Emoji's

I feel like emoji's have a lot of power. They can take a statement from being rude to being passive aggressive just by adding a smilie face at the end. ie. "You have done so well for someone with your education level. :)" The person reading isn't sure whether to smile or cry. Or maybe you can use them because you just don't have words to say, like using a thumbs up. This could be because you want to be done with the conversation but are still in a friendly mood. There is power in an emoji. However, I feel like there aren't enough emojis. Here are some experiences I have had this week that need emojis that just don't seem to be available.

First off, my weight has slowly been creeping up on me. I blame my tomb (the hotel room that I live in) but it also could be our new lifestyle. Either way, I am just keeping an eye on it and getting more and more annoyed so I considered taking up smoking. Really, chain smokers are like the skinniest people; but then I thought about how antisocial that "sport" is so I decided to approach my friend who is a nutritionist. Her assignment to me (among other things)  was to pay attention to my body and ignore natural meal times. She said, "Try eating when you feel hungry."
Now I have a new "sport" which involves constantly asking myself if I am hungry yet. I think the emoji that would fit this is like a person looking at their belly in kind of a shrug pose. "You hungry yet?" I need a red and green light. Maybe even a yellow to indicate if I am really hungry. It feels like a Seinfeld episode, "You hungry yet?" "I don't know. Do you know, Elaine?"

The next thing that happened was one of "those" days. I needed multiple emojis on that day. My sister was visiting me and I wanted to take her to Hot Yoga. However, hot yoga is 30 minutes away and I had a kid to get to dance, the weather was bad, and it just didn't happen. Instead, we dropped the kid off to the friend who carpools with us and I took my sister to the mall (which is really close to the dance place. I should have just dropped them off.) We got pedis and looked at puppies and I texted my husband to ask him to start dinner because we were starving. (It was taco night. I love taco night.) We got done a earlier than I expected from pedis so we had to go wait to pick up the girls from dance. We go sit inside the dance place for 30 minutes. During that time, my husband asks basically, "where are the tomatoes and lettuce?" In fact, here is the conversation:

The emoji that would go to this conversation would be called, "incredulous." It would look like a tired and flabbergasted wife with her eyes wide open and speechless.

So since we suddenly don't have the lettuce that I was counting on, I text my neighbors to ask if they have lettuce and tomatoes. I got some tomatoes but no lettuce. I text some other neighbors. There is a lettuce famine in my neighborhood.

I resign myself to having to pick up lettuce at the ghetto Kroger on the way home and hope the roads aren't icy.

Ironically, while my sister and I sit in the dance studio wishing we could go home, my carpool mom friend is sitting outside in the parking lot waiting to pick up the same kids I am. When it finally got over, we walked outside and see her. That would be the "what are you doing here?" emoji. It would look like a game of telephone where there was no connection.

I stop at ghetto Kroger, spend $7 and head home. When I arrive, dinner is on the table and you know what else is on the table? That freaking head of lettuce that he said he threw away.

The emoji that would have prevented this situation is the "sarcastic" emoji. I don't know why that one hasn't been invented yet. It would look like a backward smilie face so you couldn't tell anyway because that takes the fun out of being sarcastic. But seriously. I could not even believe that there was that lettuce on the table. The emoji I was feeling was "exasperation". It would look something like, "I want to hit you with this plate of lettuce, you fool.  Do you know what I have been through to get you this dumb lettuce?" That is exactly what it would look like.
Even more irritating was the fact that I actually needed more lettuce for the next day's meal so I had to go to the grocery store again for another $7 worth of lettuce. (And I had been to Meijer that very morning to get milk!) In less than 24 hours, I had been to 3 different grocery stores and spent about $7 at each of them. This emoji would look "wasted" as in someone ripping up dollar bills because of the wasted time, gas, and energy from not planning well. Ugh! I hate days like that.

So let's move on to the Elf on the Shelf problems. I know that my daughter "knows" about Christmas but I am still not sure about my 10 year old son. I don't really have a problem moving the elf on the shelf even if they both "know". What I am not sure about is if I have to jump out of bed in the middle of the night to move her because the 10 year old doesn't "know". The emoji for this is called "check" (like in chess) and involves a stare down between 2 people, neither one can say what they are really thinking without giving too much away. So my sister was going to ask the 10 year old if he was excited for Santa to come but he offered this up instead, "I'm so glad that I have a summer birthday so that I can get summer presents and Santa can bring me winter presents."
Well played, kid. Well played.

But this is not good for us. First of all, we are going to Ireland for Christmas so we told the kids they would be getting no gifts. However, now I have to have Santa gifts. He is already confused because he left this note for our Elf:

It says: "We are going to ireland for christmas will you come? Answer yes or no"

For some reason my husband circled yes but then said, "Santa says I have to stay here."

The 10 year old asks me, "Well, what does that mean?"

Well buddy, it means your dad can't read.

So I guess we might be taking Rosie, our elf, to Ireland. This is the "you shouldn't lie to your children" emoji. It looks like a woman doing something she hates because she started a lie and can't stop now. I feel like it might be time to tell him but I will wait until summer. Everything seems less devastating in the summer.

The other Elf problem involves my feisty 12 year old. One day Rosie the elf did not move from the previous day's location. My daughter is very much related to my mother who is a full blooded Italian woman and has ties to the Mafia. (Seriously, you should see my Uncle Frankie.) This 12 year old corners me in the laundry room and essentially threatens me - "You need to move Rosie." 

I look at her innocently and say, "She must have liked where she was yesterday and wanted to stay there."

She gets a little more upset about it and I am thinking that I should have pulled out the "Move her yourself" emoji. But despite the fact that she "knows", she still respects the fact that she can't touch her. It is so bizarre.

She stood there staring me down and I finally said, "I'm not moving her until tomorrow." So the next day both kids woke up to find Rosie holding the TV remote and sitting on their tablets. Their faces - first laughter and then the realization hits that they can't play with them because no one can touch the elf. Pull out maniacally laughing emoji.

Now I am curious, What emojis do you need in your life?