How to Make Your Grandmother Cry

1. Wait until she leaves the room to make a bottle for the baby, and then get in a fight with your big brother over the Candyland box.

2. When she runs back into the room, carrying the baby and trying (unsuccessfully) to screw the top on the bottle at the same time, ignore her commands to "Let go of that box!"

3. Continue to ignore her, and when your big brother doesn't let go of the box, bite him on the thumb.

4. Let go of the box when he does, and when your grandmother says, "Go up to your room right now," run out of the room instead, laughing like an insane maniac.

5. Keep out of sight while your grandmother is running cold water over your brother's thumb, and continue to stay out of sight while she sits him down on the couch and explains to him that, yes, it was wrong for you to bite him on the thumb, but he asked for it by grabbing the box out of your hand to begin with.

6. Don't respond when she calls you.

7. Don't make a sound of any kind while she takes the baby upstairs and puts her in her crib.

8. Stay extremely quietly in whatever hiding place you are in while your grandmother and your big brother search every nook and cranny of the house for you.

9. Ignore her incraesingly desperate cries of, "You're really scaring me. I don't know where you are. please come out right now. This isn't funny. I'm really worried. I don't know if you're OK."

10. Don't even giggle when your big brother comments, "He must have found a really good hiding place."

11. When your grandmother has looked upstairs three times and in the basement twice and under the dining room table and behind the boots and the backpacks in the hall closet and under the computer and behind the shower curtain and inside all of the kitchen and bathroom cabinets, and has imagined every possible unimaginable thing that coulkd have happened to you, and finally realizes she hasn't really looked behind the couch in the living room, because after all, she was sitting there with your brother so how could you have gotten back there without her seeing you, unless......you sneaked back there during the 60 seconds she was in the bathroom running cold water over his hand and so she looks behind the couch and there you are, grinning from ear to ear, you little devil, and clearly you think this has been the most fun you've had since the water park last month, and your grandmother doesn't know whether to laugh or cry or yell at you or hug you but she is mentally exhausted by now so she just flops down on the couch and buries her face in her hands and sighs.

12. Climb over the back of the couch so you are sitting next to her, and just beam at her with your angelic little smile until she remembers that you are really the cutest thing on the planet. Even if you did almost make her cry.

Camping out

My grandsons and I slept outside in the tent last night. In the morning, I asked D, "What sounds did you hear when we were in the tent?"
He said, "I didn't hear any sounds!"
It's true, he did fall asleep pretty quickly, but even while I was reading to them before we turned off the flashlights, the crickets and the cicadas were nearly deafening. But he apparently didn't notice anything.
Later I asked K what sounds he heard.
He just rolled his eyes. "Crickets, cicadas, airplanes, cars, trucks, trains, car alarms, fire engines..."

Creative accounting

T: Can I have a cookie?
Me: OK
T: I want 2 cookies.
Me: No, just one.
T:(after 2 or 3 minutes of kevtching, eats the cookie.) Can I have another cookie?
Me: No, I told you you couldn't have two cookies.
T: But I don't want two, I only want one!

She needs proof!

Their mother was in labor, so we took the kids to the park when she and Dovid went to the hospital. A few hours later, their father called to tell us that that the baby was born--a boy! His big brothers were appropriately delighted, but T was busy playing in the sandbox so we didn’t say anything about the baby until later, when she asked, “When is Mommy coming home?”
I told her that Mommy was staying at the hospital for a while because the baby came out of her tummy.
“No it didn’t!” T insisted.
I guess she’ll just have to see the evidence for herself when Mommy comes home.

Psychopath-in-Training?

T was playing with play-dough, and as usual asked for a plastic knife and fork. She asked me to make a deer, so I made a generic animal with 4 legs. "No, make a deer," she insisted. So I tried making the animal-shaped creature a little more deer-like, but apparently I was unsuccessful, because T kept insisting, "That's not a deer!" Eventually I realized what the problem was: she wanted me to make not "a deer," but "Adir," who is a boy in her class.
The she asked me to make Adir's baby sister and then their mother. So she now had three vaguely human-shaped play-dough figures, and seemed to be satisfied.
But now the knife and fork come into play: T took the knife and began cutting off Adir's leg.
"What's Adir saying?" she asked me as she sawed through his virtual flesh.
"Um...I don't know, what's he saying?" I answered.
In a high squeaky voice, T exclaimed, "Ow, you're cutting off my leg! No! Ow!" and so on. Then she looked at me and said, "You say it, Bubbie!" I tried to object, but she insisted.
So for the next 10 minutes I had to keep up a steady narration of screams and cries and pleas for mercy as T proceeded to dismember two children and their mother.

T stories

T story #1

Mommy has been trying to teach T to pronounce the S at the beginning of the word "snow," instead of what she now says: "I want to put on my no pants and go outside and play in the no." So she models it for her by saying, "Sssssnow."

Today T was holding a banana, but she dropped it. She said, "Bubbie, can you please give me my babana?" I said, " Not 'Babana'--'banana'. Say 'banana.'" She said, "Babana." I again said, "Banana," saying it slowly and clearly. T listened intently and then said, "SSSSbabana!"

T story #2:


Her mother told me that T threw up a few times last night, but by this morning she seemed fine. I asked her if her tummy hurt last night, and she said yes. Then she said, "D made watermelon juice." I thought she meant, "D had watermelon juice," and I thought that was a little unusual, so I said, "Where did he have it--at home or at school?"
T said, "In the bathroom." Wow, that's even more unusual--but, whatever.

Then she asked me, "What did I make?" I had no idea what she was talking about.

Her mother later told me that D had thrown up a couple of days ago, and T witnessed it, and I'm not sure which kid it was (or maybe it was a parent) decided that the contents of D's stomach looked like watermelon juice. So D made watermelon juice when he threw up, and T wanted to know, after she threw up, "What did I make?"

Piano lessons

T and I were sitting at the piano.
She asked me to play "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider," so I did. Then she said, "Now I play it." She poked a few keys on the piano, and then looked puzzled.
"That's not Itsy-Bitsy Spider," she said. "Where is it?"

I feel a little less special now

One of my favorite moments is when I walk into my daughter's house and T comes running up to me, squealing "Bubb-EEE", and throws her arms around my knees.

The other day when I'd been there for a half hour or so, the cleaning lady was leaving. She said, "Bye, Tova!" T ran over to her and threw her arms around the cleaning lady's knees.

Now I'm feeling a little less special.

Tip-toe Mommy

An observation from D: "Mommy doesn't walk on her heels. Well, sometimes she does. Only on Shabbos she never walks on her heels. She wears a kind of shoes that hold up her heels so she only walks on her toes."

