Last year (!!) Gene, watching baseball with B, "Papa, can the players see you through the television?"
Jane, eating a second muffin at breakfast, and having drunk none of her milk, "My throat is hurting after so much muffin.
Jane had laid her dolls ("babies") down for naps on the family room floor, covered with little washcloths, and started experimenting with how loud she could play the piano before they would be disturbed. She played a note quietly, "That doesn't wake up my babies." And another note, with the same comment. She went all the way down the keyboard, and her babies slept through the entire performance. When she played the last note, she stepped back a little and tripped over her babies, knocking one of their heads off a pillow. She astutely observed, "That DID wake up my babies!"
Jane, talking about a friends' baby who was born in May, "She's my sister. And she always likes to eat jelly beans, from my candy basket."
Jane was definitely in a "jelly bean phase" following last Easter. We went to Florida in the spring, and rode an airboat in the Everglades. Following the ride, having been helped down from the boat by the captain, she turned back to him and said convincingly, "I will give you one of my jelly beans for that!"
Lucy and Jane were discussing the eating habits of our (temporary) pet turtle.
Jane- Maybe he would like some worms or something.
Lucy- There are worms in our garden. What color worms would he like? Maybe pink.
Jane- Maybe he likes pink, or blue.
And then we were trying to figure out a new container for him to live in , because the cardboard box we had was too small...
Lucy- I know what Jake's new box could be- the whole house!
My- But where would he poop?
Jane- He could come get us and we would open the door for him and he could go outside.
Me- How would he tell us he had to poop?
Jane- He has a mouth.
Me- Does he talk?
Jane- No.
Now, moving up to the more distant past of September...
Lucy was eating breakfast one morning, and randomly (remember, she is dubbed the Queen of Random") said, "Mama, someday I want to dress up in a pineapple costume." We hadn't been talking about costumes, or pineapple, and we were not eating pineapple for breakfast.
Jane volunteered one afternoon to fold washcloths while I folded the larger towel. She said, "This is my exercise for my arms!"
One afternoon Lucy came running up to my and said, "There is going to be a jumping show! Do you want to come, Mama?"
Me- Who is going to be in the show?
Lucy- Jane.
Me- When is it going to start?
Lucy- In 5 minutes. The studio is just practicing now. Jane, go practice.
Jane- No.
(definitely you-know-who's idea...)
I had just decided we wouldn't do "afterschool jobs" because we were getting ready to go to the All-School Fall Social (a big party) at the big kids' school. I told the kids, and Lucy thought for a minute before replying, "Mama...Fall Social days are the days that we don't do afterschool jobs." (As if there were multiple "fall social" days.
Jane, speaking to Lucy as they began their pretend play, "There is going to be a parade soon."
Lucy- What kind of parade?
Jane- It will be a candy parade.
Jane painted a small birdfeeder, but when it was dry she didn't want to hang it up outside, "because someone might nibble it! Maybe a baby bird might nibble it!"
All the kids like to sleep in just their underwear, and think it's a special treat or something...for some reason they refer to it as "sleeping naked." So occasionally we get the odd request shouted down the stairs as they're getting ready for bed, "Papa, can I be naked??"
Sometimes Lucy can be rather hard to figure out. Case in point...she came downstairs on a still-dark school morning recently and said, "Mama, before I came downstairs, I flashed."
Me- Flashed what? Oh...you turned on the light for a minute?
Lucy- No, not the light. A flashlight. To see what color my clothes were that you laid out.
Lucy, directly after the preceding conversation, stared deeply into my face. "Mama, isn't it funny that your nose is like a bridge?
Me- For my cheeks?
Lucy- Yeah.
Gene (yes! A quote from the boy!), explaining why he's chewing gum, "It's always good to freshen up the breath!"
Jane, cold after having played at the park a long time, came up with a worried look on her face, "Mama, this sweatshirt isn't as warm as it usually is!"
Jane was trying to figure out "scary things" during the time leading up to Halloween. I explained that we don't need to be scared of things we see at Halloween, because God is stronger than anything scary. She mulled it over and then said, "Only babies are scared of lions and tigers and things." Then a minute later, "Really really bad ones will only nibble it (the baby?) but they won't eat the whole thing."
Lucy learned ALOT about the solar system during the first 2 months of kindergarten. One night she was out sweeping leaves from the patio (voluntarily- she loves it), and it was getting dark. She showed me her leaf pile, I admired it, and told her she could keep sweeping. As I was about the shut the patio door and go back to the kitchen she paused and looked up at me, "Well Mama, time to look for Mercury." And she did.
Jane, at the breakfast table, randomly..."Mama, when I turn four, Reenie won't know."
Lucy, at the breakfast table, randomly..."Mama, do you know what? The hand that I am eating with right now is my 'doing hand'."
Lucy, from the bathroom, "Mama, come and see the longest poop you ever saw!" I come reluctantly and she sits there and looks at me. "Why don't you take a picture of it?" I give a vague explanation of nobody really wanting to see a picture of poop, and made my exit. I don't think she understood why I wasn't as excited as she was.
Jane understands the concept of a "nickname" perfectly. She came up to me with a stuffed mouse and a ribbon, and asked me to tie it around the mouse's neck. "His name is Squeaky. But his real name is Squeaky Head."
Jane, while putting on her pajamas and a pull-up diaper in the kitchen, "Mama, thanks for buying me new dipes!)
I asked Lucy and Gene to go upstairs during that same evening and get ready for bed, and not be too silly with each other in the process. Jane said, "Yeah, cause I'm trying to get dressed with all this noise around my ears!"
Jane, in the middle of dinner, interrupting Gene who was talking about something else, "Mama, for next Halloween I want to be a tree stump. And you'll have to make it for me!"
And last but not least, an update on the youngest member of our family...Jane is growing! One night she ate one bowlful of mac n cheese for dinner, and a couple cucumber spears, and asked for seconds. When she was half-way done with that, she said she was full. She pushed her bowl aside and started eating a sucker for dessert. A couple minutes later she said, "Mama, I will take one bite of sucker and one bite of mac n cheese." And the next thing I knew the bowl was empty. She started back on her sucker again, until she felt hunger pangs again and reached for another cucumber. She said she was going to eat the rest of them! And she came pretty close.
