Funny Kids

Petrolium Jelly

Well, I haven’t blogged in almost exactly a year. Even though, to my behoovement, many friends and family have been requesting an entry. So, tonight while googling Fry Sauce, I came across another blog with info on the subject. Once in blogger, I could not resist searching for my own blog, which brought me here.

This is an entry that I started last year. And so of course I have no recollection what or why I was writing about Vaseline!?

To the best of my memory, my youngest daughter had gotten into the stuff and smeared it places that I really didn’t want it to be. I mean places like my walls, my couches, and all over herself and her clothing. It is the WORST to try and clean up Petrolium Jelly. There has got to be some kind of trick!! Even in these cool sites, about the stuff you can’t find CLEAN UP info. What to do? Only for a mother to figure out.

My brother in law Jordan and his cousin Joe once decided to spread a whole canister of Vaseline all over one another’s head of hair. Can you imagine cleaning that up? After reading one of the above links, I think it is important to state that Jordan and Joe were toddlers at the time of their Vaseline smearing!

Why is that us Mom’s are always faced with these situations???

I was talking to one of my sisters tonight about my other sister. Imagine that! We were discussing how I am totally leery of her coming to visit. (yeah, YOU, figure out which sister I am talking about) This sister, SHANNON, is an immacualte housekeeper. She even didn’t get totally flat paint in her nice house because she has to have a paint that she can just wipe the smudges off. Smudges on the walls….aren’t those supposed to stay there until they move out???? So, Shannon has to deal with my smudges…I have bigger fish to fry…like when my kids get into my Vaseline!!

By the way, I told someone out there that I would blog another entry before the one year mark…looks like I barely made it….If anyone happens to get on my site that I have abandoned for so long….please make a comment…if someone is actually reading, I may have more motivation to write another entry!

Sleeping arrangements

This is a photo from a room at The Gettysburg’s Battlefield Bed and Breakfast Doesn’t that sound like a fun place to go?
Well, the only vacation we will be taking any time soon is to Panama City, FL to see my new little nephew. My father-in-law booked all of us hotel rooms at a Days Inn down there. My mother-in-law informed me that he booked us a room with two double beds instead of the King. He was thinking of the kids of course, but either way they will end up on the floor because LG and I really cannot sleep in a double bed together. Anyone else out there understand that notion? Why do hotels even THINK about putting in double beds? We are in America in the 21st Century. People are fatter. We need bigger plane seats and bigger beds, not only at home, but at hotels too. Man, I cannot wait to have a Master Bedroom big enough someday, so that I can finally own a California King.
Well, the reason for the picture above is to take us on a trip back to the days when couples really and actually slept in seperate beds. Some nights I would be the first to agree that this wasn’t such a bad idea. Well, yesterday in church, I had reason to believe that some parents out there teach their children that this is the only way to be chaste.
As you know, I teach the kids music. I taught a song about The Holy Ghost. I started with an object lesson, comparing my daughter’s favorite well-used blanket as a COMFORTER and the Holy Ghost also as a COMFORTER. I asked the kids that like to sleep with a blanket to raise their hands. Of course the children started spitting out what they like to cuddle up to. After listening to their responses I asked them,”Do you know what Sister Gold likes to sleep with at night?” After no answers and all eyes on me, I replied, “Brother Gold.” Well, all of the teachers rolled laughing, and some of the kids chuckled. I can be so INAPPROPRIATE!
Well, the best response came from little Rebecca. “Sister Gold, that’s pornography!”
Could you just die laughing? I told her it wasn’t pornography and questioned whether her mom and dad slept in the same bed. She said, “Yes.” and after breathing a sigh of relief, I quickly changed the subject.
Moral of the story: If you sleep in the same bed as your spouse, you have no morals!

Farts and Poops

This is Bella’s bum trying to fit into her diaper. I love it when the kids have plumber’s bum. So cute! Great shot, huh? I hope it’s not considered “inappropriate”.

Well, Bella has taken on a very endearing ritual. I first need to fill you in on my thoughts about the word “fart”. I thought it would be fun to share, even though my mother will be devastated that I am using the word “fart” so freely. I guess I am not a lady at all because I have never had a problem with the word fart. I mean why do people think the word is so bad? Fart, toot, pass gas, flatulate…they all mean the same action…..air being passed from a not so nice smelling part of the body. Everybody does it. Well, as you read on you will see that I am passing on the non-lady like use of the word “fart” to my three poor daughters. LG and I think it is funny when they say it.

