"No matter how calmly you try to referee, parenting will eventually produce bizarre behavior, and I'm not talking about the kids. Their behavior is always normal."
...Bill Cosby
Showing posts with label kids. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kids. Show all posts
01 December 2010
fun with Liamisms.
26 November 2010
my young playa.
Thanksgiving this year, like many fond holidays past, we spent with my 'sister-of-soul' and family up in Petersburg, Virgina.
It's an easy two hour drive, perhaps a bit more, however none to our surprise, Liam chatted away the entire drive. If no one is participating in his conversation, he's usually content to carry on with himself, though he does prefer a healthy exchange and will insert himself into whatever other dialog may be happening in the car. A perfect example is when I mentioned to Kevin that I had a headache and needed to eat something soon...
Liam: "I have a headache too."
Kevin: "No you don't. You're fine."
Liam: "Uh huh, I do. I ate a lot of food and it made my head hurt."
He's also getting a bit more brazen in his constant interruptions when we grown-ups may dare to get a word in edgewise... "Excuse me I'm talking!" he says.
Very excited to see Tio Juan, a Sergeant First Class and former Drill Sergeant in the US Army, Liam wore his "army pants" (e.g. camouflaged cargo pants) to show him. In the car, Liam also announced that he had a surprise for Tio Juan.
Kevin: "What's the surprise?"
Liam: "I can't tell you. It's a surprise for Tio Juan."
Kevin: "Well can you tell me?"
Liam: "No. It's a surprise."
Kevin (to me): "You try."
Me: "What's the surprise?"
Liam: "I can't tell you. It's not your surprise."
Alrighty then.
Recently, Liam has learned to count to 10 in Spanish (and German) and likes to randomly practice his language skills. Pausing in mid-count, he asked out of the blue, if Tio Juan spoke Spanish...
Me: "Yes, he does. He also speaks English."
Liam: "English? What is English?"
Kevin: "English is the language that we speak."
Liam: "What does English sound like?"
Hmmm...
A side note: En route, I saw a fantastic bumper sticker on a Volvo station wagon which read: "Honk if you love silence" ...Now that's just the sort of sarcastic wit I can appreciate in my world. ;-)
We arrive around 2:30, thrilled to release the children into the waiting audience that is anyone besides us and see if we remember how to carry on an adult conversation. --But first, Liam has to give Tio Juan his surprise... which turned out to be a cotton bowl and wad of cotton he had collected on our trip to Grandma's farm. Awww.
And then (my eyes are watering and heart bursting with pride writing this), we watched our sweet little four year old boy as he stood tall and saluted his Uncle. Juan beamed, returning the salute. Then he let Liam try on his Drill Sergeant hat and his Texas Calvary hat... then Liam wanted to know about Tio Juan's tanks...
These days with three teenagers, everyone has a boyfriend/girlfriend and so the house was full with young people and even friends and neighbors - which was great for us because it was like having a house full of unsuspecting babysitters. --Liam worked the house and monopolized everyone's time (particularly Nicki's boyfriend Jake) and honed in on Daniel's girlfriend Mallory... while Isabel, the unnaturally good and quiet child for a change, set about carving out her walking path, sampling the food being prepared, and decided who she liked best by swatting at them. --Oh, and getting the cap off of a two-liter of Coke and chugaluggin' it. (Why her Occupational Therapist thought it wise to teach her to unscrew lids is beyond me. Yeah, thanks for that.)
At last the smorgasbord of food was prepared, the table set, and per tradition at Elvia's, we all took turns telling what we were thankful for... Isabel was thankful for food and Liam was thankful for windows. Huh? --Anyway, Thanksgiving being what it is, we all gorged ourselves on the traditional favorites and had no room for dessert, though that didn't stop us. Isn't that what it's all about after all?
So, after a wonderful day with friends and family, wonderful food, laughter and memories... we were trying to find the energy to head back to Raleigh when we noticed our son busy rearranging the room of people by simply taking a hand and dragging that person to the spot he wanted to reposition them. Curiously we watched...
Liam then walks over to where Daniel was sitting on the love seat sofa with his sweet, pretty fifteen year old girlfriend and takes Mallory by the hand, pulls her from the couch and leads her over to a fold out chair just two feet away. On cue, she sits as the little prince then strategically places himself in between the object of his affection and her beloved and proceeds to serenade her with the most romantic song he knew... "Happy Birthday to you..."
