The Birds and the Bees

Jonathan (5 years, 7 months)

The whole family was up at the Waineke Cabin in Koke'e and as we were sitting around the fire one night Carolyn said something to the boys about the fact that Auntie Stacy had a baby in her belly just like Mommy did with Leah and how neat it was and how it wouldn't be long before the baby comes out and we'll get to see him or her, etc. Aden says something like, "I already know how the baby comes out. Mommy told us there is a special place for the baby to come out and she showed us a video on her computer." (FYI, the video was a short, computer graphic-type demonstration of the baby moving through the birth canal.  It was age-appropriate, I promise!) and then Jonathan (in front of Dave, Carolyn, Jake, Stacy, Alaka'i, Lucas, Daniel, myself, Aden, Elizabeth, and Leah) says, "Yeah, what I want to know is how the baby gets in there in the first place?!"

We all just looked at each other and started laughing and I said, "Well, you'll learn more about that when you get a little older!"

DO NOT PASS!

Jonathan (5 years, 7 months)

(On our way into town the other day)
"Mommy, I just saw a sign that said, 'DO NOT PASS'...and you PASSED it!"

Gravy

Jonathan (5 years, 2 months)

We had biscuits and gravy with eggs the other morning and Jonathan came running into the family room saying, "Aden, I know why it's called gravy! It's because it's like a grayish color all over!"

Chit Chat

Jonathan (5 years, 2 months)

J-"Mommy, can I have a chit chat?"
Me-"Sure honey, what do you want to talk about?"
J-"No...a chit chat...I mean, a chit cat."
Me-"I don't know what you mean honey."
J-"You know, from my Halloween candy...the kind that Daddy likes."
Me-"Ohhhh, a Kit Kat!"

Football Play Names

Jonathan (5 years)

Nearly every night when Daniel gets home from work he and the boys go outside and play football on the grassy lot next door. Daniel is the permanent quarterback and the boys take turns being on offense or defense. They take turns huddling with Daddy discussing their next play too. Last night Daniel gave the boys each a template to write out and name a few of their own plays. He gave them an example and called it "Eagle". This morning I noticed Jonathan working on his and I was eager to see what he came up with. I couldn't help but smile when I saw the spellings of his play names. They went as follows:
Cetu
Jagwir
Leprd
Dragin
Dinusr
Elufint
Rinnosris
and Eagle.

I love phonetic spelling in little kids! And in case you're wondering b/c it took me a second to figure out...I think Cetu is his way of writing Cheetah. =)

Climate Change

Jonathan (4 years, 11 months)

Our last visit to California was during a freak cold spell in May 2011 with temperatures in the low-mid 50's. This year (July 2012) our first day in California was a sweltering 106 degrees! As we made our rounds visiting friends in Davis and Dixon (Rosendales, Sheldons, DeJongs) Aden commented that "This was the hottest day EVER!" and Jonathan replied (in a sort of dumb-founded tone), "Yeah, California used to be cold??" Can you tell that the boy lives in the tropics? The notion of changing seasons and/or a range of temps larger than 15-20 degrees is foreign to him!

Cotton Candy

Jonathan (4 years, 7 months)

Me: "Did you like the cotton candy?" (An Easter basket treat)
J: "Well, it kind of tasted like...like...(as he touches his tongue like he's pulling something off of it)...cloth. Like the kind of cloth that you made Aden's Halloween costume out of."
Me: "You mean like cotton?" (Aden was a sheep)
J: (Looks at me kind of confused) "Oh, like 'cott-in' a spider web? Yeah, like that."

28 or 90

Jonathan (4 years, 3 months)
While watching the Packer's game...
Aden: "Daddy, when can I play football?"
Daniel: "When you get a little older..."
Jonathan: "Yeah, you have to be like 28 or 90 to play football."

Ottoman

Jonathan (4 years, 3 months)

This morning Jonathan asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I mentioned a few "bigger" items and then rattled off a bunch of things that would be within his budget and ability to get for me, such as drawing me a nice picture, making me an ornament, a Snickers candy bar, a new candle, etc. Well, a few hours later Jonathan came up to me and out of the blue asked me how to make an ottoman. We have three ottomans in our house and we often use the word in conversation: "Can you set this on the ottoman for me?" "The remote is on the ottoman sweetie." "Please don't set your food on the furniture. See, you got peanut butter and jelly on the ottoman!" All that to say, the fact that he asked me how to make an ottoman was a little odd (because what 4-year old wants to make an ottoman?) but Jonathan is not a stranger to random comments so I didn't think much of it and went on to describe that you'd probably use wood and make a sturdy box first and then you'd add some padding to the top and then cover it with fabric or leather or something. He just sort of stared at me and then turned and went about playing.

Later this afternoon Jonathan said, "Mommy, when are we gonna put the ottomans on the Christmas tree?"

So, when he asked how to make an "ottoman" the sweet boy really wanted to know was how he could make an ornament for me for Christmas.

Guest Room

Jonathan (4 years, 2 months)

As he snuggled with my mom (aka Grandma) the other morning in the guest room...

"I know why they call this the guest room...cause when people come to your house you have to "guest" which one of them is going to sleep in here."

