From the Mouths of Babes

Quote Monday is back to Monday

/ Shane / 2 Comments

I used to put quotes up on Mondays, because I spent so much time with Evie on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, that I had a lot of quotes to talk about. It sort of became a regular feature of the blog. Lately though it has been skipping around a little bit. I make no promises for the future, but for today its back to Monday!

Nala: meowing like crazy outside Evie’s door
Me: wishing death in every possible way on the cat
Evie: “Nala! Be quiet!”
Nala: falls silent

Who knew that after all this time, Evie has the power to command the cat?! And here I always worried Nala would wake her up, it turns out that would be the best thing for all of us!

Evie and I went to see a Christmas play at a church the other day. She was following along with the action, but at one point, she got really upset. She understood that Mary and Joseph were looking for a place to sleep. What she couldn’t understand was why that was a problem, when there were so many unused benches at the back of the church. She was really upset about it, I had to shush her a couple of times as her insistence got louder and louder. She would point toward the back of the church and say, “But there’s benches! Right there!” I got the impression that she was about to run up to the front and make the suggestion, but the play had moved on by that point. She didn’t let it go for the rest of the play, asking about every 5 minutes, “Is someone going to come sleep on these benches?”

::singing “Hey Diddle Diddle” about 20 times in a row::
“Mommy, can we sing Row Row Row Your Boat? I am sooo tired of Cat and the Fiddle.”

“I can comb your hair and then you can comb my hair, daddy.”
“Okay, that’s fine.”
::combing big circles around the outside of my head::
“I’ll comb the outside because there’s no hair in the middle.”

Peppermint probably isn’t really for kids

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Evie has been using baby toothpaste, which is pretty expensive, given how small the tube is. So instead we went out and bought some semi-expensive (though still waay cheaper than the baby toothpaste) toothpaste with out any chemicals or fluoride in it, that she could use. Now, we’ve learned long ago that you don’t just go changing something like that, or you’re going to have a fit on your hands. So for probably a month, we’ve been talking up this new toothpaste and how exciting it’s going to be. Finally the big day arrived; time to use the new “big girl” toothpaste.

Evie was so excited about this toothpaste. We’ve gotten pretty good about talking things up. She was practically dancing to get a hold of this stuff. So I put some toothpaste on the brush and handed it to her. As soon as it hit her mouth, she got a really sad look on her face, and tears sprung into her eyes. She shouted, “This toothpaste is hot! I need some water!” She looked so miserable.

I didn’t really think about the fact that she’s never tasted peppermint before. Peppermint does do something strange in your mouth, where it kind of feels hot and cold at the same time, or maybe a little numb or something. You know what I mean? I expect that would be a little shocking if you had never experienced it before and you didn’t expect it. She was so sad that she didn’t like the toothpaste and I felt so bad for her.

Eventually we got some new, berry flavored big girl toothpaste and all is fine. Skip ahead a few weeks. My mom sent an advent calendar, containing a few of those tiny candy canes. Of course she picked one and of course it was too “hot” and she didn’t like it. Now the strange thing was that she proceeded to pick a candy cane every single day after that, until they were gone. Each time she would be really excited, unwrap it, lick it once, and then say, “I don’t like this!” and throw it in the trash. It’s not like she didn’t know what she was getting. One time, after I had helped her unwrap the thing, she told me, “I’m going to need some water, I don’t like these.” Then she popped it in her mouth.

She is a strange girl.

Evie: “I am not impressed by this diaper!” (She’s getting sick of wearing them to bed)

Evie likes you to make up stories and tell them to her. She likes it so much that after you do it once, you’re forced to do it again and again for all eternity. Lately, she has discovered a way to force me to keep telling her a story after I’m done. It goes like this: I tell her I’m only going to tell her one more story. After some hemming and hawing, she agrees. Finally I finish the story, but rather than being content with the story, she asks, “Does this story have an epilogue?” I obviously can’t resist that, and end up telling a little more story than I intended to. I think I’m winning the war though, because now I always save a little bit of story in case she asks.

