It's Wild Here

overheard

Hey, we're calling my popsicle "fire," and we're calling Ryan's chocolate ice cream "poop," and when we put ice cream on the popsicle, we call it "fire poop."  

fortunately for them, I'm not hard to convince

why is it so cold outside?

Isn't it supposed to be warm outside, when there are sweet things like this inside?

Also, I know this belongs in the last  post, but an alphabet song from  Ryan:
"H I J K ello mello Peeeee."

it's almost time

Soon I'll be able to post more of the "what is my toddler saying?" game as we did with Ryan. For today, though, a cute thing.  R used to call Jeremiah "mymah."  K calls him "mah-mee."  Yep that's right - he calls him Mommy. Emphatically, all day. JJ is not impressed with this.

Evan reporting from the potty

Evan escorted R to the potty last night, and after the regular routine of flushing, saying "bye bye pee," etc etc, he reportedly walked out of the bathroom, and muttered experimentally under his breath... "stupid ass pee."

If potty mouth belongs anywhere, I guess he chose the right room.

Something funny I just remembered

When we were being clever or whatever, my dad would call us "wisenheimer" - that totally cracks me up.  Somehow it goes well with one of his other favorites:

Straighten up and fly right!

God's home movies

This morning, I asked Ryan to clean up the scrambled eggs that fell on his chair.  Evan suggested that he do so by licking it like a dog.  ("It's more fun that way!") This led to a discussion of whether fart molecules can penetrate wood.

Sometimes, I think God must pop in an old tape of 13-year-old Amy, daydreaming about her future adult life which probably varied, but never ever (ever) involved 4 boys and a toilet-humor-loving spouse.  And then God laughs and laughs, like he's watching Frasier.

overheard this morning on the phone

...with a mom who will remain nameless:

Mom: OK OK OK, I am driving as fast as I can, I know you're hungry
Child: general whining and chanting about being hungry
Mom: I'm going as fast as I can, but guess what? Every time you whine. I go a little... bit... slower.

what a weekend!

Saturday evening, we had a chilling grilling potlucking party in the back yard. The preparations were going along nicely that day until the boys spotted this on our driveway:

Yep, those are three of the cutest baby raccoons you ever saw - sitting in my daisies.

They decided to stay for the party, so they waddled around back, through the gate, and eventually into the neighbors' yard - the ones with dogs.

The boys gathered them up (wore gloves) and we put them in a dog crate with some water. They must have been near dehydration, the way they drank. After the party, we let them out, far from the road, and with some food concoction recommended by a wildlife person (one of many with whom I spoke on the phone, none of whom were willing to take these critters and keep them safe until adulthood).

The party was fun! Soccer was played, food was eaten, sweets were consumed in abundance, rain fell (but only for a short while).

Next day, we ran errands and had a delicious dinner with the grandparents and others, and on Monday we went to Cincinnati.  We celebrated Grandpa's and Isaac's birthdays, and attended the parade, where we saw a lot of this kind of thing:

also, bagpipes.  Kellen, not so impressed with the volume:

Gigi loves a parade, particularly a marching band.

Yes, that is Jeremiah, hiding from the clown. He was not the only one hiding.

Ryan was very, very happy to be at the parade. He hollered "HIIIIII" at everyone, gathered candy, enjoyed his little flag.  At one point, he left his Dad's side, walked past me, and headed toward the family that was down the sidewalk from us. I asked after him, where are you going? He said,  I just have to talk to them.  ???  I watched from a distance as he chatted, and then handed his flag to one of the men. Awww, I thought.  Then he very casually lifted the *much bigger* flag from the grass at that man's feet, and started backing away.

Kindly, the man allowed him to borrow it for the parade, and he took it back over a while later. It was so funny, looking back at it, how that flag must have just caught his eye. And you know he wasn't about to tell us what he was up to, because we would not have gone for it.

"Oh yea, you know I'm ready, toss that candy right. in. here."

Ryan's babies

I overheard Ryan in the living room saying things like "I'll take care of you, my little babies," and so forth. So, I went in to find him on the sofa, gently cradling four AA batteries in his lap.

Me: Those are your babies?
R: Yep.
pause
R: And I'm the big battery.

You got that right, kid.