When Sammy was 4, I was driving him to Christine, the babysitter's, house. He piped up from the back seat, "Mommy, Christine has two kids!" I told him, "Right! How many kids does mommy have?" He said, "Two!" Then he thought for a moment and said, "Mommy, is daddy a kid?" I was laughing so hard I never did answer him.
Sammy: "Grandma, this jello farted!"
Sammy asked me one day, "Mommy, is God really everywhere?" I told him that He is. Sammy said, "Oh, no! We're stepping on God!"
I brought Sammy to work with me one day, and one of the attorneys I work with said to him, "What's up, doctor?" Sammy put his hands on his hips and scrunched up his face as only Sammy can and said, "I'm not a doctor, I'm a little boy! Duh!"
Sammy: "My favorite aminals are giraffeys, monkeys, teddies and puppies."
Sammy told me, with a scowl on his face, that his preschool teachers had come up with a new name for him, and he didn't like it. I asked him what it was, and he said, "Samuel." I tried to explain to him that his name was Samuel and that Sammy was a nickname, but he wouldn't have any of it. "I'm Sammy!" he said with a stamp of his foot. I decided not to argue the point further.
One day in the car Sammy exclaimed, "Mommy, I saw a wild aminal!" I asked him what color it was, and he said, "I can't tell, I'm wearing sunglasses."
My mother has a long-standing joke that whenever someone asks her age, she says with a straight face that she's 16. One year around Mom's birthday, Bethany asked her how old she was going to be. She smiled at me and told her, "16." The following year, Mom told Bethany the same thing, "16." Bethany informed my mother that she couldn't possibly be 16 again, that she was 16 last year, and she'd have to be 17 this year. Later, I sat down with Bethany and explained that Grandma was really just joking, and in the process of this explanation, I divulged my mother's real age. The following Sunday, Bethany was in Sunday School and was asked by the teacher if she had any prayer requests. Bethany said, "Please pray for my Grandma. She's very, very old."
I had taught my children that Santa Claus wasn't a real person but that it was fun to pretend that he was. Sammy, however, insisted that he was real. When I later attempted to influence his behavior by reminding him that Santa Claus wouldn't bring him any presents if he behaved that way, he smirked and said, "I don't believe in Santa Claus that much!"
We were at the movies and saw a preview for "The Hulk." Sammy said, "Mommy, look, wow! It's the Hulk-man!" He watched the preview for a few more seconds, and then said, "Mommy, he doesn't brush his teeth, does he?"
Sammy: "You got serious fwill issues, dude!"
Overheard while the children
were eating candy corn:
Bethany: "Those are NOT traffic cones, they're candy corn!"
Sammy: "They look like traffic cones to me."
Sammy playing a computer
game:
"Yeah! Mommy, I won! I won!"
"Mommy, I scored in the top ten!"
[Loses Game] "That's it, I hate this game!"
When I was pregnant with Joshua, Bethany asked, me "Mommy, when is your eternity leave starting?"
Sammy: "Bethany, you're a soiled brat!"
After eating a candy cane, Sammy stated, "I don't need to brush my teeth. See? My breath is minty."
After Joshua spit up, some of it coming out of his nose, Sammy ran to get me in the next room, saying, "Mommy, the baby's got the snots! Come quick, he's exploding!"
Sammy: "Can we sell Bethany on eBay?"
Bethany: "Brothers. I'll never understand them."
One morning Sammy, who was still bleary-eyed from sleep and clutching the teddy bear he got for Christmas, said, "I love Teddy more than anything, except you, Mommy."
Sammy: "Joshua is your fird kid."
Sammy: "Can cows go
into outer space?"
Me: "No."
Sammy: "Then what about the cow that jumped over the moon?"
Sammy: "The worstest part of preschool is nap time."
One day when I picked up Sammy from preschool, he was scowling. I asked him what was wrong and he said, "I had-ed a bad day. Jamir wouldn't do what I told him to do."
I was driving on the highway and passed a truck that was in the right lane. Sammy exclaimed, "Mommy, we passed-ed that truck! Yay, we're winning!"
Sammy: "Mommy, you're the last to get dropped off, right?"
I served tater tots with a meal and watched Bethany systematically mush them before eating them. When I asked her why she was doing that she responded, "I only like the insides."
Right after the Gulf War invasion, a friend of mine's son, Jimmy, said, "Who is the Bad Dad?" His mother asked him what he meant, and he said they were talking about it on TV (Bagdad).
