Archive for the ‘These People Crack Me Up’ Category
Here’s my boy, hanging out having a snack with his good buddy, Mr. Potato Head.
I wondered why one of Potato Head’s ears was lying on the couch with a spare screw-cover (left over from the construction of a toy shopping cart) stuck on the end. Wonderboy informed me that it isn’t an ear—it’s a hearing aid. And it needed a new battery, of course. Evidently he went rummaging around in the drawer where we keep his own hearing aid batteries and found the little orange screw-cover.
Oh, I could just eat him up every minute of the day.
I’m pulling out of the Trader Joe’s parking lot when Rose asks what happened to our shopping cart. “I didn’t see you put it away,” she says.
“I didn’t have to! A nice man was heading into the store, and he took it for me. Wasn’t that kind of him?”
Rose ponders a moment. “Maaaybe,” she says skeptically. “Or maybe he just wanted a way to get your fingerprints.”
This one I Twittered yesterday, but in case you missed it: “Mom, is this correct? For men we say ‘fat,’ for women we say ‘overweight’?”
And this one was uttered casually during dinner cleanup by that same dainty daughter: “Mom, do you know what I like best about girl superheroes in comic books? The fighting. Because I’ve always wished I could just punch someone in the nose too.”
Rilla: “No! I baby!!”
Wonderboy: “No, you ’weetheart.”
Rilla: “NO I NOT! I not fweetheart! I BABY!”
(Um, Rilla honey, I hate to break it to you, but…)
Beanie has a suggestion for what we should name the baby: Peccatoribus.
Me: “Um. Isn’t that Latin for ‘sinners’?”
Bean: “Yup. But it’s got a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”
***
This reminds me of three-year-old Jane’s first choice for Rose’s name, some ten years ago:
“Bloomingdales Abednego Peterson.”
(We lived in New York City at the time, remember.)
We went with her second choice instead. You’re welcome, Rose.
Beanie’s first words to me this morning:
“Mom, a fact just blundered into my mind.”
Scott’s on the patio, and I hear him sputter.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“Oh, it’s just…your children,” he says.
My children. This oughta be good.
“What is it?” I ask, bracing myself.
“I don’t want to tell you,” he says, “because I screwed up.”
This is getting better and better.
“How?” I ask.
“Um. You know how you asked me to fix the spray-nozzle thingie on the hose?”
Oh, sure I remember that. I couldn’t get it screwed on right, and water kept squirting out at the connection and getting Jane or me all wet whenever we tried to water the plants. At last, in exasperation, I took the darn thing off and we’ve been watering with a thumb over the end of the hose, which isn’t much better. I am confident my hero hubby can screw the dang thing on properly so there’s no annoying squirtage.
Which is why I asked him to do it. [Date of request to be kept confidential so as not to incriminate my fabulous husband.]
So, yeah, I remember how I asked him to fix the spray-nozzle thingie on the hose.
“Why?” I ask him now, extremely curious to find out where this is going.
“Well. Um.”
“Yes?”
“It’s on the roof.”
It’s my evening work time again, and I’m holed up in my bedroom reading Top Chef recaps on Television Without Pity doing seriously hard work. Scott IMs me, as he does about fifty times a night during my work time. If he doesn’t, I have to IM him because, come on, this two hours of separation is agony when you’re in lurve. Which we are, if you hadn’t noticed. Also, it beats working.
Here is the message I just received from him and which I must record for posterity. To fully understand it, you must know that Rilla is two and has just begun using very precise complete sentences. She has made a sudden and irresistible leap into conversation. Certain people around here are helpless in the face of this confident and adorable articulation of opinion.
So Rilla walks into the sunroom.
I say, “Hi, sweetheart.”
“Hi, Dad.”
She’s holding a panda under each arm and starts for the sliding doors to the patio.
I say, “Hey, hold on, honey. I don’t think those can go outside.”
She turns around and just stares at me for three seconds. Then says,
“Why not?”
They’re outside with her now.
Sucker.
At the breakfast table, Beanie heaves a wistful sigh.
“Rats. I’ve dreamed of having a whole box of cereal all to myself, and I thought it was going to come true at last because no one else likes this kind. But then I remembered the baby does.”
