A conversation between M- & D-: Just after eleventeen

As I mentioned recently, my four-year-old son D- has a beloved Corduroy bear who's seen more than most bears his age ever will or want to.

His nearly four-year relationship with Corduroy is slowly becoming something of an obsession for his almost-two-year-old sister M-, who seems to have taken the concept of hand-me-downs to the extreme of now excitedly waiting to consume her brother's entire existence as she grows up.

Case in point, this conversation that took place in the hallway last week while I was in the shower:

M- (pleasantly, with her hands out): I can have Corduroy.

D- (graciously, as he often is): No, not right now, sweetie.

M-: Yeah, when I'm BIG-GER.

D-: ...No, he'll always be mine, even when you're bigger, but you've got a bear, too, remember?

M-: No-- I can have Corduroy when I'm BIGger.

D- (remixing lines he's been fed before): No, M-, you can't have him when you're bigger, cause even though I'll be bigger, too, he'll still be my friend. But you can hold him sometimes, still.

M- (with an audible blank stare): ...And I can have Corduroy when I'm bigger, when I'm fifty-bigger!

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For more such posts, check out the other (4 YO son) D- conversations, (1YO daughter) M- conversations, and (wife) J- conversations.

A conversation between M- & D-: Let's not get carried away

The following is a conversation that took place recently when my 1-year-old daughter M- met my 4-year-old son D- in our kitchen while holding a sock monkey (made by my sister) in one hand and D-'s much-loved Corduroy bear in the other.

M- (proudly holding out both animals to D-): I have a bear!

D- (in a well-practiced patronizing voice, somehow even higher than usual): Yeeeaaahhh, I let you hold Corduroy for awhile.

M-: He has pants!!

D-: ...Yeah, Corduroy does. The monkey doesn't, though, because he's just a monkey, and that would be silly.

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For more childish nonsense, check out the other D- conversations and M- conversations, as well as a select few J- conversations.

Household occurrences likely to revisit me in nightmares

Here are several events at our house, most from this morning alone, that I believe I'll be seeing replayed in some form in the coming nights whenever I manage some sleep:

1. M- firmly poking the bottom of an open box of cereal on the table and me lunging forward to catch it just before it turned upside down. I haven't always been so lucky. (In my nightmares, I'm sure the box will always be just out of my reach.)

2. D- standing on the rug between the dining room and kitchen saying, "I'm having an accident!"

3. M- streaking through the dining room with a Spider-Man fork stolen from the dishwasher.

4. M- climbing all over me like a boa constrictor, onto and off of the chair, moaning, "No, no, no, noooooo!" over and over again for no apparent reason other than sniffles and crankiness (it was before 8).

5. D- holding a ball and taking aim at my happy place while I demonstrate how to stand upon the parallel bars at the park. (Luckily it was only a Nerf ball so it didn't hurt, but still I saw the look in his eye-- it was a vicious one expectant of painful hilarity.)

6. M- taunting D- by walking across the family room with his Corduroy bear and, instead of giving it back as originally ordered, slapping him twice across the face with it (like Monty Python's Fish Slapping Dance) and running back away.

7. Driving off a giant mushroom and falling into a bottomless pit, like I did a couple times last night in MarioKart Wii. (In my nightmares, I'm sure the magic man on the cloud will never come to save me.)

8. M- splashing her hands in the toilet saying, "Pee-pee, pee-PEEEE!" (we've gotten thisclose to it several times now), before bidding it bye-bye while waving as she has been doing for the past few weeks.

9. Closing a fresh, clean diaper, standing up and turning around, and then detecting a dreadful hint of baby byproducts. Yes, M- tends to be picky where she defecates, but then so do some adults.

10. A massacre by a rampaging spoon-spork hybrid. Okay, I only read about it, but I have a very impressionable brain, and things like that tend to stick. At least it's better than a velociraptor attack.

Things that should revisit me in my dreams:

1. M- comforting a crying D- by saying, "eye-ing", offering a kiss and hug, and then sitting down to let him read her the book (Good Night, Maine) they had been fighting over earlier.