We laughed SO hard the time Sophia announced to a crowded restaraunt that she had farted. Well, in the past two months, Bella, our little clown, has figured out that when she says the word fart it makes people laugh. So, whenever I ask her if she needs to be changed, I say, “Bella, are you poopy; do you have poops; do you need your diaper changed?”, she replies ever so slyly with, “No, I just farted.” At two, she is showing huge potential for being a funny adult, don’t you think?

I was staying at my in-laws for the last couple of days. My father-in-law, was very kind and offered to watch the girls while I went to a girls’ dinner with my mother-in-law and some extended family. I explained that I had left a diaper and wipes in the bathroom for Bella in case he needed it. Now, I know how he feels about poopy diapers. He wasn’t even fond of changing his own kids. So, I told him, “If she does poop, if you don’t want to deal with it, if you can stand the smell, just leave it, she’ll be o.k. until I get back.”

On the way to dinner I confided my concern for my father-in-law and the diaper situation to my mother-in-law. She just cracked me up and said, “Oh, he’ll be fine. You should have told him that you were just giving him an opportunity to pay you back for his diapers that you are going to have to change someday.”

Well, he did have to change a poopy diaper a half an hour after we left. I voiced my appreciation from the hallway as I was leaving to come home last night. I also mentioned that he had given me a good reason to have to change his diapers someday. I wasn’t too surprised when no laughter came from the office. I am sure he was horrified at the thought. I quickly p.s.’ed with the declaration that Faye had told me to tell him that. Still no response. What do you do? Again, I am left to wonder if my father-in-law will continue to accept me. So, in explanation: Duane, it was just a joke. If someone needs to change your diapers when you get old, I promise, it won’t be me. That is what Amy is for.

Little Jack Horner

Introducing “The Young Jack Roberts”

Little Jack Horner sat in the corner
Eating his Christmas pie,
He put in his thumb and pulled out a plum
And said “What a good boy am I!”

This ryhme has a great history, that includes Horner, a thief, being rewarded greatly. Horner was obviouslly rewarded unworthily, inspiring the political rhyme and Horner’s own political taunting, “what a good boy am I.”

What do Little Jack Horner and Little Jack Roberts have in common you may ask? Both the theif Horner and the misbehaved Roberts think that they are “good boys” when in actuality they are far from it. And of course they also share the name Little Jack.

The young Jack Roberts lives in another dimension, just like ALL other children. This was demonstrated wonderfully during the President’s press conference, announcing the nomination of his father, John Roberts, as a candidate for the Supreme Court bench. Click here and scroll down the page to the bottom left hand column and click on “Young Jack Roberts steals the show” to see the video clip. SO FUNNY!

Now, I am not about to rip on Jack Robert’s parents or nanny or whoever raises the kid. My kids have done far worse than this to embarass me (O.k., maybe not really…as they have never shared air time with the President of the United States and turned it into a circus), but if you are a parent, you will know what I mean about being embarassed. Kids can be outright humiliating, no matter how good of job you are doing.

I will say this; I would not even attempt to put my four year old in front of cameras in such a stuffy setting that late at night. I can only think that the reason Mrs. Roberts was talked into it was for “political gain”. She had to know that she was setting herself for a disaster. According to critics, Jack’s misbeavior really will make people “sympathize” with Roberts. The “people in the know” have said so much in the positive towards the child’s bantering that you would think that they put Little Jack up to his misconduct.

So, what am I trying to say here? I don’t know. I am just rambling today. I had a rough day yesterday. Remember the linger longer that I attempted yesterday, at the urging of my husband. Yeah, well, I couldn’t do it! I left 15 minutes into it when he never showed up to help me with my three children who live in another dimension! He was in taking care of his church duties and I was left trying to figure out how to fight my way through a Disneyland style line to gather three plates of food without either dragging my three young children with me or leaving them unattended. Well, I never came up with an answer and I left all upset feeling like a loser because I cannot emotionally handle a stupid potluck.

An announcement was made to let people with small children and the elderly get in line first, but I guess the majority of people in our congregation feel they fit into those two categories. (Or, their manners go out the window because after years of conditioning that the only way to get any food is to get at the front of the line, so, they don’t regard other people) I’m not even mentioning how I felt about being forced to leave my jellyroll pan of brownies, two loaves of french bread, and two large fruit salads behind that I had worked on for two hours the day before, ONLY to go home to eat ramen and toast.

