Mommiest Moments: November, 2009

“I do not need to sneak because I am already in disguise.”

“Social studies, 100. Reading, 100. Writing, 100. Math, 97. Hahaha!”

--Mommy, reading Eric's first quarter report card. I am guessing he was missing an assignment or something, since I find it highly unlikely he got a test question wrong.

Gail: My ballpark guess is that he's reading on a second-grade level.

Teacher: Oh! I was guessing it was the third...

--At Danny's parent-teacher conference. I bow to her superior experience, naturally. I'm just so happy. Once Daniel decided to read, he took off! Of course, that's normally how it is in our family. I seem to recall that Ronald and Carolyn both jumped something like eight levels in first grade.

Gail: But what if we get married and discover I'm infertile?

Jon: We'd adopt. [pause] Or get a concubine.

--Obviously I was already expecting Sammy at this point. I frequently tease Jon by saying “But what if we got married and then I turned into a heffalump?” or things of that nature.

Danny: I am hoping for a girl, but if it's a boy, I will accept it.

[later]

Eric: I hope it is a girl, but if it's a boy, I will be acceptable with that.

“I fear the worst. Nannerl fell asleep reading Bad Kitty again.”

--Nannerl is the stuffed tabby cat who is the wife of Pi. She has an Artistic temperament, naturally. Bad Kitty is a truly awesome book about a cat doing naughty things in alphabetical order.

Jon: We've been letting the kids watch a fair amount of science fiction--

Gail: Yes, and now we have a pet black hole in the playroom!

Jon: [temporarily diverted] We do? What does it eat?

Gail: Bad guys, I'm told. Or, in a pinch, Jenga blocks.

Jon: Do we have enough bad guys in the house to keep it satisfied?

Gail: I don't know; you'd have to ask Eric. Danny keeps referring to the black hole with masculine pronouns. I asked if “he” had a name, and Danny said “It's Eric's creation. It's his responsibility.”

Jon: ...right. So, anyway, I was listening to the kids play the other day and noticed they were working through a problem very systematically, trying first one approach and then another. And I realized, “Letting them watch Stargate isn't just a good way to teach them scientific ideas, it also helps to teach the scientific method.”

Gail: Indeed. I was watching an episode today where they find a person in an industrial kitchen freezer. Danny immediately exclaimed, “Oh! I think he was trying to put himself in”—he paused, and pronounced, very deliberately—“kie-wo-gen-ic storage!”

“...so the non-fiction textbooks very logically organized themselves into a defensive castle, where the more emotional paperback novels quickly turned into a mob...”

--I was telling a bedtime story about a real “Battle of the Books,” where the sci fi, fantasy, and adolescent novels in my library attacked the hardbound reference books. This explains, among other things, the mess in that room. The children particularly enjoyed the shrieks (in the story) when Mommy enters the library and sees book corpses everywhere, with torn pages and ruined bindings and paper dander strewn about.

[Discussing the Thanksgiving menu]

Gail: If you want olives, you can provide them yourself. I shan't sully my hands by introducing them to my home.

Jon: [Calmly] Fine, I'll buy the olives.

[later]

Gail: [Indignantly] You dare—dare!!—to suggest that we do without pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving? I don't care about our “no throwing” rule, this heresy must be countered immediately! [She lobs Bear at Jon's head.]

--In fairness, there is more to the story than that. But if Jon cares to defend himself, he can jolly well post his own comment with his justification.

---The really unfair thing is that Jon can't retaliate. For a long time, he refrained from returning fluff-based fire because I was a girl. He got over that years ago. But he can't risk injuring the baby, right? I begin to see why women would “plead the belly” in eighteenth-century England.

“But why do they use letters for notes instead of just using the notes?”

--Danny. This made me wonder if my kid has perfect pitch?

“Mommy, look! Thomas is driving drunk.” [Daniel shows Thomas driving around crazily.] “And Mommy, look! Now he is flying drunk!”

--Thomas almost crashed into me, too. I put him in time out until he sobered up.

“...he was the most thoroughly evil terrorist baby you've ever seen. I kept thinking, 'Right. You'd think the baby was possessed of demons. When, in fact, the opposite is true. He used to be possessed by demons. Ha. Ha, ha, ha. Very funny.'”

--I had a nightmare about adopting a two-year-old boy who used to be inhabited by an alien parasite which conferred godlike powers on the human host. Captured in a raid, hauled to a new planet, surrounded by strangers babbling a weird language, and facing normal toddlerhood (with its accompanying bumps, bruises, and loss of absolute power) for the first time, the kid developed the most fearsome frustration-induced Temper Tantrums you can imagine. Within 48 hours, I was certifiably insane.

--I tend to have nightmares when I'm pregnant. Usually they're about forgetting to feed the baby for a week straight, but trust my tortured psyche to invent creative variations.

I don't want to be wheat or corn. I want to be Basmati rice. That's wholesome and pure. And tasty!"

--Jon

Berserker Bear Barons?