Quotes from our house :: vol I

Liam woke up one morning complaining that he was cold during the night.  He snuggled his cold self up next to me and said, “I prayed to God, but I guess He was busy.  He must have been talking to Jesus or His disciples ….. or maybe satan.

Later when he was sitting on my lap, he patted my cheeks and in tones of endearment said, “You’re so chubby.”

Adam’s vocabulary is still growing by leaps and bounds.  One day he was talking nonstop about how lucky his friend, Cole, is and how he has all these cool hunting games and of course how much he wishes he had all the same ones.  Then his voice trailed off briefly and in a much more low key voice he said, “Life is just so full of warnings.”

I snickered at the change of pace, crossing it off as another random sentence that happens when he doesn’t understand the concept of a word completely.  “Oh?  Why do you say that?”

A: “Because I knew you were going to say, but it’s not good to spend all your time on the computer.”

One night he and Liam were tucked into bed but I kept hearing spasms of almost uncontrollable giggles.  I walked back the hall to see what was so funny.  Apparently Adam was making up a song that went something like this:

Cornflakes are so yummy.  Avocado is a different story.  Cornflakes are so crunchy.  Avocado is so mushy.  That is why I hate avocado.

The funniest part about this story?  He doesn’t even like cornflakes.

I was talking to Liam about his {very} bad attitude when he told me indignantly, “I’m not mad.  I’m just ticked off.”

Adam has always been incredibly hard on pants.  I cringe sometimes when I do laundry because a brand new pair of pants can have an almost threadbare spot at the knee after wearing them two times.  He walks around with gaping holes at the knees in all but one of his every day pants and I said it was time to patch them.  He looked a bit disconcerted and said quickly, “Patches don’t really look good on me.”

One rare night I served dessert at dinner.  Liam and Adam were ecstatic.  “Now you’re getting the camp spirit, Mommy!” :/  No wonder I’m gaining weight.

Liam has been having trouble with nightmares off and on for the past few years.  I hate it and I hate it even more that I don’t know what to do about it to help him.  They were so terrible about a year ago that he once had panic attacks the next day.  When I explained to him what dreams are they seemed to subside somewhat.  Now they’re cropping up again occasionally.  One night before bed when he was worried that he might have a nightmare he asked, “When you have a bad dream, is that called fainting or it just called wiping out?”

Liam still needs a bit of assistance with toileting.  One afternoon he sat in the bathroom yelling, “I’m done.”  I walked in to help only to hear this bit of gratitude, “There comes slow motion.”

You know there are allergies in the house when you overhear this at the lunch table.  Liam: “I wish I was gluten free on mushrooms.”  Adam: “I wish mushrooms had penicillen in them.”  Liam: “I wish they had dairy in them.”  Another night Adam took a look at his slice of pizza and it’s loads of peppers, mushrooms, and onions.  Then he looked at me and offered generously, “You can eat the fallout.”

The boys get animal shaped vitamins.  Most of them are lions and rhinos and giraffes.  They always, and I mean always, want the lions.  I got tired of searching through the bottle so now I just dump out the first four vitamins and try to divy them up fairly.  Adam looked completely disgusted with his one morning and muttered, “Liam always gets the predatory ones.”

Adam and I love to drink hot tea when we start school for the day.  One rainy morning when I chose Earl Grey and he chose English Breakfast I saw him sniff the tea bags appreciatively while the water was still heating.  Then he said, “This probably smells like Ireland to you, but I just think of the busy streets of England.”

Homeschooling has been a learning curve for us both.  One frustrating day when he was too tired from a late night he looked at me with despair and said, “Why am I making so many mistakes when I’m so diligent (most of his mistakes happen when he starts messing around and not staying focused)?  I wish I knew the answer to that in real life, frankly.  Later I asked him what he thinks about homeschooling versus going to school by now.  He shrugged his shoulders a bit nonchalantly and said, “Well, I like homeschooling because you get done earlier, but I miss the smells of the classroom.”  Smells???? “Yeah, like the paper and pencils and lead and that screeching on the whiteboard.”

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