Repticon. The word itself makes my skin crawl, my chest tighten and my husband skip through the house like a kid on christmas eve. Polar opposite reactions. He’s not only infected my oldest son, Nate with the reptile “fever” but he’s the head of a reptile team at our sons’ Montessori school. I actually encouraged this job because I had hoped it would be an outlet for his love affair that was over 2 blocks away from my safe haven (home).

Now, no one wants to pass down to their children a crippling fear of anything…but you have to admit…if you do pass one to them, the fear of venom-filled, vampire-fanged, put-on-earth-to-kill-me beasts has to be low on the list of harmful fears, right? Second only to fear of poison and strangers with candy. You might even say that I would be doing a GOOD thing by teaching my sons to fear snakes… OK, so I don’t really believe that, it’s just something I say to myself to relieve the guilt I feel when I act like a deranged psycho-path in front of my kids.

Sooooo…I’ve been working on it. For the past 17 years that I’ve been with Mark, I’ve been easing into the reptile thing. It’s taking a long time but who’s counting? I can now watch real snakes on TV and movies. Not the fake ones that are trying to scare you like that freaking Harry Potter movie, where the snake strikes toward the audience and nearly put me in the psych unit of the hospital. I can look at snakes through glass enclosures with my family and not run the snake-breaks-through-glass-and-kills-entire-family scenario in my head. And I actually touched the tail of the snake at Gatorland when my then 4-year-old Nate told me not to be afraid, he would protect me. Big progress!

Long story, short…(too late!) Mark was going to Repticon on Saturday and he was taking Nate and one of his Reptile team, Brian. Imagine his shock when I announced, “Hey…I thought Zeke and I would come along.”  He nearly fell over. All he could muster to say was, “WHY?!!” “So you don’t buy anything, of course!” I joked, which actually was half the reason I was going. The other half? I don’t  know. The family that Repticons together, stays together? No, that can’t be it.

Anyway, when we get there, we meet up with Karen Simon, the director of the Montessori and she and Mark were on a mission to repopulate the school with critters.

Nate found a snake that was “Actually shedding his skin right in front of my eyes so I can see it happening.” and demanded that I watch with him:

I tried pointing to all the snakes, lizards and turtles but Zeke was not impressed. You could even say bored:

I was on a mission to find something to engage Zeke with.  Luckily, we found a vendor with pygmy possums. So stinking cute! Zeke perked up so fast, you would have thought he said, “Free Legos” instead of “Wanna pet the possum?”:

Yes! We’ve made contact! Head is out of the wagon, Lego guy is in his pocket…we’re making progress! Then we wheel over to the next booth. There stands a man with a 75 ft. snake in his hands. (OK, so my mind plays tricks on me. It was more like 4 ft.) He looks me right in the eyes and starts to hand me the snake! “NOOOO THANK YOU!” I yelled louder than I meant to. I’m afraid of snakes, but I’m trying to work through it. Just me being in this building filled to the brim (gulp, not helping) with snakes is a miracle. He smiles and walks toward Zeke. “Hey, little guy, want to pet the snake?” Zeke looks up and says, “No thank you, I’m afraid of snakes!”  OH, NO! What have I done? I slap myself on the forehead and compose myself. “No, Zekey…you’re not afraid of snakes. Go ahead and pet him.” “No thank you, Mommy.”  Dang it! I must fix this before it’s too late. Damage control mode. “Zeke, I’ll make a deal with you. How about we both pet the snake? Deal?” He looks up at me, “DEAL!” and shakes my hand. Dan, the snake man holds out the snake and Zeke cautiously reaches out for a touch:

“How does it feel, Zeke?” “Good.” and he cracks a smile and reaches over for another pet:

