amazing logic

Tonight before bed Andy picked out a story about Clifford the Big Red Dog. This particular book was a 'word book', which has very little story but lots and lots of labeled drawings to help kids work on their vocabularies. Andy eats these books up. By now he knows a huge amount of words but he thirsts for more anyway and asks about any picture he doesn't recognize.

One page had lots of drawings of people of varying occupations. There was a doctor, a magician, a construction worker...we went through them all.

He pointed to one drawing of a man in scrubs who was holding a dog.

I said, "That's a verterinarian."

He repeated the word. "Veterinarian?"

"Yes," I said. "Do you know what a veterinarian does?"

"Holds dogs."

Quite a logical reply, wasn't it?

that's a bad nap

When I got Andy up from his nap today, he was crying and miserable. I asked, "How was your nap, Andy?"

He cried.

"It was terrible. It was a terrible nap. Nugget pushed the door open and it fell over and my head popped off!"

He wasn't kidding. That is a bad nap.

napless in seattle.

Today when I picked up Andy his teacher told me he'd said something. Something.

I hear her say it at least twice a week and every time I brace for a terrible impact. I'm just waiting for the day he tells the whole class to go to hell.

Today, Miss Sam put all the kids to bed at nap time.

But Andy didn't want to take a nap.

"I am NOT going to take a nap today."

Miss Sam asked him why not.

"Because I want to make my mommy MAD."

Miss Sam said, "But Andy, need a nap and you don't want to irritate Mommy, do you?"

Andy looked right at her and said, definitively, "I want to irritate Mommy."

buggar off, kid

We were in the car yesterday, coming back from hiking Nugget. Everybody was tired and hot and the car stunk of wet schnauzer.

Andy started kicking my seat, and I just wasn't in the mood. I asked him to stop several times. Of course, he didn't.

Shawn finally snapped, "Knock it off, Andy!"

He started to pout and whimpered, "Mommy, my Daddy told me to knock it off!" He was terribly insulted.

I turned around and said, "Then knock it off, Andy. You're kicking my seat."

"But Mommy......"

"Knock it off, Andy."

There was a moment of silence and then, to himself, with tears in his eyes he muttered, "Everybody told me to knock it off. I'm so mad at you guys..."

i don't think she can see it

Andy was on the phone with his Grandma.

From our end, we heard:

"When we go to the fair is there going to be a roller coaster I rode a roller coaster at Idlewild and it was so fast and there was a squirrel and a caterpillar and it went around in circles and maybe we'll see some sheep and there were bunnies last year can you buy me some candy at the fair have you seen my new haircut?"

And he held the telephone up to his head so his grandma could see his haircut. Only she was on the other end of the phone, so I'm not entirely sure she did.

rage against the machines

Andy is currently sitting on the floor enraged. I don't even know how to describe his anger right now. He can't get his train tracks together and every few seconds lets out a shriek of rage. He was talking to himself about it in a monologue.

"...I need help because this thing won't go on and I keep trying and it won't snap together and this won't go there it goes here instead and I can't DO IT! It doesn't GO THAT WAY!"

[insert the SCREAM of fury]

Then he said, choking on his tears, "And now I need to go outside and chill out for a while."

winged irritant

This morning, Andy was grumpy. I don't pretend to know why. He was particularly grumpy with Shawn, who tried his best to be benign.

Didn't work, though.

"Mommy, I'm angry at Daddy."

"Why, Andy?"

"Because of the bats."

(We had another bat in the house last weekend, but I still didn't understand the connection.)

"Ok, why are you angry at Daddy, then?"

"Because bats make Daddy annoying."

It's true. There's nothing more irritating than seeing your strong, protective husband lying on the floor in his underwear holding a tennis racket, swatting at the air as a bat flies in circles 10 feet above his head.