Overheard

This is the last part of the conversation I picked up on....

Colby: "Well, who would take care of us, then?"
Quinn: "Nobody. We'd take care of ourselves."
Colby: "What would we eat?"
Quinn: "Bubble gum."
Colby: "But we don't know how to drive!"
Quinn: "I had a dream I learned how to drive. I can do it."
Colby: "We'd need the key to the restaurant..."
Quinn: "I found a key, remember?"

At this point, I made my presence known.
Mom: "What are you guys talking about?"
Quinn and Colby: "Nothing."
Quinn: "We're not talking about sneaking away at night to a restaurant."
Colby: "But we'd come back, Mom."


HMMMMM. Five years old, and they're already scheming about sneaking out at night. Am I in trouble or what?

Current Career Dreams

Periodically, Rob and I ask the boys what they want to be when they grow up. It used to be that Colby wanted to be a space man, and Quinn a chef. Then Quinn decided on a chef in space. About a month ago, it was a vetrinarian for both boys. Tonight, after a day celebrating their graduation from Kindergarten, we asked the same question. Colby wants to be a "real" doctor now, instead of an animal doctor. Quinn wants to be EVERYTHING, as long as he can do it in space. OK then.

Figures

Last day of school, and both boys have fevers. Figures. What a way to start summer vacation. Colby said "good thing we don't have school tomorrow, mom, or we'd have to stay home sick!" Great.

The Vet

The boys found "pet" catepillars last night. This isn't hard to do around here, given our current infestation of "tent catepillars". I insisted that they stay outside, to prevent the infestation from moving indoors. The boys put their pets in a jar outside in our 90-some degree weather. This morning, those catepillars were REALLY STILL.

Quinn: "Mom, the catepillars died".
Mom: "You can't put them out in the heat like that with a lid on the jar, and expect them to live."
Quinn: "We really need to take them to the vet!"
Mom: "It's a little late for that. Plus vets don't work on bugs."
Quinn: "WHY NOT????"

Too Much To Do

So, after a full day of school, after-school program, then playing outside in the yard, I had the boys come in to shower. It was an hour past bed-time by this point, and I found Colby crying on the stairs.

Mom: "What's the matter?"
Colby: "I was going to run through the sprinkler today, but I didn't have time!"

The kid couldn't even keep his eyes open, he was so tired. I assured him that this oppressive heat would still be around tomorrow, and we could run through the sprinkler then. Just not enough hours in the day, is there?

A Visit from The Tooth Fairy

The tooth fairy FOUND Quinn's teeny-tiny little tooth under that huge pillow, thankfully, and left him one gold coin worth a dollar. Quinn spent the entire next day singing "I'm RICH! I'm RICH! I'm RICH!"

Gap-Toothed Grin

Quinn finally lost his first tooth today, thanks to some overly-rambunctious play in a jump house. That method of tooth removal actually worked out really well, as the simple "pull it out by yourself" method didn't seem to be getting him anywhere. The tooth is currently nestled underneath his pillow, but the tooth fairy is a little worried about finding it in the dark, as it's SO DANG TINY! Colby is secretely hoping that the tooth fairy accidentally gets them mixed up and leaves the money under HIS pillow.

Rotten Teeth Part 2

Quinn crawled in to bed with me this morning, and immediately began talking about the tooth fairy. He wanted to know why only the TOOTH FAIRY was real, when I had told him all other fairies were make-believe. I told him we'd google it and find out. He wanted to know where tooth fairies lived, and what they ate, and what they did with the teeth when they were done with them. He wanted to know what KIND of clouds they lived on, because there are different types, you know, and they probably don't live on all three types. Where do you put the tooth so the tooth fairy can find it? When I said either in a glass of water by his bed, or under his pillow, he said "you can't put it in a cup. That'd be uncomfortable to sleep on!" He wanted to know what the inside of a tooth looked like, and why we lose baby teeth, and how long it would be until the big one came in, and why I have a wire in my mouth, and what are braces? We spent the early morning looking up pictures of tooth fairies, and then teeth, which eventually morphed into videos of rockets taking off and astronauts doing flips in space.

This curiosity is awesome to me, but I really have a hard time coming up with all the answers!!

