Where do I begin?

Liam was upset with Finn this evening for several reasons. Finn had apparently told Liam that he was not in kindergarten, was allergic to soy milk, and that Eve was not a girl.

After reminding Liam that he was in kindergarten and was not allergic to soy milk, and reminding Finn not to deliberately aggravate Liam, I tackled the Eve question.

I assured them that Eve was a girl, and then began, "Do you know the story of Eve?" Liam said yes, but Finn was silent, so I began. "The story goes that a long, long time ago . . ."

Liam interrupted quickly, and told me that he was actually talking about Eve in the movie Wall-E. Oh. But he would like me to continue the story I had started anyway. So, with even greater hesitance, I did. I explained how the world had animals and plants, but no people, and so God made Adam in his image. But Adam got lonely, and so God made Eve for him.

Liam found this interesting, thought about it for a moment, and then said, "That's just like Narnia!"

Um, yes. Then he added that Adam and Eve were kind of like Mama and Daddy. Um, yes, kind of, and they even had two boys. Liam was interested in the two brothers, and I had to field questions about fraternal jealousy, when *ding* the oven time went off, the pizza was ready, and I was off the hook. Saved by the bell!

Bugs and Homophones

Finn received a "talking" microscope for Christmas, similar to the telescope that Liam received. You put slides in, press buttons, and learn about the different items represented. There is also a quiz mode. The vast majority of the slides, if not all of them, represent insects. Finn, however, will only look at the mosquito slide. When I asked him questions about it, though, he appears to have learned nothing. Liam, having overheard all of the mosquito information repetitively, is quite knowledgeable about them and would really, really, like to answer all of the questions for Finn.

As in:
Me: Finn, which mosquito bites you, the boy or the girl?
Finn: Um, the boy?
Liam: No! It's the girl!

Me: How many legs does a mosquito have, Finn?
Finn: Four?
Liam: Six! A mosquito has six legs!!

This last question led to Liam explaining how insects, like mosquitoes and ants, have six legs while spiders have eight. Finn paid absolutely no attention.

A few minutes later, however, Liam seemed to have pondered this a but more, and then excitedly told me, "I know another homophone!! 'Ant"!" I, naturally, was very impressed and asked him to tell me the two meanings. Liam replied, "An 'ant' like the bug, and 'ant', like, 'Ant I good at this?'"

Ugh. We had a little grammar lesson before discussing the different pronunciations of the word "aunt".

Wants and needs

Yesterday, mom asked me what little things the boys might want for Valentine's Day. I had some trouble coming up with ideas, so decided to ask the boys. Not wanting to encourage greed machines, I decided to phrase it a little delicately and see what they said. I figured if their hearts truly desired something, it would come out.

"Boys, how are things going; is there anything in your life that is lacking?"
Liam thought about it for all of 5 seconds, and then asnwered, "Nope. Things are good."
Very reassuring.

Finn didn't answer at first, and then asked what lacking meant. Liam helped me explain, and told Finn, "If something is lacking, it means it is something that you don't have, but if you had it, it would make you happy."

Finn thought about this for a couple of minutes, and then answered, "Quinn."
Quinn is his best friend who recently moved up a class.

So, Mom, can you get the Finn's best friend back for Valentine's Day?

Lame Duck

When I arrived to pick Liam up from after school yesterday, one of his teachers came up to me very excited. She said it was so nice to finally meet me and asked after our sitter. Mind you, I have picked Liam up from after school on several occasions, although not regularly, and have said hello to her before. I'm such a good mom.

While we renewed our introductions, another teacher approached to tell me a story about Liam. I became instantly nervous, fearing the worst, but she was smiling, so I figured it couldn't be all that bad.

Apparently (one of Liam's favorite words), during roll call at afterschool, the teachers sometimes ask the children to reply with something relevant to a particular topic, rather than simply saying, "present". One day, they were isntructed to say something presidential. According to this teacher, most of the children said something about Obama, or Barack, etc. (You can tell the kind of school Liam attends.) There are children from all of elementary school in afterschool, so at least it is mixed age-wise, if not politically. When the teacher got to Liam's name, he replied, "Lame Duck." She said she then asked if anyone knew what a lame duck was. The other children thought it was funny, and said it was a duck who can't walk. She then turned back to Liam and asked him to explain. Which he did.


When we asked for a replay of this explanation, he told us, "When a new president is selected (sic) and the old one is still in office, no one believes what the old one says he will do because he doesn't have time." We were all pretty impressed. Now Liam will be repeating his lame duck comment for weeks, hoping to elicit more parental praise. :-)

Beer and Onion Rings

We have been learning about homophones lately, thanks to the "Between the Lions" video we recently rented. Much as rhyming games were great fun at younger ages, homophones are a good game to play with words. Liam is pretty good at it, and can come up with "red" and "read" as well as a few others. Finn also tries to play, but it is a bit hard for him.

After driving home one day and playing this with great success (Liam can really come up with several, given enough time), I decided that Finn had probably overheard enough, and it was time to show off to Daddy. Finn, I said, can you tell daddy a homophone? And he replied, with great gusto, "Beer!!!". I assume he meant bear, but perhaps he is just very far advanced and knew about the word "bier". Or maybe he just wanted some beer.

Also recently, Matt decided to convince Liam that onions are yummy through the power of onion rings. Liam, very suspicious, asked me what onion rings are. I told him, "They are very yummy things that make you fat." He seemed to accept this, and agreed to try one. After tasting one, he declared happily, "I like onion rings!!" Then he looked down and became a bit disappointed. He thought he would get instantly fat.

Does it make me a bad parent if my kids talk about beer and onion rings? Mmmm . . . .

Post-holiday joys

After all of the excitement of the holidays (too much to blog now, maybe when I get more energy!), who would have thought the boys could get so excited again? As it turns out, finally getting the slippers they wanted was enough to thrill them. Liam got penguin slippers and Finn got dragon slippers (see picture!). They immediately wanted to put on a play with their slippers, and Finn even wore his to bed. They are quite happy!

Then, to top things off, I was quite indulgent, and not only bought mint chip ice cream for the boys, but also bought cones to eat it in. Finn's ice cream is made with coconut milk, and it's pretty good. To entice the boys to eat dinner, Matt sat down and ate an ice cream cone of his own. Finn watched him with great awe and wonder, and finally said, "but you can't eat the cone, right?" We explained that you can eat the cone, and he wanted to know, "is it soft?" At this point I realized, with a bit of a shock, that Finn had not only never eaten an ice cream cone before, but we had sheltered him so completely that he had not actually even seen one before! Poor child.

Needless to say, he enjoyed it quite thoroughly, as you can see in his picture.