Some furniture punch-line should go here...

This morning I was in my room trying to have devotions (with Seth crawling all over me, literally) when we heard a howl from the living room. Soon Skyler came pounding down the hallway.

Seth was ready for him. "Did Anaya give you an owie, Skyer?"

"No." He sniffed.

"Did somebody hitted you?"

"Yes." He held out his hand with the apparent owie needing to be kissed. "The couch hitted me."

Hybrid bicycle?

Yesterday Seth called to me from outside for help pushing him on his bicycle. "It's not going," he shouted. "I think it's out of gas!"

The con-TROLL freak

Anaya is thrilled to have inherited two new toys--a broken cell phone and a broken camera. She showed me her gifts proudly this morning. "See, Mommy? I have a real phone and a real camera. Now all I need is a broken computer, and I will be like a real grownup!"

Apparently that wasn't her last thought along these lines. At lunch she filled her plate without asking for help. "Mommy, can I do everything for myself today, like a real grownup?" She pleaded. "Then I can be in troll of my life!"

When you hope your house slippers aren't slippery...

Anaya was darting around the yard yesterday afternoon when she stopped suddenly and reached her finger out into the air. "Mommy," she shouted, "I just found an inchworm!"

Beaming, she brought it to me to examine. "It was hanging on a string in the air! I found it!" I braced for the next natural announcement. "I'm going to keep it as a pet!"

I watched the pale green critter inch cautiously along her hand and tried to think of a good excuse to return it to Mother Nature's tender care. "But it might not be happy. Don't you think it will miss its family? Don't you think it will get hungry?" But it was too late. "Finally I have a pet!" she exulted. Before I knew it we were punching holes in the top of a plastic container and filling it with leaves.

Great. I hate having "pets." I can never seem to remember to make sure they are not languishing in some corner dying of thirst--until I smell them. But this one had no such privilege.

"Mommy!" Anaya called to me at 9:30 last night from her bedroom.

"What?" I responded, coming to her door.

She sat up in bed. "I forgot. My inchworm got out. I took the leaf out of its house and the inchworm was on it. It's in the playroom somewhere."

"Anaya! That's terrible! What if I step on it?"

She pondered a moment. "I think I can find another one."

Pause for thought

Today I was reading Anaya a story when she interrupted. "Can you pause the story while I go potty?"

Runaway problems again

This morning was a difficult one for Seth. Time after time we had to send him to his room with instructions not to come out until he finished whining. On one such excursion, I finally went into the room to deal with his wailing more personally. "Seth," I said, sitting down on the bed beside him, "I need you to stop whining."

We went through the usual routine of him admitting that it was his attitude that was causing the problem, but he was still reluctant to surrender. Finally he burst out, "It's so boring here! I just want to run away."

"Really," I responded mildly. "Are you going to get dressed first, or go in your pajamas?"

"I don't know!"

"Well, I think you'd better get dressed if you want to run away."

My horrified son began wailing again. "You mean you don't want to send a grownup with me?"

How catty of me

So apparently, according to Anaya, we need a cat.

She informed me of this the other night at bedtime (Her favorite time for coming up with topics that she thinks can start long conversations). "Mommy, I just know that somewhere out there is a kitty that wouldn't cost any money to get." (If she only knew how many...!)

"But it would cost money to buy food for it, and to get it shots so it wouldn't get sick."

"What are shots?" This is difficult to explain to an unvaccinated kid, but I tried, concluding with, "Anyway, it costs lots of money to have a cat. And it is lots of work. You still have a hard time doing your responsibilities, and you complain about cleaning the playroom."

"But Mommy, I wouldn't complain about feeding a kitty."

"Right. But even if you didn't, we have to drive to Grandma's house in a few weeks, and it's more than enough for me to have to drive 12 hours with three howling children, never mind a cat."

"But I would have so much fun playing with a kitty!"

"Until it got hit by a car. We can't keep a cat in our house. We can't take good care of a cat. You can play with Grandma's cats when we get there. We can't take a cat with us there, because her cats wouldn't like it."

But Mommy," she sighs at my obviously illogical arguments. "We can give it to our friends!"