Hey, I have an idea. Maybe it isn’t the children who live in another dimension. Maybe it is all the rest of the world that doesn’t understand that children are wild animals in the process of being tamed? Would you leave three starving and wild tigers in a room full of frantic starving people to fend for themselves while you stood around waiting patiently to get them some substance? NO! I guess I spend enough time with the wild tigers to understand them. I guess I also understand, me, their trainer, enough to know that I can’t even attempt to do certain things with them….such as, a late night press conference, or a linger longer full of inconsiderate people. In fact, if I had it my way, I would tap into their dimmension completely…it’s got to be a lot less stressful.

The WORK and the Glory

We spent a good proportion of May involoved with the filming of The Work and the Glory. Sophia has a short stint in the second film. She plays the three-year-old Rachel. I was such a good stage mom! We are looking forward to the film coming out in theatres. You will have to look for one in your area. With the first film it only played in a limited amount of theatres nationwide. The film is available now on DVD. I recommend it and the books by Gerald Lund.

Because Sophia was considered a “principal” actor when we were on set; they rolled out the carpets for us, as is tradition in the “acting” world. No wonder why they all have such big egos…the industry puts the actors on this awful pedestal. Although, I must say that most of the actors that we came into contact with were very down to earth and nice, especially to Sophia.

Well, as you can see, Sophia had her own trailer. Isn’t she so special? When we got home from our first day on set, Sophia and I relayed all of the details to LG and Abigail and Bella. We especially made a big deal about her trailer. Abigail got a little jealous of the attention that Sophia was getting. I called the casting director and asked if Abigail could come on as an extra one day. Cookie was really helpful towards my sibling rivalry situation and booked us in for a day.

So, a few days later, Abigail and drove up the road 30 miles to The Museum of Appalachia where they were filming The Work and the Glory II. As we drove up and saw all of the trailers (wardrobe, hair, make-up) Abigail turned to me and said in all seriousness, “Where is my trailer”? She was in for a rude awakening as we stood in the “cattle call” lines all day with the rest of the thirty or so extras. Many crew members got a few laughs as I sarcastically inquired where Abigail’s trailer was.

Abigail and I played as “extras” in a few horrendous scenes. Abigail absolutley detested the whole day and told me that she did not like acting at all. I couldn’t blame her. I hated dragging her around to play “pretend” all day. It was 80+ degrees outside and we were filming a winter scene where we had to run up and down a hill multiple times. We had to wear Pioneer petticoats, bonnets, dresses, tights, uncomfortable “issued” shoes, PLUS, winter coats and shawls. We were running after a horse, and the last time we had to ditch the poop that he had deposited just minutes before, ruining the 14th take. By the end of the 15 takes I was saying, “Where is my trailer”? Oh, the things we do for our children.

At the end of the day, Shay, the assistant casting director invited us for another day of filming; I couldn’t even seem to find any tact.(surprise, surprise!) When Shay said, “Could you come back on Tuesday?” I answered with a very loud, “NOOOOoooooo.” followed by a much too soft, “thank you!”

Hoppy Easter

Here comes Peter Cottontail

My sister Renee called this morning with somewhat disturbing news. O.k. it is only really disturbing if you are under 5 years old or a mom of someone who it, but here it is. Renee was so sad for her kids. I told her that she should write a letter and complain.

Renee had taken her three small children into the city of St. George for their community easter egg hunt.
Before the festivites were through, the teenager playing the Easter Bunny decided that, even though it was 42 degreees outside, he was just TOO hot to keep his costume on. He took his Easter Bunny head off right in front of all of the bright eyed children.

I think you will back me up when I say, this kid needed some serious on the job training. C’mon, do you think that Chuck E. Cheese would ever strip his head off in front of the birthday goers? NO WAY! What about the characters at Disneyland? They would be fired on the spot! and have no defense in their impending lawsuit. I mean, imagine it. Is Santa allowed to shed his fake beard in front of a line of eagerly waiting children? Do I have to answer that?

I can only speak for my niece and nephew: they were traumatized. 4 year old Tannon asked my sister, “Mom, why did the easter bunny take his head off? Why isn’t he real?” I just imagaine all of the children running around like chickens with their heads cut off when the easter bunny decided to strip down. “Oh, no, oh, no…the easter bunny lost his head.”

