Her what?

Walking into the office, Jeremy saw Hannah sitting at the computer staring at the screen, mouth moving, but no sound. Curious, he walked over to stand behind her to see what was on the screen. He asked, "What on earth are you doing?"

She pointed to a list of jokes she found on one of her kid-game sites and said, "Trying to memorize these for my comedy routine."

Oh boy.

Smack-talk...

Via screen saver???

Joshua and Ruth discovered how to change the desktop screen saver to the 'text' option. About a week ago, I woke up, wandered downstairs, took my medicine, made my breakfast, sat down to read my email, and nearly spit my drink all over the monitor.

"Ruth poops her pants."

Knowing who the culprit was, I meant to say something to Joshua along the lines of being nice to his little sister, and how screen-insults were not appropriate. Unfortunately, I am so busy I could cry right now, so it just slipped my mind. Until the next morning when I read:

"Joshua wets the bed."

Shortly after that, her message was replaced with another, and yet another and still another, over the course of a week. After the third insult, I realized they weren't getting upset with each other (yet). We also discovered they thought Jeremy and I hadn't noticed their game. We had decided to allow it to continue, out of morbid curiosity, more than anything. And we've noticed a specific theme:

"Ruth squishes poop."
"Joshua eats turds."
"Ruth sits in crap."
"Joshua poops his pants."
"Ruth plays with anuses"
"Josh snorts Oz (Oswald's) turds"

While the delivery system is unique, I never did claim the insults to be creative. And I really don't get the obsession with feces...

Conversations with Hannah

She's been on a roll lately, and so, I've been posting snippets of conversation as my status on Facebook over the last few weeks. I decided to compile some of the better ones here, some with a little background explanation. I'll begin with our conversation last night:

Hannah: "How's this for a sentence using one of my spelling words. 'I might dominate all man-kind."
Me: "And what exactly is your spelling word?"
Hannah: "Might. I betcha you thought it was 'dominate' or 'mankind' didn't you?"

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I found Hannah singing one morning last week at the top of the stairs with her arms spread out wide as if embracing the sky, "That's the joy of being smaaaaaaaaaalllllll!" Then she hopped down the stairs saying "Ribbit, Ribbit, Ribbit." Well, it isn't Rogers and Hammerstein, but I'm beginning to think her imagination is musical theater.

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My father in-law can't leave a recipe alone. One of my earliest memories about dating my husband was the first time I met his parents. I had stayed past meal time, which was O.K. with them, and I wasn't expecting anything to eat. But my mother-in-law decided to offer me some left-overs of beans and rice. Upon opening the container, she noticed the addition of bacon to her recipe. "Peter! Why is there bacon in my beans?"
"I made it better," He replied.

Over the last 17 years since that moment, I've watched my father-in-law make foods 'better' much to the dismay of my mother-in-law. Usually making a meal 'better' involves adding bacon, extra butter, or frying it up, when it was already baked to begin with. Sometimes he adds other spices and ingredients, but in general, my father-in-law like heart-attack fatty and greasy foods.

The funny thing about kids, they notice things about their world that sometimes we adults observe, but don't put it all together, until a child makes a comment.

Hannah brought a recipe home from school for Turkish Delight. "Maybe I could make this with P-pop," she said. "No wait, he would try and make it" she paused and made quotation marks with her finger "bettteerrr."

I smiled at her in response.

"Well, you know P-pop," She said with a shrug. "He just wouldn't be able...to help himself."

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Hannah: "Mama, how do you spell design?"
Me: "D-E-S-I-G-N"
Hannah: "Why on earth is there a G?"
Me: "I dunno. It's English. We have lots of weird spelled words"
Hannah: "Well, it's stupid."

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Hannah has been discovering herself through fashion, or rather, her lack there of. Unlike her older sister who really is a 'fashionista' and pulls together unlikely combinations to make them look amazing, with an artistic flair, Hannah often looks like an orphan, or a mini-bag lady. She really tries to imitate her sister, and yet can't quite pull it off. Sometimes I make her change before she walks out the door. Sometimes I don't.

A few weeks ago, she put together a very, um, 'interesting' combination of skirt, leggings, shirt, scarf, and I can't remember what all else. Topped off with bright red fuzzy boots that were hand-me-downs, Hannah's outfit was something to behold. Internally, I debated whether or not to make her change. It wasn't awful, just, uh, "colorful." I decided to let her go to school dressed in her get-up because, after all, there was really no harm in it. She was quite proud of her clothing choices. But I was curious to see if anyone would comment about her clothes at school.