Then Dan stands up and starts to hand me the snake. “Wawawait a minute…wait a minute!” I hand my camera to a nice man who I’m hoping will drop it and save me when the snake attacks. Or at the very least get shots of the massacre so that Mark will know what happened. “I’m just going to touch it. that’s the deal I made with my son.” I touched the snake and agree that it’s not slimy. Then Dan starts to put the snake into my hands. I think to myself, “OK, I could scream at the top of my lungs but that would scare Zeke and make the snake bite my face off. I could run for my life but leaving my son to fight off the snake alone would cross me off the Mother of the Year Award list. Or, I could summon my  primordial instincts and kill the snake with my bare hands, cook it over an open fire and make a belt with its skin. OR I could grit my teach, hold the snake and help heal the fear I’ve placed on my innocent son. A deal is a deal:
Biting my lip so hard:

Oh, my god, oh my god, oh my god…Where’s the head? !!!! Dan just kept talking to me in a soft voice, “You’re doing great, good job, great job!” Yeah, I know that trick Dan…I use it on my kids when they’re getting a shot at the doctor’s. “Where’s the head Dan?” It’s peeking under its body and coming back towards me…”OK…here ya go, Dan. That’s enough. Don’t have to break any records here today…

So, I held the damn snake to “save” my son from the crippling fear I’ve carried with me for all these years. I used the Mommy power to push through the panic for him. I did it ALL for Zeke!

Now, please refer back to all three pictures. Zeke is back to playing with his Lego guys and has no idea any of this is even happening. (SIGH.)

Thank you Dan for getting me through the panic. I will admit to a flood of tears after the fact. But I did it. I ran the camera over to Mark (He’s been buying up reptiles with Karen this entire time, unaware that half of his family had faced mortal danger) “What’s wrong, Honey?” I couldn’t talk. I just handed him the camera. He looked down at the pictures and said, “WHAT? You did it without me? After all these years, you did it with another man?!!”

I’ve heard that “snakes are phallic” but this is ridiculous.

Zeke has been going thru a phase in which he spends most of his days with his hands covering his ears. I’m very impressed how inventive he can be to get things done while keeping them covered. We had his hearing checked and it’s not a volume thing. Seems like it’s an overload thing.

Having said that, I’d like to present to you our family photos from our amazing Disney Cruise:

Checking out our cabin:

On deck, checking out the pools, slides & movie screen:

Listening (?) to the boat drill instructions:

Mommy trying to “persuade” his hands off his ears:

Enjoying (?) the spectacular show in the theater:

The pirate show (Zeke LOVES pirates) up on deck:

Resting his little pirate arms:

The first meeting with the Princesses didn’t go so well. Nate had bought into all the “Princesses are lame and for girls!” talk from the boys in his class. It took all my master spin-doctor skills to get him to even walk over to one.

“Nate, if Princesses are so lame, why do all the super cool Princes risk life & limb to save them?”

“What’s a limb?”

“That’s another word for arms and legs.”

“Mommy? I don’t remember any part of any of the stories when a Prince almost got an arm or leg off…except Capt. Hook but he’s not a Prince and that happened before the story started.”

“It’s just a saying, Nate.”

“Is a saying the same as a lie then?”

“No, it’s not a lie…it’s…uh…uuummm…Listen, if you go over there and meet the Princess, I’ll let you go to the Kid Center and play video games.”

I’m not proud, I’m just addicted to photo-ops: (Notice the stiff-arm “I’m not hugging you, but you can hug me” pose.)

“Mommy, Sleeping Beauty was REALLY nice!”

“I told you, Nate. That’s why the Princes fight so hard to save them.”

By the end of the cruise, he was courting them all. I couldn’t drag him away:

Zeke had a different agenda:

At the end of the cruise, we walked through the ship’s doors and stepped onto the gangway. Zeke whipped around, dropped his hands from his ears and proclaimed at the top of his voice, “THAT WAS THE BEST VACATION I EVER HAD IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!!!!”

(Sigh) I’m glad you liked it, Zeke.