D-isms

Recent D-isms:

While driving D to school one morning, I told him that when I was 5 years old, I used to walk to school.
He said, "Is that because there weren't any cars back then?"

Another day, when we arrived at school, I opened the car door and said, "Hop out, Pumpkin!"
D: "I'm not a pumpkin! You're a pumpkin!"
Me: "You're right, you're not the right color to be a pumpkin. And neither am I."
D: "Yes you are, you're an old pumpkin!"

A Tender Moment

K put together a stack of three Lego cubes that had pictures of animal heads, bodies, and feet or tails on them; when assembled with all the sides facing the same way, they make up a complete animal. He showed us the side that had a dog, and said, "You know why I made this for you? To remind you of Comet so you won't miss her so much."

Just because

After Shabbos, K, Papa, & Daddy were watching the last few minutes of a football game. D left the room and we heard the lid of the cookie jar, and when Papa went to see what D was up to, he'd disappeared. I spotted him hiding behind the chair in the living room but didn't let on that I'd seen him. A few minutes later he came back in the family room and we asked him where he'd been.
"I was hiding," he said.
"Why?" we asked.
"Because I just wanted to," he answered.
He climbed onto my lap, and I kissed him, and asked him, "Then why do you smell like oatmeal raisin cookies?"
"I don't know," he said with a straight face. "I was just hiding because I wanted to!"

Every Minute Counts

D wanted some vanilla yogurt, but we were just about to make Kiddush and have dinner so I told him he could have it for breakfast. Later, he said he wanted to sleep in the sleeping bag, so he went upstairs and got 2 sleeping bags out of the closet and brought them downstairs. He dragged the red one into the kitchen and announced that he was sleeping there. Why? "Because I want to have vanilla yogurt for breakfast the minute I wake up, so I want to sleep in the kitchen so I won't waste any time."

D Comments on Life:

D, while eating a bowl of Life cereal:
"I'm soaking my hard, hard Life in the pool of milk!"

Who's counting?

K & D slept over Sunday night, and when Dovid picked them up in the morning, I kissed the kids goodbye. I said to D, "That was so much fun--will you come and sleep over again?"
He answered, "Yes, I will sleep over at your house 200 more times before I die!"

Context is everything

It only takes a conversation with a preschooler to remind us of how much a child's experiences color the way he interprets the world. Some examples:

K was reciting the poem, "One for the money..." and he asked me to repeat each line after him. When I repeated the line "Two for the show," he stopped me. "Not 'Two for the SHOW..'" he said, "Two for the SHUL."
Oh. Excuse me!

I was reading to D from an ad for the circus: "Hold on to your hats!"
"Why does it say 'Hold on to your HATS?" he asked. "Why doesn't it say 'Hold on to your KIPAHS?"

I read another line from the ad: "The Greatest Show on Earth!"
"Why is it on EARTH?" D asked. "It should be in a PLACE! On the GROUND!"

The Wedding Planner

D was drinking orange juice out of a plastic bottle that had a top shaped like a football helmet. This led to the following conversation:

D: Mommy and Daddy got this at their wedding. They BOUGHT it there.
Me: You can buy things at a wedding? I didn't know that. What else can you buy at a wedding?
D: Um- not kosher ham. And hamburgers, and oranges, and tomatoes, and chicken, and cucumbers.
M: What is a wedding, anyway? What's it for?
D: It's for people when they get older.
M: Like a birthday?
D: Yes. If you're a boy you have a Bar Mitzvah and if you're a girl you have a Bat Mitzvah.
M: How old will you be when you have a Bar Mitzvah?
D: 10.
M: How old do you have to be to get married?
D: 15.
M: Did you go to Mommy and Daddy's wedding?
D: I don't remember.
M: What about K and T?
D: Not T, she wasn't born. I don't know if K and me were there.
M: Maybe you were home with a babysitter?
D: If I was home with a babysitter, it was you.

Bones?

In our city/suburban existence, we are so far removed from the original sources of our food that sometimes it's easy to forget that kids have no idea where much of their food comes from (Jewel, of course!)
Case in point: yesterday, K was sitting at our kitchen counter, finishing up some leftover popcorn. When it was nearly gone, he asked me, "Bubbie, can we make more popcorn? There's only bones left!"

Wuh's up?

The grandchildren & their parents were on vacation this week. Tuesday afternoon, my cell phone rang--it was D.
"Bubbie, guess where we are!" he exclaimed. I knew where they were, but I played along.
"7-11?" No. "A restaurant?" No. "The park?" No. "The museum?" No.
"OK, give me a hint," I said.
D answered, "It starts with a "wuh."
"A 'wuh'?" I asked him, wondering what on earth a "wuh" could be. "Hmmm- I give up," I said.
"Wuh-sconsin!" he yelled happily.

What's so funny?

The boys slept over last night, and this morning D crawled into bed with Papa. A few minutes later, the clock-radio went on.
"What's that?" D asked.
"That's the radio," Papa explained. "It's like an alarm clock."
"Oh. That's funny!" D said. Then he paused, and, very seriously, asked, "Why is that funny?"

Techno-kids

Since they were born in the 21st century, K & D have no idea that all of the technological things they now take for granted didn't exist several years ago. Cell phones; iPods; DVD's; all these things lead kids to see the world through a kind of techno-lens. When I was a kid, we attributed things we couldn't understand to "magic," but now is there anything at all that can't be conceivably explained through some electronic device? Apparently not, according to D:
On Sunday we were in the park, and we saw a girl flying a kite. D said, "She's flying that kite and it doesn't even have a string." I explained that the kite did have a string, but that we couldn't see it because we were too far away. "How could the girl fly it if it didn't have a string?" I asked him.
He answered, "Maybe she has a remote."

Husband-in-training

Tonight I was talking to K on the phone, and I told him that it was his parents' anniversary. "I know that," he answered patiently. Then I asked him if he knew what that meant--what's an anniversary? He knew that, also: he said, "It means that Daddy has to buy Mommy something."
As his mother says, K's future wife will be very thankful that she taught her kids so well!!

What a sweet boy...

Today I asked the kids if they remembered going to see the Water Show. They remembered the people water skiing, and the people hanging from giant kites pulled by speedboats. Then I told them that the lake was gone. I explained that there was a lot of rain and the earth around the lake gave way, and all the water drained out, so now there was just mud. I told them that all of the people who worked there--the boat drivers and the water skiers--had to find new jobs now.
D was very concerned. "Where will they get jobs?" he asked.
"I don't know, maybe in a store or a restaurant," I told him.
He thought for a minute. Then he said, "I know--two of them can work at Target, and two of them can work at the ice cream store!"

