Here's another selection of items that have been amusing me since the last time I posted a collection of these:
1. Within moments of telling us, with great emphasis, that the baby's head circumference is in the 97% percentile, my son E-'s doctor casually asked, while further inspecting him, if we thought he most resembles me.
2. I find the prompts alongside pages at Dictionary.com asking, "How many words do you actually know?" kind of insulting, or at least condescending. I don't need these kinds of belittling challenges-- I'll take my lucrative ad-ignoring eyeballs elsewhere, like a real book, maybe. THOSE don't judge me. Usually.
3. The kids are getting too smart... after my wife J- had a "candy for dinner" night while I was out of town last summer, they all declared it a success and she told them we could do it once a year. Five months later, a mere four days into January, my 7-year-old son D- said, out of the blue, "Hey, since it's a new year now....... can we have candy for dinner again tomorrow night?!?"
4. The other day, my now-5-year-old daughter M- pretty much hit the nail on the head in disgustedly describing a clown as, "Some weird guy... with a big red nose, and a really white face..."
31 January 2012
Things that amuse me, Vol. 11
23 January 2012
Classic quotes, Vol. 34
Here's a selection of quotes from the past few months, from my 4-year-old daughter M-, my 7-year-old son D-, and my infant son E-:
M- (excitedly, pointing to a Bud Light truck parked near us at the gas station): Daddy, I see the waaater botttttle truuuuuuck!
D- (drawled slyly, while doing his homework, as if idly asking about the weather, or some other not-remotely-related topic): Hey Dad, what's forrrrrrty-three plus thirty-six?
M- (using her Important Announcement voice at the dinner table): This hot dog BUN is too hot! (asked if she's sure) ...No... the thing that's inside it. (asked, "You mean the hot dog??") Yeah, the hot dog.
E- (whenever he deliberately pushes or drops things off his high chair, with the detached tone of an innocent bystander): Uh-oh.
M- (very matter-of-factly, about a song she made up): It's a very long song... I can't sing all the words in ONE day...
Me (after our shared laughter at my wife apparently stopped by quite so funny): No, no, I'm not being mean-- I'm laughing WITH you, as we both laugh at you!
M- (very excited, and distinctly unfazed, regarding the corpse of an unfortunate mouse, victim of our cats): We should save it, and when it turns to bones, I can study them! Because when I grow up, I want to be a vegetarian, and help animals!!
17 January 2012
Internet blackout
By way of issuing the latest "Happy New Year" on record, I'm gonna opportunistically hop on a rolling train that I will simultaneously claim to have pushed out of the station myself.
That's right-- I am the sole pioneer of the Internet Blackout of Wednesday, January 18. I'm so far ahead of everyone else on this, I've already been holding strong for 17 days!
So go ahead, all you late-coming, fair-weather bandwagoners-- I've been keeping the seats nice and warm for you*, grab whichever one you like! ...Except for that one, that one's for my feet.
Here's to registering our support for defeating all freedom-destroying laws (SOPA) and decisions (Citizens United)!
* Don't ask how.
29 December 2011
A conversation between M- and D-: He's got a soft spot for them
Now that my son E- is officially 1 year old, hopefully he's sturdy enough to not require conversations like the following to take place between his 7-year-old brother D- and his 4-year-old sister M-, with D- giving his best approximation of my explanation of the fontanel:
D-: No! Don't touch his head! Remember there's a part on top where he has no head bone, and if you touch it, you're touching his BRAIN, and then he'll be crazy forever?!
M-: Crazy?
D-: Yeah, you know, like....
M-: Like he says, "Uhhh, spaghetti is macaroni, ummmmm..."?
D-: Yeah, just crazy; like his brain doesn't work right. So just don't touch his head.
You may enjoy my previous M- conversations, D- conversations, and (wife) J- conversations.
22 December 2011
A conversation with M-: Away in a manger full of presents
Here's a revealing conversation I had with my 4-year-old daughter M-, when I absentmindedly vented my brain of the potentially hazardous buildup of Christmas songs stuck in it:
Me: "I don't want a lot for Christmas / ..."
M- (interrupting with an important point, while gesturing slightly to herself): I do.
Me: Oh you do, do you??
M-: Yes. Do YOU want a lot for Christmas?
Me (really overselling my angelic virtue): No. I just want everybody to be happy.
M- (brow furrowed in earnest reflection): ... Well, I want a lot for Christmas.
You may enjoy my previous M- conversations, (7YO son) D- conversations, and (wife) J- conversations.
19 December 2011
A conversation with M-: Ready to leave the nest
The following conversation took place when my wife J- was fixing up my 4-year-old daughter M-'s hair one night before bed, as she and M- both complained about how tangled it was:
Me (pointlessly defending myself): We were running late, and I forgot to bring a hairbrush with me this morning, so her hair looked like a rat's nest... I had to just comb through it with my fingers and pull it back into a ponytail.
J- (about to share a story of mild mortification under the firing-squad gaze of Other Mothers of Daughters, after she'd had an "all-ready-to-go" daughter in a tutu packed into the car by her husband): Yeah, I could tell, at dance class...
M- (cutting in, as she realized we were talking about her): Don't call it a rat's nest!
Me (realizing it didn't sound very nice, after she'd uncharacteristically decided to pay attention when adults speak): That just means how it looks-- it wasn't your fault.
M- (not comforted at all): Don't CALL it that.
Me: Would it be better if I called it a (dementedly happy voice) "squirrel's nest!"?
M- (probably more frustrated): Don't call it a nest at ALLLLL!
Note: I made no promises. I calls 'em like I sees 'em.
You may enjoy my previous M- conversations, J- conversations, and (7YO son) D- conversations.
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.
24 October 2011
Corporate intelligence: A new Lowe
Well folks, someone has finally done it. After all these decades... well, centuries, really... a business has found a way to break through all the advertising noise, to make all the overloaded, tuned-out consumers around them sit up and take notice, to come to the table when they're called, without having to bang a drum or shout over the constant dull roar of inferior pitchmen.
You may not, nay, almost certainly have not, yet gotten to see what I am about to reveal to you, as I am one of the elite few privy to the rare, twice-daily, special messages from the ritziest of the insanely enormous home-improvement stores, Lowes, a store in which I can't particularly remember the last time I thought about setting foot.
I, as a presumably-now-part-owner of "MyLowes", was just offered the once-in-a-lifetime chance to... wait for it... Get a SNEAK PEEK at their NEW COMMERCIAL!!!
Hopefully, someday, you too will be so lucky to ascend to the airy heights at which I'm now soaring.