O.M.G. We are in SO much trouble.
It's an easy two hour drive, perhaps a bit more, however none to our surprise, Liam chatted away the entire drive. If no one is participating in his conversation, he's usually content to carry on with himself, though he does prefer a healthy exchange and will insert himself into whatever other dialog may be happening in the car. A perfect example is when I mentioned to Kevin that I had a headache and needed to eat something soon...
Liam: "I have a headache too."
Kevin: "No you don't. You're fine."
Liam: "Uh huh, I do. I ate a lot of food and it made my head hurt."
He's also getting a bit more brazen in his constant interruptions when we grown-ups may dare to get a word in edgewise... "Excuse me I'm talking!" he says.
Very excited to see Tio Juan, a Sergeant First Class and former Drill Sergeant in the US Army, Liam wore his "army pants" (e.g. camouflaged cargo pants) to show him. In the car, Liam also announced that he had a surprise for Tio Juan.
Kevin: "What's the surprise?"
Liam: "I can't tell you. It's a surprise for Tio Juan."
Kevin: "Well can you tell me?"
Liam: "No. It's a surprise."
Kevin (to me): "You try."
Me: "What's the surprise?"
Liam: "I can't tell you. It's not your surprise."
Alrighty then.
Recently, Liam has learned to count to 10 in Spanish (and German) and likes to randomly practice his language skills. Pausing in mid-count, he asked out of the blue, if Tio Juan spoke Spanish...
Me: "Yes, he does. He also speaks English."
Liam: "English? What is English?"
Kevin: "English is the language that we speak."
Liam: "What does English sound like?"
Hmmm...
A side note: En route, I saw a fantastic bumper sticker on a Volvo station wagon which read: "Honk if you love silence" ...Now that's just the sort of sarcastic wit I can appreciate in my world. ;-)
We arrive around 2:30, thrilled to release the children into the waiting audience that is anyone besides us and see if we remember how to carry on an adult conversation. --But first, Liam has to give Tio Juan his surprise... which turned out to be a cotton bowl and wad of cotton he had collected on our trip to Grandma's farm. Awww.
And then (my eyes are watering and heart bursting with pride writing this), we watched our sweet little four year old boy as he stood tall and saluted his Uncle. Juan beamed, returning the salute. Then he let Liam try on his Drill Sergeant hat and his Texas Calvary hat... then Liam wanted to know about Tio Juan's tanks...
These days with three teenagers, everyone has a boyfriend/girlfriend and so the house was full with young people and even friends and neighbors - which was great for us because it was like having a house full of unsuspecting babysitters. --Liam worked the house and monopolized everyone's time (particularly Nicki's boyfriend Jake) and honed in on Daniel's girlfriend Mallory... while Isabel, the unnaturally good and quiet child for a change, set about carving out her walking path, sampling the food being prepared, and decided who she liked best by swatting at them. --Oh, and getting the cap off of a two-liter of Coke and chugaluggin' it. (Why her Occupational Therapist thought it wise to teach her to unscrew lids is beyond me. Yeah, thanks for that.)
At last the smorgasbord of food was prepared, the table set, and per tradition at Elvia's, we all took turns telling what we were thankful for... Isabel was thankful for food and Liam was thankful for windows. Huh? --Anyway, Thanksgiving being what it is, we all gorged ourselves on the traditional favorites and had no room for dessert, though that didn't stop us. Isn't that what it's all about after all?
So, after a wonderful day with friends and family, wonderful food, laughter and memories... we were trying to find the energy to head back to Raleigh when we noticed our son busy rearranging the room of people by simply taking a hand and dragging that person to the spot he wanted to reposition them. Curiously we watched...
Liam then walks over to where Daniel was sitting on the love seat sofa with his sweet, pretty fifteen year old girlfriend and takes Mallory by the hand, pulls her from the couch and leads her over to a fold out chair just two feet away. On cue, she sits as the little prince then strategically places himself in between the object of his affection and her beloved and proceeds to serenade her with the most romantic song he knew... "Happy Birthday to you..."
O.M.G. We are in SO much trouble.
"The life of man is the true romance, which when it is valiantly conduced, will yield the imagination a higher joy than any fiction."
...Ralph Waldo Emerson
09 November 2010
the big surprise.