Out of sight, out of mind

We were at the park watching K's soccer game. There were a couple of ice cream vendors pushing carts around in the park, and D had been clamoring for ice cream, but his mother said no. He tried a few tactics in an attempt to get her to change her mind.
"It doesn't cost any money," he said.
"It doesn't? How do you know that?" we asked him.
He pointed to the cart, which had pictures of ice cream and the name of the company (in Spanish). "See, it doesn't have any numbers on the sides," he pointed out.
His mother didn't give in. "After the game, there's a barbecue," she told him, "with hot dogs and chips and juice boxes."
"I don't want a hot dog," he answered, but this didn't convince her either, and she just said, "OK, but we're still not getting ice cream."
That seemed to be the end of it. But a few minutes later the game was over, and both parents and K started off towards the barbecue at the other side of the park. D decided to wait with us and T, so Mommy said they'd bring back food for us. No sooner were they out of earshot than D, eyeing the ice cream cart, turned to his grandfather and said, "Papa, do you have any money on you?"

How to tell if you're a boy

My daughter told me she asked D how he knows he's a boy. I'm not sure what sort of an answer she was expecting—but D looked at her as if she were the single most thick-headed individual on the planet, and said, "Because I have a Kipah!"
When they were at our house, she asked K the same question. He said, "Because I don't have a sheitel or any clothes that are pink."

My new cleaning ladies

K and D were here the other day, and besides being in cleaning mode for Pesach, their favorite toy at our house is the vacuum (go figure--why did I buy all those toys?), so while we were eating dinner, the kids took two bites of their food and then left the table and went into the family room and started vacuuming.
About 15 minutes later, their father went in there, and a moment later he came back into the dining room and said, "Please tell me that one of you tipped the couch over on its back." We all looked at each other blankly. Then we got up to look, and sure enough, K and D had tipped the couch over so they could vacuum under it. Fortunately, they were both standing on the same side of it at the time, so no one was crushed!
Later, D came into the dining room and crawled up on my lap and took my face in his hands in that endearing way little kids do when they want to make sure you are really listening to them, and said seriously, "Bubbie, do you have cleaning ladies?" When I said that I didn't, he said, "You don't have to get any cleaning ladies, because K and I can be your cleaning ladies." (Hey-can I have that in writing? And bring it out in a few years, say, when they're teenagers?)
Today when I got home from work my daughter was here again with the kids, and Papa said they had called him on the phone and asked him if he would pay them to come over and clean. They came over and vacuumed the couch some more, and he gave them each a dollar. They plan to use their earnings to buy Slurpees.
At this rate, their parents will have to start talking to them about opening IRA’s!

Times Have Changed!

K and D were playing with an old 35 mm film camera. After clicking away for several minutes, K asked me, "Why aren't the numbers changing? It still says 'zero'." I answered, "There probably isn't any film in the camera."
K looked puzzled. "What's film?" he asked.

A little help from a brother

K and D had unfolded a long pad of the old-type computer paper- the kind that has all the sheets connected--on the floor from the front windows all the way into the dining room. They counted the sheets--there were 31. After several minutes of the kids walking on the paper, the sheets became separated in a couple of places. I asked the kids if they thought there were still 31 sheets, now that they weren't all attached together. They weren't sure, so we decided to count them again; since there were now 3 separate lines of paper, each of us would count one set and then we'd add them up.
K's set had 17; D's had 12, and mine had 2. K started adding the numbers, but he soon ran out of fingers.
What to do? No problem: he asked D, "Can I use your fingers?" D readily agreed.
Epilogue: since even with all of our fingers we didn't have enough, we resorted to using the calculator.

Too old

On Friday, I drove K and D to school. I took D to his classroom, and when he was all settled, I went down the hall to K's room. He had just finished hanging up his backpack and was about to go into his classroom. I said to him, "Your class looks like so much fun--can I come?"
"No, everyone in my class is 4 or 5," he said. "There's no one in my class who's 56!"

Upscale kids?

K and I were waiting outside the store while his mother was inside with D, buying him new shoes. It was breezy, and we caught a whiff of brewed coffee from the cafe inside the store. K asked, "Hey, why does it smell like Starbucks?"

Must be some kind of alien creature...

We were talking about outer space and the planets. I told the kids that nothing lives on any of the other planets. No people, no animals, not even plants.
D said, "Not even a marmoset?"

A real threat

K was angry at Papa. He said, "The next time I sleep over here, I'm bringing rocks so I can throw them at you!"

A man, a plan, a canal...

I was reading "Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel" to the kids. On one page, it says that Mike Mulligan and Mary Ann dug the canals... I wasn't sure that the kids knew what a canal was, so I asked them.
K answered, "Yeah, a canal is a river that's smelly."

Hide and Seek

We were playing hide and seek. D and I (with T) had already had our turns to hide; now it was K's turn.
K: I'll hide, and you count to 100.
Me: That's a long time to count.
K: OK, how about 80.
Me: Why don't you hide, and just say "Come find me!" when you're ready.
K: No, you'll hear my voice and you'll know where I am.
Me: Good point. OK, how about if we count to 40. You counted to 40 when D and I were hiding.
K: But I won't have enough time.
Me: We'll count slowly.
K: OK, but count really slowly, as slow as the slowest animal in the world.
Me: What is the slowest animal in the world?
D: A pygmy marmoset.
Me: Really? A pygmy marmoset?
D: Yes, a pygmy marmoset.
Me: OK, we'll count now, and you go and hide.
K left the den and went upstairs. D and I started counting to 40. Really slowly.
After we got to about 20, we heard K yelling something from upstairs, but we couldn't hear what he was saying, so we went into the living room.
K: I can't find a good hiding place!
D ran upstairs.
D: Should I help you? I know a good place!
K: OK- but will you find me?
D: No.
D came downstairs.
D: K isn't hiding in the bathroom, so don't look in there.

Now it's out of the bag

D wanted to make tea, so I gave him the basket of tea bags and told him to choose the kind he wanted. He picked up a box of Celestial Seasons tea and took out a bag. "What is this?" he asked.
"It's a tea bag," I answered. I realized that he probably didn't recognize it as a tea bag, because he's used to seeing me make tea with Lipton tea bags, that have a string and a tag, but the Celestial Seasons tea bags don't have them.
"It's a little bag that holds the tea," I continued. "The tea leaves are inside."
I turned my back to get the hot water, and when I turned around again, D had torn open the bag and was pouring the tea leaves into the cup.
Hey, it makes perfect sense--that's how we use everything else that comes in a bag!

