Rowdy Rebel (age 3) was showing Misha all of his toy cars. He was really excited about it until Misha wanted to hold a car too. Then Misha started biting the cars, and my rowdy little toddler could barely stand it, “Mommy, Misha is GWABBING and BITING my CARS. Make him STOP!”

Then Lila came over and tried to get Misha to stop biting on the cars. She was worried that he could choke on the wheels.

Fortunately, Deep Thinker (age 6) jumped in to save the day. He yelled, “Don’t worry! It’s okay for Misha to bite the cars. He doesn’t have any TEETH!”

First, I asked him if he’d like to have a baby brother or sister. He said he’d like to have a baby brother. He added, “I don’t want to be the baby. I want to be big boy. I want other brother be baby.”

Then he explained how babies cry: “They say ‘aaaa haaaa.’ Sometimes they say ‘AAAA!’” That was very helpful:)

So, I said, “That’s true. Babies cry a lot. You know Mommy would need to do a lot of things for a baby brother. Would you help Mommy with your baby brother or sister? Would you help Mommy get a new diaper for the baby, or get his bottle in the refrigerator and bring it to me?”

His response: “Yes! I will get the baby’s diaper Mommy! His diaper will be TINY. And he can’t close it, so I will close it. And I will get his milk bottle in the ‘frigiator,’ and I will feed it to him.”

And my favorite: I asked, “Would you help me give the baby a toy if he cries?”

His answer: “Yes. I will get the baby’s toy. First, I will play with it. Then I will share it with baby to play with.” To make sure I understood, he repeated this answer three times.

Then they got back from the field trip. He had made a red teddy bear. He told me all about how they stuffed it and then even put a little cushion inside shaped like a heart! And he said it was really for me, but he refused to give it to me. After that day, he began to sleep with the teddy bear every night.

Yesterday while I was tucking him in, he told me he had finally named his (yes, now his, no longer mine) teddy bear. I have no idea how he came up with this name, but it had me chuckling for the rest of the night. The name is Red Lightening. (By the way, the teddy is a boy.)

(The above photo is Red Lightening seated beside my own childhood teddy bear:)

We were talking about a show with dragons and heroes. Rowdy Rebel said that he is a dragon and then acted like one, blowing out pretend fire and stuff like that.

My husband asked, “Is Daddy a dragon?” Rowdy Rebel said yes.

Then we asked, “Is Mommy a dragon?” He repeated yes.

Next we asked, “Is your big brother a dragon?”

Rowdy Rebel shook his head and said, “No. He is a mouse.” Poor big brother.

1) My kindergartner’s ears feel stopped up. He’s pretty sure he has an ear “infunction.”

2) Also his “taste bumps” used to love chicken, but not anymore.

3) My toddler’s Spiderman toy is a good guy, but the Hulk is a “gag guy.”

How can I possibly bring myself to correct these beautiful little errors? Not gonna happen. Not anytime soon anyway.

When I went to check on the boys at night, Rowdy Rebel was asleep with his little armed wrapped around Spiderman. I really like the way Spiderman is laying right on his face too. It looks very comfortable.

When I put him in the stroller to walk home, he started flapping his arms really hard. When I began to push the stroller, he screamed, “I flyyyying!!!” I kid you not, my chubby little butterfly thought he had taken off. He really believed he was flying.

He flew the whole way home.

Then somehow he got a hold of two markers. I noticed it was very quiet in his room, which peaked my interest (and fear). So, I went in, and there he was, drawing another picture for me on the wall. The art was HUGE, orange scribbles spanning the wall between the top and bottom bunk.

I screamed (as in “AAAA!”, not words to him). But it scared him, so he started to cry. After that, I cleaned the marker off. Well, mostly.

For the rest of the day, every time Rowdy Rebel went into his room, he pointed at the places where the scribbles had been and said, “Ooohhhh.”

His tone implied thoughts like, “Something bad happened there, and it scared my Mommy.” Thank goodness for Mr. Clean erasers.

While there, Deep Thinker sat happily at the edge of their pool, kicking his feet in the water. Then they brought out the mega-power water guns. We all got squirted big-time.

Deep Thinker and his friend were squirting forever at this other water toy at the bottom of the pool. My son explained to me that they were “taking out the bad guy.” He added that the bad guy “is an orange shark that eats fences.” You tell me.

All this time, Rowdy Rebel was harrassing my friend’s elderly father, who is almost 80, throwing him the ball over and over and over, giving him cars way too many toy cars to hold onto, and so on. I am sure my friend’s father enjoyed that a lot.