Hee-hee

Jackson yesterday in his swim suit:

"MOM...GUESS WHAT? I discovered the tips of these round things know when I get cold!! (He's pointing to his nipples) See, they aren't soft and flat. It means I am cold! They're like secret detectors. Cool, huh??"

:::

Lydie at dinner:

"Mommy, I don't want to ever go to jail. " (Cue tearful eyes)

Me: "Well then, just do not break the law and you'll be just fine."

L: "I don't know her. But I don't want to break her. I will never break Law, and you be her friend, too."

Body image of a different sort

For whatever reason, Lydie has always referred to her girly part as her "body". We are such blubbering idiots, we could never come up with a good nickname. And the real name just seemed way out of her league. We obviously have the maturity in this particular area of a 6th grade boy. Any way, she calls it "her body" and that's been just fine with us.

Well the other morning, I was reviewing our catechism questions. She kept wanting to know if God is a boy or a girl. I kept repeating the answer, "God is a spirit and has no body as we do." And then she would say, "So, boy or girl?" Finally she looked down at her little undies and said as she pointed, "I know God has no BODY! Boy or girl?" Oh. I guess letting her use that word for that part may cause some theological confusion. Silly Lydie and her words!

Moral of the story: Be mature enough to just go ahead and use the icky, anatomically correct words from day one. Creepy, but helpful in the long run.

Pictured: Lydie playing outside. Girlfriend is like a magnet to dirt and water, just like her big brothers!

The infamous trap door

"Some parents say that it's toy guns that make boys warlike. But give a boy a rubber duck and he will seize its neck like the butt of a pistol and shout "Bang!" ." ~George F. Will

A couple of weeks ago our Mimi came to visit. The boys slept on the pull out sofa and gave her their room. (Her guest room flooded in the big storm.) Unbeknownst to me, the boys had created a trap door in their room. (This is what we get for reading The Dangerous Book for Boys to them and encouraging them to "be inventive".) They removed the plywood from under their window seat pillow. When Mimi went to climb across the window seat to close the blinds, she fell in. Not just a foot, she actually fell in up to her waist and was really trapped! Apparently she yelled for us, but no one heard her. So for 5 or so minutes she was stuck. When she got out, she called us all up there and explained what happened. I think she was really perplexed and baffled. Immediately the boys started high fiving and jumping up and down screaming, "Woo hoo! It worked, it worked! Our trap door worked! And then...Oh, sorry Mimi."
Thankfully Mimi is a really good sport and later we all had a good laugh. Oh, what two best-friend, wanna-be Indiana Jones/spies, adventure-loving brothers are capable of when sharing a room together!

No Girls Allowed

The other night I decided after dinner to take the kiddos on a trip to Home Depot. I love roaming Home Depot almost as much as the fabric store. And of course the boys love it, too. So I had a list of 6 things to buy which just so happened to send us from one end of the store to the other. The last item on the list was needle nose pliers. I was kindof excited to save the pliers for last because that would mean we would get to go down the tool isle. I secretly love power tools!

As we turned the curve and started strolling down the isle, I could feel two men staring at me. I slowly and discreetly looked over my shoulder. I haven't seen the look that these men gave me in a long time! They were looking at me as if I had barged into the men's restroom and interrupted them! I realized quickly that the tool isle was obviously sacred to them. How dare a female parade down the tool isle! And with a baby girl wearing a pink dress and pink bow to boot! I laughed so hard I couldn't contain myself.