The Things My Kids Say....

My children tell me some of the most shocking things without shame or inhibition of any kind. It's amazing. I would never, ever, ever have told things of the same nature to my parents....or anyone for that matter, had the thoughts crawled across my brain. But at our house, anything is acceptable fodder for conversation with mom, or so it would seem.

When Jonathan was a lot smaller, he was telling me some rather incriminating things and I said,"You know, maybe you should talk to your dad about that," to which Jonathan got very serious and said,"Oh, no, mom, I could never tell dad. He doesn't sin." I laughed hard. I guess that makes me an approachable sinner. I can handle that.

Tonight at dinner--and to give you more of a sense of the moment, I shall offer the seating arrangements. Jon sits at the head of the table, though he's mostly gone these days, so the head of the table is empty. I sit to what would be Jon's right, Vivian next to me, Caroline next to Viv, Jonathan at the foot of the table, and then continuing counter clockwise, Oliver, Gabriel and last Charles who sits directly across from me.

There were a few moments of silence this evening as bowls of chicken, rice and vegetables with a yummy broth were handed round the table. In the silence Gabriel suddenly piped up. "Mom, when I'm 7 my foot will be 12." I had to pause and do what Jonathan calls "processing" and then I realized he was talking shoe size. For Gabriel that was a rather deep thought. "Yes, Gabriel, when you are 7, your foot will probably be 12." He responded," And then I'll need new shoes." "Yes," I confirmed, "Then you will need new shoes." He thought about this. "I will need flip flops." I looked at Gabriel and said, "You brain is a very interesting place. How did you land on flip flops? " Caroline chimed in,"I was thinking about flip flops,too." To which Jonathan said, "that doesn't surprise me."

(This reminds me of when the family was in the suburban together over the weekend. Jon was driving, I was knitting and there was a general sense of noise and chaos. Through the noise I began to focus on what Caroline was saying and I interrupted her. " Caroline, that conversation will stop now. You have said nothing of substance and the sum total of what you are saying is drivel, and frankly none of our business." There was silence for a few moments. Jonathan piped up," Um, mom?" "Yes," I answered. Jonathan cleared his throat, "Just for the record, there was no conversation. Caroline was talking in monologue. I had tuned out a long time ago.")

On to dinner tonight:

"Mom, do you think there are aliens, because I'm really beginning to think it's possible with all these astronomy classes," said Charles. "I mean the universe is just so huge! Anything could be out there." I remained silent as the other children weighed in. "Of course there are aliens," Jonathan offered," Where do you think we got Caroline?"

I decided to bring up blends with Gabriel. "Gabriel, do you remember your new blends?" I asked. He got all excited. Together we said "st, st, stick" and then "gr, gr, green." Oliver decided to pipe up, "br, br, breast. That's an important one, Gabriel." I rolled my eyes.

Charles hit the breast topic like a duck on a june bug. "Did you know that there was once a woman with three breasts?" I was rather intrigued. "Really? Where was the third?" He was ready for that question--"I learned all about it in that book about historical mutants. The third breast was on the side of her leg." You know I asked the obvious question. "Well, did it produce milk?" That was the very question he had hoped I would ask-"Yes, it did. In fact there was a drawing of her nursing her third child with the breast on the side of her leg while nursing her younger twin babies in the regular way."

I had to digest that idea for a moment. "Wow, that'd be a bit of a shock I think to marry someone and not know ahead of time about that sort of thing." But the train of thought was interrupted by Vivian who pulled on my arm." Want to see my lucky freckle?" she said with immense enthusiasm followed by," It has a hair in it" and everyone exploded into laughter and I looked at Vivian wondering where in the world that came from.

The entire conversation devolved from there rather rapidly. I had to bring everyone back to order. "Enough," I said. In the short pause, Boofin-Biddles came up.

Let me explain the origin of Boofin-Biddles. In the book of mutants, there is a wee man whose trunk is of proper size as are his head, hands and feet. But he has no arms or legs. Only hands and feet that come out where his limbs should come out of his trunk. Charles will tuck his arms into his shirt so only his hands are visible, and then pull his shirt over his knees to the floor as he crouches down, and he calls himself Boofin-Biddles when in this attitude. He gallops across the floor and does the most hilarious stunts and such. One day he was doing a Boofin-Biddles demonstration and he lost his balance and was on his side, his hands and feet flailing a bit but he stayed in form. "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up," and he rocked around on the floor in this pose. We were laughing until the tears fell.

So of course at dinner Boofin-Biddles came up, and Charles struck the pose instantly leaping from his chair and landing to the floor crouched low.

Charles also has created his own nonsense language that does have a very particular cadence and consonant arrangement. Gabriel attempted to speak in Guddish, as it is called. Charles corrected him with a stream of perfectly cadenced Guddish that is so nonsensical you can't help but laugh, and when Charles spoke it, it did in fact sound proper, and when Gabriel spoke it, it sounded wrong.

At the end of dinner, after I'd said more than once, "Ok, enough. Have you people no shame? Do you not realize that I don't want to know every thought that crawls through you brain?" Charles said," But why not? Our thoughts are so interesting." You know, he has a point.

After dinner--and we had dinner rather late--I announced it was time for a moonlight walk around the neighborhood. Everyone scattered to get their shoes and walk accoutrements. I walked around making sure pre-dinner chores had been completed. They had not been completed and the sinners stayed behind while the saints took Daisy for a walk.

Four children were left home soberly completing their chores, Jonathan and Oliver came with me. Oliver gleefully grabbed my hand thrilled to be able to hog me for the entire walk. "Mom, right over there the other day I found 2 dead toads," he announced after we'd gone maybe a hundred feet. "But don't worry, I grabbed them quick and put them in my treasure box." I took in the information silently thinking," So that would explain the smell in your room." Another block and Oliver suddenly released my hand, darted right, and then caught back up next to me with a HUGE toad in his hand. "This is a nice one," he said admiring it. I just raised my eyebrows and nodded.

Oliver then piped up again," I'm glad you brought wine cuz now I can smell the yumminess through the whole walk." I did in fact have a glass of wine in hand. When we got home, Oliver wearily departed. He said," I gotta go recharge my batteries," and off he went.

The house is silent, even Daisy is asleep. It's almost tragic to go to bed rather than sit here and enjoy the quiet.