Kids say the darndest things

lol awesome

Hammer has always been weird with his speech. He started speaking late, he talks like Yogi Berra and he makes up his own words.

One of those made-up words sounds a lot like "dorky", but it's pronounced more like "dworkey". He tried to define it to me as something special, but not always special. Awhile back, we went to a park where there's this faux-wooden bridge made of concrete spanning across a relatively calm stream that flows into one of the small surburban lakes in the neighborhood. In the stream, four or five turtles swam around, one getting on top of the shell of the other one.

"This," he informed me, "this is duorky. See?"

I mean, this is a boy who takes a running joke and goes too far with it. (SEE: "Poo-poo", 2012 - present). However, this isn't like that.

Some afternoons when I pick him up from daycare, he'll go upstairs with me to Beeps' learning area where one of the teachers gave in long ago and now offers him a snack from the big kids' table. I reminded him the other day to use his magic words if the teacher let him have something, and he looked up at me and asked, "You mean like 'dworky'?"

This is usually when I rub my temples and wish that I had had kids in my 20s because I'm too old for this.

Is it times like these when you also wish you had a beer, beer monster?

Friend of mine recently went through a break-up and went to stay with a friends. A couple days later that friend's brother came to take my friend to pick up his things at his former apt. The brother who was giving him the lift also brought along is 6 year old daughter. Before they left they were all hanging out and my friend said something along the lines of "My biggest fear is that my stuff is all gonna be in garbage bags thrown all over the lawn." Without sipping a beat the 6 year old looked up at all of them and said, "My biggest fear is vampires".

haaaaaa brilliant

Frozen Soundtrack: "We're not sayin' you can change him, cause people don't really change."
K: "He need to change"
Me: "Change what?"
K: "His diaper. He need to get dressed."

lol

I feel like the pervasiveness of that movie has been seriously underrepresented on I Love People-Making.

Anna and Elsa might as well be her cousins or something. She talks about them all day.

It has not been underrepresented in my life, that's for fucking sure.

otmfm

Not that it needs to be. But I feel like we're not bringing it up on purpose, whereas in my day-to-day life I can't go more than a few days without hearing my kid (or someone else's) singing "Let It Go" or "Do You Want to Build a Snowman".

xps. lol.

It was worse a couple of months ago but Evie still does belt out "Let It Go" on a pretty regular basis.

The best is all the words she doesn't know and just kind of puts in gibberish or real words that don't make any sense in context.
Last night she wanted a Frozen story at bedtime so I made up a story about Olaf going on vacation to Hawaii and winning a sandcastle contest by building a life-size version of Elsa's ice castle out of sand. He won a lifetime supply of carrots that he could use to have new noses whenever he wanted.

I've never seen the movie, have no kids of my own, and have still managed to be serenaded twice by kids singing LIG! I feel for you guys xp

That's so rad, NA.

I'm looking forward to the made-up-stories phase, she's not quite old enough for that.

K prefers snowman and in summer to let it go.

Yes, they'll serenade you in packs. Last weekend, my son and a group of 3 other ten-year-old boys did an impassioned group sing-along of LIG, and they gave it the twice-through. Not for anyone else but themselves. They just love the hell out of that song.

Most of my bedtime stories are about Bobo, a cat who only likes to drink hot chocolate.

When I was a kid I had a series of stories with my parents about a guy named Pepsi Free. He had a friend who had theme days, like he'd only wear and eat things that were red or stuff like that.

My dad used to tell me stories about when he was a kid and he was two inches tall and lived in a shoebox under his parents' bed.

hahaha

I've never heard Let It Go!!!! I'm curious but want to see how long I can go without hearing it.

You can't hold it back anymore

The fixer-upper song is very funny imo, and much less annoying.

I still tear up sometimes when listening to Let It Go, tbh. Not the Demi Lovato version (and not my kid and his buddies singing it) but the one Elsa sings. I get really wrapped up in it.

