The Dewy Leavs Oath and Wishful Thinking

subtitle: Stuff my kid wrote #1 and 2

A couple weeks ago I was sifting through pictures and realized that I take a lot of pictures of things that my kids write. I thought I'd begin to share some of them here every so often, even if they're years old. Then I promptly forgot about that plan. But I got a reminder this morning!

I was heading out for a run and Penelope was chalking something down on the sidewalk, which she didn't want me to see. So I honored her request and left without looking. When I came back she was gone (off to a dentist appointment), and since her message was now public-domain graffiti...

I realize that is nearly impossible to read from that picture, so I will translate.

"I Penelope
Durbin
on
December
23 will
get my molers
celed
at 10:00 AM"

And then off to the side, there's:

"Dewy
Leavs"

It looks innocent enough, but I believe this is an elaborate cipher meant for the neighborhood spy network. Clever of her to put it out there in plain view where nobody would suspect a thing...

---

In other semi-timely news, Penelope has been working on a Christmas wish list. It's 17 pages long (yes, seventeen). She got ahold of some random toy catalog that came in the mail and wrote down everything in it. And then when that catalog ended up in the recycle bin, she found a Current catalog, and started copying that.

Down at the bottom of the list - the end of page 17, and the last two items - It looks like she finally ran out of catalog and wrote down what she really wishes for.

Self-Documenting Child

Ben told me the other day that he wanted "a web page" for himself. I thought.. "Hmm.. ok. We can do that." After showing him a few examples of different types of web pages and some discussion about what he wanted to do, we figured out that what he was *really* looking for was a blog. So we set one up for him.

Then, he went to make his first post and things were a little confusing. We had a little more discussion, and came to the understanding that what he *really* wanted was a web page. But he's got a blog, and for now, he's just going to have to live with that.

Anyhow, he made his first post,which is a video of one of the piano songs he's been working on recently.

Knowing the way things go, and the genes he inherited from me, that may be his only post. But who knows, he might put up a few poems about flatulent aliens or something as time marches on.

For now, if you are so inclined, go check it out:

http://bnogsplace.blogspot.com/2015/09/scotch-poem.html

P.S. He doesn't have access to Facebook, and if I do my job right, he probably won't until he's in his mid-30's. If you want to send him comments that he can read, please do so right there on his post.

Dinner Jeopardy

So Ben gets the idea that we should play Jeopardy at dinner tonight. Not that he has ever seen the show (we'll correct that soon), but he read about it in some book somewhere.

Anyway, jumping into the conversation right in the middle, after we had to question 6,076 feet (what is a nautical mile?)...


Ben: Ok.  The answer is: two thousand two hundred and forty pounds.

Mommy: What is a ton?!

Ben: No.

Daddy: What is a metric ton?!

Ben: No.

Daddy: Oh! What is a nautical ton?!

Ben: No.

Penelope: What does the fox say?!


Kids are awesome.

...Finally!

Penelope has been waiting for this day with eager anticipation for over half a year. First, she imagined that she had a wiggly tooth. Then it really started to wiggle (perhaps because she was pressing the matter). Then a couple months ago, a replacement tooth showed up, lurking in the shadows and waiting. Still, the tooth wiggled. And then on Friday night, it finally came out!

It is hard to describe how excited she was. She does get excited about a lot of things, but this was a whole new level of giddy (even with the profuse bleeding). I'll let her tell you all about it, in the note she wrote immediately after dinner (hover for text if needed):

So far, no signs of any new wiggly teeth, so it might be a while before the next one.

Typical Father-Son Waiting-in-the-Parking-Lot Conversation

Son (rattling off one Pokemon name after another for some reason unknown to Father): "...Horsea, Seadra, Goldeen, Seaking, Staryu, Starmie,"

Father (singing, poorly and out of tune): "Star you, Star me. Star it for always... That's the way it should be."

Son: "Dad!"

Father: "Star you, Star me. Star it together..."

Son: "Dad, Stop!"

Father: "... naturally."

...Pause...

Son: "...Mr. Mime, Scyther,"

Father (louder than before): "I had a dream, I had an awesome dreeeeaaheeeahheeeem! People in the park..."

