“Mom, what does CUMBERSOME mean?”
How to explain? “Cumbersome means big and awkward and kind of …” How to explain the idea of … BULK? “Like if I was carrying a whole ELEPHANT … and I was stumbling all over the place …” He giggles. “The elephant would be cumbersome.”
“Cumbersome is, like, big and bulky,” he says matter of factly, filing it away in his lexicon.
Yes. Bulky.
Categories: Mister Kapister · Things that Make You Go "Hmm ..."
Today we drove back slowly down from Booneville to Santa Rosa after four of the most relaxing days I think we’ve ever spent.
RELAXING is an understatement. The most strenuous task we undertook was all that arduous lifting of the wine glasses to our lips at the vineyards.
Oh, and the even more strenuous hoisting and lobbing of rocks — for hours, I tell you — into what Tau dubbed “The Cool Creek,” a tiny stream that ran just next to our private little cottage, one of just a handful on 400 acres.
The rest of the time, we slept in late and read, we baked brownies, we made a swinging fort in the hammock (add one blanket, and presto!). And yes, we watched Iron Chef reruns, Sue’s brain-candy thing to do when we stay somewhere with TV.
Et cetera, et cetera, you get the picture.
A small set of pictures of the rock throwing and the vegging is here – just so rough to have to lift your arm constantly to take all those photos.
Categories: Food & Grog · Only in Cullyfornia · The New Country · Things that Make You Go "Hmm ..." · We Still Get Around! · We Still Have Fun!
I know I’ve been posting a lot of kid-versations recently but I am so amused by Tau’s sense of humor. (Yes, humor. He’s American, after all.)
Last night, I’m lying with him in the half-dark and he’s going off (OFF, I tell you) about where kangaroos live and whether some baby pigs can fly to Jupiter — just-pretend, Mommy! — and how do we go faster than the super jets and what do Orcas eat and drink in the sea and how can we go to (see) fireflies … et cetera, et cetera … and so forth.
And I’m so used to grunting in the right places or muttering, “they eat baby seals and drink water” for the Orca question that I start zoning out and going through my mental to-do list.
Next thing, a little hand waves frantically RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY EYES and he’s all, “Hello! Mommy, are you LISTENING to me?!”
Last time I get away with with that one.
Categories: Mister Kapister · Things that Make You Go "Hmm ..."
Just yesterday a leprechaun visited Tau’s preschool class. He turned all the toy boxes upside down, magic’d the water in the toilets green, and sneezed all over the circle-time carpet dusting everyone and everything with glittery gold.
And so at the dinner table tonight we are asked, “Where do leprechauns live?”
“I have no idea,” I say.
He turns his attention immediately. “Daddy, where do the leprechauns live?”
“I don’t know, Tau. Ask your Mom — she knows all these things.”
I give Dave the stink eye. “In case you didn’t know, you’re also on the hook for explaining mythical characters.”
St. Paddy’s Day has no meaning for us. Leprechauns? We just don’t care. But at preschool, every Hallmark holiday is fair game — good for a marching parade, a party, themed story books and art projects on the subject.
Later as we dress him in PJs, Tau stares up at the world map on his wall. “Where do the leprechauns live?”
“Up in that white part at the top,” Dave says matter of factly.
We all set our focus on Greenland, which is all-white on this map. We have told him that this is where The North Pole is located, that it is super cold there, and it takes 11 (eleven!) airplanes to get there. So we won’t be visiting any time soon.
“Santa lives at the very top of Greenland,” I tell him, picking up where Dave leaves off, “and the leprechauns live at the very bottom of Greenland.”
“Because they are green,” Dave adds, with authority.
Categories: Friends Around the Globe · Mister Kapister · Things that Make You Go "Hmm ..."
Leaving the house today, we drive past our elderly neighbor, walking her grandson up the hill.
“Wave to Granny and Florim …”
“Why Granny and Florim are walking?”
“Granny and Florim are walking to the bus stop.” Then I remember that he doesn’t know what a bus stop is, so “because when you are a bigger kid, all the kids wait at a special place and then the bus comes and gets you to take you to school … because right now I take you to school but when you get bigger, you will walk to the special bus stop and the bus will take you to school. All the big kids get to go on the bus … “
“An’ dey have lots of STEAM in dey WHEELS!”
Thanks for following along boy child.
Categories: Mister Kapister · Things that Make You Go "Hmm ..."