Sammy's blankie, "Softy," was in the middle of the living room floor, and I told him to put it away. He glared at me and said, "It's not an 'it.' It's a 'him'!"
I dressed Sammy up for his preschool graduation. He said, "The girls are going to go crazy over me, I just know it."
After behaving particularly badly in a doctor's office and later being sorry for it, Sammy told me, "You can grounded me now."
Sammy: "I can't marry Emily because I'm five and she's four and she's never going to catch up."
Bethany: "I'm not looking forward to Joshua being Sammy's age."
On election night 2004, I had pulled up an interactive electoral college map from
www.latimes.com that allows you to turn any state red (Bush), blue (Kerry) or white (up for grabs). I was using it to track the predictions being made on TV and to also have fun with different voting scenarios. Early the next morning I brought the map up again and was filling in the last few states, making my own predictions. Sammy, 6, got out of bed and saw what I was doing. He said, "Mommy, can I play that game?" I explained to him that it wasn't exactly a game and what it represented--we had all discussed the election the day before and I think he understood. I let him play the "game" and walked away to get ready for work. Now, I'm an unapologetic Bush supporter, and I had explained to my kids in terms they could understand why I feel that way. So I was not exactly surprised when I returned and the map was entirely red. But what he said floored me: "Mommy, I fixed the world!" If only it were that easy.... :)Sammy: "Can we watch 101 Dogmations?"
We were driving to church listening to a Christian radio station. The songs were very similar to what we sing in church. Sammy said, "Is that church or is that the radio?" I told him it was the radio. He asked, incredulous, "Church is on the radio?"
After seeing a blurb for a television show he wanted to watch, Sammy asked me, "Is it 8, 7 Central yet?"
Sammy: "When I asked Jesus into my heart I said 'the end' instead of 'amen'!"
The kids wanted me to take them to a concert on a day which we were going to a baby shower for a woman at my family's church. So I explained that no, I was going to a baby shower and that they were going with me. Not to be deterred, Sammy asked me, "Can Grandma H. take us?" I said that no, she was going with us also. Still not ready to give up, he asked, "Can Grandma E. take us?" I laughed and said that no, Grandma E couldn't take them either. Exasperated, he said, "She's going to the baby shower too?!"
While I was looking for something, I remarked, "God only knows where it is." Sammy looked up at me and said, "Well, if God knows, why don't you ask him?"
Sammy received an award for the best behavior in his class for the month of April 2004. A couple of weeks later, he had a bad day at school, and I was trying to cheer him up. I reminded him of his award for good behavior for April, to which he replied, "Yeah, well, I'm not getting one for May."
My mother prepared duck for dinner while we were visiting. After being told what we would be eating, Sammy exclaimed, "Grandma, I can't believe you cooked-ed one of my favoritest aminals!"
Bethany, upon being asked to change Joshua for "the hundredth time," said, "I wish they were born potty-trained."
Joshua was crying and I went to get him a bottle. When I started to get close, he started to laugh. Bethany commented, "Why is he laughing at inanimate objects?"
Sammy: "Mommy, I found a calepitter! Can I keep him? I named him Stripey."
While Changing Josh, Bethany said, "One small baby, one big rancid smell."
Later, when I was changing Josh again and putting powder on him, Bethany said, "You'd better put a lot of that on him in case he makes another one like that."
At the veterinarian, Joshy was given a Clifford the Red Dog sticker. I told him, "Look, it's a doggy!" He glared at me and said, "No, it's a wuff wuff." (What goes around comes around!)
Sammy, commenting on french fries I had cooked: "These are the best french fries I've ever had! They're even better than the real ones!"
Sammy, asking for clarification: "Can you be more pacific?"
I was testing the smoke alarms, and when they went off, Joshy started running around in a circle, and he shouted, "Mama, I save you! Run!"
I was watching a show on Paul Simon on TV and when Art Garfunkel began singing "Bridge Over Troubled Water," Sammy commented, "Is that Albert Einstein? I didn't know he could sing."
After observing Dipstick eating a can of cat food, Joshy exclaimed, "Mama, kitty eat that! It's disgusting!"
Sammy, watching a show on the Disney Channel, said, "Mom, this is a new episode! You know how I know? Because of the pictures in the theme song, and because I've only seen it twice."
Sammy came home from third grade in September and exclaimed, "I hate school. They didn't elect me class president!"
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