Real chicken

We were eating chicken, and D announced, "One time I ate a real chicken."
"A real chicken?" I asked.
"Yes," he nodded. "It wasn't dead."
Trying not to laugh, or choke in the process, I asked him, "Where were you when you did this?"
"In Illinois," he answered.
He then went on to describe how the chicken was running around in the store, and he chased it, and caught it, and ate it!

Evil Twins

K & D were watching a Caillou DVD. Caillou has the flu and can't go to school, but he tells his mother that he wants to go anyway because he doesn't want to miss the puppet show.
Caillou's mother says, "But if you go to school when you have the flu, your friends will get sick, too. You don't want that, do you?"
Caillou says, "No." But D turned to K and said, "We do, right?"
K nodded and said, "Right!"
(Two evil little grins.)

Magic Boy

D was sitting on the toilet. He called me: "Bubbie, do you want to see something?"
When I came into the bathroom, he said, "Watch what I can do." He unrolled some toilet paper, and then pulled apart the two sheets (it was 2-ply toilet paper.) "Look!" he said. "It was one and I made it into two!"
"Wow, that was magic!" I exclaimed.
He smiled a huge smile and nodded. "I'm a magician!"

Just one for me, please

S: "I bought Daddy some bagels and lox for dinner."
K: "I want a bagel!"
D: "I want a Lok!"

Impossible

I was sitting in the kitchen, holding T, while K was finishing his dinner. Their mother had gone out, and their father was upstairs with D. T started to fuss a little bit. K asked me, "When are you going to nurse her?"

Thanks for the suggestion

D was on the toilet, and K was doing a United States Giant Floor Puzzle in the living room. They both wanted my attention, so I was shuttling back and forth. I checked on D, and he said he wasn't ready to be wiped yet, so I told him to call me when he was ready. I'd barely taken two steps away when he called me again, so I turned around and went back into the bathroom.
"Are you done?" I asked him.
"No," he answered. K, meanwhile, was calling me because he wanted to know where Idaho went. "But I don't want to just stand here," I explained.
"Well," D said helpfully, "you could just walk around in the bathroom."

Comet, the Magic Dog

We were taking Comet for a walk, on our way to the Cow ice cream store. Comet stopped to pee, and K bent down and peered underneath her. "I saw the pishy coming out," he announced. D didn't notice--or so I thought, until a few days later, when he announced out of the blue, "Comet is a magic dog, because she makes pishy and doo-doo out of the same hole!"

Free at Last

It was Erev Yom Kippur, and my daughter was in the hospital having given birth to her daughter the previous day, so K and D were having dinner with us at our house before the fast. Uncle A brought a can of Cherry 7-Up to the table, and immediately the kids started clamoring (OK, whining) for "pop." We told them they could have pop after they ate, but that, of course, was an unsatisfactory answer, as far as they were concerned. Papa told them that when he was a little boy, he never had pop ("soda," to the rest of us) until the end of the meal.
"My Mommy didn't let me have pop until I finished eating," he explained, "because she didn't want me to fill up my tummy with pop and then not have room for my healthy food."
K considered this for a moment, and then said casually, "But she died."
The 5 adults at the table all choked on our soup simultaneously, and Papa managed to splutter, "Yes, she did," wondering where this was leading.
"So now you don't have to listen to her any more," K continued. "Now you can do whatever you want!"

What's So Special About That?

We were in the car, driving home from picking up Aunt I at the airport, when Daddy called with the news of the birth of his daughter. K & D were with us, and they reacted to the news with grins but not much else (not surprising, considering that they didn't yet really know what having a baby sister was all about.) As we continued driving, I noticed that D was falling asleep--and 4 PM is not the most desirable time of day for a 3-year-old to nap. I remembered that I had 2 lollipops in my purse, so I asked Aunt I to give them to the kids, knowing that a lollipop would keep D awake for at least a few minutes.
When the kids finished the lollipops, they asked for more (naturally.) I said, "No more lollipops. Usually we only have lollipops on Shabbos, but today you got lollipops because it's a special day." There was no response from either of the kids, so I asked them, "Why is today a special day?"
D answered, "Because we got lollipops!"

Logical?

My daughter was coming down the stairs, and discovered several pairs of size-3 underwear strewn over the steps.
She stopped halfway down and asked the kids, "What's all this underwear doing here?"
"D wanted to wear it on his head like a hat," K answered helpfully. (As if that explains it-but never mind.)
She said to D, "Pick up the underwear and give it to me so I can put it away." D picked up the pairs of underwear and flung them up in her general direction. She managed to catch a few pairs. "Please hand them to me," she asked D.
"Mommy can't bend down to pick them up because her tummy is so big because of the baby," I added.
D picked up the underwear and handed it to her, along with a kipah that also happened to be on the steps.
She gave the kipah back to D and said, "Here, put this away in the closet," at which point D took the kipah and flung it down the steps in the general direction of the closet.
"Please pick it up and put it in the closet," She said, wearily.
"Bubbie can do it," D said. "She doesn't have a big tummy!"

More is Less

Mommy had cut up some cucmbers from the garden and put them on a plate. K took a whole fistful of cucmber slices and put them on his plate, leaving only 2 or 3 slices for everyone else. Mommy pointed out that he had taken almost all of the cucumbers, and asked him, "Do you think that will be enough for me, Daddy, D, and Bubbie?"
K looked at the serving plate and at his own plate. He then took all the cucumbers from his plate and put them back on the serving plate, and then proceeded to take some for himself, one at a time--until he had just as many cucmbers on his plate as the first time. Apparently, if you take them one at a time, or more slowly, you end up with less!

Watch out for Papa

Papa, K, & D & I were sitting outside the ice cream store eating our cones. D wanted to hold Comet's leash, but he couldn't do that and hold his cone at the same time. Papa was sitting right there, but D walked over to the other bench where I was sitting and said, "Bubbie, will you hold my ice cream so Papa doesn't get it?"

Seeing is believing

A few weeks ago, a robin built a nest on top of the light outside our garage. When K & D were here, we set up the ladder so they could climb up and see the eggs, and a few days later, the baby birds.
After the babies grew big enough to fly, the birds abandoned the nest, and I took it down and showed it to the kids. We noticed that the mother bird had used grass, mud, sticks, and even a little piece of plastic, and we all marveled at how the bird could do that, using just her beak!
A few weeks went by, and then today we were at the playground. After swinging on the tire for a while, K got off and announced that he was going to build a nest. He sat down on the ground and made a little hollow in the wood chips, and then carefully filled it with grass and a few small sticks. But he wasn't satisfied--he said it wasn't a real nest, because it didn't have any pieces of plastic in it!
I tried to explain to him that a nest didn't have to have plastic in it; that the bird just used whatever she could find. K was doubtful, but finally picked up a few scraps of paper lying nearby. But I could tell he wasn't convinced--the nest he saw had plastic, so that means that a REAL nest has to have plastic!

