independent thinkers

Elliot spots a police car parked with his lights off. I ask him what that means (thinking "there's no emergency"). Elliot responds immediately "the police are having lunch" (cue Opa and mommy laughing their heads off)

I was driving Jeff's (little) car today and Elliot says "good thing you're not a little taller!" mommy, sitting up straight so her head touches the ceiling "like this?" Elliot "yeah, your brai(n)s would fall out!" mommy "my brains?!" Elliot "no, you're BRAI(d)S" LOL

Riley says he asked his teacher, and she said he could bring Puppy to school. Riley goes to find Puppy "because he doesn't know yet!" But when Riley tells Puppy, Puppy isn't excited at all. He's worried that he's going to get lost, like happened another time Riley brought him somewhere. I ask Riley about this (chuckling at how "independent" this stuffed friend is) and Riley replies "yeah, he's worried, but he's going anyways!"

beautifully broken logic

on the way to the park yesterday afternoon, Riley was reminiscing about how we went to the mountains two Winters ago to see snow. The kids all pine for snow, though Hailey's too young to remember living in a cold-Winter climate, and Elliot's lived in sunny SoCal his whole life. (For the record, I don't miss snow, ice, and cold temps one bit, though one week a year would be okay :)

Riley explains to Elliot
"so if you see palm trees, then that's a place it doesn't snow"
mommy "well, technically it's the other way around. palm trees won't grow in places where it gets cold enough to snow, except maybe once a year"
Elliot thinks this over for a few seconds
"so why don't they cut down the things that keep it from snowing here?"

so awesome the ways their little brains work :)

funny Monday morning

Mommy calls Elliot to get up
Hailey "are you the boss?"
Mommy "I suppose so"
Hailey "you're not the boss of the country"
talks louder, as I walk out of earshot
"mom, do you know the bald eagle?"
Mom "uh, yes"
Hailey "the bald eagle rules this country"


Hailey hollers to Elliot about something
Mommy "Hailey, are you getting ready?"
Hailey "yes, I can yell AND get dressed at the same time!"

kid funnies

we were having a conversation about the kids' future families, and I was asking them for fun how many kids they thought they would have.
Riley "... so how do you get kids?"
mommy "what do you mean sweetie?"
Riley "do babies just magically grow in your belly?"
mommy "pretty much :)"
love his interpretation, pregnancy certainly is magical!

yesterday, when we were out for dinner:
Hailey, holding up french fry dipped in ketchup
"I know you are ketchup, but I'm going to pretend you're fire"
(stuffs french fry in her mouth)
"fiiiiire!"

God and peanut butter sandwiches

mommy insists on making the peanut butter sandwiches herself, to save mess and because we're getting to the bottom of the jar. I explain this, ending with "... so I guess we have to go to the store to buy some groceries, God help me."
Riley responds so quickly I had no idea what he was referring to.
"I wish we had our own God so he could make whatever we needed"
Mommy "God would make us peanut butter sandwiches?"
Riley "no, he could make us peanut butter. and he would make me the President, and Hailey the Mayor, and Elliot the Judge"

little stories that never made it out of my cellphone

some little things that happen, especially when we're out-and-about just get texted to a few people.  since my phone is complaining about being full (again) - I'll copy a few here while I'm thinking of it :)

today
Hailey hands me 2 stubby clover flowers "here, these are for being the goodest mom!" aww, guess I'll keep her a little longer :)

last week
Elliot "when I'm big like daddy, I'm going to watch the gay movie!"  guessed every word I could think of, but was always met with "no mommy, not the (GAY) movie, the GAY movie!"  daddy figured out eventually that he meant the SCARY movie (drop the s and barely say the r, and it turns out 'ca'y movie does sound like that LOL :)

Elliot to Hailey "I nee(d) you (to) te(ll) me where b(l)ue toad is, or you're fi(r)ed!"

previous week
Elliot took off his diaper, put on a pair of Riley's underwear, then changed when he peed them (1st I knew of it was when I realized he was wearing different clothes)  right idea, wrong order :)  could this be my child who potty trains before age 4?

Riley, in the middle of changing into his swim clothes "I can do a weewee stand!" mommy "uh, what's a weewee stand?" Riley "you have to keep your weewee straight" and demonstrates something that vaguely resembles a "3-point stand"

month ago
evidently, neither of us changed Elliot's diaper this morning.  he threw his diaper in the trash and went commando when he put on his pants LOL.  discovered it when I asked how his pants got wet, and he cheerfully explained it was pee :)

in a fit of temper over being locked in his bedroom for nap, (3 year old) Elliot not only dumped the box of legos, he ripped a door off his bureau!  "I couldn't get it back on" he says mopily.  (it was so hard not to laugh)

my work is done...

Elliot wants juice to drink with dinner.  Riley observes with a sigh that Elliot always wants juice and not milk.
Riley "Elliot, you have to learn to like just milk.  Do you want to go on big rides?" Elliot "yeah"
Riley "if you want to go on big rides you have to grow big, and you need to drink milk to grow big"
Riley repeats this argument a few times
Riley "do you want to go on big rides, Elliot?"  Elliot, surly "I want juice!"'

a moment later, Riley "when Elliot is a grownup and married, he's going to give his kids only juice and never milk"

LOL :)

I'm gonna be a grandma (someday)

Riley, matter-of-fact-ly "I wonder how many kids I'm going to have.  maybe 12." Mommy, looking up "how many kids?" Riley "...that I'm going to have when I grow up.  maybe 30." Mommy "30! that is a lot of kids!" Riley "we'd have to have a 3 story house.  and 32 bedrms" LOL

Hailey cracked up Grammie and Grampie (and us) while they were visiting by summing herself up as "silly. and beautiful." which she repeated again earlier today.

