10 things to do this summer

Stolen from Charmaine with her permission of course.

1. Spend time at the sprinkler park.

2. Take a family vacation.

4. Read with the kids every day.

5. Find some rocks!

6. Teach Lastborn how to write his name.

7. Call friends I haven't been in touch with.

9. Do science experiments with Firstborn.

10. Get the kids to take more responsibility around the house.

Flattery will get you everywhere

Sitting in the car waiting for Firstborn to be released from school. I was eating an apple. Lastborn sat next to me watching the apple as it went into my mouth. I took a bite and moved the apple away and his eyes followed it.

Lastborn: "I'm still hungry,"
Mom: "You just had Burger King. How can you be hungry?"
Lastborn: "But I am. Give me some apple."

Mom: "Oh, but I can't. You see, this apple has poison in it. Anyone under 18 who eats this apple will go to sleep for a million years."
Lastborn: "No they won't! You're just joking."
Mom: "Yes. Yes they will."
Lastborn: "But I'm 4."
Mom: "Yes, and 4 is less than 18. So you will go to sleep for a million years and only a kiss from a beautiful princess will wake you up once you go to sleep."


Lastborn: "You mean like you?"

Here. Have a bite of my apple. Anything you want, kid. It's yours.

Kitty Fun

Love it. Stolen from Gemmak who stole it from someone else.

Cat catching.

Give them an audience

Firstborn and I stopped by an educational bookstore the other day. He had received a coupon to select two free items from their treasure chest and I figured what a great place to get a teacher gift.

As I wandered around the store familiarizing myself with what they carried (for future reference), he babbled away in my ear. I can't even remember what the topic was. Gems and minerals no doubt since that is his topic of the month.

I made eye contact with one of the store owners and she smiled supportively.

So now, it's time to retrieve said gifts from the treasure box. Firstborn must first supply some information because they are going to put his name in a drawing. He dutifully spells our last name (he'll be doing that for the rest of his life). Then she asks him if he knows his phone number.

"Well I don't have a phone yet, but my Mommy's is..."
The store owners were taken with this response and so struck up a conversation with him.

He touched on, how much he hates school but he is learning grammar though it isn't very hard, he didn't know any of it when he started school but he gets good grades because mommy says he has a good memory, but the math and spelling are really easy and he loves to read.

I don't think he had taken a breath at all at this point.

So then he has to show them his muscles. The whole time they are having a great laugh at his effervescence. His rate of speech is sometimes amazing.

So then he tells them about his exercise routine and how Daddy taught him these exercises and he does a hundred a day and his daddy does two hundred every day. With full demonstrations of the above exercises.

Then we move on to his Tae Kwon Do school how it is called ATA and they have an association in Europe called UTA and another school system somewhere else in the world called WTF. But Daddy takes Krav Maga which isn't Tae Kwon Do and isn't part of ATA but he goes to the ATA school to learn Krav Maga. The whole time these women are getting quite the kick out of his performance.

So I have to finally wrap him up, but he's still talking on the way out of the store. The ladies say goodbye to him and tell him to come back soon and he responds,

"My mother says she's going to make me a T-shirt that says don't ask me a question unless you have time to listen to my answer."

Maybe I should get going on that T-shirt.

Star Wars Returns

The parents at Tae Kwon Do are already amused with Lastborn's antics. Many is the time I have wanted to crawl under my chair and hide so they wouldn't all look at me laughing when he is putting on a performance. So this Wednesday, was not as bad as it could have been had I not been so conditioned to his behavior.

The object of the game:

• One child was the tagger.
• The game progresses like tag, but when a child is tagged, they are supposed to jump into a fighting stance and count to ten.
• Once they complete their count, they go back to the game.
• The teacher lets each tagger go for a few minutes and then picks another tagger.

Probably a bit much for the 3, 4 and 5 year olds in the class.

So she picks a tagger and they all start running. Eddie begins to sing the Darth Vader's theme at the top of his lungs while weilding an imaginary light sabre. At one point, he even stops running in front of a heavy bag and begins to slash it fiercly with said imaginary light sabre. The whole time doot-doot-doing the Darth Vader theme.

When purple belt boy completes his turn, teacher asks him to pick the next tagger and of course, he picks Lastborn. The kids start running. Eddie starts running still humming the Darth Vader theme. The imaginary light sabre is still in his hand. He finally figures out (due to much shouting and coaching) that he is the tagger and begins to chase his first victim. But he doesn't tag in a conventional way, because Lastborn is not a conventional child. No. Instead, he strikes the child with his imaginary light sabre. In the hustle, the child tips over and falls on he floor. Then Lastborn stands over him delivering repeated strokes with the imaginary light sabre while the parents in the parent's room are damaging their ribs laughing.

It was a sight. The whole thing had a rather maniacle tone.