I missed you, too

Today was the first time I'd seen K & D in 8 days, since Aunt I and I were stuck in New York for several extra days. This is an unusually long time for me not to see them, and during the week, their mother told me on the phone that D was complaining that he wanted me to come and take him to camp.
But mostly, kids of that age live "in the moment," and have only a vague grasp of the passage of time, as is evident from what K said to me today when he saw me: not "Hi" or "I missed you" or even "Where were you?"-- he said, "Your purple socks are still at our house."

When I grow up...

D was walking Comet.
"When I'm a dog, I'll go for a walk on a leash just like this," he announced.
"When you're a dog?" I asked. "When will you be a dog?"
"At Pesach!"

Wazzup?

D and I were in the back yard, and there were several wasps flying around near the garden, probably attracted by the water. I went in the house and got a newspaper and folded it up, to try to kill a few of the wasps.
When D saw me flailing away, he said, "What are you doing, Bubbie?"
"I'm trying to smack the wasps," I told him.
Later, when his mother came home, D said, "Mommy, do you wanna know what Bubbie was doing? She was smacking the waz with a newspaper!"

The conscience of a 3-year-old

Uncle A discovered D pulling the leaves off a potted plant.
A: "D, are you supposed to be doing that?"
D: "No."
A: "Then why are you doing it?"
D: "Because Bubbie's not watching!"

Good old Mommy

Aunt I was in the car with K & D, waiting for their mother to come out of our house.
D: "Where's Mommy?"
I: "She's in the house."
D: "Where's my other Mommy?"
I: "Your other Mommy?"
D: "My old Mommy!"
I: "Your old Mommy? Who's that?"
D: "Bubbie!"

(I reported this conversation to her sister, who said, "Maybe my mother has been spending too much time with my kids...")

A big help

D called me on the phone. "How's your Pesach cleaning?"
"It's good," I told him. "How's YOUR Pesach cleaning? Did you help Mommy clean?"
"Yes," he answered.
"How did you help?" I asked him.
"He replied, "Daddy took me to the zoo!"
I'm sure that was truly more helpful than anything he could have done at home!

The lessons of Purim

K wanted a turn with the plastic bucket D was using to scoop water out of a puddle on the sidewalk. But D wasn't so eager to share.
"In a minute," he kept telling K, but the "minute" was getting really long, and K was running out of patience.
"You're mean," he told D, exasperated. "You're HAMAN!"

Who needs a tissue?

Me: "D, do you need a tissue?"
D (Hugging me around the knees): "No, I already used your coat!"

Don't trust anyone over 30?

I picked K up at school, and on the way to his house he asked me if I had eaten lunch. (He likes it when I bring my lunch to his house--and share it with him.) I explained that I wasn't eating lunch that day because it was a fast day.
"I know, it's Taanis Esther!" he answered. "All the grownups don't eat anything."
"What about kids?" I asked him.
"Kids don't have to fast," he said. "Only kids who are 30 have to fast."
I'm not sure whether he thinks I'm a grownup- or just a really old kid!

Coloring?

D, watching me put on make-up:
"Are you coloring yourself?"

Rules of Grammar

K and D were watching me send a fax. They took each page as it came out of the fax machine.
"Careful, don't pull the paper," I told K.
"I'm not; I'm just make sure-ing that it doesn't fall off the table."

Personal question

Mommy: "D, is your diaper dirty?"
D: "No! Is YOUR diaper dirty?"

Let a smile be your gorilla

Sunday night, while my daughter watched the Super Bowl with the NCSY'ers and her husband watched it at our house, I went to stay with K & D. (I'm sure I had the most fun!) One of our activities was playing "Go Fish," with a set of cards that have letters and pictures on them.
Donny got a card with the letter U, and a picture of an umbrella. "Do you have an un-gorilla?" he asked. K cracked up, and we told D it was an umbrella, not an un-gorilla. But as hard as D tried, he couldn't say "umbrella." He really worked at it, but he couldn't quite get the hang of it, so he just must have decided that "un-gorilla" was easier!

When he grows up

The grandchildren and their parents were leaving for a trip to Florida, and they stopped at our house in their car to pick up Papa so he could drive them to the airport, drop them off, and then bring their car back here. I went out to the car to say goodbye, and Papa got in. "We're going to Florida!" D exclaimed.
"But Papa's not going with us," K added.
"Maybe next time when he's a little older he can go with us," their father suggested to the kids.
"Yeah," said K, "maybe when he's 30."

It's impossible!

Do was singing and shaking his head back and forth.
"What are you doing?" I asked him
"I can't sing into my ear," he said seriously.
"Why not?" I asked.
"Because my mouth is here," he explained, pointing, "and my ear is over here."
He looked sad, so I suggested, "Do you want to sing into my ear?"
"So loud?" he asked, surprised.
"No, not so loud," I told him. "Softly."
He pondered this for a moment, and apparently decided that if he couldn't sing into my ear so loud, it wasn't worth it. Then he said mournfully, "One time my ear used to be over here," pointing to a space next to his mouth, "and then I could sing into it!"

Take a whack at this

D(holding up his little finger): Bubbie, look what I found in my ear!
Me: What is that?
D: It's an ear wack.
Me: Ear wax?
D: No, it's just ONE ear wack!

Just say "No"

This morning, D asked me if he could watch a video (DVD). I told him he would have to ask Mommy. She was upstairs getting dressed, and when she came down, I was talking with K, so I didn't hear D ask her. But he came and reported to me right away, in a sad little voice, "Mommy said no."
"Well, we'll have to do something else," I told him.
"No, I want to watch a video," he complained.
"But Mommy said no," I reminded him.
"You're not supposed to say 'no'," he said indignantly. "Mommy has to get a punishment!"

Cheers!

We were at Kiddush at the NCSY Conclave. Rabbi G was telling the group of more than 200 teenagers that Kiddush had been sponsored by two of the advisors, a married couple, in honor of the birth of their daughter. When everyone applauded, D said, "No, they're supposed to go 'wooooooo!'"

Our Winter Home?

K and I were in our hotel room at Conclave, and K heard a noise outside. I thought it was the window vibrating from a passing truck, but K thought it was a bee or a wasp trying to get into our room.
"I don't think it's a bee," I told him. "It's winter; there aren't any bees."
That led to a discussion of what happens to the other animals in the winter. K knew that the birds go "to South," the "squirlers" go in their nests, and the rabbits go in their holes in the ground.
Then I asked him, "Where do we go in the winter?"
He thought about that for a minute and then said, "To Conclave!"

