Best Mommy Moments: April, 2008

"Any toy, book, drawing, or article of clothing belonging to either boy which is still downstairs in one hour will be made to 'disappear.' Perhaps if you are very, very lucky, in a few years it will emerge, haggard, wan, worn, and broken from its time in the custody of State Security."
--Mommy, after an Epiphany that the boys were old enough to pick up their toys without constant supervision and nagging.

"Eric! Slow down! This is a construction zone!...Mommy, Eric is not respecting my barricade!...Eric, I am writing you a speeding ticket!"
--Danny, building a creation while Eric ran laps through the downstairs, jumping Danny's hurtles.

"This is the school bus that died inside a raccoon/and then Eric started the fire/that got so hot/that it killed everybody/and then they teleported/to the spirit world/and that's the end."
--Danny, composing a highly original song. I cannot, alas, blame this one on his Daddy's genes.

"Mommy, come admire my creation. This is the horsey I made. See his mane made out of legos? She is a dog named Emily."
--Danny, showing me the boy horsey and the girl dog, who were the same toy. (Followed by another talk about gender issues.)

"Thanks, Mommy. Now I'm back up to full hitpoints!"
--Danny

"Now, are sea serpents part of the Dragon family, or are they separate? Are there more than one species of sea serpent...? And do I file griffins with birds or with mammals? Scientific classification is harder than I thought!"
--Mommy, in the midst of an ambitious, educational track-out project.

"I want a wooly mammoth, and a spider (I miss Arachne! She got lost when I loaned her out one Halloween), and a deer, and a pegasus, and a unicorn, and a badger, and a tropical fish, and a "regular" tiger (I only have two subspecies: Siberian and Tigger), and a ladybug...Oh, and a duck in a raincoat to replace poor Noah (I lost him after a Seminary lesson on prophets)....a St. Bernard...Oooh, a cheetah! As a message-runner! ...turkey, goat, snail, griffin... a llama! I want a llama! ... and a new reindeer with Christmas lights on his antlers. (I miss Rasputin! He vanished under mysterious circumstances, of course.)..."
--Mommy, right before Mother's Day, acting very childish about the holes in her ecologically diverse stuffed animal collection.

Mommy: Eric, you got every long-division problem correct except for this one. Do it again.
Eric: [suspiciously] How do you know I got it wrong?
Mommy: Because I did it in my head.
Eric: Maybe you are not smart enough.
Mommy: Eric, I'm right! You made the error! [Surreptitiously double-checking, she breathes a sigh of relief that, this time at least, she was right.]

"What's the password?"
--Eric, hiding behind the closed bathroom door, interrogating the tornado who wanted in. (The tornado didn't know the password and admitted he didn't have a reason for wanting in, but pounded on the door and demanded entry anyway.)

Mommy: Danny, I just spent half an hour writing you a new Bear story.
Danny: Yes, but now I want you to play with me.
Mommy: [Martyring air] Why is it that if I read you a story, or write you a story, or tell you a story, it doesn't count as playing?
Danny: Because I want you to PLAY with me. Upstairs in my workshop! With toys!

"Mommy, don't take Bear! Mommy, I do not want Bear to be impounded!"
--Danny, concerned (unnecessarily, this time), that Bear would be confiscated and placed into the Impound Box for Orphaned Toys.