Pronuciation Guide

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Evie has a certain way of saying things. Some of this is just kid stuff, like saying “w” instead of “L”, as in “I wove you mommy!” Some of it seems to be more based on her personally, not generic kid pronunciation. This isn’t so crazy; we all pronounce things a little differently, whether we have an accent or not. But I would expect that we would be able to trace the way she says things to the way Sara or I pronounce things. That doesn’t always seem to be the case. (Although this isn’t so crazy either, since it has been well documented that I say “both” as if it had a “w” and an “l” in it (bowlth) even though I have no idea where this came from, since I don’t know anybody who says it that way).

So in Evie-speak, any “oo” sound becomes “ew”, such as “smewch” or the way the ghost lights say “bew”. The exception to this rule is when the “oo” is followed by a “th”, which turns into a “v” and the “oo” gets extended. For example, after I shave, my face is “smooove” and Evie and mommy like to drink “smooovies”. The strangest one is that “yeah” becomes “yay-yah” – like Dave Chappelle doing a Lil’ John impression.

In a completely unrelated note, I mentioned that Evie has this thing where she re-writes her memories of events to suit herself, by asking Sara if she did something, when she knows very well Sara did *not* do that thing. The usual example is me putting on Evie’s socks and shoes to get ready to go, even though she wants Sara to do it. So after she cries and fights me, but I finally get them on, she runs tearfully to Sara and says, “Mommy, did you put on my socks and shoes?” and Sara says, “Yes.” As soon as this happens, Evie stops crying and is just as happy as if she had gotten her way in the first place and Sara really had put on her shoes.

So the other day, it was time to put Evie’s shoes and socks on, and Evie informed us that she would like “Daddy to trick [her]” by putting on her socks and shoes, after which mommy would say she did it. We went about the whole charade, complete with fake crying on her part. And after I got her shoes and socks on, she went to Sara (who had stood right there watching the whole thing) and said, “Mommy, did you put my socks and shoes on?” and after Sara said “Yes,” Evie had a big smile on her face. 

Sometimes I wonder who is tricking who.

The next day she took it a step further. This time, I wasn’t even there. She wanted Sara to put her shoes and socks on and then tell her that I was in fact there, and I had tricked her by putting her shoes and socks on and then had Sara tell Evie that it was really Sara who put her shoes on. Except, it really was Sara that put her shoes on! So it was like a secret agent double cross type situation, where she wanted Sara to lie about lying to her and it looped all around again…look, even I can barely keep up with it at this point!

Quote Roundup

/ Shane / 3 Comments

“Daddy, will you help me get Pooh ready for his bath?”
“Can’t you do it by yourself?”
“No, I’m the mommy, I just lay on the couch.”

Me: “Uncle Nathan’s birthday isn’t for a long time.”
Evie: “But what month is it in?”
Me: “April.”
Evie: “April? I’ve never heard of such a thing!”

“Evie, put that book back on the shelf, we’ll go find a different one.”
“I shan’t!”
If it’s not daresay, it’s shan’t with this one.

“Doctor Evie, mommy doesn’t feel very well. Maybe you should give her a smooch.”
::Evie runs over and gives her a kiss and comes back::
::whispering conspiratorially:: “Mommy kissed the doctor!”

::Feeling my cheeks:: “Scratchy.”
::Feeling under my eyes:: “Smooth.”
::Feeling the top of my head:: “Smooth!”

Words used correctly, and those that aren’t

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Evie, “I daresay I have a stuffed animal chickie at home.”
Sara, “Could you repeat that?”
Evie, “I daresay they have real chickies at the museum.”

Even though I know Evie said it, I still hear a dusty British accent when I read that. I’ve read it 100 times, and it still cracks me up every time. Not only did she learn and correctly use the word “daresay”, but the juxtaposition of “daresay” and the very kid-like “chickies” is just too much.

Evie: “Daddy, do you want to play with the duplos?”
::dumping them out on the floor::
Evie: “Let’s rock and roll!”

It’s always a guessing game, trying to figure out where she learned these phrases from.

Me: “The Packers are playing today.”
Evie: “The Packers are done with their time out?”

This prompted a lengthy discussion about how time-outs for sports are different than time-outs for being naughty. I remember watching the tail end of a previous game on stat tracker and telling Evie that the Packers were currently on time out. She really took it to heart I guess. I can only imagine what scene she had in mind, in which an entire team of beefy football players have to stand on the X (for a week, no less!)