Take it off!

D and I were playing in the den, and I was cold, so I found a sweatshirt on Shosh's bed. When I went back into the den and started putting it on, D looked at me and said suspiciously, "What are you doing?"
"I was cold, so I'm putting on this sweatshirt," I explained.
"That's Daddy's sweatshirt," he said in a warning tone of voice, "take it off!"
No matter what I said, he kept insisting that I take off Daddy's sweatshirt. So I did. Next time I'll bring a sweater!

Techno-kids

We all know that the younger generation picks up new technology faster and easier than their parents and grandparents. K and D have grown up seeing people talk into little tiny phones that hook over their ears. I realized this when we ordered pizza and French fries the other night. I was busy cutting up pizza for the kids, and when I looked up, they had hung their curly fries over their ears!

Legs

This morning the kids asked me to read to them. I sat on the big chair in the living room; D climbed up and sat on my lap; and K perched on the right arm of the chair. I asked D to move over and sit on my left leg so K could have some room, and he moved over but insisted on sitting on my right leg. K didn't seem to mind, though, and just climbed over D and sat on my left leg. I read the book ("Going to the Dentist"), and then it was time for K to go to school. After he left, D settled himself comfortably in my lap and announced, "Now I get all the legs!"
I'm not sure whether I should feel like an octopus, or a spider!

Underage

It was nearly 70 degrees today, unseasonably warm. K and I were sitting outside, and after a while it got a little cool, so I went inside to get him a jacket. I wasn't sure which one was his, so I brought out the most likely one and asked him if it was his.
"What size is it?" he asked me.
"Four," I said.
He answered, "Then it's not mine because I'm not 4 yet. My birthday's not until tomorrow."

Outer space

I picked K up at school today. His class is learning about the solar system.
Some of the things he's learned:
Outer space is far away. It's not in Chicago. It comes out at night.
K can't be a space ship driver, because he made a space ship driver hat in school but now he deosn't know where it is.
When he grows up, he will be a Daddy, because his Daddy will be old and then he'll die, so Kivi and Donny will be the Daddies and take care of Mommy.
And who will be the Mommy who takes care of Mommy?
K thought about that for a while. "You will," he finally told me.

Who's your Papa?

I was in the store with D when my cell phone rang. It was N; I told him I'd call him right back, since I was busy with the sales clerk, and I closed the phone.
"I want to talk to Mommy!" D protested.
"It wasn't Mommy, it was Papa," I told him.
"WHICH Papa?" D asked. "YOUR Papa? The one who says 'Supie-dupe'?"
Well, yes, that's the one--how many OTHER Papa's does he know?

Old friends

Today in the car, D said, "I want to go see your old friends." My old friends? Who is he talking about? My old college buddies? But he's never met them--so who on earth DOES he mean? His mother supplied the answer: "I think he's talking about Bubbie and Pop-pop!" (Makes sense- OLD and FRIENDS!)

Things that go bump in the night...

We were in the mall, and D looked around and announced, "I want to go see those bumpy things that wiggle their heads and their ears." Depsite all of my questions, he wasn't able to explain it any better, and I wasn't able to figure out what in the world he was talking about. (It wasn't until we got back to his house and I asked his mother that I found out that he was talking about the battery-operated stuffed animals in front of Kay-bee toys.)

For the birds

Yesterday, K and Papa were watching the birds fly south. Today K told me, "Papa said he wants to fly south too, but he can't."
"Why not?" I asked him.
He answered, "Because he doesn't have any wings!"

Breathe easy

D poked a fork into the holes in the spout of his sippy cup. "I'm helping it breathe," he explained.

Horses

S was getting something for K, and he was impatient. "Hold your horses," I told him.
He answered, "Forty-nine."
Puzzled, I asked him, "What's forty-nine?"
"It's a number," he explained patiently.
"OK, I know it's a number," I said, "but why did you SAY 'forty-nine'?"
Kivi answered, "Because that's how old my horses are!"

Too bad for the birds-

Kivi saw a flock of birds flying in the sky.
"The birds are supposed to fly south for the winter," he told Papa. "But they can't go, because South is closed."

Little Houdini-nothing up his sleeve!

Shosh was on her way home from an NCSY convention in Minneapolis, so Dovid came over with the kids to watch a football game (Packers vs. Dolphins.) After lunch, he made Donny a bottle and put him in the crib upstairs for a nap. For a while we heard Donny singing and talking to himself, as he usually does, but then he went to sleep. When Dovid went upstairs to get him later, he couldn't find the bottle. Norman went up to look for it, but he couldn't find it either. Dovid and the kids had to leave, but Norman knew the bottle had to be there somewhere, so he went to do a more thorough search. Eventually he found it: it was in the crib, UNDER the crib sheet. And the crib sheet was tucked in tightly all the way around the mattress. We still can't figure out how Donny managed to get the bottle under there AND get the sheet tucked back in, especially while he was IN the crib, ON TOP of the mattress. At least, we assume that's what he must have done--but we'll probably never know, since a good magician never reveals how he does his tricks!
P.S. Earlier in the day, Dovid had called us to tell us that last night, an hour or so after he put Donny to bed, he heard Donny scream, and when he went in he found that Donny had somehow managed to wedge his entire hand in between the body and the axle of the yellow plastic bulldozer he sleeps with. (Some kids sleep with stuffed animals--Donny sleeps with trucks.) Dovid had to cut the axle with gardening shears --or, as Donny calls them, "grown-up scissors"--to get Donny's hand out. Who knows what he was trying to do--hide the bulldozer up his sleeve, perhaps? At least he isn't wasting those minutes between getting in bed and falling asleep- he's practicing his magician skills!

Every boy's dream, no matter how old

Kivi and I were watching a video about firefighters, and Kivi told me that only men can be firefighters. (That was certainly the impression one would get from watching this particular video, which used the term "firemen" and featured not a single woman.) I explained to him that women could be firefighters too.
"Why?" he asked.
"Some women want to be firefighters," I said.
"And ALL men want to be firefighters," he answered.
"Not ALL men," I pointed out. "Daddy doesn't want to be a firefighter."
"Yes he does," Kivi insisted. "He can be a firefighter when he gets a little bigger."

Why wait?

Today we took Donny with us when we went to get flu shots at the Oakton Community Center. (Donny wore his firefighter jacket and hat.) But when we got there, there were already 200 people in line in front of us, so we decided not to wait. There were several construction trucks on the street, which was being repaved, so I said, "Come on, Donny, let's go watch the trucks."
"But you and Papa didn't get your shots," he pointed out.
"I know, but there are too many people in line in front of us," I told him. "It's too crowded."
"That's OK," Donny replied. "We can just jump over them!"