A couple of weeks ago, we took the kids out for a "surprise." --Well, I told Bella since they were actually her tickets but i knew she wouldn't tell anyone... and Kevin, not one for surprises, pestered me until I gave him enough clues that he finally figured it out (I sure could use a fixed aperture telephoto lens, a natural disaster, indoors) - so really I guess it was Liam's surprise... Yes, that's right, we went to a Carolina Hurricanes game. It was a first for the kids and they both loved it!
In spite of the loud-mouth jackass sitting behind us yelling the whole game with a scorn on his face like he was watching his girlfriend get it on with someone else in the rink.
No matter where you sit, there's always at least one isn't there? These are the same kind of guys who ruin little league games too with their explosive rantings. Key word folks: "GAME." This one had a supportive wife beside him egging her man on who actually said, "These seats should be filled to capacity! People just need to understand what an honor and privilege it is to come to a real NHL Hockey game?" Seriously??? Is the high altitude up here in the nose-bleed section getting to you or what? I mean come on, sure we enjoy going to a game when we can (Hockey is one of the only sports that Kevin and I can enjoy together after all) but there are a couple of reasons why we haven't gotten season tickets: 1) we don't have 2-5 thousand dollars lying around and 2) because with my luck, our seats for the whole season would be assigned right next to some loud-mouth inconsiderate asshole like you.
But I digress.
Every since Liam and I had played hooky one Monday afternoon from school/work and spend the afternoon gallivanting about the grounds of the newly expanded North Carolina Museum of Art (which I forgot was closed on Mondays), Liam has been asking to go back. So - surprise!
Ten minutes into the new building, Liam begins to cry, "I don't like this surprise. I wanna go to a hockey game!"
"If you make every game a life and death proposition, you're going to have problems. For one thing, you'll be dead a lot."
...Coach Dean Smith
27 October 2010
gettin' that dragon.
SO. This past weekend I picked up a DVD copy of a super cute movie we'd all watched in the theater, "How to Train Your Dragon," which we've now seen about twenty times so far.
As such, it was no surprise to find our brave little gentleman galloping about the living room the other night playing dragon and (here comes the 'surprise' part) exclaiming, "I'm gonna get that fucking dragon!"
Looks like Mommie and Daddy need to uhm, *cough* monitor Liam's television exposure a bit more closely... Yeah, we'll go with that.
Not that I'm proud that our toddler was caught using sailor words by any means (although he is a Pirate baby after all), but I have to admit it is damn impossible not to burst into spontaneous giggles every time I replay the scene in my head. --The hardest part of course was keeping seriously disappointed looks on our faces while explaining to a four-year-old why it's not nice to drop F-bombs.
Oops!
As such, it was no surprise to find our brave little gentleman galloping about the living room the other night playing dragon and (here comes the 'surprise' part) exclaiming, "I'm gonna get that fucking dragon!"
Looks like Mommie and Daddy need to uhm, *cough* monitor Liam's television exposure a bit more closely... Yeah, we'll go with that.
Not that I'm proud that our toddler was caught using sailor words by any means (although he is a Pirate baby after all), but I have to admit it is damn impossible not to burst into spontaneous giggles every time I replay the scene in my head. --The hardest part of course was keeping seriously disappointed looks on our faces while explaining to a four-year-old why it's not nice to drop F-bombs.
Oops!
"Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer."
...Mark Twain
28 August 2010
belt testing @ TKD.
belt testing @ TKD., originally uploaded by Luna Soledad.
"A child's education should begin at least one hundred years before he is born."
...Oliver Wendell Holmes
21 August 2010
mess makers.
Yet another example of why my house is a wreck...
Here we have my two feral children engaged in water play... and happily flooding the guest bathroom by clogging the sink with toilet paper and my son's feet.
...Wall paintings were askew, an inch of standing water on the floor and in the bathroom rug, a role of toilet paper lost to the flood waters, the hand soap dispenser empty (I have yet to find the top), clothing soaked, and Vaseline and butt cream in their hair.
Sigh.
"Even though your kids will consistently do the exact opposite of what you're telling them to do, you have to keep loving them just as much."
...Bill Cosby
12 August 2010
at Taekwondo.
@ TKD., originally uploaded by Luna Soledad.
This evening there were a few new folks there watching their kidos from the wings. I overheard numerous "oooh's" and "awww's" and comments about how precious, how cute, how adorable the littlest boy was. They laughed and clapped for him and I secretly beamed - for the precious, cute, adorable littlest boy was mine... all mine. =)
"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."