Rotten Teeth

Colby and I were upstairs tonight reading a bedtime story, when we heard a horrendous wail from Quinn downstairs. He was supposed to be brushing his teeth. I assumed he must have impaled himself on the toilet plunger, it was such an excrutiating scream. I ran downstairs, and there was Quinn, bawling, tooth brush in hand. He could barely talk.

Mom: "Quinn!! Are you okay?? What happened??"

Quinn: "WAAAAHHHHH!"

Mom: "Did you bite your tongue while brushing your teeth?"

Quinn: (shaking his head no) "WAAAAAHHHHH!"

Mom: "What happened, then? Why are you crying?" He kept pointing to his mouth. I wasn't understanding. There was no blood, that much I could tell. Finally, he calmed down enough to take a breath.

Quinn: "My...My... Tooth is LOOSE! It's falling out!!!"

I hugged him and started laughing. Sure enough... bottom front left. Wiggly.

Mom: "Quinn, that just means that you're getting older, and that the big tooth is coming in underneath it! It's going to fall out, and the tooth fairy will come, and take it away and leave money!" That stopped his crying amazingly fast.

Quinn: "It's not rotting out because I don't brush enough?"

Mom: "No. It'd be black if that was the case."

Quinn: "OOOOOOOHHHHH. I thought it was rotting out of my head!"

No. Maybe I scared him too much when I told him his teeth would rot out of his head if he didn't brush them. Silly, silly boy.

Contact Sports

Swinging isn't typically considered a contact sport, unless you're an Aho boy. They were getting so wild on the tree-swing, and smacked enough times into the trunk, that head injuries were iminent. I insisted on helmets. That just made them feel free to go all the more crazy on the thing! Oh, the dream of sedate children. No wonder we end up in the emergency room so often.

Self-Destruct Mode Part 2

In the continuing saga of my children insisting on killing themselves....

Colby: "Mom, Quinn swallowed a penny!"
Mom: "WHAT??????"
Quinn: "It's okay, Mom. I washed it down with water so I wouldn't choke."

He's eating MONEY now??? On PURPOSE???

Taxes

Quinn has been saving his money to buy a toy car. It costs $9. He now has $9.56 saved up. This morning, he was wanting to bring the $.56 to school to buy a treat, and I informed him that he would need that change for the tax on the toy.

Q: "What's tax?"
M: "Money to the government. It costs money to spend money."
Q: "Why do they want money?"
M: "To build bridges, deliver the mail, that kind of thing.
Q: "So, they want to take my money so they can spend it themselves?"
M: "Yup. " Very well put, my boy.

Self-Destruct Mode

Honestly, keeping the children from killing themselves seems to be an enormous part of my job as mother. I found Colby in tears today, wtih wire ribbon wrapped tightly around his neck. Apparently he was "playing with it", and it began choking him. It took me a good minute or two to untangle it from around his neck, it was so tight. WHAT WAS HE THINKING? Nothing. That's what he was thinking. There were absolutely no higher level brainwaves involved in that activity. My boys are purely sensory-based human beings, and it apparently "feels cool" to play with wire ribbon around one's neck. That's my theory, at least. I have found Colby in the past with the cord from the blinds on the stairwell around his neck as well. Holy cow. This "sensory seeking" quality invariably leads to destruction and near-death experiences, because there is absolutely NO THOUGHT PROCESS involved. My GOODNESS. Yesterday while I was doing dishes and the boys were outside with Dad, they decided to play in the woods by themselves. Children playing in the woods by themselves is a bad idea for several reasons, among them:

#1: They were barefoot
#2: Ticks are out in full force at the moment
#3: There are wild animals (bears, coyotes, a random cougar sighting here and there), trails branching off for miles, and generalized danger lurking around every tree, which requires a safety awareness and maturity that, quite frankly, my five year old boys just DO NOT HAVE.

Daddy REALLY wants them to have the freedom of playing in the woods by themselves, as part of their idyllic childhood. I agree, that would be cool. But they are NOT READY. The child wraps wire around his neck for fun. He is not READY to be unsupervised. Will they survive into adulthood? I hope so, but I often have my doubts......