Son: "DAD!!!"

...Longer pause...

Son (prefaced with a heavy sigh): "Jynx... Electabuzz... Magmar..."

So, about that dog

Family at the dinner table, some of them eating their dinner, and others... not:

Ben: "If we had a dog, it would be so happy, because Penelope would be feeding it pork chops under the table."

Mommy: "Hmmm.. if we had a dog, it would be morbidly obese from eating all the crumbs under the table."

Ben: "Haha! Yeah!......Wait!"

-Silence-

-One beat-

-Silence-

-Two beats-

Ben: "Was that a shot?"

Sign of the Times

Ben: "What's Tetris?"

Daddy: "It's a video game. Back when Mommy and I were in school, Tetris was like Angry Birds. And before that, Pac-Man was the thing. And way in the beginning it was Pong."

Ben: "Oh! On Cool Math Games they have Pong! But I can't play it because our Java needs to be updated. I think it needs to be updated twice."

Too Easy

I don't really have any words for this. Apparently, she didn't have many either.

Be Prepared

Penelope hasn't lost any teeth yet. She desperately wants to. She's been imagining that one of her teeth is loose for a couple months now (it isn't). But the dentist played along. Because, you know... she's six.

She received a fancy handmade tooth pillow in the mail from Grandma today, and decided that she needed to take it for a test run tonight. It looks like all is in good working order. She wrote a note for the Tooth Fairy, just to clear up any misunderstandings that might occur:

Anticipation!

Penelope: I'm so excited about tomorrow!

Daddy: I know! You have to get some sleep though, so that you can enjoy your day and not be tired.

Penelope: Ok

The normal bedtime routine ensues. This consists of my saying various things and her repeating them back to me, giving a hug for a hug and a kiss for a kiss, etc. It's usually really important to her that there's equal love headed both directions. Finally, we are finishing up...

Daddy: Goodnight!

Penelope: Goodnight!

Daddy: I love you!

Penelope: I love you!

Daddy: I hope you had a good last day of being 5!

Penelope: I hope you had a good... oh... ummm... Daddy?

Daddy: Yes?

Penelope: I'm really excited about tomorrow!

Daddy: I know, sweetie. Goodnight.

Penelope: Goodnight.

Pi

There are times when I can point to my children with pride and say "Look! They got that (awesome thing they just did) from me!"

This is not one of those times.

I'm still proud, in a weird way, but I have no idea where this comes from. Funny - some guy walked by and exclaimed "There is hope for the future!"

Looked and Found

Penelope found the egg yesterday. Coincidence? Hmmm... I think someone's been reading my blog in secret.

Anyway, I asked her about it this morning - pleading ignorance, I wanted to know where she found it. When she showed me I said "Oh! The same place it was last year!"

And she replied, pointing to a place about three inches to the left, "No! Last year it was right here!"

Ah... maybe that's why it took so long to find this time. The cool part about it is that she apparently gave it to her brother, since he had only found 14 of the eggs previously, and she already had found 15. How sweet is that?

Disclaimer: Despite what you might think if you read this all the time, it's not all "rainbows and puppy dog farts" (or whatever the saying is) in our house. The two of them can go from being best friends to mortal enemies, or from little angels to demon spawn in the blink of an eye. But at least in this case, it was kind of heartwarming.

Look and Find

Sometimes our children are completely predictable. And then sometimes, they just catch us off guard. Sifting through the piles and piles of drawings, maps, poems, and general-purpose "art" that they've generated over the weekend, we came across this one:

Speaking of look-and-find, I ought to mention the Easter egg, too. Ben and Penelope were a little disappointed last Easter, when the bunny just left most of the eggs lying around. It prompted Ben to write this note the day before Easter:

And then Penelope reminded us all about that one green egg that the Easter Bunny had left under the plant last year, that nobody found for days. She thought that was hilarious.

So, the bunny hid the eggs quite a bit better this year. Except for one, which it put in the exact same place it did last year. The bunny must have thought that it would be the first place they'd look, and someone would get a real kick out of finding it.

It's been two weeks (and counting) since Easter. There's still one lonely egg out there, waiting to be found.

Pensive

Mommy: What time did you wake up this morning, Ben?

