Classic quotes, Vol. 31

Here's a selection of some recent quotes from my 4-year-old daughter M-, 7-year-old son D-, and wife J-:

D- (to my mom, after he chose to dump unhealthy amounts of cinnamon on his toast): Your cinnamon is really HOT!

M- (missing the point of a race during Cars 2): Why are they driving so fast??

J- (mindlessly talking aloud to herself, after realizing Father's Day was approaching): Oh, sh*t, that's coming up already...

D- (as my dad tried to point out that he wasn't listening to the requested story he was reading aloud): What??! I can not hear you over the sound of me talking!

M- (shouting at J-, who had quietly advised her to really start sleeping, while she was pretending to sleep): I am, MOM!

J- (suffering through a diet, as M- pulled a pack of Hostess cupcakes off a grocery shelf): Put that down right now! (muttering to herself) Put it down before I buy them...

M- (ending a series of overly dramatic comments about a forklift she was hearing at Costco): Watch out, that fork lifter's going to fork us up!!

Awkward moments, Vol. 1

As an antidote to all those ubiquitous Precious Moments things, here are a few of the most Awkward Moments my children have seen fit to drag me into, just in the past week and a half.

Please note that while I include the word "loudly" in all three entries, I'm sure you know I had no need to mention it even once.

1. While enduring an excessively long checkout process at the store, my 2-year-old daughter M- loudly pointed out that supermodel Giselle Bunchen, posing effectively in the nude on the cover of this month's Vanity Fair, had no shirt on, before speculating that "the lady [was] going to take a shower, probably," and then following up in graphic detail with all the steps she would be taking next.

2. Walking by a woman carrying her child with a beautiful (and probably very expensive) head of cornrows, M- and her 5-year-old brother D- said hi, each referring to the child as a different sex (due to this apparently unfamiliar hairstyle and ambiguous clothing colors), and then they began loudly debating whether it was a boy or a girl, including the heretofore uncharted territory of a "boy-girl".*

3. Just days before the normally large Immigration Rally here in Chicago, and in the midst of all this swine flu nonsense, a Hispanic busboy** began clearing our table while we were gathering up our supplies to leave a local pizza pub, and the kids coincidentally decided to start very loudly chanting the refrain from one of their recent favorite books (Gotta Go by Sam Swope): "Gotta go to Mexico!!"

Luckily for us, neither of them were frowning or pointing at the time they issued this grammatically ambiguous statement/command.

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* For the record, I had been 99% sure it was a girl until I heard these two arguing. I don't feel too badly about this uncertainty, given the number of times D- was misidentified as a girl in his first 2 years of life, and the handful of times M- was as a boy, but if anyone ever thought either was a boy-girl/girl-boy, they had the decency to keep it to themselves.

** Seems a demeaning job title, considering that the guy is at least 40. But "Busman" just sounds like a really, really low-budget superhero. Like Batman if he wasn't a billionaire. Guy's gotta get around somehow, right?

A conversation with my kids: Just can't let that slide

After loading the trunk with groceries one day last week, I was pleased to walk into the following exchange when I got back in the car with my kids:

M-: You are handsome!

Me: Thank you, ba...

M- & D-: No! No!...

M-: Not you, Daddy, D-!!

D-: Yeah, Dad, she was talking to me.

Me: ... Okay, thanks.

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For more ridiculousness, check out my (4YO son) D- conversations, (2YO daughter) M- conversations, and (wife) J- conversations.

The finest in casual dining

A couple of days ago, the kids and I took a jaunt down to the massive outdoor mall* near our house, which meant that we got to bite into a juicy cross section of what passes for Americana these days.

Among the stores we passed was a Chili's**, which caught D-'s eye immediately. He said, "Hey look, there's that 'rons-traunt' we went to that time." I acknowledged this and praised him as usual for his good memory, since it was quite awhile ago. He stared at the window as we (happily) passed it by, and his brain began to slowly warp itself before he continued with a second thought. I was all over it two words in-- I don't know why I'm so tuned into his brain patterns most of the time, but I just knew exactly what he was thinking.

D-: Remember we went there that time 'cause Momma's friend works there, and she...

Me: Nope, that was a different place.

D-: No! It was that place right there! We went there and Momma's friend...

Me: You're right that it's the same kind of place, but it's a different restaurant, from a different company.

D-: No it was that place! We went there that time and Momma's friend gave us cookies and they sang Happy Birthday to you!