Sharing: just a theory

Donny woke up from his nap and wanted something to eat. There were three honey cake muffins in a pan on the counter, so I offered him one. He took all three muffins out of the pan and held two of them tightly to his chest while attempting to eat the third one.
"Donny, put the other ones back in the pan," I told him. "You can have another one if you're still hungry after you eat this one."
"No, these are for Mommy and Daddy," he informed me. Then he looked at Kivi suspiciously and said, "Kivi, do you want one?"
"No, I don't like those," Kivi answered.
"OK," Donny said, sounding relieved,"These are for Mommy and Daddy."
"Put the muffins back in the pan," I suggested, "and I'll cover it so they don't get stale."
"OK, but don't eat them," he warned me. "They're for Mommy and Daddy."
"I won't eat them," I promised, and put the pan on the counter and covered it with foil.
A few minutes later, Donny finished his muffin. "Can I have another muffin?" he asked.
"But you said those were for Mommy and Daddy," I reminded him, showing him the two muffins remaining in the pan. "If you eat another muffin, there will only be one left; what will Mommy and Daddy eat?"
Donny pondered this for a few seconds, then helped himself to one of the muffins and said confidently, "Mommy can have some of Daddy's."

A book by any other name...

Donny asked me to read him some books. "Read me ALL the books," he said. He proceeded to bring me (in several trips) about 15 books that were piled on the end table.
"There, that's ALL the books," he said.
He had, indeed, brought me all of the children's books, but there were three books of Shosh's still sitting on the end table.
"What about those books?" I asked him.
"Where?" he said, looking in the direction I was pointing.
"Right there," I said.
"Where?" he said again, clearly not seeing what I was pointing at.
"On the table," I said, pointing again.
Finally he realized what I meant.
"No, those are not books," he explained. "Those are GROWNUP books!"

He knows the rules!

Donny was blowing bubbles with his battery-operated bubble-maker. He stopped for a moment and asked me, "Where is Kivi?"
"Kivi's at school, remember?" I answered.
"Oh yeah," he said.
He paused, and then added seriously, "You're a grownup, so I don't have to share with you."

In the meantime...

The other day I was talking with Kivi, and I used the phrase "In the meantime." He thought that was funny, and asked me what it meant. I tried to explain it to him, but I wasn't sure that he really got it.
A few minutes later, he said, "Bubbie, I want to tell you a secret. Put your ear down here by my mouth," and he beckoned with his hand and then pulled my head down next to his face.
He whispered in my ear, "Can I say 'In the meantime?'"

Now we know...

I was about to leave Shosh's house, so I picked Donny up to give him a hug and a kiss. Within the span of 5 seconds, he screamed in my ear, spit in my face, and slapped me. I immediately put him down, and he ran away, laughing hysterically.
Shosh: "I don't know what's gotten into him. Lately he's been terrible- I don't know why he started doing this- maybe it's something he picked up from the other kids at school?"
Donny: "The Morah says "No, no, no!"
Well, I guess that answers THAT question!

Future fashion designer?

I was in the kitchen, and Donny was in the lining room putting Band-Aids all over Winnie-the-Pooh (or, as Donny calls him, WEENIE-the Pooh.) A few moments later, Donny came into the kitchen and took my hand and said, "Bubbie, COME!" I followed him into the living room where he excitedly pointed to the red sweater I was wearing, and then to Pooh's red shirt. "Look!" He exclaimed, "you're wearing the same shirt as Weenie-the-Pooh!"

Future lawyer?

Kivi was waiting for me to come over so we could make potato burekas. He called me when I was about two blocks away.
"Are you coming over?" he asked.
"I'll be there in 3 minutes," I answered.
"Okay- but are you coming over?" he asked.
Just answer the question, Bubbie- he didn't ask WHEN you were coming over!

Good question!

Today we were in the car, and the sun was shining in Kivi's face. He asked me, "Why is the sun so... sunny?"

A very special cat?

This morning, we were sitting outside on the deck, and we heard an airplane go overhead. (We couldn't see it, because it was cloudy.) Kivi said, "I went on an airplane to New Jersey, to give the kitty a treat!"
I guess for him, that was the highlight of the trip- I hope Grandpa's not offended!

Talk to you later...

Today I called Shosh on the phone. Kivi answered.
"Hi!" He said. "I'm eating a popsicle. I'll call you back later. Bye!"
I guess he didn't even wonder why I'd called. After all, a popsicle is a high priority!

A mountain out of a molehill

I called Shosh this afternoon, and Donny answered the phone. Since he hasn't yet mastered the art of phone conversations (he mostly says "hi" several times, and things like "Look at that!",) I had to do most of the talking. I asked him if he was helping Mommy make dinner, and he said he was.
"What are you doing to help?" I asked.
"I'm pouring in the sugar," he answered.
"What are you making?" I asked him.
"A mountain!" he exclaimed.

G-d forbid!

Shosh & Dovid & the kids came for dinner one evening, and later when they were leaving, I went outside with them to say goodbye to the kids. I told Kivi, "I want to give you a big hug and a big kiss!" He said, "Why--because you're never going to see me again?"

Colorous!

We were looking at a video on the computer, and one scene had a beautiful sunset. Kivi said, "Those clouds are very colorous!"

In trouble

Kivi and I were planting the garden. Kivi was holding the seed packets, and had been waiting patiently, (or what qualifies as patiently for a 3-year-old), for what must have seemed an eternity, while I used the shovel to make hills for the cucumber and zucchini and a furrow for the pepper seeds.
"Are you done yet, Bubbie?" he asked me every 30 seconds or so. "Is it time to plant the seeds?"
"Almost," I answered each time. "Just a few more minutes."
I temporarly distracted him by having him help pat the dirt into hills, but he was REALLY itching to tear open those little paper packets. I kept watching him out of the corner of my eye, knowing that if he ripped open the packets, the seeds would spill out, and since it was a breezy day, they'd probably fly all over the place and we'd be crawling under the deck to retrieve them and chasing them all over the back yard.
I told him, "Don't open it yet, or we'll be in trouble!"
Kivi looked at me with a horrified expression on his face. "Will the POLICE come?"

Finding the right word

I was digging up the garden so we could plant seeds. K and Do helped for about 30 seconds, until we found a worm. After that, my job was to do all the digging, D's job was to step in the dirt and sit in the dirt and lie in the dirt and... K's job was to keep up a non-stop stream of questions--or maybe one long, continuous question: "Are you finding more worms? Did you find another worm? Are there any more worms? Where are they? Are they under the dirt? Why are they under the dirt? Do they like it under the dirt? When will they come out from under the dirt? Are you finding more worms? Did you find another worm?"
And finally--when he had apparently run out of different ways to say "Are you finding more worms?" he asked me, "Are you keepening looking for more worms?"
Yes, I "keepened" looking until the garden was all dug up, and K had a collection of about 20 worms. (We put them back in the dirt when we went inside for lunch.)