Ben: I woke up at 7:20, but then I pooped for 33 minutes.

Mommy: That's a really long time, are you sure?

Ben: The clock said 7:53 when I was done.

Daddy: You pooped for half an hour?

Ben: Well, not really. Mostly I was just sitting and thinking.

Future Love

Penelope: Look! This fruit roll-up has stamps on it!

Ben: Somebody stamped on it?

Penelope: No, it is special decorations for Valentine's day!

Mommy: That's a good idea, we should do fruit roll-ups with your Valentine's cards next year Penelope.

Penelope: Yay!

Ben: And mine too!

Mommy: Hmmm, I'm not sure if they do Valentine's cards in third grade.

Daddy: Yeah, I think in third grade you just write love letters to all the girls in your class on Valentine's day.

Ben: Ewww, really?

Daddy: Love letters make you go "Ewww"? Penelope already knows who she's going to marry, and she's only in Kindergarten.

(Side note which becomes relevant shortly: His name is Noah B. and he is also in Kindergarten.)

Mommy: Well, you know... Boys don't really know that kind of thing until they are much older. Like 24.

Daddy: Yeah, that's true.

Penelope: No it isn't! Noah B. knows! I told him!

Special Day

A conversation overheard yesterday:

Ben: Hey, guess what? My birthday is a special day.

Dean: Yeah, mine is a special day too.

Ben: I know, but I mean my birthday is a holiday. It is on February second.

Dean: Your birthday is Groundhog's Day? Cool!

Ben: Yeah. And there's also this new opera band coming out!

(???)

Happy special groundhog-operaband day, little dude!

Food Safety

Recently, Ben came home with one of his granola bars in his lunch, still uneaten. When asked why he didn't eat it, he said it was because it said it was past its expiration date (12 JUN 14). He was very concerned. Of course, this is June 12th, 2014 and not June 14th, 2012.... but it's admittedly ambiguous. Once he realized that it was ok, he thought it was pretty funny.

And then there was tonight. He stopped practicing his piano because he had something "very important" to show Stephanie.

He pulled a pack of Fruit Gushers out of the pantry and proceeded to say, "You gave me fruit snacks today at school. Look at this. It says right here:

'KEEP KIDS SAFE! To avoid choking, give Fruit Flavored Snacks only to children who can easily swallow chewy foods. Children should be seated and supervised while eating.'

But there's hardly any adult supervision in the cafeteria!"

This was a difficult situation. He was really upset and on the verge of tears. Stephanie and I were both having trouble holding in our own emotions. You definitely don't want to convey certain kinds of emotions when your child is upset.

He continued, "Porter says that you're probably breaking some kind of law."

Stephanie buried his head in her shirt and hugged him tight. I had to walk into the other room.

After we all calmed down a bit we explained to him that we are here to keep him safe, we would never intentionally put him in danger, and if he felt his fruit snacks were too dangerous, we would not buy them any more. It wasn't the right time for a deep-dive discussion about corporate paranoia in our "not my fault" society, or the controversial nature of the Fruit Gushers ingredient list.

I hope he never starts reading the internet.

Kid Math

Penelope: Mommy! Both of your kids are gone, except for me. That makes one!

Precisely Ambiguous Directions

Dad: Hey Ben, do you remember how Memere and Grandpa drove to take you guys to Chuck E Cheese?

Ben: No! Don't you know where it is?

Dad: I've never been to the new one. I just know it is this direction somewhere. Hopefully we will find it.

...half mile pause...

Ben: Dad, if you see a wide but not tall, tan-ish building, with a picture of a mouse on it, and the words "Chuck E Cheese" on it, and with other tan-ish, not tall, but wide buildings around it, let me know right away, Ok?

Dad: Sure. I'll let you know. Is it going to be on my side of the car, or your side?

Ben: I don't remember. But I think it will be on my side or your side.

On The Tip of His Tongue

I needed a random country name. Ben was standing there. He likes geography.

"Ben, quick, name a country!"

"ummm..."

"Don't think too much about it, just tell me the first thing that comes to your mind."

"F.Y.R. Macedonia."

(long pause)

"Ok, where is that?"

"Right above Greece."

"Thanks!"