Quotes of the Day

This morning, Xavier brandished a comb at me and cried, "Guards! Seize them!"

Other favorites:

"Look Out Below!"
"Climb On Board!"

Today I caught Xman, he had climbed up on an end table and was sliding down the post in the family room downstairs, as if it were a fireman's pole. (No mean feat, considering it is square, not round, and about 8" on each side.)

How to Get A Boy to Play House

I checked on Sonora and Christopher this morning. They were playing happily. When I asked, Christopher informed me:

"We're playing Lord of the Rings. I'm Aragorn and Sonora's the princess. And we have TWO babies!"

Real Estate Values

Sonora has decided she wants to live here at Grandma Rose's house, so she can see her cousins every day. When I asked her where Grandma Rose should live, she spread her arms wide and said, "There's a house in Africa that's this big."

Then she proceeded to tell me a story about her Grandpa that lived in Africa. He had a wife that talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked, all day and all night. She went on and on and on and on and on and on and on, through breakfast, and on and on and on through lunch and on and on and on through dinner. And Grandpa said, "Eat your breakfast! Eat your supper! Eat your dinner!" But she didn't, she just went on and on and on and on....

This was at bedtime, so obviously a stalling tactic. Another random bedtime question tonight, "How can we make gravy?" She is great at the open ended question designed to elicit a detailed, lengthy answer.

Also, tonight after dinner I decided to claim some "me time." So I set a timer for 10 minutes and told them I was going to read for ten minutes. When the buzzer went off, then I could attend to them. So, I sat on the sofa and read, while they stood at my knees and howled for the entire ten minutes. Sonora was truly agitated, Xavier was just copying. Then Sonora got upset that he was copying her, so she redoubled her efforts. And so on, and so on, and so on, and so on.... you get the picture.

Tomorrow we should finally get the staked survey done, submit our response to the inspection reports, and the chips will fall where they may. Good night, I am done.

Aha! Now I get it.

Xavier has been saying something puzzling at church this summer. He looks up at the choir loft and asks me about it, so I tell him that's the organ up there. Then he spends the rest of the time pointing up at it and saying, "The shark is gonna come down! It's gotta come down!" Which I never understood.

Then today at 5:30 Mass he told me the orca was up there and I realized. He thought I was teling him there was a killer whale in the choir loft... orca instead of organ.

Well, duh. No wonder he was concerned about it coming down. He probably thought the rest of us were crazy for not paying attention to a clearly dangerous situation.

Also there is the fact that he seems to know a lot of things that I don't remember teaching him. The last couple of days he has come up to me on several occasions, shook my hand, and said, "Thank you for all your help." Where did that come from???????? And he has been asking, oh-so-politely and earnestly, "May I hold dat?" and "May I come wit you?" Again, don't know where the manners are coming from, but I am enjoying them!

Makes me realize again that these little people have a whole life to which I am not necessarily privy. Which was not a shocker when they were in day care all week long.

Bed time hilarity

These two become complete giggle boxes at bedtime. Stalling tactic? Sure. But I don't care, I love to hear them giggle and cuddle and crack each other up. Can't last forever.

Xavier: Windy (Whine-Dee) Frog!!!!!
Sonora: Bwahahahahahahaha! Do it again!
Xavier: Windy Frog!!!!
Xavier: Twankle twankle little tar, wawa wawa wawa are.... blah blah back sheep....
Wrestle, hug, kiss, giggle.

Sonora: I love you, Xavi.
Xavier: I yove you too, Sonore.

Sure, I try to get them to calm down, but the thing that seems to work is to shut up, don't participate (hide my laughter) and it will be over in about 10 minutes. Ten hysterical minutes. I'll take that. Then the interrogation begins.

Sonora: What should we do tomorrow, Mama?
Sonora: Why do our bodies stop working?
Sonora: How did I get in your tummy?
Sonora: Why did Jesus go up on that cross?

Me: Those are really good questions, we can talk about them in the morning. I can't talk right now I have to go to sleep.
Me: Pretends to be asleep to avoid further cross examination.
Me: Falls asleep for real.
Xavier: Lays there quietly with eyes wide open, thwarting my attempts to get up an accomplish something sans kids.

Reality Check

This is how I know Xavier has been watching the "DVDV" player too much.

Xavier: We got to go back to the MAIN MENU!

Poor Sonora had a terrible meltdown yesterday, when I wouldn't take a coloring page away from X and give it to her. Here is a transcript::

Sonora: You don't love me anymore! Nobody loves me! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! I never get anything! I. Just. Want. To. Go. Hooooooooooooooome!

You don't think there are any underlying issues there, do you?