Overheard

ME (at bedtime): Boys, turn off your light. Time to go to sleep.
ANDREW: But how am I supposed to get back to my bed if the light is turned off?
ME: I don't know. Try echolocation.

I should have told him to try this:

"I'm so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark."

Overheard

SOPHIE: Who's your favorite princess?
ME: Sophie.
SOPHiE: I'm not a princess. I'm not even in any princess movies.
ME: You don't have to be in a princess movie to be a princess.
SOPHIE: And I'm not even wearing a dress.
GINGER: Sometime princesses have to wear pants.
SOPHIE: Mom when you do that you're such a weirdo.

No.

Ethan has been singing out loud for eight and a half years. Most of the time he doesn't even know he's doing it.

This morning at 7AM he was downstairs belting out Beatles songs a capella, at volume 11. Ginger and I were trying to sleep in until at least 7:15--I mean it is Saturday, after all. So we called him up to our room. I asked him to please not sing any more Beatles songs until everyone was out of bed.

So he said "OK," went back downstairs, and started singing C+C Music Factory instead.

Everybody dance now.

Guilty.

Overheard

Sophie said our family prayer tonight:

"...Thank you for this day and bless it so we will have a goodnight and so daddy will wake up in the morning and make us crepes..."

Except for the standard beginning and end, that was the entire prayer.

Oh, and I just made crepes yesterday.

Overheard

Sophie just came into my office, plopped herself on the big chair, and started the following conversation.

SOPHIE: Dad, the thing is, I'm worried Christmas is not going to start.
ME: Why are you worried about that?
SOPHIE: Because Christmas is not going to start.
ME: Why not?
SOPHIE: Because Santa died.
ME: What??
SOPHIE: Santas can die you know.
ME: How do you know Santa died?
SOPHIE: Because I dinnit see him.
ME: At Christmas time?
SOPHIE: Uh huh.

And then she changed the subject.

Theory of relativity

A couple of days ago I spoke to a friend from Haiti.  He told me that when he was a college student in that country over 20 years ago, he worked with a group of professors and students on an emergency plan for the government.  They were tasked with coming up with the worst possible natural disaster or crisis they could imagine, and a concrete plan for how the country should deal with the crisis. 

So they met and tied to determine the worst kind of event.  A hurricane?  No, those happen all the time--everyone knows what to do in a hurricane.  A tsunami? Maybe--that would be bad.  Instead, they came up with something that in their minds would be even worse: A snowstorm. 

Yep, they put together an emergency plan so the government would know what to do if Haiti ever received 15 inches of snow in a 24-hour period.  Ironically, he said the idea of an earthquake never even made it on their list, as it was considered such a remote possibility.  "Even more remote than a snowstorm in Haiti?" I asked.  He said, "Well, we had to come up with something."  It was the worst thing they could possibly imagine.  I don't know if that's funny or sad; maybe it's a little of both.  He thinks it's funny, now that he's lived through so many Indiana winters.

Sometimes when it's quiet in the afternoon...

...we'll go upstairs and find that Sophie has snuck into bed for a
nap. Other days, she won't take a nap to save her life.

We eat crêpes twice a week

It's Sophie's fault. She comes to me almost every day and asks, "Daddy can you make us some cwêpes?" Except she asks with her eyes wide open, a big smile, and while nodding her head the entire time, like some kind of jedi mind trick.

Yesterday I told her I had brownies cooking in the oven, and I had just made some cinnamon ice cream (at her request). And she responded by smiling, nodding her head, and asking, "And can you make some cwêpes, some cake and some cookies?" (I didn't.)

Overheard

The other night I walked into our bedroom after Ginger was already asleep. She woke up and looked at me with a confused and startled look. Here is the conversation that ensued:

ME: Are you OK?
GINGER: No. I feel...sick for some reason.
ME: It's because you're pregnant.

Then she went back to sleep.

Overheard

ANDREW: Dad, do numb fingers build character?

My favorite new word

Another Sophie-ism: She uses "soft" as a verb. It means to touch something that is soft, as in "Mudder, would you like to soft my nightgown?"

Overheard

Sophie took her glove off this afternoon so she could "pick up the snow." That didn't work out so well. As she was trudging back to the house in knee deep snow, she fell down and her hand went into the snow again. That's when she looked up at me and said, "Dad, the snow isn't working for me."

Amen.

Blasphemy

Ethan brought home a note from his teacher today--a citation for using bad language. Uh oh.

I asked him what he said, and he told me the word. It's a word we don't say in our house, unless we're talking about what a vacuum cleaner does. Not a big deal, though. I think what got him into trouble is that he used the word immediately after the phrase "The Indianapolis Colts..."

So now he knows he shouldn't use that word, and should say something like "stink" instead when referring to a team he doesn't like.

But I'm still not sure if the note home was for the word, or for the noun preceding the word. I have a hunch that if he had started his sentence with "The New England Patriots" instead of "The Indianapolis Colts" the school would have sent him home with a lollipop instead of a note.

Overheard

SOPHIE: I dinnit see ANY hedgehogs last night.
ME: Were you expecting to see hedgehogs last night? [She was home all evening.]
SOPHIE: Mm-hmm.

Overheard

ME: Sophie, don't touch the dough. We need to let it rest.

SOPHIE (giggling): Ha! You say you want the dough to rest, but it doesn't even have eyes! Or a mouth!