Thursday, December 29, 2011

Moo-sic to my ears

I heard the Salad chanting the other day.

A:  What do the cows say?
M & S:  Moo! Moo! Moo!

A:  What do the cows eat?
M & S:  Grass! Grass! Grass!

A:  What do the cows leak?
M & S:  Milk! Milk! Milk!

I whispered to myself: Weird? Yes! Yes! Yes!

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Kids say the darndest . . . well, you know

This Christmas season has been a veritable feast of "almost right, but not quites." 

There will never come a time, that I will correct a little boy who sings "Skink! Skank! Skunk!" rather than the traditional "Stink! Stank! Stunk!" version of "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch."  Even when he is in high school.  Even if "skank" offends some hoochie mama.  'Cause it's just funny.

Though, M's favorite Christmas song is Lou Monte's "Dominick the Donkey." I know because we listened to it so many times. I have submitted a screenshot of our iTunes playlist as evidence.




The other morning, during a confusing discussion of why we celebrate Baby Jesus' birthday if he is dead, A wondered what "Gold, Frankenstein and Myrrh" were.  I explained it's a precious metal, a doctor who accidentally created a horrible monster and an aromatic oil.  What?  I answered the girl's question.  Didn't I?

S got it in her head that she wanted to recite the first 3 pages of "Twas the Night before Christmas" during our Christmas Eve reading.  She got quite a bit almost right, for example, "The stockings were hung by the chimney with care and I hope St. Nicholas is gonna come soon."  But when she carefully recited "The children were nestled all snug in their beds, while pigeons and sugar plums danced in their heads" I wondered if the hearing loss in her right ear is having a bigger affect than we all think.  Or maybe pigeons really dance through her dreams.  Who am I to say otherwise?

Monday, December 12, 2011

You've got Mail

On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 7:13 PM
Subject: For Peter

To Peter, from M
Is this the kind of snake we saw







or is this?






I think it is this one, because it's greenish and has nut* eyes, like Ms. Amy said.
M
PS - Oh man! I forgot to give Peter and Lucy the homemade walkie talkies we made this morning!
M
* He definitely said "nut eyes."  Oh, I tried to change his mind about that word.  Do you mean brown eyes?  No, he said.  Nut eyes.  Do you think she said round eyes?  No.  Ms. Amy said nut eyes.  Resignedly, I wrote "nut eyes", followed up by an email to Ms. Amy.

On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 8:39 pm
Subject: Follow Up

Hey Amy,
Also, I am wondering what got lost in the translation about the snake's eyes? "Nut eyes" I know can't be what you said, can it?
A

On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 7:17 am
Subject: Re: Follow Up

Hi A,
M's closer than you'd think about the "nut eyes." Venomous snakes have almond-shaped pupils; regular snakes have round pupils. Of course, if you get close enough to a snake to see his pupils, you'd better hope they're round.
Amy

On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 8:20 am
Subject: Re: For Peter

M,
It's the first snake. Because it is thin. How you make the walkie talkies? You can come over for a playdate someday? I love you.
peter

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Treasure Hunt

We explored a new park with friends the last Monday in November.  It was so close to the end of November that I'm calling it December for the sake of "Can you believe it was 70 degrees outside!?!"  It was warm enough that as soon as we saw a stream, off came the shoes and socks and in went the kids.  I suggested this park for three reasons:

1. It's close to home.
2. Our favorite waitress told us there were lots of frogs.
3. There are 3 geocaches, hidden throughout the trees. 

The kids played hard.  They found a beautiful, green 8 foot long length of bamboo.  I'll be darned if M and Peter with a little help from one of the girls at the end, didn't carry that bamboo from a small island to the "mainland" while balancing themselves on a log, fallen over the stream.  I'll note here that Peter spotted a snake on the small island.  M had made it to the mainland already, but when he heard that news, he scurried back across the island to see said snake.  Ms. Amy scurried right behind, to be sure the snake wasn't poisonous.  Be on the look out for a follow up post, including a detailed discussion over email between 2 preschool boys.
We ate snacks in the woods.  We made a see-saw from a fallen tree.  We climbed the steepest hill ever.  We slid down the steepest hill ever on our bottoms.  We dangled precariously over a bridge.  Some of us may have peed on a tree, while the rest giggled with delight and curiosity on the other side of the tree.
   
We never did find those frogs or those geocaches.  But there were so many parts of the day that more than made up for it, that as we drove away A said, "That's OK we didn't treasure hunt.  That just means we can go back another day!"  Note to self - when we do go back (and we most certainly will) bring a GPS.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Sew what?

I handed M button up jammies to put on before bed the other night and then left the room to throw in a load of wash.  When I came back, he had buttoned up the shirt but I could see the buttons and holes were not properly aligned.  I didn't mention it, 'cause I didn't want to discourage him and it was only off by 1 hole anyway.  He was staring down at the shirt, clearly he could tell something was wrong, but couldn't figure out exactly what.  "Mommy," he said thoughtfully, "could you ask Meglet to add a button up here and a hole down here?  It looks like there aren't enough!"  I was proud of him for his problem solving skills, and also embarrassed that even he, at such a tender age, knows my limitations when it comes to sewing.
Thank God for Meglet.

PS - Meglet?  A needs you to sew a seam of her quilt.  Thanks in advance.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Matthew 19:14

Several weeks ago we were invited to watch baby Thomas get baptized.  The kids were thrilled at the prospect of seeing Thomas' head get dunked under water.  They asked many curious questions. Will he cry when he gets "drowned"?  What are they going to do to him with all those candles? (It was a co-baptism with several other children being christened in one ceremony).  Why can't I be wearing no sleeves on my dress like Lucy?  Does this mean he's a member of the Church now?  Can we go eat some glitter cake?
So yeah.  I think the Salad got all the main points of the sacrament . . . water, candle, member of Church, cake.  Yep.  That about sums it up.