This news reminded me of a Maury Povich show that I saw years ago. The show was about people who had very interesting phobias. This one forty year old woman was deathly afraid of character costumes. For the dramatic effect, while this woman tried to explain her bizarre fear, the show had orchestrated an Easter Bunny onto the stage. Her reaction was explanation enough. As soon as she saw the bunny, she jumped up and over about four rows of the studio audience. She was terrified……she probably witnessed a bunny take his head off when she was just a wee-one too.

ilk

Got milk?

Today, once again, I beheld the power of advertising. The Got milk campaign is, in my opinion, by far, the most ingenious ad campaign of all time. Above is one of milk’s recent photo shoots. LG and I love the TV show Scrubs. It has some of the best comedy. You can’t watch the show for more than three minutes without being exerted into an all-out bellyroll laugh.

While I was watching my taped version of ER today, (Yes, taped….remember, we are poor and therefore, some of the only Americans who still tape instead of TiVo ing) the Staples commercial came on. Abigail had been asking me for a glass of milk for a few minutes and I was trying to get the kids situated into a movie. I kept telling her, “Just a minute.” Abigail must have been paying really good attention to the Staples commercial, which in my opinion is not good. But, for my five year old, today, it was good for something.

The commercial goes something like this…..1-man not listening to a co-worker….2- man catches the 1st and last part of the conversation….and hears only, “When I get back I need. mumble mumble mumble “er” or you are fired” 3 – Man goes to staples and the superhero staples employee walks through the store with the man,telling him everything that they carry that ends with the sound “er”. 4- Man magically remembers that it is the blankety blank blank wireless routER that he needs 5- man shouts out staples’ praises as he walks out of the store with his job still in tact.

After the commercial Abigail says this, “Mom, I need something that ends with ‘ilk'” as if her mental challenge will make me work to her beck and call faster. She is so FUNNY.

I chuckled and went and got her the mILK that she so desperately needed. Abigail and Sophia then watched their movie. When I got back to my taping of ER, I was sorely disappointed that for the second taping in a row, we had managed to run out of tape and cut off the last ten minutes of the show. No frets though, my sister filled me in.

Hairbows

70’s style Hairbows

One part of having daughters is dealing with all of their hair things. I think that since we had our first daughter, not a holiday has gone by that we haven’t been gifted some kind of hair thing. If you are a man, you have no idea how many hair things exist in the world. Whenever we recieve one, or the same one again, I always ACT very grateful and I guess, deep down, I have mixed feelings. I am so happy that I won’t have to buy them myself, but bummed that I will now have to keep track of this new one. Even though I am the queen of organization, I have two things that cause me problems: tupperware and hairthings.

At our house we go through barrettes like nobody’s business. Every time I turn around, one of the girls has lost some kind of hair thing, leaving their hair in disarray. I have recently converted to headbands. Headbands seem a little bit harder for the girls to lose. The bad thing about headbands is that at any given chance, Bella likes to pull them out of Abigail and Sophia’s hair, along with a handful of their hair. When we wrestle Bella down to get the headband back, we provoke her agression to the point that she snaps the poor plastic band in half. Leaving all girls involved in complete hysteria.

Well, this blog entry is mostly for my sister Renee, but you may still enjoy it. Renee is 24 today.(and the mother of 3 – crazy) Happy St. Patrick’s Day and Happy Birthday to you, Renee. Renee reminded me of the “Hairbow” story the other day. She informed me that after the years and years that she has listened to the story, she still didn’t know what kind of hairbows we were talking about. I promised her a picture, so here it is. The poor child grew up in the 80’s and completely missed the cool look of braiding two ponytails on each side of the head, and then tying them up in a loop with one of these beautiful fuzzy hairbows.

Now, for the story. It really isn’t that funny, but it shows how desperate I was for entertainment as a child. My sister Shannon and I shared a room growing up. The room was small and sported a set of bunkbeads, a play kitchen set and a dresser. We had hours and hours of fun soaking spaghetti noodles in water atop our play stove. We really thought that we were cooking those noodles, and we loved to eat our homecooked delicatessen. (YUCK!)

