, "He's fat like you, Jeff!"

I've lost 55 pounds so far this year.  I've walked 260 miles.  I've burned 192,500 calories more than I've eaten.  I've worked my tail off.  Some might think the 4-year-old honesty in that moment would be discouraging.  But, if you could see the look in her eyes when she said it you would see how much love that statement contained.  There was no judgment or malice, merely an observation that her uncle whom she loves shares an attribute with her toy that she loves.

Besides, how could anything said by someone this cute be taken negatively?

The good news is that her equally honest siblings have acknowledged my weight loss.  So, it hasn't gone entirely unnoticed in the world of childdom.  Both of her older siblings have told me in recent months that they are very disappointed that my snuggle tummy is shrinking.  Several times in recent weeks they have asked to snuggle with my tummy before it disappears.

This is her older sister making proper use of the snuggle tummy about a year ago, before it started shrinking.

The snuggle tummy has been very important to all of them for a long time.  When their mom was pregnant, I was told, "My mom has a tummy like yours, but it's not for snuggling because there's a baby inside."

So here's what I've learned from talking to my nieces.

1.  I may have lost weight but I haven't completed my journey yet.
2.  Snuggling is really important.
3.  I will always be loved, regardless of what I look like.
4.  Little girls are really cute.

What have you learned from the wisdom and honesty of little children?

Capture Torture

Recently I was at a big family dinner with several of Robyn's siblings and other family members.  We had finished partaking of various delicious food items and were discussing important things like wicked witches, aliens and dragons.

My eight year old niece came into the kitchen, took my hand and informed me that she had a very important game for us to play.  I followed her into the living room and asked her what we were going to play.  "Capture, torture" was the reply.

Any game that has the word 'torture' in it, is not usually one I would select to play.  But, I thought, perhaps it was just a poorly named game.  So I asked her how we play.  The rules are simple: "You try to capture me and after you capture me, you torture me."  I suppose the game actually has the perfect title.

If I'm going to play a role, I need some back story.  I talked to her a little bit and she helped flesh out my character.  I was to be a troll sleeping in a cave.  My niece and nephew were exploring the cave and they come along and wake me up.  Upon waking, I capture them and torture them.  I'm motivated by my desire to sleep, but also by my love of torturing children.

Often when I play with these two, the game starts out with me sleeping.  That originated from the fact that a sleeping monster is very similar to a sleeping Jeff, so it's a pretty easy role to play.  I can usually lay on the couch and emit an occasional growl, which is sufficient to send them running in gleeful terror.  Then I get to sleep another 15 minutes or so while they develop the courage to creep back into my lair.

Apparently, that strategy was not to my niece's liking this time.  After a few minutes, she let me know in no uncertain terms that there was way too much sleeping and not nearly enough capturing and torturing.

I had to up my game.  I can't let the word get around that I sleep too much when I should be torturing.  (Have you heard about Jeff?  He hardly ever captures or tortures.  I hear he sleeps nearly twice as much as he tortures!  How embarrassing!)

So I turned it up.  I busted out some serious capturing.  That's the easy part.  

The hard part is the torturing.  I'm not too familiar with torture.  I'm sure there are many strategies out there, but it's just not a subject I've studied.  I decided to try eating the children.  I mean, getting eaten alive sounds pretty unpleasant to me.  

I quickly learned I was wrong about that assumption.  After pretending to eat my niece's arms, followed by her legs, she told me, "Eating is boring.  Do a different kind of torture."

I considered water-boarding.  I wasn't sure how well that would go over with her parents.

Next I tried tickling.  That was also unacceptable.  "No eating.  No tickling.  Try sitting on us, or trapping us with your arms."  She is pretty picky for someone who requested torture.

Finally, I discovered something that worked for all of us.  I held her up in the air and she would squirm until she could get out of my grip and fall to the couch.  

I'm not sure if that form of torture would be sufficient to get terrorists to talk, but apparently it's the ideal torture for an 8 year old girl.

"I'll tell you everything.  Just don't make me squirm until I fall on the couch."

Here are the important life lessons I learned from playing "capture, torture"

1.  Torture is awesome.  Kids love it.

2.  Sleeping is not an activity that trolls should spend much time doing.

3.  If you are a sleeping troll, eating people is hardly a deterrent from being bothered.

4.  There's a right way and a wrong way to torture.  Doing it wrong is embarrassing.

I hope you all can learn these important lessons without making the mistakes I made.

P.S.  This is a non-political piece.  I don't want to hear your thoughts on torturing terrorists.  If you have thoughts about torturing little girls, those thoughts are welcome.