...Bruce Lee
10 August 2010
Nutella monsters.
Here we have a perfect pictorial of rotten little kids left to their own devices without adult supervision...
So as days go (in the circus that is my life), today was relatively uneventful. I went to work, had coffee, and my sweet husband brought me a Bojangles chicken biscuit for breakfast. I did stuff and was fairly productive, taking only a few crazy calls, and I stayed away from eBay. I skipped lunch and left early for an appointment, treating myself to a soft serve ice cream cone en route.
Kevin took Liam to Taekwondo and we met back at the house where Liam walks in the door holding a Diet Coke in mid-explosion that he'd been shaking which sprayed all over the kitchen, the floor, Liam, and his clean white TKD uniform. Welcome home!
Then per protocol, Kevin and I engage in our traditional "what's for dinner" dance, domestic planners that we are.
Me: "Want me to make some more arepas?"
Him: "No."
Me: "How about rice and vegetables?"
Him: "No."
Me: "Zucchini pasta?"
Him: "No."
Me: "Chinese food it is!"
And so I retreat to the office to place the delivery order while Kevin, struck with the sudden inspiration to clean the dog-pee-stained carpet, sets about doing his thing.
(Since food seems to be the reoccurring blog theme of mine this week...) We usually order from Peking Garden as their cuisine is good albeit unpredictable as it seems the Mexican cooks in the Chinese kitchen have adapted my way of cooking and the inability to follow a recipe so rarely does the same dish taste the same way, but as I said, it's most always good, and more importantly, they deliver and they're quick.
While in the office, I check my email, check Facebook, check Flickr and before I know it, the delivery guy is knocking at the door. I'm in my pajamas already so I task Kevin with getting the door while I collect our offspring for dinner. --A quick look around tells me that the children are missing and therefore up to no good.
They're not downstairs. Not upstairs. Not in the attic (yes, I've found them in there before too). Not in the back yard and they couldn't have gone out the front. What the hell?...
I open the back door to the garage and what do I find but the little monsters hiding and sitting as happily as pigs in slop on the back stoop in their pajamas eating Nutella straight out of the jar with their grubby little hands!
Holy hell.
So as days go (in the circus that is my life), today was relatively uneventful. I went to work, had coffee, and my sweet husband brought me a Bojangles chicken biscuit for breakfast. I did stuff and was fairly productive, taking only a few crazy calls, and I stayed away from eBay. I skipped lunch and left early for an appointment, treating myself to a soft serve ice cream cone en route.
Kevin took Liam to Taekwondo and we met back at the house where Liam walks in the door holding a Diet Coke in mid-explosion that he'd been shaking which sprayed all over the kitchen, the floor, Liam, and his clean white TKD uniform. Welcome home!
Then per protocol, Kevin and I engage in our traditional "what's for dinner" dance, domestic planners that we are.
Me: "Want me to make some more arepas?"
Him: "No."
Me: "How about rice and vegetables?"
Him: "No."
Me: "Zucchini pasta?"
Him: "No."
Me: "Chinese food it is!"
And so I retreat to the office to place the delivery order while Kevin, struck with the sudden inspiration to clean the dog-pee-stained carpet, sets about doing his thing.
(Since food seems to be the reoccurring blog theme of mine this week...) We usually order from Peking Garden as their cuisine is good albeit unpredictable as it seems the Mexican cooks in the Chinese kitchen have adapted my way of cooking and the inability to follow a recipe so rarely does the same dish taste the same way, but as I said, it's most always good, and more importantly, they deliver and they're quick.
While in the office, I check my email, check Facebook, check Flickr and before I know it, the delivery guy is knocking at the door. I'm in my pajamas already so I task Kevin with getting the door while I collect our offspring for dinner. --A quick look around tells me that the children are missing and therefore up to no good.
They're not downstairs. Not upstairs. Not in the attic (yes, I've found them in there before too). Not in the back yard and they couldn't have gone out the front. What the hell?...
I open the back door to the garage and what do I find but the little monsters hiding and sitting as happily as pigs in slop on the back stoop in their pajamas eating Nutella straight out of the jar with their grubby little hands!
Holy hell.
"When children are doing nothing, they are doing mischief."
...Henry Fielding
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)