Words of a Child

We went to T-ball practice for Deep Thinker last night. They got their team shirts! The shirts are RED, Rowdy Rebel’s favorite color. He begged me to get one for hi, so I tried. But the team Mom said we can’t buy another until all team members have their shirts. That’s important. I get it.

Rowdy Rebel doesn’t get it. He kept asking me over and over if we could buy a shirt. Finally, I said, “Listen! I already asked her. She said no. We can’t buy one!”

His response: “Well just be sneaky and get one!” (He said these exact words.)

I told him that we can’t just take one because the team Mom would be very upset if we did that.

His response: “Well then go to the coach!” (Exact words.)

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What a great day!

Rowdy Rebel has been screaming a lot at night because I put a stop to the climbing in bed with mom and dad really late. He rolls around so much it’s impossible to sleep! This new program is NOT making him happy. But I don’t care. He’s sleeping in his bed–all night. He’s three. He can handle it.

Every night I’ve reminded him that it’s bad to scream loudly at night, and our neighbors might get upset. So, of course, last night he goes up and starts crying as usual I went upstairs, walked into his room and said, “ROWDY REBEL, it’s time to SLEEP.”

And he said, “Okay.”

Then he added, “Mommy, did you hear me? I cried quiet, not loud.” My sweet little man. He must have made a decision not to scream…just like I asked him to.

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Over the Thanksgiving weekend, we got together with our friends Alex and Lila. They have a baby named Misha. My six and three year old’s LOVE Misha. He’s 8 months old, and a really sweet little boy.

Rowdy Rebel (age 3) was showing Misha all of his toy cars. He was really excited about it until Misha wanted to hold a car too. Then Misha started biting the cars, and my rowdy little toddler could barely stand it, “Mommy, Misha is GWABBING and BITING my CARS. Make him STOP!”

Then Lila came over and tried to get Misha to stop biting on the cars. She was worried that he could choke on the wheels.

Fortunately, Deep Thinker (age 6) jumped in to save the day. He yelled, “Don’t worry! It’s okay for Misha to bite the cars. He doesn’t have any TEETH!”

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A while back, Deep Thinker was taking a bath and noticed he had leg hair. He was SO excited and said “Mommy, Mommy, I have leg hair! I can’t WAIT to tell Daddy about this!”

Today we were walking to school, and he was explaining that he now has more leg hair (which is not noticeable to me, but nonetheless…) I was trying to find complimentary words that would support the pride he feels about his leg hair…”Oh, wow. You’re…uh…that’s great. You have lots of leg hair! You’re…”

And he added “the hair-growing MASTER.”

PS. Sometimes Deep Thinker likes to take photos with my digital camera. It’s always fun to see what he comes up with. This is one he decided to take of his foot, however, his leg hair is also slightly visible:)

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We wanted to invite Deep Thinker’s friend Tyler over to play. The problem is that there is a close friend named Johnny who is part of their little group. I decided not to invite him–it’s easier to first see how Deep Thinker and Tyler play together, then invite the third child next time.

So, we gave Tyler an invitation to come. I told my son that if Tyler mentions the invitation to Johnny, my son can just say that we want to invite Johnny over for the next day or weekend. (And I would then do so). This would be true, as well as courteous.

Well, Johnny did see the invitation. But my son thought up an entirely different way to get himself off the hook. He said to Johnny, “Oh, we wanted to invite you too. But the invitations were too expensive. We didn’t have enough money to get you one.”

This should go a long way with Johnny’s parents:) I am pretty sure this came from the “we can’t buy that toy–it’s too expensive” line. Great adaptation, don’t you think?

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Last Saturday my husband was really tired, and it was time for our three-year old to take a nap. So they took a nap together.

The next day, Rowdy Rebel (the three-year old) explained to my husband: “Daddy, nember when you sleep at naptime with me?” And my husband said yes.

Rowdy Rebel said, “Tha’ nice.”

Then Rowdy Rebel asked: “Nember when you don’t sleep at naptime with me?” My husband said yes.

Rowdy Rebel explained, “Tha’ non nice.”

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I was volunteering in Deep Thinker’s class doing the “Monday folders.” This involves stuffing all of the news and important papers into folders to take home. As I was doing this, the class had a discussion about money. The teacher asked, “How much money is two quarters?”

My son raised his hand, and the teacher called on him. He said “Fifty cents.” Then she said, “Yes, and how do we get that answer?”

My son’s response: “My mommy and daddy told me.” Then the teacher continued, “Well, yes, but how do we know how much it is?”

My son explained, “I know because my mommy and daddy tell me about important stuff like money and lots of other things.”

AWWWW.

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When I tucked in my six-year old last night, he said (out of nowhere), “Hey Mommy, I know how you can tell if the person you are marrying is nice.”

Full of curiosity, I asked him how to tell. With his eyes opened really wide, he said, “You get to know em.”

I said that’s a really good idea, and asked how you get to know them. Face still the same–big eyes and real serious–he said, “You spend a lot of time with ’em.”

This child thinks so much about marriage. Do all six-year olds do this? He also asked me how people decide the names of children because “it must be real hard to decide from all those names!”

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Rowdy Rebel is really good for his naps now. (Sure, now that he’s almost too old for them.) He just lays down and stays in bed until he goes to sleep. But for some reason last Saturday, he reverted back to the terrible two’s when he screamed non-stop at the top of his lungs for a very long time before falling asleep.

Other than that, he was really good on Saturday. Played nicely, no fighting (well, not really dangerous fighting), no scary stunts, just really calm and sweet.

So, in the evening, we were telling hid daddy how good Rowdy Rebel had acted all day. I said, “He was sooo good today. Oh, except at naptime. Then he was screaming really loudly…”

Rowdy Rebel looked at his daddy and explained, “Oh yeah. That was a assident.”

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Today, my first grader (oldest child) told me that during PE, he and his friends were playing “chop chop.” This is a game when the kids give each other karate chops. My son explained that one of the playground supervisors told him to stop doing it, or he would have to walk laps around the playground rather than play.

A few hours later after lunch, they started playing again. My son explained, “I looked for that playground supervisor, and she wasn’t there. So, I played chop chop. If another teacher didn’t like it, I knew she would just give me a warning. If one of them warned me, I would stop. But no one did, so I played chop chop.” Of course his eyes were opened widely as he explained this.

This was soooo “him.” Rules are so important to him.

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