make good tables

“The Church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables.” ~Dorothy Sayers

I want to see what her breast looks like.

So, I overhear my son say:

"I want to see what her breast looks like."

And of course I dash in there, disguising my dash as a casual saunter of course, and find the two gazing out the window.

"Whatcha doing?" I ask, as I approach the window, scanning the horizon for the object of their curiosity.

"Look at Catherine!" (Catherine is our Polish-Crested chicken) "She's rolling in the dirt and showing us her tummy." Chickadee answers.

"Yeah, I want to see if it looks like what we buy at the store."  Dandy adds.

This puberty thing has me all jumpy I guess.

quotables

Dandy is brushing the back of Chickadee's hair for her:

Dandy: You have such beautiful hair.
Chickadee: Well that's a sweet thing to say.  Thanks.

These are the same kids who can have a quarrel over a pencil. What gives?

spelling

Dandy: How do you spell chicken?
Chickadee: H - E - N

the bugs

So, Chickadee climbs into her Papa's truck to go to the feedstore and asks, "Papa, will you put the bugs in?"
Papa: "The bugs?"
Chickadee: "Yeah, I like to listen to the bugs. You know, 'I wanna hold your hananananaand.' The BUGS Papa."
Papa: "Ohhhhhh, the bugs. Sure."

quotables

Dandy is telling Chickadee about his Sunday School lesson:

"I learned to not be a hypogriff!"

I ask you, am I obliged to correct him? and how about Chickadee and her pictures of the WormMaids (Mermaids?).

quotable

Chickadee: I can do it! I'm strong! I'm strong like a bunny!

Go get 'em sweetheart.

I know how to look it up

Dandy (10): Chickadee, what's a consonant blend?

Chickadee (8): I forgot, but I know how to look it up.

(I faint with pleasure at this.)

Chickadee: Why don't you know this already?
Dandy: It's not the sort of thing that sticks in my head.

Chickadee: Well then I'll teach you how to look it up, and then you are on your own.

(I briefly revive, and faint away again. If all else fails, I have raised at least one independent learner. Malcolm Knowles would be proud of me.)

She then gives him a nice explanation -- with examples -- of consonant blends and digraphs.

the gospel according to Dandy

"Jesus came to delete us."

This puts a whole new twist on it.

what's up with this?

Dandy: "Mom, can I take a nap?"
Me: "Uhm, yeah. Sure."

magical castles

So Dandy is day-dreaming of a magical castle and he is narrating the dream to us.

Dandy: So we walk in and we know it's magical right away.
Chickadee: How?
Dandy: Mom's fingers stop hurting and M&Ms are falling from the ceiling.

He is such a sweetie. Mom's fingers came first.

overheard

upstairs:

Chickadee: G'night, I love you.
Dandy: I love you too.

lessons on partying from a 9 year old

Live blogging here:

Dandy: Mom, you are a terrible partyer!
Me: What is wrong with my partying?
Dandy: You are just sitting there!
Me: Yeah, that's what I like to do.
Dandy: You are doing it wrong.
Me: What am I supposed to do?
Dandy: Eat ice-cream! Look at the tree! Snuggle your son!
Me: Anything else?
Dandy: No looking at the computer. You are supposed to be partying!
Me: Why?
Dandy: You are done with school. You told Papa we'd be partying.

He has a point. I just hope that when he is in college and he finishes a semester, he celebrates the same way.

kids are so cool

Overheard:

Dandy: Chickadee, let me read these too you. They are really good ones.
Chickadee: What are they?
Dandy: Verses.

He then reads a whole bunch of verses from his AWANA book as she listens attentively.

A few minutes later they ask:

Mama, where are our Latin cards?
Me: Why?
Chickadee: We want to practice our new words.

So they are now drilling one another on laboro, surgete, oremus, and so forth (I work, stand up [plural], and Let us Pray). We are using Prima Latina and really like it.

See what can happen in a TV-free household?



:: one year ago today: works for me: allowances and Belgium
:: two years ago today: trees and more

Christmas wishes to melt your heart

Me: So, Dandy, what are you hoping that Santa will bring?
(long long wait)
Dandy: What I would most like, more than anything, is a picture of my old best friend from the orphanage and some news about him.
(he tears up, and continues)
I feel bad, being so happy, and he is so . . . so alone.