"So," I asked Hannah. "Anyone at school like your outfit today?"
"YES!" She said enthusiastically. "I did! I liked my outfit A LOT!"

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Of course, no Hannah post is complete without the chicken suit.

I came downstairs a few weeks ago, one Saturday morning. The kids had been awake for at least an hour, watching cartoons. Walking through the livingroom, I took in the scene. Ruth was at one end of the couch, sitting in her PJ's, buried under blankets, and totally zoned out. Hannah was on the other end of the couch...

Eavesdropping...

I was laying on the couch, with my eyes closed, waiting to die because I'm a wimp. Ok, sure, it's only 100.5 degree temperature, nothing major. But every single muscle in my body is aching, shaking and quaking.

Around 4:00 I attempted to nap despite the commotion The Boy always creates around himself. It's not enough to just do his after school chores, he has to make as much noise as possible while doing them. Pulling the pillow over my head, I buried deeper into the cushions of the couch, hoping to muffle the sound. Forgetting I was underneath the pile of blankets, the kids began to speak freely.

"Honestly," Ruth said. "There was this kid, and he followed me home on his bike. I think he's friends with Jake, who was out in the street playing football with these other kids."
"Which kids?" asked Josh
"I dunno," she said defensively, "Just some kids. Anyway, this kid followed me for awhile and said 'Hey there 2nd grader' so I just looked at him. I didn't give him the satisfaction. So he rode off back to Jake and the other guys, and left me alone. THEN he came back a few minutes later and said 'Hey, see the kid in green? He liiiikessss youuuuu.'" She imitated the kid's sing-songy voice. "So I said, 'Yeah, that's because I'm so beautiful, I'm smokin' hot.' and THEN he left me alone."

Oh brother.

Can I get a translator please?

It's a known fact that males and females communicate differently. The reality of this statement becomes more and more clear to me as the days go on.

Today Jeremy and Joshua were looking at Joshua's Facebook page and discussing his friend Josh's girlfriend. I was standing across the hall in the bathroom putting my make-up on. Ruth, ever fascinated by my morning ritual, was standing in the bathroom with me mesmerized by my reflection in the mirror, peppering me with questions. In the midst of her daily make-up quiz, we over-heard the guys talking.

"She looks older than 8th grade," Jeremy commented
"She's in 8th grade," came Joshua's reply.
I chimed in, "No, she looks like she's in 8th grade. I saw her pic on Facebook. Trust me, Ruth will look like that in 8th grade." Jeremy grimaced, not wanting to think of his baby girl all grown up.
"So, is she nice?" I asked Joshua
"Yeah, she's kinda quiet."
"I noticed on Facebook her friends aren't your friends. Does she hang with a good group?"
"Yeah, I know she's not part of my 'group' of friends"
"Yes, but is she a 'nice girl' even though she's not in your group?"
He stared at me with a non-comprehending blank expression on his face. "What do you mean?"
I said, "Well, your friends, so far, seem like a good bunch of kids. Is this girl in an equally nice bunch of kids? Or is she in a not-so-nice-group?"
He continued to look blank.
"I just wanted to know if you though this was an ok girl for your friend, Josh. Not you, the friend with whom you share a name and have been good friends for the last ten years."
"I know who you were talking about."
"Yes, I know you know which person. I want to know if his girlfriend is an "O.K. kind of girl" "
Joshua continued to look at me.
I turned to Ruth, "You know what I'm trying to ask, right?"
She smiled, knowing full well I was trying to find out if this was a girl I needed to warn the other-Joshua's mother about, or if this was going to be a nice safe Jr high, 2-week long relationship. You just don't know these days. "Here, you need to speak 'man.' Let me try to translate," Ruth said
"You speak 'man'?" I asked incredulously.

"Sure!"She walked across the hall and into his room and began to grunt like a caveman. Dropping her voice an octave, she continued to make neanderthal noises between words, "Is oogh Josh's ugh girlfriend ook ook ..." and I didn't hear the rest, because I was laughing too hard at her antics. Joshua doubled over holding his stomach laughing. "OOOHH! Yeah," he said once she was done. "She's a decent girl. You don't have to worry about it."

No, that's not true. I have a lot of other things to worry about now.