Nursing

At a dinner party last night with lots of girls - Aussies, Brits, Dutchies, etc. - and heard the funniest story from an Aussie mom.

She was part of an expat baby group in Tokyo. When one mom arrived with her newborn, the group started ooh-ing and aah-ing over the little one. My friend said, "Oh he's so cute; can I nurse him?"

To which all the moms in the group gasped and clutched their children.  My friend was very confused until one of the girls asked, 'What do you mean 'nurse'?"  Turns out in Australia, nursing means cuddling or holding.  Of course these ladies thought she was about to whip out her boob and start feeding all their babies.

Now my friend says she cringes when her own mother says, "Oh I can't wait to nurse my grandson!"

Hong Kong Corn is Wack!

Rode the bus yesterday after working out and unfortunately got caught in a tornado of kids who just got out of school.  (Note to self -- don't work out between 1-4pm.)

Being sandwiched between 60 12-year olds wasn't fun, but it did give me a front-row seat for some of the most hilarious conversations I've ever overheard.

12-year old British kid (with classic British accent) sitting with his three buddies: "When I was in America, I had corn on the cob there and it was, like, the best corn on the cob ever. Then I came back here [Hong Kong] and I ate corn on the cob and I vomited. The corn here is wack."

Temporarily distracted by another group of kids who were yelling, "She-Male, Female...She-Male, Female." I don't think they know what a she-male is; think they were just having fun with words.

Then I tune back into the boys convo and this kid is still talking about corn!

"There may be a few black parts, but you know it's good when you fry it and it's golden, not brown."

I've decided that instead of making this a blog about my newish life as a housewife, I'm going to ride the DB buses and ferry when school lets out and report back on all the crazy things kids around here say.  Between me and my Naughty Pussy friend, we should have a few NY Times best-sellers in no time!

Girl Nuts

My Naughty Pussy friend (she's gonna kill me for calling her that!) has shared a few more gems from the playground.

First, apparently kids here have bastardized a very harmless saying and now run around calling each other "scardey pussy".

Even better than that, she came home to find her 10 year old son and 2 of his friends on the computer.  When she looked closer she saw the term "girl nuts" entered into the Google search engine and asked what they were looking for.  Turns out they wanted to see what girly bits looked like and assumed that since they have "nuts", they'd be able to see what girls have by Googling "girl nuts".

I'm scared to know what Google Images would come back with on that one!

Update: My Dutch friend just read this posting and shared her own funny story.  Her friend's daughter was doing a school report on cats and Googled "pussy with no hair".  Yes, the poor girl had quite a scare when the Google image results came back.

Naughty Pussy

An American friend of mine -- a Southerner, no less -- said that her 6-year old son came home from school with a book about a cat who behaved badly.  My friend, reading the book to her son per the teacher's request, found herself reading aloud, "naughty pussy, naughty pussy, naughty pussy."  Then she found herself calling the school and asking for that book to never be sent home again.

Turns out most Europeans refer to a cat as a "pussy" and this has been adopted by the schools here.

When they're back in Arkansas my friend's father points at the cat food and says, "What's that?"  To which my friend's son replies, "Pussy food."

She also had the hysterical (and unfortunate) experience of asking her son what he was doing and him responding, "I'm playing with Sarah's pussy." Pussy being his friend Sarah's cat, of course.

So when our yet-to-be-conceived kids come back saying "pussy," please remember that they're talking about your cat.