Another thing that we loved to do was play Barbies. What girl doesn’t? We would dump out the suitcase full of barbies onto the floor and then proceed to take turns picking the items. We would go through the barbies, then the dresses, other clothes, and end off with the accessories. I don’t know what we did about the shoes with no match, but I am sure that most of the shoes were missing their match.

When these two activities got old, Shannon and I used our imaginations to come up with something a little more interesting. The best game involved the ceiling. If you were around in the 70’s, you know exactly what I am talking about when I say that we had popcorn ceilings throughout our house. Even though Renee wasn’t born until 1981, even she knows what I am talking about. We, unlike many others, never rennovated those popcorn ceilings. If it wasn’t for the fact that we sold the house to someone else, we may have been able to call our house true vintage with its remaining ceilings.

Well, as ugly as the popcorn ceilings were, they were great for one thing, and maybe only one thing. (did you know that they are full of asbestos?)Popcorn ceilings and fuzzy hairbows are a perfect match. They cling to one another like a sweater and a dryer sheet. I don’t know how my sister and I figured this out, but I am guessing it had something to do with me being in my sister’s top bunk, taunting her that I would throw her hairbow over to the alligators down on the floor.

My sister and I would spend hours and hours gathering up all the hairbows in the house that we could find, and then tossing them off the side of the top bunk. We perfected the throw to the point that we could make a hairbow stick every time. As time went on, the game progressed into seeing how far out we could throw the bows. One days our brothers got in on the action, and they showed us how to jump off the bunk and retrieve the bows on our way down.

Shannon and I were never as good as my brothers at retrieving the bows. Most of our hairbow sessions would end with us hollering for their assistance at getting the last few stray ones down. If the brothers weren’t available, I might take one last try at it. Shannon would not dare. If all else failed, we would hunt down the broom and hit down the ribbon. Retreiving the ribbons off of the ceiling were some of the few times that we ever got to play in the snow. We lived in the sunny Southern California, and dancing around in asbestos popcorn ceiling flakes made us feel like we belonged in the movie, A White Christmas.

It’s too bad that fuzzy hairbows are out of style. I guess it is O.k., my girls could never have the fun that we did with them anyway. We don’t have a popcorn ceiling, and coming down on our hardwood floor would not be pretty. And, they don’t have any brothers to retreive the hard ones for them.

Mother Hen

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Poltergeist

It seems that I have blogged a lot about my dad, but I have yet to tell you about my mom. Both of my parents made for my interesting upbringing. I have been to many therapy sessions and talked about my family, but writing this blog has been the best therapy yet. I have found myself laughing about my family, instead of blaming them for my issues. Yes, we were unorthodox and disfunctional, but as I write, I realize that we had some really good times, and I was taught one very good coping technique: laughter.

My mom provided many of the good times. When I was younger my mom was the life of the neighborhood. We must have gone through a box of sandwich bags every day of the summer. She would keep us busy for hours filling them up and throwing them at the neighbor kids. Why didn’t we use water balloons? I don’t know. Probably because sandwich bags were always on hand. Sandwich bags were also much easier to fill….dump them in a bucket of water and Wala…full to the rim.

I have many stories about my mom. My mom’s most apparent feature is that she considers herself to be every child’s mom. She has no qualm about laying a lecture down any time any where. She was always the one cheering the loudest in the stands at the sporitng events. Were those cheers for us kids? Yes. Of course. But, they were also for our coaches, “Good job coach.”, our other teammates, “Way to go Monica.”, the umpire, “Nice call ref.”, and last but definitely not least, the other team, “Good playing Oceanside, you are on your mark today.” I am sure that you could also hear my mom cheering on all the fans in the stands, rallying them up, “Let’s go parents, let’s go.”

When I was in 6th grade, I had finally almost recovered from the 4th grade situation. Then, my teacher chose to show Poltergeist. I, being the sensitive child that I was, as well as sheltered and naive, couldn’t sleep for weeks after viewing the movie at school. I was scared out of my pants. I had nightmare after nightmare. My mom was getting sick of me coming into her room and waking her and my dad up. She started to grill me for details. I never wanted to give them up because I knew exactly how my mom would react.

My brothers, on the other hand, knew exaclty what I was afraid of. By some freaky coincidence, during the same time period, my sister and I had this porcelain clown in our room. I couldn’t even look at it after watching Poltergeist. I was terrified that it would come to life and harm me. At nights, I would gather up every bit of courage that I had, grab the clown, smothering it in my pillow, and as quickly as possible I would deposit it somewhere else in the house, usually in one of my brother’s rooms. I would run back and close the door behind me, feeling mighty accomplished that the clown would not be able to harm me, just my brothers.

