The Best Day...for now

This guy leaped through the open van door as I picked him up from school.

"Guess what, Mom? Today was the BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!!!!"
"Oh yeah? What made it so awesome?"
"I got to look through a REAL MICROSCOPE!"

Video Flashbacks from 2013!

Playing around at the park - Sadie, age 2, and Benji, age 5.



Wanna know how to stop a tantrum? (Sometimes...) Repeat what they said so they feel heard. (Until they figure out what you are doing and it doesn't work anymore.)



When Sadie was two, what happened when Papa left for work? Oh, just a little hanging from the front door knob...this video doesn't even capture how long she could pull herself up - she could hang for 30 seconds at a time, and she would climb all the way up to the knob.



And...it's a powerful dance until you land on a tiny toy...



The following sequence is classic Sadie and Benjamin. Though the years pass, their interactions have not changed much. In the first, Benji's dance is upstaged by Sadie's happy feet. (She still walks that fast and bouncy.) In the second, she's all belly and britches and boots.





Near the top of the cuteness scale is a big brother who is learning to read teaching his little sister to read. Throw in eating some chicken-veggie stirfry and all is right with the world.

A fire staff?

This is what happens when Benjamin gets hold of the preschool Legos. Can you guess what these are? Oh, please, do guess. 'Cause you're going to get at least two out of three wrong.

We'll start with the easy one - that triangle shape. Yes, it's a mountain.  But that tall thing? That thing that looks like some obelisk from an ancient culture? Something you'd find in northern Africa?

It is a sculpture of a person holding a fire staff. A fire staff. Whatever the heck that is. And, yes, that might just be the type of sculpture you would find in northern Africa somewhere.

But let's take that last one with a window/door thingie and a random eyeball on a block (that was probably an accidental placement).  THAT is the Lincoln Memorial.

I have never shown him a picture of this revered monument. I give all the credit for this bit of knowledge to Mrs. C, his fabulous kindergarten teacher. Come to think of it, I've never shown him a picture of an ancient obelisk or sky high sculpture, either. Perhaps inspired by the Washington Memorial?

Males break things, and females...

I overhear an altercation in the living room and go in to check on the three older kids. I see a pile of couch pillows, a few stray dress-up items, and two kids dogpiled on top. Sadie is shrieking, Oli is howling, and Benj is barking orders that no one can exactly hear over the chaos.

It turns out that Oli was breaking up Sadie's creation, but the best part is Benjamin's explanation.

Mama: What is going on here?

Benj: Oli is messing up Sadie's pile.   

(Sadie, in the background, wails "Nooooooooooooo!")

Mama: Uh, huh.  Sadie, let's set some of those things over there. Oli, come here for a minute.

Benj:  But Mom. Males break things.

Mama: Yes. Yes they sometimes do.

Benj: But Mom. That's what they're supposed to do.  And females get mad. (He shrugs his arms and looks up through the hair in his eyes.)

Mama:  Ha!

Benj: It's the true thing about life - males break things, and females get really mad.
          (pause) 
There's something else that I know. Well, everyone knows.  Females have babies; males don't. That's why female scorpions carry their babies on their back.

God Can be SO Disappointing

Over dinner one evening:

Benj:  Whenever I ask God to do stuff, he never does.

Mama:  Oh, yeah? What do you ask him about?

Benj:  Well...I asked him to give me special powers...and for an asteroid to fall from the sky...but he didn't do it.

Mama: Wow. Those are really big things.

Benj:  Yeah, but I REALLY wanted him to give me a huge tarantula to stomp on houses.

Who needs 911?

June 2013

While playing with a friend one day, this was overheard:

Benj:      I'm so tired of emergencies.

Friend:  What are you going to do?

Benj:     Get in your pixie dust boat and go away.

The Red Animal

LP: Mama, come and see what I painted. It's a red animal.

Mama: Ooh, cool. Tell me about it.

LP: Well, guess what it is.

Mama: Um...a dinosaur?

LP: No. It's something else. Not something a long time ago.

Mama:  OK. An anteater?

LP:  No. Because it doesn't have a long snout. That is its mouth (pointing at the indentation on the right). THAT is the tail (pointing at the part I thought was a long snout).

