Since Little Sis isn’t really what we’d call a “talker” quite yet… buckle up. This one’s a monster:
On a recent trip to Island Park, we found an almost complete skeleton from a baby antelope. Little Dude rejoiced and bones are now the new hotness. How do I know? When we got home, as Little Dude collected Q-tips, dish soap and a cup of water to wash his skeletal treasures, he said “Papa, I wish it was raining bones.”
A while back, we screened Bedtime Stories for Little Dude. Not really offensive (unless you like intelligent cinema), but a little more for the 8-year-old crowd. Of course, he loved it. Especially a sequence where Adam Sandler embellishes his story with an “Angry Dwarf” kicking him in the B-U-T-T. Soon after, we were out shopping when Little Dude’s face lit up. As he earnestly tugged on my shirt, he excitedly pointed to a four-foot-something dude waiting in line to our left, “Papa! Is he an angry dwarf?”
Little Dude and the dark? Not on speaking terms. After playing some “Starn Wars” in the living room, Little Dude set off to put his jammies on. As he passed the stairs (which descend into the basement), Little Dude looked down into the dark where a closet door was hanging open.
Panic!
Big-lipped and whimpering, he bolted back to me, “Why is that door open!?” Trying to soothe the little guy, I told him he needed to tell the dark that he’d “eat it for breakfast” and that he’d show the dark “what’s up” or, better yet, not look into the basement on the way to his room. “Yeah. I like the dark. I’m not afraid fo the dark any more.” Punched up with a little big-talking courage, Little Dude tried passing the stairs again, valiantly looking away… for about .5 seconds. Unable to not take another peek, Little Dude gave an unfortunate sidelong glance into the basement.
Panic!
He bolted back to me and worriedly clenched his arms around my neck, “Papa! I looked into the basement! I changed my mind. I don’t like the dark. It’s only good when you’re sleeping.”
Thanks to “Cup-O-Toilet”, everyone knows Little Dude’s recent aversion to pooping (which he’s made great strides on– we’re at a week and a half plus of self-motivated poop-time). He’s also a really sweet kid who likes to delineate his good guys and bad guys to make sure the good guys win. Sensing an opportunity for some leverage on why pants-pooping is bad news I said, “Only bad guys poop their pants.”
Little Dude: “Did Jesus take away their toilets?”
Here in the lovely Cache Valley, you don’t see many people smoking. When Little Dude recently did, he told us why it might be bad for you, “That guy’s smoking! Smoking will make your brain hot, right?”
Little Dude is beginning to come of the age where gum-chewing lies within his occasional grasp. Of course, it’s hit and miss– one day he’ll chew gum and spit it out, the other he’ll swallow it. Still, you’ve got to give kids a chance to prove themselves, so when Little Dude recently asked for some gum, we gave it to him. Jaw chomping ferociously, he went his way. A bit later, his jaw chomping ferocity had stopped.
“Did you swallow your gum?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because it tasted more delicious than anything!”
Little Dude creates items and creatures wholesale. It’s usually a combination of a couple things he’s familiar with. Like a “Lightning Frog” (A frog that’s black with a red lightning bolt on it) or Seawood (…). As we sat on the deck eating a snack, Little Dude invented another:
“Papa, do you know a Plate Hammerhead?”
“A Plate Hammerhead?”
“Yeah, a hammerhead with a plate on it. A armor plate. It’s stuck to its skin. They live far away.”
“Where?”
“Uh… the United States.”
“That’s here.”
“Yeah- in those mountains.”
“Where’s the water?”
“It dried up and they died.”
Like his Papa and Lady-Friend, Little Dude has a big fat sweet tooth. We’ll often find him taking the initiative and rummaging around for “treats”. The other day he walked up holding a conspicuously half-empty, silver-foiled bag in one hand and a fruit snack pinched between two fingers in the other. Smiling, he then dropped the fruit snack into his grinning mouth.
“Where’d you get that?”
“It fell out of the sky!”
“Really!?”
“Papa, I wish fruit snacks would really fall out of the sky. I was just making it fall with my hand. Except for one…. No, Two!”
Apparently, the movie Bolt made a lasting impression on Little Dude.
“Papa, I don’t want to be called Joshua any more. I want my name to be Bolt.”
“How come?”
“Because it’s AWESOME.”
On a recent trip to church, Little Dude was insistent he bring a helicopter, a jet and a Star Wars guy. I tried to explain why we didn’t bring toys. I then tried to brigde some generational commonality:
“Did you know my Mom and Dad, your Gramma and Grampa, never let me bring toys to church? And I think that’s a good idea.”
“That’s a bad idea, Papa! That’s a mistake! My Gramma and Grampa made a mistake!”
Lady-Friend recently wrapped up a six-month-in-the-making project: a completely hand-sewn ABC “Quiet Book”. Complete with letter specific activities (T’s tic-tac-toe, F’s fishing, E’s egg with hatching birdies), the thing is a sight to behold. It’s also as big and think as my head. But it’s awesome.
As Little Dude and I were playing with it, Little Dude turned to “B” for Butterfly. The page has a bunch of felt butterflies you can catch with a net. Little Dude pulls out the butterflies and asks which color I want. Naturally, despite picking green and blue, I end up with pink and yellow. I start flapping the the butterflies thinking we’re having lighthearted, butterfly-flapping fun… until I hear Little Dude make the tell-tale “PRRRRRRT” raspberry/squishing sound… as he runs his butterfly right into the windshield of the car on the “C” page. “That one got squished, Papa.”
Despite all the wrangling that may go into getting Little Dude to bed, when things calm down there’s some things that easily erase all the frustration.
“Papa, can I be your snuggle bug forever?”
Yep, that’s one of ‘em.