Well, after a little while, my brothers figured out what I was doing. They loved to sneak back in our room and leave the clown next to my bed. In the middle of the night, after one of my nightmares, I would wake up to a real nightmare next to my bed.

After weeks of this torture, I finally gave in and told my mom what we had seen at school. She reacted just as I thought that she would, but I was so down-trodden by this point, I didn’t care. First, my mom, gave me a lecture about how I should have told the teacher that I wasn’t allowed to watch movies of that nature. Second, she tried to give me the pep talk that it wasn’t real and it was nothing to be afraid of. Third, she got rid of the clown. And, fourth, she marched down to that school’s principal’s office and gave her a piece of her mind.

Well, of course, the teacher was in trouble. She had to apologize to the class and the parents. A few of the other children got in trouble with their parents. The class then came after me….they knew exactly whose mom had made the stink. Mother Hen of course….she wanted to protect all the children in the 6th grade from that filthy trash of a show. What my mom did or didn’t realize is that she had succeeded at making me an outcast for another year of my life. She did the right thing, but I can only say that because now I am also a Mother Hen. I have to say that if I am ever faced with the same situation, I will want to do the same thing, but I probably won’t just because of the scars that I still carry from the 6th grade.

Poor Bambi

The Classic: Bambi

On Monday, I took the kids to Sam’s Club. I ever so slyly put the newly released Bambi in the bottom of the buggy (that is what they call a shopping cart in TN). I even turned it upside down, so that if the kids did see it, tbey wouldn’t know what it was. (I wanted to give it to them for Easter from the Easter Bunny)

I succeeded at hiding it from them for about 15 minutes. As soon as we stopped at the snack bar, it was over. Abigail, caught eye of it, picked it up, and announced to her sisters: “Look you guys, mom is getting us Bambi.”

About an hour later, after I had managed to put several other things in the buggy too (including Abigail and Sophia), I started to feel guilty about the money I was going to spend. I put several things back, including Bambi. The girls were sorely diasappointed, but I told them that we would come back and get it when dad was with us.

As we were going to check out, Abigail and Sophia glued themselves to the TV monitor that was playing Bambi. (Aren’t those Sam’s Club people smart?) It was at this point that all of my guilt subsided. (I knew that I would have to buy Bambi, if I ever wanted to get out of the store) I told Abigail to get Bambi off the shelf again, and after the girls cheered for a second or two, we were off.

Buying a new movie is HEAVEN to a mother. When we got home, the baby went down for a nap and Abigail and Sophia proceeded to glue themselves to our TV. I was able to get some cleaning and other household duties accomplished without any interruption.

Well, later, as we sat down for dinner, I asked Sophia what she thought about the movie. I fully expected some kind of reaction. I was totally traumatized by the show when I was little and Sophia is my most sensitive child. I was totally taken off guard when I heard her response.

Sophia said,”I like Bambi.” I happily said,”Good, what was your favorite part?” I thought that she would say Thumper or Flower the Skunk. No, this is what my twisted child said,”My favorite part was when Bambi’s mom died.” What in the world?!?! In a worried tone, hoping that she could redeem herself somehow, I asked her frantically, “Why was that your favorite part?” She said,”I just like it because I don’t want Bambi to have a mom.”

Who knows? Maybe my-three-year old was going for the reaction or maybe she needs some serious therapy. Maybe Sophia should grow up to be a hunter and join the Bambi Killers Club. I could only conclude one thing from the conversation, Disney has a conspiracy against mothers. First, they force us into buying their movies with their very skilled marketing. Second, mothers are allowed a false sense of relief when the kids happily sit and watch a Disney movie for hours on end. Then they pump anti-mother doctrine into our kids…think about it:

Disney killed Bambi’s mom. Cinderella’s step-mom is EVIL, and who knows what happened to her real mom. Belle doesn’t have a mom. Mulan wants to be like her dad. The only conversations between Ariel and her parents were with her dad. Sleeping Beauty’s mother poisons her with an apple. Tarzan’s mom got eaten by a tiger. Nemo’s mom…. well, you get the picture. Poor Bambi. Poor Mother of Bambi!!