Mama: OK. Hmmm...I don't know.

LP: It's the biggest of all the land mammals.

Mama: I want to say elephant, but I can see that it doesn't have a trunk. What is it?

LP: [big sigh]

Pause. He looks around the room and dramatically rests his chin in his hand, elbow on the counter.

LP: [another big sigh] You see, it's a...gleason (pronounced glee-sahn). You just haven't seen one before. When I was watching Jeff Corwin, he wrestled a gleason.


More information on the gleason, by Benjamin:

It's very feminizing. It can eat bears. It eats anything that is meat. It can gobble up a whole elephant all at one time.

More than a head bucket

Conversation from yesterday:

LP: I need a new helmet, Mama.

Mama: Oh, yeah?  What's wrong with yours?

LP:  It's just not cool. It's silly. I don't like silly stuff.

Laughing ducks? Sitting on chairs? Get real!

Mama:  Oh. What's so silly about it?

LP:  It's just...it has all kinds of ducks and chickens. I don't like them.  And they're laughing and sitting on chairs. Chairs are not funny...they're boring. That's too silly. I want something cool.

Mama: So what would make a cool helmet?

LP: Something blue. Or maybe blue and red. Like a America* flag. Maybe some characters on it. Yeah...blue and red like a flag with characters. That would be cool.

Mama:  So who do you think should get you this helmet?

LP:  Papa. Because he likes helmets. He's good at bike stuff.

NO MORE SILLY HELMETS!

*This was not a typo - Benjamin still says "a America flag" despite my best efforts to teach him better grammar.

BenTV 026: On Fighter Jets, Magic, and His Name

In case you were wondering:

Vitamin D

LP: Mama, I'm just gonna take my shirt off.

Mama: Oh, yeah?

LP: Yeah. (removing his shirt) I just need to get some Vitamin D. My body is telling me I need some Vitamin D.


** Can you tell we've been talking about vitamins and being healthy lately?

The Africa Chronicles

Since around the beginning of September, Benjamin has been obsessed with Africa. Whenever he shares new information with us, he tells us he learned it from his Africa friend. He dances a dance and calls it Africa dancing. Every story he tells is set in Africa.

I think a few factors contributed to this:

1. We have photos and art around the house from our time in Africa - before Benjamin even entered the picture; before, in some cases, The Mama and Papa even met. We have always wanted our kids to feel as though they are citizens of the world and have thus talked about other countries and cultures and languages openly.

2. At his new school, Benjamin is required to bring a placemat with him in his lunchbox. As I prepared for his first day, I placed a batik placemat from Zimbabwe in the box. And then I told him about it - how a woman in Zimbabwe had made it, how it was beautiful and artistic, how it was special that he got to use it at school. (I was concerned that perhaps other kids would have something "cooler" as in something with licensed characters on it - Cars, Spiderman, Shrek. I was hoping to ward off any potential disappointments. I needn't have worried.)

So when I called the school director to tell her we would be in the mountains the entire week of Thanksgiving, she told me how wonderful it was that Benjamin got to travel so much. How he talks a lot about his time in Africa. Then she asked where exactly he had gone.

Ahem. How to reply. The kid's got a wild imagination and a fascination with adventures in foreign lands.

*      *      *      *

Let's go now to an incident with his favorite "frenemy."

frenemy: (n) Someone who is both friend and enemy, a relationship that is both mutually beneficial or dependent while being competitive, fraught with risk and mistrust.  (urbandictionary.com)

We will talk about that relationship later. The important thing is...the frenemy bit Benjamin on the leg during circle time.  

The director called me later in the day to see how he was doing. They had been unable to ascertain the damage due to Benjamin's resistance to allowing any adult to pull up his pant leg and view the wound. This was the first I had heard of it. 

Sure enough, there was a purple bruise in the shape of a mouthful of teeth on his inner thigh. When I asked him about it, he said, "No!  Y--- did not bite me, a giant pincher bug did!"

"But Miss W--- said he did. Are you sure about that?!

