Words of Dread

Scene: The house. J is running around doing pre-dinner house cleaning. A is doing the post-Library hand washing.

A (from the bathroom): "J! J! Come look! I made a fountain!"

J (rushing toward bathroom): "A, 'I made a fountain' are four words a child can utter that will fill a parent's heart with dread."

The Sword in the Azalea

"A story is sung, when azaleas were young / and knights were brave and bold ... "

Now It's a Gun Range / But Not for Lola

Scene: Early morning. J is taking his ablutions ...

J (from behind shower curtain):  "... but Rico went a bit too far / Tony sailed across the bar / and then the punches flew / and chairs were smashed in two / there was blood and a single gunshot / but just --"

A (from another room, and whose face has probably lit up):  "J! There were gunshots?!  Did they have crossbows?"

Mother's Day Weekend Discussion

Scene: The Dinner Nook, Between-Cartoon Honey-Tea Time (to soothe sore throat).  We join A's anticipation of J's post-mortem estate (with M's pre-post-mortem medical expenses debunking) in progress ...

J:  "... oh no.  When I die, they'll put me in a glass coffin and --"

M: "Not 'they', A, you."

J: "Oh, right; You'll put my body on display in a glass coffin and then you'll attach the corners to a dirigible and parade it around through the streets.  And then a big wind will come up ... (J raises his head, hands and voice) and carry my body...  into... the sky..."

M:  "Until it lands in someone's back yard the next day."

A: "No. J! J!  When you die, first I'll take your body and I'll dip it in tar..."

J:  !!!

A: "... and I'll tie it up with ropes to keep it from falling apart, and I'll hang it by the river..."

M (not-so-secretly laughing behind The Child's back)

A:  "and then afterwards, I'll put it into a small coffin --"

M:  "A small coffin."

A:  "... and I'll throw it into the ocean.  And I'll let the fish come and take little nibbles from it.  And they'll live in your mouth."

J (leaning in over the table and speaking in a low, intent voice):  "Full fathom five thy father lies / of his bones are corals made / (increasing the volume) those are pearls, that were his eyes. /  Nothing of him doth remain / but that suffers a sea change / into something rich and strange!"

A (by this time retreating and putting his hands over his ears):  "Why are you being weird?"

J:  "You just told me you were going to put my body into a small coffin and let fish nibble my body and live in my mouth -- "

A:  "And your eyes (sticks fingers into his nose).  And your -- "

J:  "Of course I'm going to quote Shakespeare at you!"

A:  "J! J!  And your nose!"

M (from another room):  "Wile E Coyote Time!"

Sight Words

A's kindergarten teachers send home lists of "sight words" for the children to learn. I blame the French for sight words, since they usually have "gh" or "au" or "kn" in them. Since A already knew the words

• who
• what
• where
• why
• how

we made up the following list:

• sweet
• loving
• kind
• respectful
• peaceful
• calm
• healing
• what
• obedient
• flypaper

But he could read all of those, too.

So the next night, M made a harder list. A only got the following words:

• compost
• sneeze
• cough
• forgotten
• supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

We think he would have gotten "tombstone," but he was tired.

[Update: this morning, A re-discovered the Gettysburg Address. Which he read to me. Then he asked for some paper. "I'm going to copy it down and read it to my class!" So far "that from these honored" is as far as he's gotten....]

Oh De Lally

Scene: The dining nook. M, J and A are eating dinner.

A: "What does 'oh de lally' mean?"

J: "It's a marketing trick the makers of 'Robin Hood' used. They knew if kids started saying 'oh de lally' then the movie was successful and they could congratulate themselves on invading the American lexicon."

M: "Oh; you are grumpy today."

---

In other news: three weeks ago A ate a pencil tip. It was the pointy end, not the eraser end; so the medical profession was fairly calm about the whole thing, saying that it was the equivalent of eating a stick. It was probably in him three days, tops.

A week before that, A managed to scratch his cornea slightly (it was so slight the doctor had to use glowing dye and a scope to find it). A and J had a lot of fun playing with the black light while the doctor was out of the examining room.  The antibiotic creme we had to put in three times a day stung a little, so there probably wont be a repeat of the choices that lead to the scratch in the first place.


And the Jog-A-Thon was a success. A ran 15 laps and raised money for his school. Unfortunately, between four adults (Grandma J and Grandpa H visited) there were no working cameras. A ran steadily through the entire event, and only looked a little embarrassed and resigned when we yelled, "Go A!"