Streets of gold

Today Seth found out about the Gold Rush while listening to an educational DVD from the library. "Mommy, guess what!" he shrieked. "Dere's gold in California! We can go get some!"

Feeling sluggish?

Today the boys were battling for control of the bubbles in the bathtub until I warned them one more fight would mean they both had to get out. A little while later I came back to spy on them and found them happily engaged in conversation.

Skyler greeted me in delight. "Mommy! Yook! We have syugs!"

There are a few things in the world that I hate passionately, and slugs are right up there at the top of the list. These "slugs" were harmless enough--the boys were just poking their fingers up through the bubbles in the bathtub--but it was still an alarmingly realistic imitation of slugs. Ew.

"Don't wowwy, Mommy." Skyler must have seen the look of distaste on my face at the mere mention of living blobs of slime. "We killed all the bad syugs. We onwy have nice, yittle baby syugs!" Great.

"See, Mommy," added Seth, wriggling his finger slugs, "dey are weally nice. Dey are kind and loving slugs." He introduced me to them by name (sorry, I've forgotten their slug names, but they were interesting), after which Skyler also introduced his by name.

"Dey were on our hands even before we got in da baff-tub," Skyler assured me. "And dey are going to stay wiv us. For weally in yife."

(This expression, "for really in life," is one of Skyler's current favorites, but its meaning is varied. I was pretty sure that in this case the imaginary slugs wouldn't be around for long--thankfully.)

But the slugs stayed around even after bathtime, carefully wending their way through sleeper sleeves and riding around the house on the boys' hands for a while. As I was scrubbing the bathroom floor later, Skyler came to me to talk more about his "syugs." Thankfully, it was because they had left. "Da syugs went to be wiv deir fwiends," he began. "Dey went to," he paused to think, "a syug house."

"That's wonderful," I said. "That's exactly where slugs should live."

"Yes," he agreed graciously. "In da syug house, dere are only nice baby syugs! No big, bad syugs."

"So there are no mommies and daddies in the slug house?" I asked. (Forgive me, I have nothing else to amuse me when I am scrubbing bathroom floors. Call it severe deprivation of intellectual stimulation.)

He thought about it carefully. "Well, when dey are hungwy, the mommy syugs come," he admitted. "But dere are no daddy syugs. But when dey get to heaven," he assured me, "den dere will be daddy syugs!"

"Dey are not bad syugs," Skyler concluded. "If they could fly, they would be bad. Wight, Mommy?"

I heartily agree.

Just spell it out

Lately we've had a sudden rash of notes popping up around the house, designating who sits where at the table, whose bathroom is whose, etc. Anaya is also currently making "coloring books," such as the one about Noah and the Ark she was working on today, in which she draws pictures and writes titles explaining them. This necessitates a lot of shouting around the house. "Mommy, how do you spell 'people'? Mommy, how do you spell 'Noah'? How do you spell 'animals'?"



Skyler is apparently feeling rather left out, because he decided to make his own sign this morning. "Mommy, I want to wite 'twain twacks,'" he announced. "How you do spell 'twain'?"

"T," I began.

He paused, pen over paper. "How do you spell 'T'?"

High aspirations

I overheard Anaya this morning exuberantly working on persuading Skyler to do something. "Skyler, you wanna come do something really fun right now? Come on! Let's go in the bedroom!" And then the clincher: "It's something we can't do!"

"Anaya," I called, "what are you doing?"

She came slowly into the kitchen. "It's not dangerous, Mommy," she began. "We did it before and no one got hurt."

That's never a good sign. "What are you doing?"

"We put him in a blanket on Sethie's bed and lower him down to the bottom."

"Sethie's bed? You mean the top bunk?"

"Yes..." she started slinking toward the door.

"Hey! No! You're not serious, are you? Did you lower your brother from the top bunk in a blanket?" Somehow I suspect this adventure wasn't imaginary...

Pray for me

Anaya has had a great burden lately to get one of her friends to treat her more nicely (i.e., do what she wants, I suspect). I have explained to her that it is more important that she pray for herself to be who she needs to be rather than Aile.

However, tonight her prayers took the usual turn. "Dear Jesus, please help Aile to be nice to me..."

"And help me to be who I need to be," I prompted.

"And help Mommy to be who she needs to be."

The Collegedale Tea Party

This morning Seth begged to wear a t-shirt. Even though it was below freezing outside, I relented and gave him permission to put one on.

He wriggled into his t-shirt joyfully and bounded around the room. "Yay!" he shouted. "Now I can dwink tea!"

Skyler watched enviously from my lap. "I hope there is weal tea inside it."

Pro choice

The other day I asked Anaya to help Skyler go potty while I was busy. Apparently the task of walking him to the bathroom was rather overwhelming, because she informed me a few minutes later, "This is so much work! I don't want to ever be a mommy!"

"I feel that way too sometimes," I answered.

"But you don't have a choice," she laughed. "I still have a choice!"

Growing pains

I told Skyler to go make his bed this morning. He responded, "I need help. I'm not big enough to make my bed by myself."

"Yes, you are," I said. "Go make your bed."

Instead he came around in front of me and stood silently for a moment. "See, Mommy, this is how big I am," he said solemnly. "You see, I'm not big enough. You have to be dis big," he held his hand about an inch above the top of his little curls, "to make your bed by yourself."