30 November 2011

A conversation with M-: And "Eeyore" is in the Top Names list every year

This is a bizarre, but typical, conversation I recently had with my 4-year-old daughter M- as I was preparing lunch for the kids:

M- (after I'd opened the floor for lunch-plate requests): I want the We-need-the-Pooh plate!

Me (since this wasn't the first time I'd noticed this, I figured I'd ask): Why do you keep calling him "We-need-the-Pooh"?

M- (blankly): Because that's his name.

Me: No, it's "Winnie". "Winnie-the-Pooh."

M-: ...... "Winnie" is a strange name.



You may enjoy my previous M- conversations, (7YO son) D- conversations, and (wife) J- conversations.

27 November 2011

Conversations I never had with my son, Vol. 1

We all know boys and girls are different, yadda yadda yadda-- I won't bore you by spewing back some old saws you've heard and said a hundred times yourself. I just feel compelled to begin recording some of the noteworthy quips, statements, threats, and conversations with my 4-year-old daughter M- that definitely have never before come up with my 7-year-old son D-*:

M- (having described in detail, in the manner of a time-share salesperson, a water park/resort that a classmate was going to): ...So... can we go there, too?

Me (having known where she was going the whole time she was going on about it, and not in a mood to humor her): No... I don't think so.

M- (more than a little smugly): Well, when I'm bigger, in college, and I'm on a date with my friend, we will go there. We'll stay there and go on all the rides and have SO much fun. ...When I'm in college and on a DATE, with my friend, together.



* And presumably won't come up with their infant brother, E-.

02 November 2011

Things that amuse me, Vol. 10

Here's another selection of items that have been amusing me since the last time I posted a collection of these:

1. At 7 months old*, my son E- discovered that pulling one's tethered pacifier out and forcibly unclipping it instantly creates a devastatingly effective set of nunchuks with which one can threaten people to meet various demands.

2. It's come to my attention that I've recently been keeping about the same hours as a house cat. Except, without all the naps. I guess that's not really amusing, but instead subtly tragic. Maybe I should go find myself a sunny spot on the floor by a window somewhere... after I finish thoroughly licking myself and then staring alertly out the window for a few hours.

3. My wife's very simple explanation for the baby's sudden crying jag in the other room, "Oh, he just got really excited about the thing in his hand, and he fell over."

4. In case they needed another reason to pity them, basketball coaches for 7-year-olds have so many fewer weapons than those of older kids. The kids are too oblivious to respond to the tried-and-true psychological torments that are the hallmarks of coaching; they don't really much care if they make a shot, so long as they get to take one; and, for example, when sternly warned that continued misbehavior would mean one of my son's teammates would, "have to run to the end of the court and back", all his teammates immediately leaped up, hands in the air, shouting, "I wanna run! I want to run!!!"



* Now outdated, as he's currently 10 months old and thinks pacifiers are SO lame.