With the right tools...

This morning, the kids were riding their bikes around and around the house, and at one point D crashed straight into my legs with his tricycle. On purpose. "Ow!" I excalimed. "Don't do that, D-that hurts!"
K stopped his bike and got off and came over to inspect my legs. "Did that hurt?" he inquired.
"Yes," I said.
"I will fix them," he declared. "But first I have to get some band-aids. And some tools."
"Tools? What kind of tools do you need?" I asked him
"Oh- a hammer, some nails, a screwdriver, and a drill."
"You're going to fix my legs with a HAMMER and a DRILL?"
"Yes," he declared.
He proceeded to get his (invisible) tools and "fix" my leg.
"Are you done yet?" I asked him.
"Not yet. I just need to use the monkey wrench."
"The monkey wrench- that sounds like it will hurt!" I exclaimed.
"Well-" he said thoughtfully, "after I fix your leg with the monkey wrench, I'll give you FIVE band-aids."
Oh, well- in that case- I guess it's OK!

Life is in the details

Yesterday I went with the kids and their father (Mommy was sick) to the a Truck Show at the Children's Museum, which consisted of 20 or so trucks and other vehicles of different types (fire engine, train car, bulldozer, etc.) parked in the parking lot; the kids could climb in and on the vehicles. K had a great time- he recognized and could name all of the types of trucks, and liked "driving" them. D, though, was more interested in the "little things"- in the fire engine, he only wanted to buckle and unbuckle the seat belt. And in the stretch limo, he was completely unimpressed by the size of the limo, the seats facing sideways, or the window between the driver's seat and the passenger area--but he had a great time taking the champagne glasses out of the rack and lining them up on the windowsill!
Apparently, the "gestalt" of the experience was lost on him- but he sure enjoyed those details!

The squeaky wheel...

We spent the first days of Pesach at a hotel in Lake Geneva, and I had laryngitis the entire time and couldn't speak above a whisper. If I tried to talk louder, it just came out as a little squeak. I spent a lot of time with the kids, of course, and some time during the first day, K looked up at me quizzically and said, "Why are you talking like that, Bubbie?"
I figured it would be too hard to explain "laryngitis", so I just told him, "I have a sore throat and my voice isn't working right now," in my high squeaky voice. K didn't say anything.
A few minutes later, I said, "K, should we go to the playground?"
K looked up at me and smiled, and in a high, squeaky voice, said, "OK, Bubbie!"

Soapy...

Remember "The Cat In the Hat Comes Back," where the Cat makes a Big Pink Cat Ring in the bathtub, and as they try to clean it up it just spreads all over the place? That's apparently what happened to K this morning.
When got to his house, at about 8:20 AM, K was watching for me out the window. When he saw me, he jumped down off the couch and ran to the door to open it for me. But he couldn't get it open, so I used my key.
The house was dark, and K told me that everyone was still sleeping. (I figured that his father was probably at work, but maybe both his parents were still sleeping.) K was wearing-- an undershirt. Nothing else. After I greeted him and took off my coat, I sent him upstairs to get underpants, at least.
When he came down, we went into the kitchen to toast a bagel for breakfast, and when K climbed up on top of the chair, I kissed him on the top of his head, and it was wet. I asked him if he had taken a shower with Daddy, and he said no.
"Then how did your hair get wet?" I asked him.
"I put soap on it!" he exclaimed. But he obviously hadn't rinsed it. And the question was, of course, WHY had he put soap on his hair?
Little by little, I pieced together these 2 clues:
1. K's soggy Pull-up was lying in the middle of the bathroom floor.
2. K told me, "I couldn't turn the water on."
And came up with a logical answer: K had come downstairs by himslf, after Daddy had left for work but Mommy was still in bed. He took off his pajamas and Pull-up and sat on the toilet.
He flushed when he was done.
He closed the toilet seat and climbed up in order to reach the sink.
He put liquid soap on his hands in order to wash them.
He discovered that he couldn't work the faucet.
What to do with all of the soap? He rubbed it on his undershirt and on his head.
(Hey- at least his hands were clean!)
When Mommy came downstairs, and I told her this story, and also how K had tried to let me in but couldn't open the door, she immediately figured out the connection: his hands were probably too soapy for him to get a grip on the doorknob!
Epilogue:
Mommy wiped the doorknob, and I rinsed K's hair in the sink.

This takes the cake

Tonight we were finishing dinner; Mommy and K were in the family room watching "Circus of the Stars," and Daddy, Papa, D, and I were still at the table. Dgot up and left the room and Dovid followed him..or so I thought. A minute later, I heard D, in the kitchen, exclaiming, "I got a BIG piece!" I assumed Daddy had given D a piece of cake, but then I heard Daddy's voice coming from the family room, so I got up to investigate.
D did, indeed, have a big piece of cake in his hand. It was about four times the size that any reasonable adult- even an indulgent grandmother- would have given him. He had apparently climbed up on the stool, taken the pan of cake off the counter, and cut it ("gouged" would be a better description) by himself, with a sharp knife. The pan of cake was sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor. (Fortunately, the dog hadn't noticed it yet.)

Can't you see?

During a phone conversation with D:
Papa: "Where's Mommy?"
D (Presumably pointing): "She's right there!"

Ask a stupid question...

Yesterday morning, D called Pa-pa on the phone, as he often likes to do. He said, "What are you doing?" Pa-pa said, "I'm working on the computer. What are you doing?" onny answered, "I'm talking to you!"
Duh.

Why didn't you just say so?

Today K and I were talking about driving. I told him that you have to be 16 to drive a car. He asked me, "Is Mommy 16?"
"Well- she's older than 16," I explained, not sure if he really knew what "older" meant.
"Is Daddy 16?" he asked.
"He's also older than 16," I said.
Kcontinued asking about numerous other family members, and I kept giving the same answer, until finally he said, "You have to be a grownup to drive?"
Well, yes. Why didn't I just say that in the first place?

Slippery!

Tuesday, March 7,2006

This morning, D took off his pajamas and diaper and went and "hid" in the corner (he faced the wall and covered his eyes.) I went to get the camera so I could take a picture of him. After I took the picture, I told him, "Let's go put a new diaper on and get dressed." He took a few steps, then looked at the floor in surprise and exclaimed, "It's slippery!"
Hmmm. I wonder what happened to the floor during those 30 seconds I was out of the room, getting the camera?