Kid Quotes #5

I have been keeping a journal of our kids' amusing quotes. Though I wish that I am able to record more of the cute things they say throughout the day, here are a few from this last week.

"Spank that fly, Mamma. Whap him on his itty bitty little bottom!" Rigel's response to my pulling out the fly swatter a couple mornings ago.

"Daddy, you got to make a decision. Either you stay home, or you go on a walk with us. You decide...It's up to you, Daddy." Rigel addressing Daddy regarding...well, staying or going.

"Oh, my goodness! Daddy--cookies! Right there, Daddy. That's right. Good job." Izzy alerting Daddy to the cookies in the grocery store, then commending him on placing them in the cart.

"Izzy, you're a sandwich master!" Rigel commending Izzy on her sandwich making abilities while the two of them helped me make lunch.

"No get me all wet. Understand?" Izzy telling me not to turn the garden hose on her--except the last part sounded more like "uhn-ah-stah?"

"I have a idea! I'll go get a wipee. It'll be half the speed! (Rigel disappears into the bathroom to retrieve wipee, then returns) Here I am with a wipee!" Rigel assisting me on clean up patrol.

"I gotta tell Izzy ! I'm gonna go wake her up." Rigel running to share a moment with Izzy.

"Let's go get it to Washdown!" Rigel takes charge of a messy situation--influenced by Thomas the Train vocabulary.

"I okay!!! Mama, Izzy okay!!! Izzy proudly celebrates the moment with smiles after an intense crying session.

"I love my dump truck. He loves being inside." Rigel's declaration of love for a newly discovered toy that had been forgotten about in the yard.

"Shoe chocolates! Mama, look--shoe chocolates!" Izzy's description of her brown colored ballet-flat shoes. They must have struck her fancy for her to compare them to her favorite food.

"If you say two pleases, then my underwear will go on." Rigel explaining how it's all going to go down as I plead with him to get his clothes on in the morning. And, no, I don't comply.

"No kiss my eyeball. Okay, Mama?" Izzy's solemn request of her overly-affectionate mother... I can't help the endless kisses, she's so adorable!

"Because my brain was thinking about it. Because my brain was telling me to do it when I was thinking about it." Rigel's response to my inquiry as to why he walked around the house dragging a crayon across the walls.

"Is Heaven Over There?"

The kids and I had an impromptu date with Grandma today at Fort Rosecrans. (Fort Rosecrans is located in Point Loma and is a national cemetery for veterans and their families. My grandfather served in the reserves as a young man prior to his lifelong career as a journalist for the San Diego Union, and this is where he was laid to rest.) Rigel and Izzy knew we were going to Fort Rosecrans before lunch, but once we arrived, Rigel asked, "Where's Grandpa?"

Then, after Izzy discovered the flowers Grandma left for Grandpa, she asked the same question. This was a first for me, and I wasn't sure how seriously to respond. Grandma jumped in and replied that he was "in heaven." Rigel seemed to ponder this for a second before he pointed across the bay and asked, "is heaven over there?"

I told him it wasn't, that it was a very special place. Later, while we walked to a bakery for lunch in Point Loma, Rigel paused in front of an office and peered inside the window for a few seconds. "Is heaven in there?" he asked. Surprised this issue was still on his mind, I attempted to explain as carefully as possible how heaven was "a special place where people go when they are all done being with us."

How am I to discuss heaven with my son when he doesn't even understand the words "living" and "dying," and when his world doesn't extend beyond the people and places he has visited? Well, I kind of blew it. In the car on the way home, he asked me, "Can we see Grandpa?" And, I too seriously replied, "No. When somebody goes to heaven, you can't see them anymore." Uh-oh. The finality of that answer--why did I go there? Rigel then inquired, "How come you can't see your family in heaven?" Darn. Now what was I supposed to say? I'd already said too much. I ended up keeping it simple and then changing the subject: "When somebody goes to heaven, they see all the other people in the family who are already there. Hey, do you want to listen to the train song?"

I have got to better prepare for these "deep" conversations, because this is only the beginning... in just a few more years, I'll have to be ready to tackle the "birds and the bees." Yikes.

