Glitter, “Chickenese”, and Wombat Droppings

In re-reading old blog posts, I discovered, much to my horror, that I often used the word “bare” when “bear” was called for. How humiliating. . . . Though, perhaps not as humiliating as the errors I may currently be making in a blithely unaware manner. I’m a work in progress I suppose.

Kids often come up with made-up but far better words. Jesse used to tell me things that happened “yesternight”. Of course! Perfect. Currently, he sometimes requests “chickenese” food – which I think is sweet-and-sour chicken from our local Chinese restaurant, but may also refer to plain old Wendy’s chicken nuggets.

As I groggily rolled out of bed into the darkness of yet another early morning last week, I moaned to Mike, “Will we ever just be able to sleep . . . all we want.”

“Maybe in the millenium,” he comforted me. Then, upon reconsidering, he admitted that “sleeping all we want” might never EVER be part of the plan. Sigh.

Recently, Daisy got her fist official babysitting job. She was very excited as I talked to her about things a good babysitter should do. Abe, who was semi-listening from the kitchen, chimed in with his own helpful advice: “Also, it’s really polite to ask them before how much they plan on paying you. Then, whatever amount they say, tell them it’s not enough.” Hahah. Smart alec.

(I love that little eye-spy Anders’ head in Daisy’s photo.)

Speaking of Abe. The other day we were waiting in the car for the girls. Abe looked up at the sign of a nearby Babies-R-Us and said, “So, does Babies-R-Us sell baby stuff or . . . babies.”

Also, he’s been doing a project for school on the wombat. He designed a T-shirt for part of it that said, “It’s cute and fat, save the wombat.” He also has to prepare a short presentation. In discussing this with me he said, “I wonder if it would harm or benefit my presentation to bring up how the wombat has cube-shaped droppings.” Then, pondering, “I mean, I could actually do the entire presentation on the cube-shaped droppings.”

Anders, who just turned three, is rapidly catching up to nearly-six-year-old Jesse in height and especially weight. It is evident however that Jesse’s age still trumps Anders’ size: when Jesse plays R2D2, Anders has to be C3PO; when Jesse is Wall-E, Anders has to play Eve; and when Jesse wants to be Jake, Anders is left to be Cubby.

It has come to my attention that those of you who are new to my blog don’t know that Jesse . . . isn’t actually Jess-ee. The last e is silent. He’s just Jess. You’ve been saying it wrong in your head all along. I know. It’s upsetting. I’m sorry. I fought for no strangely silent e. I insisted everyone who ever read his name would assume his name was Jess-ee (and they do). But, it’s Mike’s great-grandpa’s name. Spelled like Jess-ee and said like . . . Jess. Mike would not be moved.

(Oh, don’t feel so bad for the little fella when you look at that picture. He’s only blue because I’m making him be in a picture for two seconds. Also . . . look! We gave one small boy a haircut!)

But . . . another small boy still lives with his hair wild and free. What the . . . ?

I have no words for his face, and hair, and hands in that first picture. Also, no real words for whatever this is:

The other night Penny was supposed to be sleeping when I heard a small voice from the top of the stairs call out, “Mom? Can I have some ice-cream?”

“How do you know we’re eating ice-cream?” I called back.

“I can hear it,” was her quiet, little reply.

Blast clanking spoons. You can’t really say no when someone “hears” the ice-cream they are missing out on. You just have to consider yourself caught and let them right back out of bed.

As she finished up her bowl of “heard” ice-cream, this conversation happened: “Mom, from now on I’m going to bring a knife with me wherever I go.” (Thoughtful pause.) “Should it be a butter knife or another kind of knife?”

“Well,” I responded – carefully, “as nice as it would be to have a weapon with you all the time, I’m afraid you can’t. You’d get kicked out of school.”

“But mom,” she insisted. “I’d only use it for special occasions. Like for robbers.”

As we drove home from the dollar store the other day, Goldie (who had claimed the front seat) was telling me of her purchases. A wooden plane that needed assembling, some treats, a puzzle, “and then I just bought some glitter, just in case we need it for something. You never know when you might need glitter.”

Truer words were never spoken. You never do know when you might need glitter.