Five

My buddy Lucas is five today!  I’m not sure how five years have passed since this child was born, but it’s also hard to remember what we did for fun before he came??  We certainly didn’t laugh as much!

Lucas and I have had lots of great times in the last year, as I’ve seen him nearly every Sunday.  We argue about math (no, pi is not 6040509, I insist!) and we hunt “wabbits” (ala Elmer Fudd).  We look at photo albums over and over again, repeating every story.  We run around my parents’ house as though we’re both five years old!  He tells me everything he knows about dinosaurs (which is a lot!).  He asks me questions about God and forgiveness and heaven. 

In a word, he is remarkable.

Gloves

I don’t know when I last tried to put gloves on a child.  I’m pretty sure it’s been a very long time.

So I’m putting a glove on my cousin’s 4 year old, and he’s wiggling his fingers, and I’m thinking the fingers are going where they are supposed.  But, in the end, there were two fingers in one slot, and no fingers in another.  So I pulled the glove partially off and we tried again, and this time there were again two fingers in one slot and no fingers in another (at least a different place was empty that time!).  And this was the conversation that followed…

Me:  I’m learning that it’s hard to put gloves on a kid.

Child:  You learned that today?

Me:  Yes.

Child:  Where did you learn that?

Me:  Here, this morning.  [still wrestling with the gloves, by the way]

Child:  You learned that here?  This morning?

Me:  Yes!  I’m learning it right this minute.

And I swear to you that the child looked at me like I had completely lost my mind!  LOL!

Punchlines

One of my favorite jokes is “Why is 6 afraid of 7?”  Because 7 8 9!

My cousin’s little boy is very into jokes this month, but he doesn’t like that punchline.  At age 4, the better punchline is:

Because 7 is BIGGER! (said with a booming voice!)

And then he asked me, “Why is 1 afraid of 3?”

You guessed it.  Because 3 is BIGGER!

The joke is more generalizable with his punchline, I suppose. 

Duck, Duck…

One of my highlights of my month so far was playing Duck Duck Goose with my cousin’s 4 year old.  Except we didn’t just play Duck Duck Goose, we got fancy with it.  One ought not be restricted to just two animals, you know!

I was the first to expand our horizons by saying, “Duck, Duck, Giraffe, Hippo, Duck, GOOSE!” and we went flying around my parents’ house!

Then, he one-upped me, further branching out with “Potato, Tomato, Duck, T-Rex, Giraffe, Hippo, Duck, Salad, GOOSE!” and we went flying around my parents’ house again.

It’s fun to be four.

Questions at age 4

I’m guessing that age 4 must be when kids’ brains are ready for a lot of comparative reasoning because I’ve had weekly conversations with my cousin’s boy that revolve around:  which is bigger, which is stronger, which is faster.  The question for today completely cracked me up.  Are you ready for this:

“Which is easier:  making ice cubes or building a house?”

I love this age! 

Old Favorites, #5

I’m on vacation for a few days.  Here is one my favorite posts from my original blog.

* * *

Kids say…
Posted on 15-Oct-2004

Kids are so funny.  A couple of times recently, I’ve been in public restrooms at the same time as kids who are about five years old.  They carried on extensive monologues of imagination while they used the bathroom.

My favorite was the little girl who went into the stall (talking the whole time) at a medical office.  I heard her say, “The doctor told her, ‘I have bad news. You are allergic to two things: broccoli and BOYS!’”

S-p-e-l-l-i-n-g B-e-e

Did you see the National Spelling Bee finals on TV on Friday?  I would honestly watch a spelling bee on TV every week!  (Are you paying attention, ABC?!)  I find it inspiring, interesting, and often entertaining.  This year’s was especially so.  One kid was asked to spell numnah, and I swear to you that the way the pronouncer said it, it sounded like numb nut.  And the audience laughed so hard, and the kid said, “Numb nut?”  I think the pronouncer even laughed at that!

That kid, by the way, eventually won the Bee.

I remember watching the Bee finals last year and not being able to spell anything.  I’m a good speller and have enough background in a couple of foreign languages that that’s helpful too, but these words were out of this world!  This year, when I turned it on, I was able to spell the first two words, so I thought, “OK!  This is going be better than last year!”  (One of the words was tautological, which is a word we use in math.)  I don’t think I could confidently spell any of the words after that though!  A couple, I might have guessed correctly.  Maybe.  Those spelling bee kids are amazing!

The word that ended up being the losing word for the second place finisher (who is from nearby Detroit) was prosopopoeia.  Tom Bergeron (from “America’s Funniest Home Videos”) was co-hosting the broadcast of the Bee, and when the pronouncer said the word, Tom said, “Oh goodness gracious.”  My thoughts exactly!

Baby watch

I received word yesterday that one of my nearly lifelong friends had a baby girl named Claire!  This is baby #3 and the first girl for the family.  I can’t wait to get to the store and to buy some pink!  I love to shop for babies — any babies really (got one?) — but after years and years of boys, it is nice to sometimes get to look at things with ruffles and ribbons now!

I’m also eager to read about baby news from a couple of bloggers who I read but don’t know in real life.  It is fun to be on a Baby Watch again!

Babies on the Mind

I had a dream last night that I had a six day old baby in my apartment, and she was apparently mine and I called her Mia.  I wondered who the father was and concluded it must have been Luke from Gilmore Girls!  Well sure, that makes sense…?  *laughs*  I had a Pack N Play for her to sleep in but had no other baby supplies.  I spent a good part of the dream wondering who would take care of her when I was working, especially since my work schedule is very non-family friendly.  To my surprise, the baby was six days old and I hadn’t taken her picture (yeah right, like that would happen!) and hadn’t let anyone know about her.  So as I was waking up, I was about to come to my computer and send out an e-mail about this baby even though I didn’t know her vital stats and would have a hard time explaining how her father was a fictional TV character.

*falls over laughing*

Benini!

I was watching one of the baby documentary shows yesterday, and the family on the show had a 2 year old boy named Benjamin, but they called him Benini (pronounced beh-NEE-nee).  I thought that was the cutest nickname ever!  I have always had four favorite boy names, and I go around in circles about which I’d actually name a child if I got to name a boy, and the prospect of calling a child Benini may tip the scales in favor of Benjamin.

Benini!  Love it, love it.