P.S. Happy Veteran's Day

Photo: Rigel and Izzy's Great-Grandfather (Charles).

They Make Me Laugh

I love my babies, and they remind me of that everyday in every way. Today, when I was reminding Rigel to include "please" with his demands, he stubbornly refused. His response was clever enough to make me smile and relent (just this once):

Rigel: Mom, you do it. I don't want to.

Me: How about asking a bit more politely?

Rigel: (sigh)...please.

Me: Nope. That doesn't count. Start your request over, and then say please.

Rigel: (Begrudging sigh)...That was my last one. I don't have any more left.

Me: You don't have any more pleases left?

Rigel: Nope. Maybe later, if you ask me again, I might get some more. Then, I can prob'ly say please. But not now.

Also, as an attempt to describe a complicated task, I caught Rigel swearing: "What a pain and a heck!" That's his version of Mama and Daddy's "grown-up words."

As for Izzy, we haven't quite gotten into conversations, yet, but communication is definitely not a problem. She surprises us continually with just how much she picks up on. Tonight, for instance, I made chocolate truffle cookies (from Trader Joe's Brownie mix), and she noticed from across the room. She ran to the bathroom, grabbed the step stool, and stood peering over the counter at the cookie sheet as it filled up with rows of chocolate globs. "What doin, Mama?" she asked. When I told her I was making cookies, she replied, "No! Not koookies! It brawn-ies!" Now, how she knows what brownies are is a mystery to me, since I've never made them for the kids before. They've never been alone with anyone else long enough to bake brownies elsewhere, so I'm stumped. And, for the rest of the night, Izzy followed me around the house saying, "Ont brawn-ies!" and, "just ooooonnnne more. Okay, Mommy?"

A couple days ago, while Rigel was in pre-school, Izzy entertained me. She dumped out a bag of blocks and refilled it with her chips, then perched on the side of our pillow basket to watch the Halloween ghosts flying around on our front porch whilst munching. It's those silly little actions of hers that amuse me, so confident and yet so innocent. Like the next day, when we visited the museums at Balboa Park: while taking a restroom break, she discovered a hand-drying machine. This was more fascinating to her than any of the exhibits thus far. She stood beneath the hot air blower as if taking a shower, running her fingers through her hair with her eyes squeezed shut. Coaxing her out of there was a challenge, as she kept insisting, "not yet. Ooonne more."

And yes, I took a picture (in a public restroom, no less!)

Little Scholar

We spent the evening at Grandma's house yesterday. While sitting at the table eating dinner, Grandma asked Rigel how preschool was going... and this was his exact response:
"I used to scream and fuss when we'd go there, but then I realized I could have fun there."
(Yes, he said the word "realized," except he pronounced it "wheel-ized.")

The Things They Say...

Rigel, our 3 year-old, has proven to be pretty articulate in the last couple months. Lest I forget, (and biased mom that I am), I've begun to write down what I find most clever and amusing.

• "Don't step on Izzy. She's just a little itty bitty thing. If you step on her, she'll be all broken forever and ever and ever." (Addressing a tickling match that broke out between kids and parents)


• "Don't eat my ice cream, Izzy. Just yours. Mine's a different kind. If you eat it, you'll get sick." (Attempt to steer sis away from his dessert, over which she was hovering)


• "No. I can't run and race. The whole sidewalk would be all broken." (On being too big to race)


• "Cows make milk, and ducks make chocolate. They pour it into a little thing, fill it up with water... mash it up... smash it all up... then they store it up. Then it's all done! It's chocolate!"


• "If you make music, the trees will dance. The trees are dancing! It's snowing!" (Responding to Mom's observation on how the trees overhead were 'snowing' leaves)


• "When I get big, like you, and I get mad, I'm gonna say, 'DANG IT!!!!' Just like a grown-up, Mama." (Responding to Mom's explanation of how the D-word was not a good word to say)


• "An owl flew in the window and stole 'em. He took 'em and built a nest with 'em." (Regarding his pants, as a response to Mom's inquiry as to why he was not wearing any)


• "Throw that boy in the trash can right now, Mama." (Regarding a play ground kid that pushed him down)

....To Be Continued...