Yet Another In A Long Line Of Trying Moments In The Life Of Mrs. Shmoo:

I’m sure that many of you envision that the days in the Shmoo household rival each other in their perfection.
Baby Shmoo is immaculate and studying physics because she’s exceptionally advanced for her 7 months.
The food is always fresh and piping hot.
Bentley the Goldie Shmoo greets folks at the door in a gentle, casual manner with an ice cold martini hanging from his collar
…and Lord Shmoo, protector of all things Shmoo, has a wit that eases his loving wife’s days and keeps her constantly amused…

Yes… a fantasy life that I have tried hard to perpetuate, however (sadly) not one that is entirely accurate.

In reality, Baby Shmoo has her moments of repulsion, mostly when she’s sitting in a newly filled diaper, covered from head to toe in mashed prunes while trying to jam the dog up her nose.

Often we keep silent on the subject of dinner for hours because who ever comes up with the winning idea is the one who gets to cook it. The first person who breaks and suggests anything is the Chef De Jour. I’m positive that I’ve eaten Skunk simply because I’ve outlasted my wife and then said “Yup… anything… doesn’t matter, what ever you want.”

Bentley stands five foot two and has two ways to meet you at the door. If you’re a dude he buries his face in your crotch and then lifts his head quickly… whacking you in the balls with the bridge of his nose (eeyouch) and if you are a girl he runs up to you and rears back, planting his oversized front paws on your shoulders... or your chest. More often than not you will crash backwards into the wall, but on rare occasions you will still have the front door open and he will toss you right out of the house.

… and the Shmoo? That witty and eloquent master of the Shmoo domain? Well… let’s just say that his shot gun approach to humor, his constant verbal bantering and the subjects he finds amusing can be slightly less entertaining and certainly trying for Fair Lady Shmoo.

Which leads me to last night’s story time… ♫ “Life is a segue, I wanna ride it all night long…” ♫

It’s eight and Mrs. Shmoo is taking her one personal moment of the day. She is upstairs on the computer, working on some huge conspiratorial surprise for either her upcoming anniversary or her husband’s impending birthday. Said husband and relatively clean daughter (at the moment) are downstairs with a before bed story.

Notice I didn’t say Bed Time story. The stories in the Shmoo house tend to energize the baby instead of making her sleepy so, quite often, they are read an hour or two prior to actual bed time so that the baby can wind down again afterwards.

Suddenly the loving wife hears Shmoo yell “NOOOOOOOOOO!!!” at the top of his lungs.
“What’s wrong?!?!?” she yells back. She receives no answer
“NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” she hears again. She leans over the upstairs railing and fairly screams “What happened?!?!?”
Again she receives no answer.
“NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!” comes a tortured yell from her husband. This is too much for her to handle.
She runs downstairs expecting blood.
The TV is on, Shmoo is sitting on the couch with baby Shmoo on his lap and an open book is in front of him. The dog is curled up on the loveseat and has an eyebrow raised in their direction.
“NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”, he yells out, reading from the page. Baby Shmoo giggles and squirms.
“What the HELL are you doing?” enquires Mrs. Shmoo in a “you better have a great answer” tone.
Shmoo looks at his wife with an innocent smile on his face. “It’s story time.” is his reply.
“Oh for the love of GOD, do you have to yell??? I thought Benny was eating Hailee’s head or something…. And why didn’t you answer me?”
“well…. with the TV, and all the yelling going on, I didn’t hear you.” This cracks Shmoo up and the baby wobbles up and down on his belly as he laughs.
“NOT FUNNY!” yells an exasperated Mrs. Shmoo as she stomps back upstairs.

Baby Shmoo tilts her head up at her father. “How do you get away with this stuff?” she seems to ask, knowing that her father did all this on purpose.
“I don’t.” he says to her quietly. “Don’t forget, you sleep about 16 hours a day. I’ll hear about this later. I hope you enjoyed this story because I probably won’t get to read it again for a while.”
“How come I get punished?” her round eyes ask. “I didn’t do nothing.”
“It’s “I didn’t do anything” and you found Daddy amusing when he was being stupid. The more amused you are by me when I’m at my most immature, the more you will suffer. You need to start asking yourself ‘Is This Worth Laughing At?’”

“Bummer.” She gummed in to her pacifier…

…. or maybe I just imagined she said that.

The story last night was Melinda’s No’s Cold written and illustrated by fellow Canadians Gail Chislett and Helen Desputeaux and published by Firefly Books in September of 1991.

The story opens with a one page poem introducing Melinda and her sister Cynthia. They are seemingly perfect girls adorned in pink bows and purple lace, who spend their time playing a gentle game of tea party together with their stuffed animals and are never… ever… ill.

Until one day when Melinda wakes up and uncontrollably starts yelling NO as loud as she can. The No’s reach one hundred on her Doctor’s “No-meter” and he confirms that she is suffering from a horrible No’s cold. Later that day she takes all her food, clothes and toys and pitches them high in the air. .. yes.. she starts “throwing up”. When she begins to float above her bed, her mother knows that she is in the full grasp of “The Flew” and hopes that it doesn’t move in to her chest.

The next morning, Cynthia finds Melinda’s No’s cold in her toy chest and catches it herself.

The No’s Cold, The Flew and The Throwing Up must run their course.

The story ends as it began, with a one page poem about Melinda and Cynthia. While they are still depicted as beautiful girls the poem alludes to fact that they are far from perfect.

RudiXeno will hate this book and The Spudman will love it. It’s chock full o’ puns, most of which are pretty advanced, certainly more so for a child who is not yet one. The illustrations are cool and funky and have the same feel as cartoons by Michael Martchenko who did much of the drawing found in Robert Munsch’s books.

I’m not fooling myself, Hailee doesn’t get it. What she enjoys is daddy yelling “NOOOOOOOO” at the top of his lungs and then being scolded for purposely scaring his wife.
The age on the book says it’s for children 5 to 7 and that sounds about right. Some people will think that this may even be a bit advanced for them but I hate to sell a kid short. Too many people have already done this which is (I suspect) how the Shleps came about.

To my loving wife I say “I promise to find a somewhat quieter book for story time tonight.”

..and to my girl I say “Let’s see how we can wind Mommy up when I get home.”


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