Elliot is also saying funny things all the time now, I'll try to write them down so I remember to immortalize them here :)

hilarious trainwreck of a conversation

this is one of those had-to-pull-over-the-car-because-I-was-laughing-so-hard-and-wanted-to-write-it-down-before-I-forgot-the-exact-words conversations

Hailey "you are your husband's wife"
Mommy "uh, yeah"
Riley "when did you get married"
Mommy "almost 13 yrs ago, in June"
Riley "why can't you make babies until you're a grownup?"
Mommy laughs really loud.  eventually I'll have to come up with a more appropriate response :)
Hailey "how can you make babies when you're a grownup?" (Riley "that's not what I said Hailey")
Hailey "how did you get us in your tummy?"

all, btw, in the 2 minute drive from the YMCA to our house

oy.

He's onto you, preschool television!

We were watching Jungle Junction just now, and as usual, a character asks the viewer for help.

Riley "I just noticed something cool.  If you don't say anything, they will say the answer themselves!" LOL

Peter Pan chips

We used up all the pita chips eating hummus.  Later when I was putting together a shopping list Hailey pipes up "don't forget we need Peter Pan chips!"

and more kid funnies

and more kid funnies:

Hailey in the car on the way home from preschool, where they made Dr. Suess hats "oh, and tomorrow is Dr. Who's birthday" Mommy "right! no wait, did you say Dr. Who?"  I think the kids have seen part of one episode (generally too scary) but have obviously heard us talking about the show (of which mommy and daddy are big fans)  Hailey went on to explain she doesn't like Dr. Suess (not sure what she was talking about at that point)

Elliot - there was another story from before, and I only remember it when I'm not at the computer. *sigh*

pronounciation and mispronounciation

As Elliot is starting to enunciate more carefully, the odd ways he says things are starting to become more obvious.

When his beloved stuffed animal Froggy was missing, he corrected me "name not F(r)oggee, it Fuhfee!" - Hailey already said it that way and we thought that was cute, but until now we didn't realize he had named it Fuffy rather than him mispronouncing Froggy

I thought I'd heard him saying Riley's name like "Rodney", and tonight in the bath I got him to say it a few times.  He's actually using an "n" instead of an "l" sound - Haynee and Ryenee are his sibs.  Though I feel bad, when I had him repeat it for daddy he got all sad.  Until now he was using a "y" sound instead of "l"s (which despite having the tongue-tied fixed he still doesn't say right) - but it sounded more natural as a "y".

Another phrase we've started using to get him to pronounce the "tr" at the beginning of "truck" correctly (still starts with an "f" a hundred times a day :) is "trick or treat" - usually "tick o(r) feet".  *sigh* we'll get there someday, still too early to start worrying since these are the hardest sounds to make and some kids don't master them until kindergarten.

kids and marriage, part 2

Hailey "there's going to be a wedding tonight!"
mommy "oh yea? who's getting married?""
Hailey "me and Riley!"
mommy "oh sweetie, you're supposed to marry someone who's not already in the family"
5 minutes later
Hailey "Cassidy and Carrigan aren't in our family yet. Maybe I can marry them!"
mommy, laughing "well, maybe one at a time" :)

our smarty pants

Riley's into time estimates right now.  (He is partially motivated by when he will get to play Mario :)

When we were driving home from Palm Springs, I estimated we'd be home by 7:30, and it was currently 7:12.  Riley pipes up "so that's 8 and 10 more minutes".  Jeff and I were very impressed - he's only in kindergarten and already making subtraction sound easy?

Also partially inspired/taught by his videogame playing, he can recognize numbers into the thousands - "look that sign says six-thousand-and-nine"

Then yesterday he really floored us when we were all driving home.  He asked mommy for an estimate (25 minutes, so we'd be home at 7:36) - then he says (casually) "in 49 minutes it will be 8 o'clock".  That not only involves serious subtraction (they only started basic subtraction today in kindergarten) but knowing that the hour is equal to 60 minutes!  Mind you, we asked him a few more "now it's this time, how many minutes until 8 pm?" to which he gave wild guesses, but still.  Will he be one of those kids who knows the answer to a complex question but can't show his work? :)

He almost knows all his rainbow words too, which is so exciting for us and for him :)

funny language

Elliot is talking more all the time, but his pronunciation can still be pretty wonky.  the most amusing is that he won't say the "tr" at the start of "truck", which is a word he uses constantly.  he starts the word with an "f" sound instead.  This has led to several amusing conversations, though we try not to laugh too loud so that they catch on it's an interesting word.

mommy "Elliot, it's TRuck, with a TR.  TRuuuck"  Elliot, using the exact same deliberate pronounciation "yeah, fuuuck"

daddy, trying a more subtle approach "Elliot and I have been working on some words.  Tell mommy how you say turkey and tree"  Elliot "turkey" then turns around and says "say f*ck daddy!"

mommy in the car "look, there's a dump truck"  Elliot "what's a dum' f*ck?"

and since he has so many toy trucks, sometimes he's can't find all the ones he wants.  "mommy, where m'other f*ck?"

I swear I'm not making this stuff up :)

gotta go...

mommy "I have to get off the phone - the child wearing the pajamas I was going to return is chasing his brother around with a butter knife covered in peanutbutter"

(just a day in the life of the Dixons)

child-administered haircuts

"we can be little cutie patooties, we can cut each other's hair" says Hailey - I turn around and she's holding scissors and a lock of her hair a few inches long... amazed we've made it this long before a child-administered hair cut *sigh*