Me: I promise you, that was a Bennigan's. This is a Chili's. They're pretty much exactly the same restaurant, with the same kind of food, but they have slightly different decorations on the walls. They're from two different companies, and they have two different names, but I can see how you could get confused.

He walked on in silence, since my Imperious Kung Fu is much stronger for the time being, but it was clear from his posture that he still believed he was right, just like I would. As I caught him gazing innocently off in the direction of the Outback Steakhouse, rather than go through this all over again, I immediately veered off the sidewalk to instead cut through the parking lot in the general direction of a big box store whose name willfully escapes me.

Who says America doesn't have any culture?

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* Not to be confused with the other massive outdoor mall also in our town but another mile farther away in a different direction.

** I had to quickly double-check that it wasn't actually an Applebee's, Ruby Tuesday, Chotchkee's, Flingers, Fuddruckers, Uncle Moe's Family Feedbag, TGI Friday's, or one of the others.

Caution: Men Not Working

In case you were looking for more signs that we're surrounded by people who are dangerously lazy, and that we are definitely ruled by people who want us all to be so, here's a nice little tidbit for you:

Recently, while helping J- to relieve one of several local office-supply stores of the remainder of their loss leading pencils and notebooks, I saw a big display for a "Reduced Effort Stapler", which promised* to save me "70% of the effort required by traditional staplers."

Using a specific figure like this of course relies on the illusion, if not the actual fact, that they performed some kind of clinical research into this pressing problem. This is almost enough to stun me into silence, which you must have already realized is quite an impressive feat.

How they even managed to break down the effort needed to staple a couple pieces of paper together in the first place exceeds my imagination-- they've got to be coming as close to dividing by zero as anyone ever has. The undernourished math nerd in me, suddenly remembering the word asymptote way too late for my freshman year midterm, is eager to see the graphs* produced by this crack team throughout what must have been an incredibly arduous R&D process.

It was probably almost as complex as the epic gauntlet that was the gestation of that pinnacle of American ingenuity, electric scissors.**

Please come save us from ourselves, Jebus!


* They might have come out something like these classic graphs from xkcd.***

** Already ridiculed beautifully by David Cross.

*** Now that I've found another reason to link to this hilariously perfect and wonderful comic, I'll also point out this one that seems to have been made for J- and I as much as this one was.

May I have your attention, please?

Or, How do I let them know that because of the unfreezing process, I have no inner monologue?*

Just to forewarn those of you who haven't spent much time with children, you definitely need to be aware before you do so that anything you do or say can and will be used against you in the form of a public announcement.

To illustrate this with an inconsequential anecdote, yesterday evening J- and I were dividing and conquering at the store, and when we saw each other again we walked parallel for a few aisles until we got to a clear one we could meet in, which happened to be the "Wine and Spirits" aisle. I made some little joke about how J- must be there shopping from her own personal list for a perfect Mother's Day, and then D- all but shouted to us, two feet away, "What's ALcoHOL??"

Before I could even address this complicated question (for at least the fifth time so far), M- seconded him by shouting at the top of her lungs, which would be unbelievably powerful for a person thrice her size, "ALCOHOL!!!"

I have easily five thousand more examples, many of situations that were actually awkward, unlike this one, and that's factoring in that my kids are both pretty good in this respect, compared to other ones I've heard and J-'s reports from the various schools she's worked in. Little kids will ask, or repeat, absolutely anything that's on their mind, at any time, regardless of who can hear them. Volume control is developed pretty late in childhood.

I've tried to express to D- why it's not nice to talk about people when they are in your presence, even if you're saying something nice or (the best you can usually hope for) innocuous, but I haven't had too much luck so far, based on his behavior just this morning while the landlord and some "worker guys" were here fixing our windows. Beyond the nice and innocuous things, it seems pretty self-explanatory why you shouldn't ask or say something rude about somebody when they can hear you, but D- taught us long ago that the understanding of "rudeness" is developed some time after volume control.

Let me give you a quick rundown:
• "Why does that man have no hair?"
• "How come that lady's skin is all... crinkly??"
• (in a public bathroom) "What was that sound?"
• (re: more than one landlord) "Why is him in our house?"
• (re: our current landlord) "Why does him have no socks on?"
• (re: our former landlord, a Northern Maine potato farmer) "Why does him have dirt all over him?" and "Why doesn't he take his shoes off?"
• "I smell something baaaad."

And of course there's the ever-popular, "I don't like him."

Given time, I'm sure I'll remember at least a few dozen more quotes I've thus far almost completely repressed. How about you? Have you all got any good ones?


