Our fishy cutie

Driving along yesterday, Makayla started growling. Dominic told her, "You're so vicious!"

From the backseat we heard, "Grr, yes I fishy. Fishy, grrr. I fishy. I swimming. I a mermaid! Grrr."

Today, while driving again, Dominic commented that all our kids are going to be nerdy.
Makayla piped up, "I not nerdy."
"What did you say?'" I asked, not sure I heard her correctly.
"I not nerdy. I a cutie," and then she stuck her thumb in her mouth.

"Mom, is Ancient Egypt real?" Rachel asked one day.

"Yes, dear. It really existed," I answered.

"I want to go to Ancient Egypt and visit the Stinks," she said.

"Oh, Honey, you can't visit ancient Egypt, because that was a very long time ago. You can visit modern Egypt, though. Why do you want to go there?" I said.

"Because I want to see the Stinks!" she happily said.

The Stinks? "Do you mean the Sphinx?" I asked.

"Yes!" she giggled. "I want to see the Stinks, like on 'Bubble Guppies' (a kid's cartoon which she loves and I can't stand, so I never watch it)."

Watch out for those "D's"

Makayla wrapped a piece of cardboard around her torso and wandered around the house saying, "dobbo, dobbo."

I just thought she was acting silly. When Dominic came home from work, he watched her for a minute, then asked, "Are you a turkey?"

"Yes!" immediately came the reply. Oh, of course, she was saying "gobble, gobble." You would think that by my fifth child I would have figured out the whole g/d displacement, which is so common in children's speech. I still can't figure out why she needed the cardboard, though.

This isn't her turkey outfit, but she is so cute!

Missing the point

I'm trying to teach the children about modesty and privacy. The boys seem to be getting it. The girls? Well . . .

Getting dressed is a lengthy process for Lisy (4 years old), because she is so easily distracted. This morning she had put on her shirt and was playing with her underwear, almost putting it on a couple of times. The boys, having been dressed for awhile, came running into the room to play. Lisy freaked out. "Don't look at my underwear!" she screamed, as she hid the underwear behind her back. At this point I stepped in and helped her finish dressing so that she could go play. It was difficult keeping a straight face; I wanted to laugh! Perhaps I need to be a bit more specific about what others shouldn't see.

"But wait, there's more!"

We haven't had cable in a couple of years, but of course we got satellite to go with our new t.v. The children don't remember watching shows with commercials. So the other day Dominic and the kids were watching t.v. when an infomercial came on. Samuel got very excited about whatever was being advertised. He kept telling Dominic about all the amazing features. Then came the inevitable "but wait, there's more!" part. Sammy jumped up and excitedly said, "Dad! There's more!"

Dominic responded with, "Yes, they always say that."

Sammy, sadly, "They do? Oh."

What a sweet boy. Too bad Dad had to be the one to burst his bubble (though I'm secretly glad it wasn't me this time).

Misheard

Benjamin and Samuel are demonstrating how to play the new musical instrument they invented. In case you can't tell, that is a slinky strung up between 2 chairs.

I have learned that although a child may have excellent hearing, some things we say may not make sense. So the child's mind will come up with something that does make sense.

For example, I told the children the story of "Hansel and Gretel." Afterwards, Samuel kept asking me to tell him the story of "Han Solo and Gretel" again. Now that would make an interesting story.

We watched a tv show about high speed car chases. Benjamin called them "hyper car chases." Well, yeah, I imagine the driver is a bit hyper during the chase.

salt and band-aids

I am currently wearing a Transformer band-aid. Why? Well, there are two stories here.

1) My mom used to complain about us kids licking the salt shaker. How odd, I thought. I never licked the salt shaker, and I never saw anyone else licking it, either. Where did she come up with such a crazy idea? As we were clearing off the dinner table last night, Lisy came up to me and happily proclaimed, "I lick the salt!" Eww. So perhaps Mom had a valid reason for thinking it was one of us. Sadly, I cut my finger on the edge of the shaker lid while washing it. Our current band-aid choices are neon colors or Transformers.

2) When Samuel was about 2 years old, he needed a band-aid. I gave him the choice of either the superhero or plain ones. He surprised me by choosing the plain band-aids. But when I put it on him, he started crying. It took me a little while, but eventually I realized he wanted a plane, as in airplane, band-aid. I felt so bad for him - he thought I lied to him. Now we only get decorated band-aids. We'll probably never buy plain band-aids again, unless we find some with planes.

Literally speaking

One of the lullabies I sing to the kids includes the line:
"Oh, your Daddy's rich, and your Momma's good lookin'."
When the song ended, Samuel said, "I'm glad Daddy's rich."
The funny thing is that his Daddy was unemployed at the time. We had a good laugh about it (but not in front of him).

-MR