Presidents and Cake and Ice Cream

Jonathan (4 years, 2 months)

A few days ago Rebekah sent the boys a couple of die cast play sets. One NYPD set and one Presidential set (which included Air Force One, the presidents helicopter, a secret service SUV, the presidents limo, etc.) The kids and I were playing with them and I pretended to radio the Air Force One pilot to inquire about the president. Aden replied that yes, the presidents (all 6 of them) were on board and were doing well (my poor kids know nothing about the White House...they don't even know what a president is!) Anyway, Jonathan who was cruising his limo around on the rug chimed in with, "Yeah, I got some presents too and some cake and ice cream and some balloons and I'm going to the birthday party now."

Apparently "presidents" sounds a little too much like "presents" for him to really differentiate.

Deep Thoughts From Jonathan

Jonathan (3 years, 9 months)

J: "Mama, do you ever think what it would be like if God didn't make a sun?"
Me: "Well, it would be very dark, very cold, and there would be no life on the earth because plants couldn't survive without sun and people couldn't survive without plants."
J: "Yeah, and if God didn't make an "s" it wouldn't be "sun" it would be "un".
(all spoken in his serious voice)

Dinosaur Chicken Nuggets

Jonathan (3 years, 9 months)

Jonathan: These are dinosaur chicken nuggets because they have dinosaur, chicken, and nuggets in them.
Me: Do they?
Jonathan: Uh huh, I think so, I can taste the nuggets.

And then he dipped his chicken nugget into his ketchup, took a bite, and said, "Mama, this ketchup is delightful."

Seriously, I love this silly boy! He is a laugh a minute!

Gorgeous

Jonathan (3 years, 6 months)

About three months ago while looking at my new bracelet:

"Mommy I LIKE this, it's gorgeous! (pauses) Um, what does gorgeous mean?"

Protein

Jonathan (3 years, 9 months)

"You know, milk is protein and it comes from cows and cheese is protein and it comes from mouses."

Green Mountains

Jonathan (3 years, 8 months)

The other day the boys and I were coloring together. I was happily coloring my pirate ship when this little pirate decided to hijack my ship! As you moms know, as soon as you let your kids color on YOUR paper you have forfeited your masterpiece. Well, as this little bugger was coloring on MY paper he picked up the green crayon and started coloring the mountains. "Green mountains? No! Sheesh, now he's REALLY ruining my masterpiece!" I thought to myself. So I said, "Boozie, why are coloring the mountains green? They should be brown!" (Mountains are brown, right?! Everybody knows that!)

 He looked up, pointed out the window and said, "No, them are green! See!"

And this is what he pointed at...

Um, yeah, I guess he has a point.
My whole life my schema for mountains has been brown! So I guess it's time to adjust that and remember that I now live on the "Garden Island" and the o-so-green mountains that cover this beautiful island are what is making up the schema for "mountains" in the minds of my sweet kiddos.

 So, green mountains it is.

Fun with Calculators

Aden (4 years, 11 months), Jonathan (3 years, 5 months), Elizabeth (16 months)
Last month when my mom was here visiting she bought the boys calculators at Walmart. They were only 50 cents each...what a deal! Well, for two weeks straight they followed us around the house with calculators in hand asking, "What number is this?" with 685,987,431 showing on the screen followed by, "And what number is this?"... 754,999,012. It was great fun. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective) Lizzie got a hold of them and bit all the rubber numbers off and ate them. Yes, ATE them. I was finding red calculator buttons in her poopy diapers for a week straight! So, I'm thinking we'll re-introduce calculators when the boys have learned a little about place value and numbers (and can answer their own "what number is this?" questions) and once Elizabeth gets past the "bite, chew, and swallow everything" stage. =)

Green Bananas

Jonathan (3 years)

So far neither of my boys seem particularly artistic (in the drawing, coloring, painting realm anyway) and often when they do color or paint they rush through it and sort of haphazardly approach the task. Most of their paint projects end up brown because they simply cannot resist mixing all the colors together and often their coloring pages will have something like a blue faced girl with green hair and purple arms and legs or worse yet, the entire page will be colored purple or red or orange. Now, I don't want to stifle any creativity they may be exhibiting but at the same time I think it is a good thing to force them to take their time and think a little while they are "creating". Well, they have these little alphabet coloring books and I like to sit with them and help them choose appropriate colors for the objects they are coloring. For example, a jeep. I'll let them color the jeep whatever color they want but the tires need to be black. Not pink. Not orange. Just black. Anyway, a few months ago we were working in the "B" book and we got to the picture of a banana. I said, "Now Jonathan, think about what color a banana is. Yellow, right?!" (as I hand him the yellow crayon...because of course, this was a no-brainer.) He looks at me, giggles and says, "Silly Mommy! Bananas aren't yellow! Dem are GWEEN!"

At that point I had to laugh. He was SO right! We buy our bananas at Costco and they are always super green...like a "you have to wait at least a week for them to ripen" green.

In case you can't tell just how green these bananas are I placed one of Lizzie's "banana yellow" garden gloves next to them for comparison sake!

In the end he chose light green and I have to say, his assessment and color choice was pretty accurate!

Bumpy Meat

Jonathan (3 years, 5 months)

Jonathan: "Mama, for dinner can we have some of that bumpy meat?"

Me: "Um...bumpy meat?"

Jonathan: "Yeah, that bumpy meat we have at breakfast."

Me: "Oh, do you mean bacon?!"

Jonathan: "Yeah, bacon."

A Jonathan Quote...

Jonathan (3 years, 5 months)
"Gwamma, why do you put your whackers in a wittle, tiny house?"