Dandy drives me to my wit's end with his poor choices and bad behavior, but his heart? His heart is full of all the right stuff.



:: one year ago today: and home again and yes, please, we'd love it if you prayed for us today
:: two years ago today: Mrs. Mama and EWwwwwww

sleep-helping

So, after 3 days of busyness, we were finally tucked into our beds, nicely snoozing, when I hear a little voice from the doorway:

Dandy: Mom?
Me: Mrmrph.
Dandy (in a wee little voice): I forgot what it was that you had asked me to do.
Me: What?
Dandy: Mrmrph.
Me: You're asleep. Go back to bed.

Little footprints go up the stairs and I hear him crawl back into bed. Isn't that just the sweetest? He had been so focused on staying on task and helping mom that it carried over into his sleep-walking.

He got the whole day off today: nary a chore or responsibility for him, and precious few for me. Occasionally I hear a piece of pie calling me, and I do obey that. And the little kitty has required petting, as have the bunnies, so I buckled down and took care of them. All other chores are postponed indefinitely.


:: one year ago today: CNN/You Tube debates and Ron Paul's Statement of Faith

blue children

Dandy is singing:

Jesus loves the little children.
All the children of the world.
Red and blue and black and white . . .

"Blue?" I ask.

"Yeah, the cold children."

:: one year ago today: half-lives and other insights
:: two years ago today: calming my wild child this should be required reading for anyone with a son.

oh, to be 9 again

Dandy comes in this morning with a concerned look.

Dandy: Mom, something really weird is happening to me.
Me: What?
It's happened twice now.
(His voice is fraught with worry)
What has happened?
At night-time, I am really sleepy and tired and I only want to go to bed.

Me: So what is happening that is weird?
Dandy: That. That is it. I am sleepy and tired and I can barely move my body. I think something is really wrong.
Oh honey. I feel that way every night, right about dinner time. It's called being tired -- this has only happened to you twice?
Yes.
Oh, I want to be you.

:: one year ago today: because we don't have enough stress in our lives

Dandy the Linguistic Wonder

Did I ever tell you about the day we met Dandy and he wowed me with his analytical skills?

We met and of course used a translator to communicate. While English was being used, Dandy focused intently on us, tracking the conversation though of course understanding none of it.

During a lull, he presented me with a picture book and was very insistent that I look at the book and he would point to certain pictures.

"He wants you to tell him what the pictures are," the translator relayed.


"Wolf"
"Hill"
"Bird"
"Tree"
"Sun"
and so forth.

His eyes were bright and he was very purposeful in his actions. He slyly feigned dropping the book and backed up a few pages. He points at the tree again.
"Tree," I say.
He nods.
He points a few other new ones, then points at the wolf again.
"Wolf," I say.
We do a few more.
He finds a new tree and points to it.
"Tree," I say.
He nods, claps the book shut, and runs off speaking a mile a minute to his friends.

The translator tells me that he is reporting that we are not babbling nonsense (which apparently is what they had believed) but that we merely had different sounds for things.

So think about this. Within ten minutes of being exposed to the first foreign language of his life, he concocted a theory -- that we had different sounds, but that they consistently held meaning , devised a way to test his theory, did so even to include a double measure of testing (wolf and tree) and then reported his findings.

I was in awe, and I still am. This is the boy who uses the word avert. This is a boy who will ask once what a word means and then work it into his vocabulary. I really should not be amazed two years in, but still, he floored me with the syntax of this morning's pronouncement. He was helping his sister fold the laundry.

If you keep that attitude, I'm not going to help you. So if you don't want help, keep that whiny and grouchy attitude. If you do want help, lose it.

• parallelism! (if you don't, keep . . . and If you do, lose . . .)


• and that he said whiny and grouchy attitude rather than whining and crying

That is some pretty sophisticated sentence construction for a kid who has only been using English for two years. Some of my native-speaker adult English 101 students struggle to compose sentences like that.

Dandy, the linguistic wonder.

:: one year ago today: free rice
:: two years ago today: oddments: Children's Hospital, Secret Beach, Pizza with sauerkraut, diapers

Gospel according to Chickadee

Chickadee is working on her AWANA verse:

John 3:16

For God so loved the world he gave his one and only Son whoever believes in him will not paralyze but have eternal life.

So, I wonder if she thinks her Grandpa was lacking in the belief department.


:: one year ago today: school updates