I think I blended:

In fact, I blended so well that locals were all speaking Hebrew to me. When I stopped them and said I was from America, they would always respond, “But you’re Jewish, right?” I would tell them, “No, I’m not Jewish.” I was told, “You could be!” Uhhh…Thank you?

I was performing as part of a tour called “Comedy for Koby” a foundation that helps families who’ve lost loved ones to terror attacks. I can’t think of a better use for Comedy.

I went once before but that time I brought Mark and Nate. Nate was 2. The only thing I did on that trip was look for diapers and a place to change them. Oh, we climbed Masada…with Nate strapped to my back. 

But this time I got to be a tourist. In a nutshell I:

Went to the Souk (Avi lied…it was NOTHING like the mall.)

I bought some:

And didn’t buy:

I visited the Western Wall:

And covered some bases:

I felt illiterate:

But somehow understood:

I got my watch fixed:

And saw the bald head of the Governor of FL:

I met the most amazing people and made them my friends:

Now I know everything I need to know about the Kabbalah:

Oh, yeah…and I told some jokes (With Saleem, Avi Liberman & John Mulrooney) :

PS. Not sure, but I think I got married:

RING! RING!

“Hello?”

“Maryellen, it’s Karen from the Montessori.”

“uhhh….ohhh…”

“We have Nate in the office with us, he’s OK, but we have a situation.”

“uhhh…ohhh…”

‘We’ve already called Mark and he’s on his way with his tools.”

“Noooo, not the tools…what happened?”

“Nate got his finger stuck in his clipboard.”
“I beg your pardon? It sounded like you said Nate got his finger stuck in his clipboard.”

“That’s what I said. It’s swollen up and we can’t get it out of the clipboard.”

“I’ll be right there.”

I threw on my clothes, (Yes, I was still in my Pajamas…don’t judge me.) grabbed my camera, (Ask for a blog and you shall receive) and jumped in the car. The school is only a block and a half away, but I went to the gym yesterday and now I can’t move my limbs.

When I ran into the office, this is what I saw:

My son had stuck his finger in the metal hole on his clipboard and couldn’t get it out. My mind was flooded with news stories and urban legends of grown men that had stuck things where they shouldn’t have and were stuck – trying to cover their faces from the news cameras as EMTs fought back their laughter while they tried in vain to free the idiots.  Please tell me clipboards wasn’t how they started.

“Nate, are you OK?”

“Yeah, it hurts but I’m not crying anymore. The best part is…at least I already had my snack!”

I took over the ice application and tried to cheer him up.

“Hey, Nate…do you think this would be a good story for my blog?”

“Only if I get my finger out, otherwise, it won’t be too funny.”

“You make a very good point, my son. Oh look…Daddy’s here with all 37 of his cutter tools.”

With the help of our amazing school director, Karen Simon (I had to take photos, of course) Mark starts the operation:

Karen steadies the clipboard, Nate grimaces and Mark tries to hide his excitement that he’s getting to use his new cutter tool.

FREE AT LAST!!!

The worst part was my hurried text to my Mom:

“Ma, Nate got his finger stuck in his clipboard and we had to cut it off!!”

Needless to say, my Mother thought we cut off our son’s finger to save the clipboard.

So here we are in Celebration, FL which was designed specifically for people to enjoy the outdoors. And here’s a typical conversation between me and my boys:

Me: Hey, Nate – Zeke, it’s a beautiful day…why don’t you boys go outside and play?

Nate & Zeke: I don’t want to go outside. JINX! JINX! I said it first, so you can’t talk. No, I said it first so YOU can’t talk. Moooom…I said Jinx first and Zeke won’t stop talking.

Me: (banging my head on the table) GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY!

Zeke: (ear-stabbing whining) I don’t wanna go outside! I wanna stay inside and play with my guys. (Legos)

Nate: (making his best doe-eyed, dilated pupil face) I wanna stay inside and be with you Mommy ’cause I love you so much I would miss you out there.