Now, flash back to many months ago when this same teacher was lecturing the class on the life skill of the month, discipline. She figured that instead of defining the word for them, she would interact with the group of 3, 4, and 5 year olds and give them a chance to shine. So she asked the group of 15 preschoolers, "Do any of you know what the word discipline means?" There were many answers, none quite on the mark, like being nice to my sister, helping my mother. The teacher was able to redirect them into something useful like being nice to my sister even when she isn't very nice to me or helping my mother with chores even when I would rather watch TV. But Lastborn (remember unconventional) stumped her. His response?

"I won't kill anyone?"

Is there anywhere I can hide?

So all this is rushing back to me as my child stands over this poor 4 year old boy singing doot-doot-do, doot-do-do, doot-do-do.

Drama

I picked up Lastborn from school at lunchtime today and asked him my daily question.

Mom: So, did you have fun today?
Lastborn: No. It was a day of humiliation.
Mom: Really?
Lastborn: yah.
So we got into the car and I began to question just what he meant by that, considering that I was surprised that he could even say the word.

Mom: So what happened that was so humiliating?
Lastborn: My teacher pasted my picture on a flower and showed it to everybody. It was so humiliating.
Mom: Was it? So did you tell your teacher that this bothered you?
Lastborn: No. But I told her to turn the flower over so that no one could see it.

Next, I explained the difference between humiliation and embarrassment to him.

Mom: So. Do you think maybe you were embarrassed instead of humiliated?
Lastborn: No. I was humiliated.

Wow. So I wonder how much therapy for this will be.

Na na na na na

A conversation recently in our home.

Mother: Firstborn! I did 75 front kicks in one minute in Karate today!

Firstborn: Ya? But I bet they were amateur kicks.

Mother: Amature kicks? Of course they were not amateur kicks. They were beautiful, perfect kicks.

Father: Laughing

Firtborn: No they weren't. They were amateur kicks.

Father: Lastborn was there. What do you think, Lastborn? Were they amateur kicks?

Lastborn: Ya. They were really amateur kicks.

All the boys in the family laugh.

I bet I can kick their butts!

Up all night?

On Tuesday, we celebrated Lastborn's birthday by giving him two little star wars action figures. He was in heaven. In fact, the euphoria of receiving these coveted toys was enough to keep him up all night.

At 4 am, I awoke to hear him humming this tune: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/recs/radio/krex/-/track/B0002YCVJC002010/ref=pd_krex_dp_t/102-1719494-7492148#

Sibling Rivalry

This weekend we visited G'Pa in NY state. We were out at a diner for lunch. Firstborn had just finished a tall stack of pancakes and the waitress was giving him kudos for the great job. G'Pa responded that Firstborn was quite a fine young man.

Never letting big brother be the center of attention, Lastborn responded,

"He's not young and he's not a man either!"

Be careful what you ask them.

Shopping with Lastborn today. In our 3 hours of shopping, he kept rearranging himself for some reason. I kept asking him if he had to go potty and he kept saying no.

So finally, as we left Bed Bath & Beyond, I asked him, then why do you keep touching your penis?

You may guess his response:

1) Because I really do have to go potty.
2) Because secretly, I want to be a woman, and this thing is just bothering me.
3) Because I like to, in a sweet babyish voice.

As he finished this declaration, I looked up to see a young guy sitting on a park bench outside the store. He was grinning ear to ear and his shoulders were shaking convulsively.

Things I never expected to say to my kids

No. You can't take a gun to church!


and


Please take your head out of the mailbox!

Art posts?

I suppose art is just as good as quotes. So here is one of lastborn's. He announced that he was going to draw Darth Vader. Pretty good, I think.

Don't I clean enough?

The other day, I was doing some spring cleaning. Specifically, running the floor scrubber over my kitchen and play room floors. I task I detest. And I admit freely that since my mother's death in November, I have not been cleaning as much as I should. I now know the importance of spending loving hours with each other. Life is just so short and all that.

Lastborn calls down the stairs.

Are we having friends over?

Me: Yes. Why? Because I'm cleaning?

Lastborn: Ya.

Thinking, "What a clever fellow," I continue on with my home upheaval. Later, we bring firstborn back from school. He enters the house, drops his books and says:

"Are we having a playdate?"

It's not that they're clever, it's that I'm a slob.

guyless?

Lastborn is sitting in his carseat on the way to pick up firstborn. He has brought along the star wars cruiser, anakin skywalker and obe wan kenobe. Anakin fell from his grasp as soon as the car started, then he lost obe wan.

Mommy! I lost obe wan. I'm guyless!

This is a big improvement over last month's insistence that the younger version of obe wan was named six-o-wan. Really. He called him six-o-wan kenobe.

Intro

OK. So kids do say the darndest things. So, I decided I had to start writing them down.

The stars of the show are firstborn (12/11/96) and lastborn (04/18/00). I could call him secondborn, but lastborn seems to convey so much more about his personality.

Hope you enjoy these quotes and I look forward to presenting them to future wives when the time comes.