Archive for the 'Funny' Category
September 2, 2009 @ 12:36 pm | Filed under: Fun Educational Stuff, Funny, General Homeschooling
I shared this story in the comments on Sarah’s lovely blog…it’s so funny I can’t resist telling it here too. Several years ago, when we lived in Virginia and my oldest child was about 8 or 9, I took the kids to a living history museum (the ten-awesome Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton, VA, which you do NOT want to miss if you’re in the area). That was the first of many happy visits, and a glorious spring day it was: new lambs for the holding, amiable cottage cat jumping into our stroller, Jemima Puddleduck and friends pit-pat-paddle-patting their way along the dirt paths. My three oldest girls were in heaven. The costumed interpreters were extremely nice, allowing the girls to try a spinning wheel (I was writing Charlotte and Martha in those days, and all we had at home was a drop spindle, so the wheel was a grand treat for my little home-based critique group) and answering their zillions of questions.
As we left one of the houses—I think it was the Irish cottage, which thrilled us all with its thatched roof and smoky fire, just like the huts in the Martha books—the interpreter murmured an aside to me as the girls skipped down the path.
“Are they homeschooled?” she asked with a friendly smile.
“Yes!” I replied, delighted, basking in the thought that their eager, intelligent conversation had given them away.
“I thought so,” replied the interpreter. “I could tell from the bonnets.”
Um.
This was the year my girls wore their Little House bonnets everywhere—their own doing, I swear! By then I was so used to seeing them that I hardly even noticed them anymore.
Yeah, I guess that would be kind of a giveaway.
September 17, 2007 @ 12:52 pm | Filed under: Funny
Rilla is playing with the toy phone. Wonderboy wants it.
WB: I have pone?
Rilla: Nuh.
WB: Gib pone!
Rilla: Nuh. NUH!!
WB (offers remote control in exchange): You hab?
Rilla: Nuh.
A brief silence. Wonderboy is deflated. Then, for no visible reason, Rilla holds out the phone to her brother.
Mom, coaching Wonderboy: That was so nice! She gave you the phone. What do you say?
Wonderboy: Dat MY pone.
February 15, 2007 @ 7:56 am | Filed under: Funny
"Honey, do we have an iron?"
February 1, 2007 @ 7:16 am | Filed under: Funny
Okay, I stand really, REALLY corrected. Have you been following the comments about dryer lint? Turns out this stuff is gold! Besides clay, you can turn it into paper, firestarters, stuffing, a source of income, and even art. (I love the little lint angels.)
My poor deprived children. No wonder they had to fight over it! Ha.
I also greatly enjoyed your stories about stupid kid fights that have taken place under your roof. The brothers fighting over who got to wear the garbage can on his head is a classic!
Anyone else got a Kids Fight Over the Most Ridiculous Things story? Send ‘em my way!
October 24, 2006 @ 11:16 pm | Filed under: Funny
Today’s unpacking marathon revealed treasure in the middle of one box: the small plastic shark and orca that Beanie and Rose love as dearly as if they were made of a precious material like, say, chocolate.
Of course this meant they had to take a bath RIGHT AWAY OH PLEEEEASE MOMMY. Since we’d spent an hour in the middle of the afternoon at a local park, where there was actual SAND on the ground instead of that spongy recycled tire product used on our favorite playground in Virginia, I enthusiastically supported the bath idea.
So there I was washing grit out of Beanie’s curls while her shark made shark-like lunges at Rose’s orca. Beanie was singing, and it took me a minute to realize I was hearing one of Scott’s favorite Beatles melodies.
"What did you just sing?" I asked Bean.
"It wasn’t me," she said. "It was my shark."
"Oh. Right. Could he sing it again?"
"He’d be delighted to!" When you’re Beanie, even sharks are obliging. She lunged him at the orca again, singing louder.
"I wanna hold your fi-i-iiin, I wanna hold your fin!"
August 16, 2006 @ 7:22 am | Filed under: Family, Funny
Last Saturday night: The girls wanted to watch the meteor shower. Sure, why not? I agreed to set the alarm for 2 a.m., which was when the viewing was supposed to be best.
