Overheard at our house

"Stay up Mom, wanna stay up" every time the subject of nap or bedtime is even suggested. Even on the nights that she's asleep before I get done tucking in Little Man in the room next door she's asking to "stay up" right to the end.

"No walk." I realize the way that it is written it appears as if she would be saying she doesn't want to walk, when in actuality it's the opposite that she is asking for. This little girl insists on walking everywhere. Sometimes we scoop her up on the way to the car because we are in a hurry and she'll be chatting away happily until she realizes that she wanted to walk to the car. At this point the "no walk" starts. If you let her down she will march back into the house go to the EXACT place you picked her up (if it was on the fourth stair she will go four stairs up), look at us for a minute testing our patience, and then she will proceed to walk back out to the car and climb on into her car seat. If you don't let her go back and walk she will simply wail (no matter what we offer as distractions, poor Little Man ends up putting his hands over his ears) the entire car ride to our destination. She switches from quiet whimpering to screaming sobs, outraged by her parents who put her in the car and repeating, "no walk."

The other day at dinner, she said as clear as day, "Nectarine, Mommy" to ask for more nectarines. We all turned to stare at her for a moment. I really think the girl has swallowed some sort of speaking pill in the last couple of weeks. She's saying everything and it's so cute to hear it come out of her little mouth.

While at my parents house the subject of marriage came up. My brother asked Little Man who he was going to marry when he grew up. After naming various family members and being told they weren't options, we told him to think of a girl around his age. He paused thoughtfully for a moment and then said,

"I was talking about it with Alicia, but she didn't want to."

(Alicia is one of his friends. I would have loved to have heard that conversation)

We have been working on Little Man saying his own prayers at night rather then just saying the words we whisper to him. He'll say them at meal time by himself, but there's something about right before bed where he's tired and squirmy and falling over. The other day, I helped him get started and then told him to say what he was thankful for. This was what he said:

"Thank you for this beautiful world you created for us" (he's heard us say that before). Pause "And thank you for the way you made Kiwi" (That was all on his own and it about melted my heart)

While staying the night at Grandma's. He had been tucked in for about ten minutes when he came downstairs and very seriously said,

"Grandma we have a problem."

My mom, being genuinely concerned about what might be wrong asked him what the problem was.

"Grandma, I can't see a clock anywhere. How do I know when I can get up if I can't see the seven?"

While driving in the car we hear, "That's interesting" (this is a common phrase around our house these days). When we ask him what is interesting, Little Man replies, "That fire hydrant is red." Sure enough when Mike and I look out the window there is a red fire hydrant sitting on the sidewalk.

When we press him on why that is interesting he replies, "Most fire hydrants are yellow." After a couple of minutes of thinking he says,

"Oh, I get it. They must have different color fire hydrants for different cities." We were in a neighboring city at the time. I love how inquisitive and observant he is. I would have never noticed a different colored fire hydrant.

After playing at a new park, "That was quite a park."