* A great quote from the original Austin Powers.

And so, as foretold in the prophecy, it begins

I'm familiar with women and their stereotypical quirks, as well as their less-recognized ones, such as a seemingly essential aversion to reporting potential car problems in an accurate and timely manner (no, J-, I'm not only talking about you, and I know you are getting way better... phew!). I've often wondered how many of these are legitimate and how many have just been willed into existence. I think as with most things, some basic tendencies may always be present inborn in a person, through genetics as well as sex, but one's environment steps in to help manifest some traits while suppressing others.

I've been waiting patiently to put this idea to the test with M-, but even before I thought we were getting started, some spontaneous early results have come my way in one important arena. Even with M- just a few months past a year old, it seems fate may have already doomed us to a lifetime of shoe shopping.


After she got bored with her perfect little white and pink sneakers (pictured on the left) last month, she decided to walk off with the left shoe at my parents' house, and it is absolutely nowhere to be found (even after we bought her new shoes, which means it must really be lost for good). The most plausible explanation we've come up with is that she snuck it into one of the bags of garbage during the cleaning for my brother's fiancee's wedding shower a month ago.

Anyway, she went through a couple weeks of wearing nothing but her hilariously cute knee-high fashion boots (see picture above), which were a gift from J-'s parents when we visited Maine, no matter what the outfit. Of course, I had to call upon my very meager fashion sense each day to try to keep her from being too oddly mismatched. However, it soon became clear that this situation was not sustainable, so I went hunting for the box with D-'s old shoes, and I had some success in finding a pair of size 5 navy blue and white sneakers.

Unfortunately, when combined with a few other hand-me-downs M- sometimes wears (jeans, khakis, her warmer spring jacket, etc.), these shoes often left her looking just like a boy, and while there's nothing inherently wrong with this, it annoyed J- enough that we knew something had to give. I don't blame her for this, because it does create some awkward situations, and I know how it would bother me the other way around. I know this specifically because D- has always been a very pretty boy, and even when we dressed him as boyishly as possible, some people would still refer to him as a girl, and give us a look that said, "Why would you dress a girl that way?!?"

So, after holding out a little longer in our vain attempt to locate her missing shoe, we gave up and headed to the store last week. At least it was close to time for her to move up a size, so it wasn't a total loss.

She was like a pet goldfish set loose in a lake, running down the aisles calling out, "Shoe! Shoe!", then grabbing some off the shelf and walking them over to us while saying, "On. On," before standing in front of one of us and expectantly sticking out her foot. Through this arduous but amusing process, we found a nice pair (pictured above on the right) that are easy to put on and should go with most things. Now she's even taken to crying whenever we are mean enough to take off her shoes.

To further her nose-thumbing at the progress made by the great feminists before her, M- has also recently taken to calling out "mo-nee! mo-neee!!" at seemingly random intervals while walking around the house. Whether this money is being requested for shoe purchases or chocolate, no one can yet be certain.

Luck favors the prepared parent

You wanna know a great way to torture a suddenly hungry baby? Take her down the baby food aisle at the store and try to explain why you can't just sit down on the floor, manufacture a spoon, and begin feeding her each of the jars she has pointed at (while loudly saying "Num-nummmm!!" and signing for "more").

While you're at it, rush her past rows and rows of various bottled drinks and describe to her (over her protests) what a water fountain is and why it'll have to do at the moment.

Go ahead and try it-- it's a blast!

(Before you think we're complete idiots, we weren't totally empty-handed, M- just quickly exhausted our meager supplies today.)

Playing dumb: A conversation with D-

This is the first in our high-minded series of conversations with D-, my three-year-old son.

I'm not new to this strategy, but let's see if you can pick it up:

As we entered a store today, D- saw some random toy displays, and innocently asked "Why do they have all these toys out here?"

Can you see where he's headed with this soft sell?

Me: "They're out for people who want to buy them."

D-: "I want to buy them..."

Me: "I don't think you have enough money to buy them."

D-: "But you have enough money to buy them..."

Me: "Yes, but I don't want to buy them."

D-: "But I want them..."

Me: "Even I don't have enough money to buy all the things you say you want. If I bought all the things you point out and say you want, we wouldn't have any money left over for food or other things we actually need."

D-: "Oh, okay."

And so it ended as simply as it began. He didn't even call my attention to any specific toy, just the whole brightly-colored area right as you walk in (clever bastards).

I think he may have a toy addiction. I wonder what the methadone would be for toy addicts... "educational" toys? Just like the real thing, only lamer.