Dave and I have been told that after we eat ice cream we need to brush our teeth.
Why? Because ice cream has lots of sugar in it.
And so we have to brush our teeth to keep the sugar bugs away.
So said Mr. Baker, the dentist, who came to teach Tau’s class about oral hygiene.
Ja, well, no fine.
Categories: Mister Kapister · Things that Make You Go "Hmm ..."
Yesterday Tau’s one teacher told the kids that their other teacher would not be in because her baby was sick and she needed to stay home and take care of him.
She was surprised and heartened when Tau came up to her and said, “Maybe we can make a card for Mrs. H’s baby, so he can feel better?”
Sweet boy.
Categories: Mister Kapister · Things that Make You Go "Hmm ..."
When Dave and I were first married, we met a couple who had just celebrated their eighteenth wedding anniversary.
We asked them how that felt — being married that long — and their answer was, you guessed it, that it didn’t feel like they’d been married eighteen years.
Today is our eighteenth anniversary, and when I think of all we’ve been through in the years that have come and gone, it’s true. It doesn’t feel like eighteen years have passed.
The houses we’ve lived in, the groups of friends and the phases, our college years and the birth of our son. We’ve both changed a lot; we’ve both stayed the same.
And I think that is the key — prizing what you know so well in each other, yet also championing what the other can become.
Happy anniversary, Dave!
Dipped strawberries
for dessert last night
by Sue and Tau
Categories: Things that Make You Go "Hmm ..."
Staring at the World Map pinned to his bedroom wall … “How do we get to the Purple Planet?”
“We go in a rocket.”
In retrospect, it’s a bit scary that I didn’t even need to pause to consider the answer.
“But HOW do we get there?”
“In a rocket.”
Staring at the map. “But we don’t have any rockets.” Considers this dilemma a bit more. “They are all at the store. Maybe we need to get one.”
“Mmn … definitely.” Carry on folding laundry.
Categories: Friends Around the Globe · Mister Kapister · Things that Make You Go "Hmm ..."
As I leave yoga class on Saturday, I dial to return a message from Dave on my phone …
Sue: Hey.
Dave: Hey.
Pleasantries ensue as I’m turning out of the parking lot, heading out to go grocery shopping. We’re having friends around for dinner that night.
Sue: So whatch’you need?
Dave: Do you think you could stop and pick up a bunch of aromatherapy candles?
???
Stunned silence on my end of the phone.
Turns out, he’d shampoo’d the livingroom carpet the night before and it hadn’t quite dried and the whole downstairs smelled like miffy carpet.
Categories: La Casa · Things that Make You Go "Hmm ..."
“I have a dream that my … children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
I Have a Dream
Categories: The New Country · Things that Make You Go "Hmm ..."
Categories: Only in Cullyfornia · The New Country · Things that Make You Go "Hmm ..."
Don’t you love it when the media states the obvious as though it’s leading-edge news?
Some U.S. Cereals More than Half Sugar
“WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Some breakfast cereals marketed to U.S. children are more than half sugar by weight and many get only fair scores on nutritional value, Consumer Reports said on Wednesday.
A serving of 11 popular cereals, including Kellogg’s Honey Smacks, carries as much sugar as a glazed doughnut, the consumer group found.
And some brands have more sugar and sodium when formulated for the U.S. market than the same brands have when sold in other countries.”
While I admit that my mental acuity is not quite what it was before parenthood, even I know giving small children breakfast cereal laced with high-fructose corn syrup is not a good idea.
Go Puffins, no-sugar Raisin Bran and multigrain Cheerios!
Categories: Food & Grog · The New Country · Things that Make You Go "Hmm ..."
Not “To infinity and beyond!” Or so our son insists.
Categories: Mister Kapister · Things that Make You Go "Hmm ..." · We Still Have Fun!
I just had my pronunciation corrected by a two-year-old.
Muttering to himself, I hear him talking about days of the week and August. They discuss the day, date and month every day at MY NEW SCHOOL.
“Did you say August, Tau?”
“Is not August … is August.”
I’m a bit slow on the uptake. “Did you say it’s August?” I’m all impressed that he’s remembered the name of the month after only hearing it once on Friday the first.
With a touch of annoyance in his voice … “You don’t say Orgust … is Aahgust.”
“Oh!… Aahgust!?”
“Yes — is August.”
I stand corrected.
Categories: Mister Kapister · The New Country · Things that Make You Go "Hmm ..."
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