"Yes!  I was in Africa, and there were giant pincher bugs!  And they bited me all over my body!  They bited my leg, and then they bited my other leg. And then they bited my arm and then my other arm. And then they bited my HEAD!!! I had to run very fast to get away from them."

Such is the story to this day. Despite having a tortured relationship with Kid Y, he covered for him. Or he lives in an alternate reality...

*      *      *      *

Here's what he looks like telling one of these stories about the dangerous pincher bugs. Around the time that the firemen came to his school for safety week, he added in dangerous fires and dramatic rescues and lots and lots of smoke.

*      *      *      *

Finally, in an attempt to publish one of his stories for your amusement, I asked him to retell one. And here it is - with all its drama and redundancies. Enjoy:

At Africa, I was by myself with those pincher bugs. I passed the pincher bugs, and then they hurried up at me and they bite me on the head and everything. Some of the pincher bugs bite my hair off.

The pincher bugs just bite me all over, on my self, on my neck and on my chin and on my legs and on my shirt.  But some of them just BITE my SHIRT.

I get away from pincher bugs when some of the pincher bugs were going to our home and trying to be friends. Yeah. Some of them are just bad pincher bugs.

There was a big blast of fire on the Africa wall. It was like a giant or a robot and it shoot off like a robot. I didn't have ear plugs and it shoot right past my ears and it just went down, down, down, down, down. And it shoot up in the air again and went down, down, down again.

There was a lot of smoke in the air. Lots and lots of smoke in the air. And I was wiggling my stuff off with the smoke. And the pincher bug bite my finger.

There was Africa water I was supposed to drink on the island, on the Africa sea. And then we had some goggles on, and we were on top of the sea, on the ocean. We got on a Africa cliff and just jumped right off it and splashed right into the sea. 

We got in our Africa seats and they were magical because they could move up into the air. And we went very high up in the air to Saturn, and we looked at Saturn, and then we went to another planet and we looked at something. We were going on our magical Africa seats, and we shot the Saturn and it turned into the sun. That was cool, Mama.

Some guns are magical in Africa because some make suns. They shoot to Saturn, and then it turns into a sun.

We were swimming inside the water, and we were drinking it at the same time and we felt that it was good.  Then we got a plastic cup that doesn't break -  it was a water cup - and then we go inside the water, and then we come out of the water, and then drink the water that was inside the sea.

The Africa music is like ba-ba-wa-ba-ba-da. Duch-ee-wah-du-so-man-nee-didju-wa-do-na-do-na...

More Benjaminisms

When going over a hump and then dip in the road:

"Whoa. My tummy is dizzy!"

*        *        *        *        *        *        *        *

Referring to the delicate plants in the garden such as dill and fennel:

"Mama, those are fancy plants."


*        *        *        *        *        *        *        *


Driving on the freeway, we pass some tall buildings:

LP: Mama, are those tall buildings sssssssky ssssssscrapers?

Mama:  Yes! They are.

LP:  Do ssssssskyscrapers ssssssscrape the ssssssssky?


Mama: It looks like they do because they are so tall.

LP:  Those tall buildingsssss are ssssssky ssssssscrapers because they ssssscrape the sssssky!

The Truth About Lightening and Thunder

Big apologies for how long it has taken me to update y'all on Little P's Great Adventures.  I have been too busy to write for several reasons:

1. I started working in my spare moments - doing some data entry at home.

2. I got all in a frenzy sewing...gifts for people...and that ate up any other spare time.

3. I finally finished painting two of our living room walls and an unfinished part of the ceiling. I am now spending any spare moments planning what house project to tackle next.

4. I've actually been getting exercise again. This takes up some time.

So I will give you one charming story about our boy who is really not a toddler any more.

Last week we experienced some amazing lightening storms - the kind where you can see the brightness through your eyelids as you're trying to sleep. Benjamin was spending the night at Grandma's house that particular evening, but he got to see the lightening (and hear the thunder) and here's what he had to say about it:

"The sun came down, REALLY hard!" (forcefully jabbing his hands downward) "Yeah. And it hit the ground. It came down really HARD, and it made a NOISE! The sun was really loud!" (everything about his body movements reinforced the emphasis on the sun smacking the earth)

Now you know how lightening happens and why thunder is so loud.

Truly.