Me: When I was a little girl…

Nate: Ugh, how many times are you going to say that story? You say it all the time and I still don’t wanna go outside.

Me: I’m going to keep telling that story until you go outside. If you stay in here, you will be listening to the story, go outside and you hear birds,dogs and yourself laughing.

Nate: FINE! I’ll go outside but I won’t hear myself laughing, I’ll hear myself saying this isn’t fair!

Me:  Zeke, you too.

Zeke: I’m staying inside to hear the story again.

I grab Zeke’s hand and lead him kicking and screaming outside into the back yard. The backyard that has a huge playset, bikes, balls, chalk, big wheels and many other things purchased to lure them out of the house.

Nate: Mommy, I went down the slide, I drew with chalk and I threw the ball. Can I come back inside now?

Me: Nate, you’ve been outside for 3 minutes. Make up a game. When I was a little girl…

Nate: (covering his ears and lalalalaling) How many minutes do we have to stay out here?

Me: 30. I’ll be back to check on you in 10.

Me: Nate…what are you doing?

Nate: Waiting for 30 minutes to be done.

Me: Where’s Zeke?

Nate: He’s in the house hiding from you.

Turns out the chicken wasn’t attacking me, it was roosting on me for safety. When they let the kids go in the chicken coop, they chase and try to catch the poor things. Wish I’d know that before I yelled stuff that would make a trucker blush. Luckily, it was such a high pitch scream that only the animals heard it.

We ended up making friends:

It looks so small in the photo. During the “incident”, I would have sworn it was the size of Foghorn Leghorn.

The other and more important resolution is a direct result from getting a year-end report from WordPress (my blog’s host site). In it, they tell you all the stats of your blog for the past year, like how many subscribers, how many views and the most telling stat for me: How many posts I wrote. (This is the part where I hang my head in shame and ask all my subscribers for forgiveness)  In 2011, I wrote a whopping 7 posts. I seriously thought it was a mistake. 7 posts? I felt like I had written at least once a month for crying out loud! Then I realized I had written them all in my head…I just forgot to type them in.

So here I write on Jan. 1, 2012 my solemn oath and resolution to write and post AT LEAST one post a week if not more. That would be 52 posts of hysterical, fall-down comical mishaps in my life written on this blog for your enjoyment. I’m taking the boys to a petting zoo/farm tomorrow, so it’s already writing itself. Fingers crossed that the next blog’s title isn’t:                                                ”Hoof & Mouth Disease…Included With the Price of Admission”

Your loyalty and support mean the world to me. Thank you for reading and laughing with me in 2011.

Maryellen Hooper

The second I said, “Yes!” and committed, I realized I had just added a 900 word article  about my extremely long “TO DO” list- to my extremely long list of things to do.

Now THAT’S ironic, Ms. Morissette.

Sigh. Here’s the article:  “CONFESSIONS OF A STORE BOUGHT CHRISTMAS”

Here’s wishing you all a stress-free holiday filled with laughter.

Thanks, for another amazing year.

Maryellen Hooper

Answer:  All of them!

No, wait…that didn’t work…

Wait! One last jump:

Break’s over, back to work…

Behold, the tree that costs me thousands in taxes & residential fees:

Does anyone else hear the “Charlie Brown Christmas Tree” music?

HOWEVER…

Two days passed and my husband didn’t notice. 2 days.

Once again:

Eight inches of hair is gone from my head.

Mark didn’t even notice. I got tired of doing the slow-mo flip my head around like a calendar girl on the beach thing and gave up.

“Mark?”

“Yeah?”

“Notice anything?”

“Uh…(scans me up and down)…you got your toenails done, right?”

“Cold. Look higher.”

“You lost weight?”

“Nope, gained. But nicely played. Try again.”

“uuhhhh….”

“I GOT 8 INCHES OF BRIGHT RED HAIR CUT OFF MY HEAD !!!”

“Oh, yeah…it looks really….”

“Don’t even try it.”