With Apologies to Laurie's Andrew...

This morning, among horrendous groans of protest, I assigned a preliminary report worksheet on the state of Arkansas. (The groans were because it was from a 4th grade book... and I am working with 7th graders... and because I also doubled the report to include Oklahoma, since we live pretty much on the state line and may soon be moved back to Oklahoma).

Sam was working on Arkansas first, and declared he would "not disdignify his report by using the word razorback in it."

Disdignify.

Mr C says I have to tell him it isn't a real word.
Sometime.

Mommy Deaf ?

It isn't that I talk incessantly.

Small kids, middle sized kids, teens, husbands.

They just don't "hear" Mom talking to them. You finish speaking and wait for a response. In the silence, the person you have been speaking to becomes aware of your presence, as if for the first time.

"Huh? Were you talking to me?"

There is a good reason women seem to talk twice as much as men do. They have to repeat everything.

When Tom and I first married, we rented a tiny little house with a huge backyard. One afternoon, I had supper almost ready, and went to the back door to call Chris and Bill inside to wash up. They were talking to a group of teens by the back fence. (The local teens loved to stop and talk to the boys- Chris had a deep, deep voice- very surprising in a five year old. And both boys were very articulate, very bright little kids.)
After several minutes, I went back and called the boys a second time to come in and eat.
I set the table, filled their plates... and had to go call them yet again.

I stood by the door this time, waiting for them to come in. As Chris passed inside, he says to me, "In case you were wondering why we didn't come the first two times you called us- it was because we didn't hear you."

oo-kay.

Nothing like a slip-up in your cover story.
That has always been one of our favorite Chris stories.

Benjamin has come up with a cure for Mommy Deafness. I was giving him instructions one day before leaving for work. Ben stuck a finger in one ear as I was speaking. I asked him what on earth he was doing. He says, "I am stopping up one of my ears to trap your words inside my head. Then what you tell me doesn't go in one ear and out of the other."

It works. If you need your kids (or spouse) to remember what you are telling them- having them stick a finger in one ear helps them to do so.

New Word

We went to the library today, and the Twins were pointing out roadkill along the way. (It's a country kid thing) Daniel asks Sam: "Did you just see that disenheaded rabbit?"
While I ponder over just which word- or words- Dan has just butchered, he sees another roadkill, and exclaims: "There is another skunk... it was disenheaded too!"

I suppose I could just say he has coined a new word. We can add it to our family language.
One of the first words I can remember the twins coining was: "Turkey Leaf", said when they first found a turkey feather on the ground. They were barely three at the time, and knew what leaves were. And they realized the feather had fallen off the turkey in the same manner a leaf falls off of a tree.

Chris and Bill coined words too. They had liquid measurements in in "Gows" and "Gounces". They would ask for some of your drink, just a little "gow". You would think a "gow" equalled a sip... but sometimes they would chug the drink and hand you back an empty glass. Usually, a "gounce" was a large amount of something liquid- but sometimes it was smaller than a "gow".

I will have to remember some of the other words the kids have come up with over the years.

I Love My Kids

This afternoon I needed to go to the store. But I didn't WANT to go. (Whine whine). We are out of almost everything, and I am tired of trying to figure out how to make a meal of three ingredients. So, I sent Ben and Tommy. It is wonderful to hand a list to the teens, along with the car keys... and *I* don't have to go out.

This morning, the twins have been hard at work on their new loom. This is the one they built from tree branches, with their Grandpa Bill's help. Mr C helped them finish it on Saturday, adding the pegs it needed. They have been weaving at every opportunity since then. Anyway, this morning Matthew is getting a bit too close to Sam as he weaved. After having tramped and tangled the yarn several times, Sam crabbed at Matt: "Would you PLEASE MOVE?!! You are POLLUTING my peripheral vision!"

I mentioned having to go talk with the neighbor lady. Their puppies reminded me of a *WHERE Do My Kid's Come UP With This Moment*. Before our dogs were broken, they had "friendly relations" with the neighbor's female dog. Those pup's grew up, and one of those pups produced a litter of its own. When he saw the new puppies, Dan came to me and stated, "Drover can die happy now. He has GRAND KIDS".

Indeed.