Crazy Quotes Disney Edition

Day one, Magic Kingdom, on the Jungle Cruise ride in Adventureland:

passing a crazy assortment of African animals

Jack: "Oh, guys, look! Fake animals!"

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Driving to Hollywood Studios, Day two:

Jack: "Man, mooooooooomy!"

Me: "What?"

Jack: "I forgot my elephant. I promised him he could go with us to Disney World today!"

Me: "Well, tomorrow we are going to Animal Kingdom. I think he would LOVE it there. Why don't we just take him tomorrow?"

Jack: considering..."Ok. I'll just text him and tell him that we'll do that."

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Day Two, Hollywood Studios, Lights Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show (as well as all of days one and three in all locales surrounding the Disney area)

~HUGE car chase ensues, guns shooting, cars squealing, motorcycles jumping

Me: "Sam, see the cars?"

Sam: "Fan!"

Me: "See the motorcycle?"

Sam: Points "Fan!"

Me: "See the bus?"

Sam: Points up "Fan!!!"

Me: "Yes, buddy, another fan!"

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Day Two, Hollywood Studios, Toy Story Midway Mania! (best freaking ride at all of Disney world)

after first ride

Keith: "How many points did you get?"

Alicia: "87,000"

Keith: "Aww, man, are you kidding? I only got 74,000. I was holding Sam on my lap and he was getting in the way. Next time you have to ride with Sam."

after second ride

Alicia: "I wipped your butt this time."

Keith: "How many?"

Alicia: "125,000"

Keith: "How'd you do that with Sam?"

Alicia: "Stuck Sam in his own seat with his own gun. He got zero. But he had a ball."

[sidenote, Keith still beat me, he got 147,000 or something like that and the high score for the day was something crazy like 333,000]

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Day Three, Animal Kingdom, walking around and looking at the animals in the beginning on the Oasis

Sam: seeing flamingos "Mingo!"

Sam: seeing ducks "Mingo!"

Sam: seeing pigeons "Mingo!"

Keith: "Well, at least he learned one word here besides fan."

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Day Three, Animal Kingdom, Kilimanjaro Safari (which is REALLY FREAKING COOL), right after Sam had had a screaming fit through the last three songs of the Festival of the Lion King show

Me: "See the big ELEPHANT!"

Sam: "No!"

Me: "See the zebra!"

Sam: "No ze-ra!!"

Me: "See the giraffe?"

Sam: "No, no!"

Me: "See the antelope?"

Sam: "No, a-lope"

You see where this is going....

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Day Three, Animal Kingdom, right after "It's Tough to be a bug" 3D show (sidenote: I should really learn to listen when they say 'this show might be frightening for young children')

Walking out

Me: "So what was your favorite thing here?"

Jack: "I don't know, I but definitely hated that one the MOST OF ALL."

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Jack, dressing for Cirque de Soliel

Me: "What do you think the people are going to do there?"

Jack: silent

Me: "Like, flips?"

Jack: exasperated "Mommy, not flips. Just ALL KINDS of stuff you can't do."

Watch out folks, Dadddy has the kids all weekend...

My wife bought our son a Leap Frog interactive globe for Christmas. I initially thought her idea was lame. I have subsequently changed my opinion completely. When was the last time you had a conversation with your four year-old like this:
(In response to a discussion about how the horn of Africa countries - Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, etc - are having some trouble these days)
(Circling Saudi peninsula with finger) "But dad, what about those countries? Are they okay?"(Not wanting to discuss Islamic extremist terrorism with my four year old), "Yeah, they are doing okay."(Pointing from country to country with his finger) "But if there are some bad people in Eritrea, then maybe they can go to Yemen.""Yes, you're very right.""And then to Oman, then Iran, then Afghanistan, then Pakistan, then India, then Myanmar, then Thailand, then Malaysia, then Indonesia..."
Or, a discussion like this:
(Talking about soft "g" and hard "g" sounds)
"Dad, I know what makes a soft "g" sound.""What?""Georgia.""Yeah, right next door to us.""But its confusing because it is a place inside the United States and also a place outside the United States."
Great gift. Brilliant kid. It breaks my heart that someday soon he'll realize the coast of Somalia is full of pirates, and Georgia just got the crap beat out of it by a bully named Russia, and daddy didn't go to Afghanistan for shits and giggles, and that virtually every country in that previous string of countries is home to a small, but dedicated, contingent of anti-social types bent on terrorizing the modern world back into the stone age. When that day comes and he asks me why some people are willing to blow themselves (and anyone around them) up to make a point, I will be tempted to simply explain to him that most terrorists just need to get laid. Unfortunately, that will open up an entirely new can of worms.

