whim emerges

As I was dressing my three-year old son for a family Christmas party, I told him:

“Man, you’re looking handsome.”

He replied:

“Yeah, but you’re not.”

While my wife and I were painting the basement this weekend, the kids played upstairs. Occasionally, we could hear what they were doing.

At one point, our 3-year-old son was playing with one of his toy cars. This particular car had flames painted on the side, much like the one shown in the photograph.

Fire car

We couldn’t tell exactly what he was doing with the car, but he kept repeating, over and over again, for two hours:

“Fire car! Fire car!”

Our children ask unusual questions, and make very strange observations.

Two from this week:

(1) From our 6-year-old daughter: “My brain takes up most of my head.”

(2) From our 8-year-old daughter: “Who made up bad words?” (I was tempted to answer, “Your Mom,” but that wouldn’t be very civil.)

I escorted my middle daughter to a hockey game tonight — just me and her.

Before the game, we had dinner together. While awaiting our order, she wrote me the following notes:

(1) “i am going to a hockey game woth my daddy and we will have fun”

(2) “i love my daddy very much evrey night”

The latter note included a picture of the two of us, standing on the grass, and included zigzagging lines beneath the grass — the roots, I was told.

One problem with having 5 kids is that they each, on occasion, feel neglected. Tonight, our 6-year-old, thinking she was being ignored, escaped to her room and wrote the following note which she later left on our bed:

“No wun like me evin mom and dad think abawd it love yr dotr”

The worst part of her note, though, was the three drawings that appeared beneath the words:

(1) a self-portrait, uttering the words “boo hoo”

(2) a heart with a crack in the middle of it

(3) another heart with a crack in the middle of it, but this time inserted into a garbage can

My daughters participate in a youth group sponsored by the YMCA, with Native American undertones.

As part of the ritual, they get to choose their own Indian names — and change them whenever they wish. Which, of course, they’ve just done.

The new names:

8-year-old daughter: Shooting Star

6-year-old daughter: Galloping Tulip (????)

They also reserve the right to name me, and the imaginative Galloping Tulip decided to name me… Sack of Beans.

Now, what’s really funny about this name is that, long ago, my grandfather taught me a Greek proverb — unbeknownst to my offspring — that, when translated to English, goes like this:

“Bean by bean / the sack gets filled.”

The other funny part is that the fathers in the tribe will often refer to each other with their Indian names, as part of various solemn ceremonies. I can’t wait to see one of them try to call me by my new name and remain solemn.

A spider has taken up residence on the ceiling of my 3-year-old son’s bedroom. It tends to move quickly, so he’s named it “Speedy FastLegs.”

Dense fog this morning. My 8-year-old daughter uttered the following words while driving through the fog on the way to school:

“This is a living nightmare! It’s what I’ve always wanted NOT to happen!”