Pylon the Moad

Sounds like a Star Wars character, yes?

OR Sammy requesting Ice Cream on his pie.
It could also have been "Pile on the 'Mode'" Mode, in this case being the ice cream that should be heaped upon the pie. I'm not sure. His smart, silly, three-year-old mind is someplace where my conjucture does not belong.

Ralph

Any one know of Ralph Covert of Bad Example and the Minty Fresh label and most importantly of Ralph's World? Don't let the tough, edgy, don't f#$* with me nomenclenture of Bad Example scare you. The man's label is called Minty Fresh and his children's label is MiniFresh and has put out titles such as "Peggy's Pie Parlor" and "Happy Lemons" and our family favorite "At The Bottom of the Sea"

Ralph is just plain silly. But he's go amusing, tolerable, entertaining, kids' music. On his website, he's got lyrics and chords too! http://www.ralphsworld.com

Now I come to the point of this praise, I'M GOING TO LOOSE MY MIND IF I HAVE TO ENDURE ANOTHER NIGHT OF "MANY THINGS TO KNOW" ON CONTINUAL REPEAT!!!!!!!! It is a sweet, mushy song whose lyrics make me drippy. But by all that is holy, I wish Sam would not insist on putting it on repeat for 20x in a row. Thank you, Ralph, for not having annoying, stupid songs. I'm just praying that we can rotate in a new favorite SOON. Here are the lyrics to the song which is soon going to cause me to be a babbling idiot (no comments!)

There are many open doors, many ways to grow
Many kinds of happiness, and many things to know
You can know how many days are in a hundred years
You can know the way to reach out and dry somebody’s tears
But one thing I know in my heart to be true-- I love you, I love you

There are many kinds of days, many kinds of nights
Many kinds of questions, many wrongs and rights
You can know how may fire flies it takes to reach the moon
You can understand that beauty is nothing without truth
But one thing I know in my heart to be true, I love you, I love you

No matter anywhere I go
Or anything you do
Or anything that anybody ever says I love you, I love you
There are many open doors, many ways to grow
Many kinds of happiness, and many things to know

Best of Friends, Worst of Enemies

The caption for the picture below is, "oh, Noah, your shoe is untied. I will tie it for you."



He's three. He cannot tie. He knows this.
He worked at it for maybe 2 minutes before he told me that Noah needed his shoe tied.

He also gave Noah that cut that you may be able to discern under his left eye.

"Sweetie"

I may actually re-name my blog "Hysterical Things That Come Out of Sam's Mouth".

This morning I sent him to the fridge to get raspberries to go with his breakfast. After a minute,he called to me, "I can't find 'em, sweetie"

biting my tongue

Talking to Scott while in the kitchen with all the kids, I said, "They are going to loose their shirts".

Several minutes later, Sam said, "Mom? If they loose their shirts, they can get new ones."

I'm going to have to start biting my tongue as long as I can get my foot out of the way!

Onoffer

Does anybody remember "sniglets"? Words with don't appear in dictionaries but should. Created by Rich Hall back in the 80s. For example, Aquadextrous - Possessing the ability to turn the bathtub faucet on and off with your toes. Occassionally, Sam pops out with a word that he creates that is absolutely accurate, but that takes a few minutes to process and figure out just what in the hell he's talking about.

Sam was working very hard with a paint stirrer at digging and twisting in the door latch hole. He told me he was working and making a new onoffer. He went on to explain that we needed new lights and that he and Daddy were going to put them up and that he (Sammy) was making a new onoffer.

Still don't get it? He was pretending to wire a light switch.

and tomorrow we have to get up and do it all again.

pick up the boys from an overnight with grandma, get a coffee & cocoa, come home to find the exterminator waiting, who'd been here twice already - both times before the time he gave me, parked across the street b/c the wood for my porch reconstruction was in the driveway,shuttled overnight bags, drinks and other essentials across the street, carried 50 lbs of 2 boys while holding Sam's hand across the street and over the plywood plank remaining as the porch, strap on the booster seats, pour juice, get goldfish snacks, strap 'em all down, go back down to deal with my crusty old exterminator, while downstairs, Sam trips over the threshhold and spills his cocoa and whipped cream, melts down, is placated when I reveal the whopper tub of kool whip from the freezer that I keep hidden for my coffee, which is as yet untouched, construction workers come, can't turn on the power, trips to basement, hoping against hope that nothing * else* will happen while I run to the basement, switches all on, still no power, babies had tossed pillow onto surge protector and turned it off,

can't take it. going for a walk with Esther.

triple jogger has flat. go for air and feel the air shoot out of the tire onto my face. grrrr. old gas station mechanic offers to fix it, $7.50 later, we're off again. for 15 precious minutes they are contented, somejuice, cheese sticks from our saviour, aunt esther, we're briefly all happy.
Sam gets out to run, exhaustion takes over and he neither runs nor comes back to the stroller. has the biggest, most intense, long lasting fit EVER. crying. kicking. yelling. 45 minutes later, I've finished the walk, strapped them all in, taken apart the jog stroller, drive home, dragged everybody in again, sent Sam to bed, gotten the babies lunch, cleaned up the babies and their lunch and Sam finally stops crying.

we all recovered. sam and I cuddled for. 20 minutes. I patted myself on the back for not having a meltdown myself and thanked God emphatically that Sam had 2 hours of quiet time in his bed before falling asleep for 2 1/2 more hours. I bleached the kitchen floor. Aidan & Noah throw dinner on it.

And tomorrow we'll do it all again.

Marriage

Sammy and I were having a detailed chat about our plans for the next day. It happened to be the day before we were going to help Cecelia decorate the cupcakes for Mike & Lisa's wedding cake. He wanted to know about the cupcakes, what was going to be on them, where we'd go after the Gar-bey's. Could he eat the cupcakes? Then we got to the heavy stuff. What's a wedding?

It's not the heaviest ever. He asked my mom who Jesus was once. It was the heaviest I think I've ever gotten. I'm equal to the task. I think.....

I tell him that when two adults love each other very much they get married. I think I throw in something about becoming a mommy and a daddy. Enough for the three year old mind to ponder.

He quietly digests this. And tells me, "When we leave the Gar-bey's, I'm going to get married so that I can have cupcakes too." So much for the meaningful moment.

Memed?!?!

OK - to get back to my blogging I'm responding to being called out or "memed" by Lisa. At least I think what I'm supposed to do is answer the same questions that she did when she memed me. Here goes:

Number of books I've owned
are you kidding me?!?!?!? Four years of college, three of graduate school and lived through the era of Oprah's book club.....too too too many books owned, way too many of them in hardcover.
Categories include:
1. Girl Fluff: e.g. Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing,
2. Management School musts: From the required Drucker drivel to Charles Derber (with whom I am on a first name basis and who is on a first name basis with Ralph Nader)
3. Yummy novels
4. Non-fiction stimulus: in an effort to prevent my under-stimulated Mommy brains from oozing out my ears.

Last book I bought:
Ibid, by Mark Dunn: strange little book about a three-legged man, written as footnotes (weird)

Last book I read:
Rules of the Wild, Francesca Marciano

Five books that mean a lot to me:
Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett

When We Were Very Young, AA Milne

A Short History of a Very Small Place, TR Pearson

Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton

The 20th Century Children's Book Treasury, ed. Janet Schulman