We woke up the next morning at 6. What happened??, they wanted to know.
Me: "I have no idea. You SAW me set the alarm. I’m so sorry, girls, I must have done something wrong."
Such as (it turns out): Set the alarm for 2 a.m. WEDNESDAY. As in last night. This morning. Whatever. Don’t ask me how I managed that. My brain can’t formulate a response on this little sleep.
UPDATE: Bummer. According to Chris at Notes from the Trenches, we missed something priceless.
June 16, 2006 @ 2:08 pm | Filed under: Funny
“I did NOT hit you! I threw something at you and IT hit you!”
June 14, 2006 @ 8:39 am | Filed under: Family, Funny
And here I thought I was just being efficient. I decided to get a jump on dinner so I mixed up a marinade for the chicken. Now I’m listening to an intense and fear-tinged conversation:
Rose: “But we didn’t have lunch!”
Beanie: “I know that.”
Rose: “But Mommy’s making dinner! That means we missed lunch!”
Beanie (gasps): “What???”
June 2, 2006 @ 11:33 am | Filed under: Family, Funny
Beanie’s hair is like an eighth member of the family. (Oh my goodness. We are a family of seven now. I am still getting used to saying that.) This time of year, it embraces the humidity and exhibits more personality than ever. In certain weather, the child looks ready for a Welcome Back Kotter reunion. It is glorious hair, the kind you can’t keep your hands off, the kind no passing stranger can resist commenting about.
Today we were headed home from the pool, depressingly dry. Thunder and lightning had commenced just as the kids kicked off their flip-flops, and the life guard somberly shook her head. We turned to trudge home, the rising wind whipping Beanie’s curls into a frenzy.
Our friend Lisa met us in the parking lot. “Hey, Fuzzhead,” she greeted Beanie affectionately.
Beanie (who seldom glowers) glowered. “I don’t like being called Fuzzhead,” she said quietly.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” said Lisa. “What do you like to be called?”
Beanie pondered. Her eyes brightened and she nodded with satisfaction.
“Monkey!”
Well, of course. Monkey is ever so much more dignified than Fuzzhead.
May 29, 2006 @ 11:38 am | Filed under: Family, Funny
Our neighborhood pool opened on Saturday. So far we’ve clocked a good seven hours there, and that’s not even counting today; we aren’t going until Wonderboy gets up from his nap. We really shouldn’t be going at all until we make tomorrow’s planned excursion into town for new swimsuits: my kids have been a pretty ragtag bunch at poolside this weekend. Jane’s suit is too small, and the other two girls wore out their suits through almost-daily use last winter. And I don’t mean at a pool: I mean right here at home. I don’t know what it is about a swimsuit that gets my kids so excited, but all winter Beanie and Rose kept wanting to get into their suits and “go swimming” on my bed. Maybe they were inspired by my blue comforter.
They’d swim for hours, burrowing under the sheets and calling it diving. They fished for the stray socks that always seem to accumulate at the foot of my bed. (This drives my husband nuts—the accumulation of socks, that is, not the girls fishing for them. What can I say? I go to bed with cold feet. Sometime in the night they must warm up and I guess I kick them off. Whenever I change the sheets, socks go flying everywhere. Or they did, until the swimming game started.)
My pillows are the diving board, and this has not been great for the pillows nor the bedsprings. But there’s no denying it’s great for the kids. They’re in their own blue heaven, two little Esther Williams minus the bathing caps. You can almost hear the soundtrack of cheerfully splashy music behind them. They float, they thrash, they chat with fish. They dance with mermaids and they shriek at sharks. They adorn themselves in seaweed (more socks) and take rides on passing whales.
The last time it rained, they spent the whole afternoon this way. Later, after dinner, I called them in to take a bath. Their faces fell.
“Do we HAVE to?” wailed Beanie. “Baths are boring. There’s nothing to do!”
I guess the sharks only live in the bedroom.