Random Musings

The other day we were driving home from school and Jack was telling me about something that had happened that day (which, actually, is rare, we get a lot of "Nothing happened, don't talk to me" even at four). He said that they were playing a rhyming game and Mrs. Flatt was telling them things that rhymed with their last names. I was barely paying attention thus cannot recite the list to you of what rhymed with Willeford, but afterward he came up with this gem:

"Mommy, it was just so so funny, I couldn't believe my heart."

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We are sick today and thus staying home. This is not something I enjoy doing all day most of the time because I like to be out and going and doing. Staying home with these two can be pretty tedious. We were watching the second in a long stream of movies and I was sitting on the big couch surrounded with four baskets full of clean laundry and attempting to fold it all.

Jack looks at up from his movie and says, "You are such a great worker mommy. You work the most hardest of all the people I know. "

Don't forget it, kid. And make sure you tell that to your daddy.

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I just folded sweatshirts. We usually wash laundry on Sunday. We certainly did last week and this week. I folded 11 sweatshirts that belong to Sam. Seriously, what the hell? How did he go through 11 sweatshirts in 7 days? This type of thing always perplexes me. I could count other pieces of our laundry and do the same thing, but I'm afraid you might get bored :-)

To be or not to be Pur-fet

Jack is a perfectionist. So much so that it can be problematic. For example, when he wrote this version of the ABCs, I could not tell him that letters J, L, N and S were backwards or he would have taken it down off the refrigerator angrily and said it is not "puuuur-fet". He likes things that are Pur-fet a lot better than things that have any mistakes at all (lets not get into the deeper discussion of how pronouncing perfect without the c is also imperfect). This obviously causes conflict since his two favorite things in life are (1) creating art and (2) writing things. When you are four you are going to make mistakes when you try to do either of these things
So, I am in the bath (it is wonderful to have a four-year-old, I can take a bath and leave him alone with full knowledge that he is unlikely to flood the toilet or write on walls or worse even... run out the front door) and Jack comes in. I knew he was working on something.

"I am making a birthday card for Poppy"

"OK, good idea"

"I can't do it Pur-fet"

"Well, that is ok, just do your best and he'll still like it!"

"No, I CAN'T SPELL Birthday!!!!!!!!!!"

"Ok, I'll spell it for you"

"Hold on"

He brings me paper and a marker and I write it down. He exits stage right and I don't see him again til after my bath 10 minutes later.

"Did you finish your card?"

"Yes, but it is not good. I wrote the letters right but it doesn't look pur-fet I have to do it again."

I found them this morning. I just LOVE the evolution that you can see in the "Before I asked mom" version and the after :-)

Santa was nice to the boys

Leapster a'playin'
Grocery cart a'pushin'
Matching p.j.'s a'wearin'
Plastic toys a'gatherin'
The only things Jack asked for were ZooBooks (a kids magazine), a baseball, and Pokemon cards. We, umm, I mean Santa, gathered all these things and then got him a couple of other toys from the over $3 section. He is obsessed with this Leapster Globe BTW. Anyone with kids over about four should consider it. It is an AWESOME learning toy. As my neighbor said recently, "How many other four year olds are running around singing about Port-au-Prince?"

Don't ask ME if he missed any of them!

Jack memorized all of the states. He is obsessed with this book called The Scrambled States of America. So, one day, I realize that he can read all the states in the back of the book and I am pretty impressed. Then in the last few days I have discovered that he can also recite them verbatim just from memory. I have no idea who he came from but it is not me. I am 28 and I don't know the states in a list. So if he skipped some here I would never know the difference. We took several videos but I think this one is the closest he got to perfect. He did it in the car earlier without prompting but I guess the camera makes him stress more.