The one Elsa sings is way better. That song doesn't do much for me, but snowman does get me a little sad.

I'm surprised it took this long but today was the first day where I dropped something and said "SHIT!" and immediately heard Evie in the other room say "Shit. Shit. What is shit? SHIT."

That happens with us all the time, but the other day, a new neighbor was moving in down the street and dropped something really big and loud. I looked out the window with a casual "what the fuck?" and heard at my elbow, the tiniest, littlest squeak of a "what the fuck?"

H has been busy at work recognizing bad words like "stupid" and "bullshit" and "why". It's just hard to clarify for him why they're bad words.

H: Ms. Karen says "stupid" is a bad word.
ME: Well, it kinda is if you're calling someone that and it's hurting their feelings.
H: But I don't call anyone bullshit!
ME: Stop. Saying. That.

The "why" comes from me telling him that it's the incorrect reply to me saying "Put your shoes on" or "Get out of the cat room." So now he thinks "Why?" is a bad word like bullshit. I can't wait until the family members can just start texting instead of speaking to each other since, after all, that's kinda how we all became a family in the first place.

I have freaking nightmares with my ten-year-old asking me to justify my requests to him. Good for you, kid. Question authority. Just not me.

I've even gotten out of line and gone the "ONE OF THESE DAYS, I'M GOING TO TELL YOU TO GET OUT OF THE FIRE, YOU'RE GONNA STAND THERE AND SAY 'WHY?' AND THEN POOF!" route.

He's four. Barack Obama was president when I was born. This is going to be a long road.

when he was born, I should say.

I've even gotten out of line and gone the "ONE OF THESE DAYS, I'M GOING TO TELL YOU TO GET OUT OF THE FIRE, YOU'RE GONNA STAND THERE AND SAY 'WHY?' AND THEN POOF!" route.

Yeah, basically! If you balk when I'm telling you to do something even marginally important, how are you going to react when the situation is critical? My example is getting hit by a car, but same deal.

Yeah Evie insists that "I don't care" is a bad word which makes conversations like "What do you want for dinner?" "Eh I don't care" very controversial.

But I don't call anyone bullshit!

lol

Yeah, "stupid" is controversial in my house because we have a rule that you can't call people stupid, but my wife and I disagree about whether we can call things or ideas stupid (since calling an idea stupid could reflect back on the person whose idea it was). I see her point, but I totally think sometimes there are some really stupid ideas and I'm okay with breaking them down to that level.

I hate to say it, but it's the funniest when Hammer misses the point.

We've got about a 20-minute ride home from daycare each day. Beeps and I were recently talking about our planned visit to Australia, how we were going to see Grandma and Uncle M, see her older cousin again and meet for the first time Uncle M's son, who's H's age. It'll be summertime there, so even though we'll celebrate Christmas, we're still going to go to the beach and swim in the ocean -- and yes, Beeps reminds us, there's no ocean in Arkansas.

I back into the driveway and Beeps grabs her stuff and heads for the porch. Hammer's just sitting there with this look on his face. I unstrap him from the carseat, pat his arm, and ask, "Everything ok?"

He looks around our yard and back at me. "I thought we were going to Australia?"

lol

hahahah awww!

aww!

Also

I'm surprised it took this long but today was the first day where I dropped something and said "SHIT!" and immediately heard Evie in the other room say "Shit. Shit. What is shit? SHIT."

Okay I will clean up my act* ASAP so I can still hang out w/ my homie Evie.

*Notice I did not say "get my shit together" eh? Eh?

<3 Hammer!

girl cheese sandwiches!

(we pass a billboard showing a picture of a block of swiss cheese)

K: What food that?
Me: That's Swiss cheese. Chese with holes.
K: Hole Foods!

zinga zangggg

"Let's go pants crazy!"

"What?"

Slowly: "Let's... go... pants.. crazy!!"

"Right, but what is that?"

"It's when you go crazy with pants!!!!!"