Words of a Child

Rowdy Rebel likes to sleep with toys. Today he found this plastic Spiderman toy that dances and sings and decided to sleep with it.

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.

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Rowdy Rebel discovered the ketchup squirting mechanism today. Ironically enough, he was discovering this as I was cleaning my room about 6 feet away. You know, there’s no fun like ketchup fun. I can hear his little thoughts now: Ketchup in the kitchen! Ketchup in the carpet! Ketchup, ketchup KETCHUP! It kind of makes a jingle if you sing the right notes.

Please note: These photographs don’t accurately show just how THICK those spots on the carpet are. They’re like half an inch thick. In the photo they look so small. In person, they were not at all small.

The good news is that I was pretty surprised at how easily ketchup came out of our carpet. It only took me like 20 minutes to clean up the entire mess! And I would have been very nervous about Rowdy Rebel’s whereabouts and activities, except that he was having a timeout as he watched me clean up his mess.

The entire time he kept repeating, “Rowdy Rebel MAKE MESS…Rowdy Rebel MAKE MESS…He likes to keep everyone in the loop;)

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Deep Thinker is going through a phase of asking lots of questions about God and heaven. So, we were on our way to school, and he pointed to a house as we walked by it, and asks, “Mom, are there houses in heaven?”

I said, “Well, I am not sure. People might not need houses there, because their bodies might be different. Maybe they are invisible, or maybe they are always warm. They might not need houses to protect them.”

Perplexed, he asked, “Then where do they put the BEDS??”

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Wednesday, Deep Thinker and I were walking to pick up Rowdy Rebel from preschool. During these walks, the most interesting information comes up!

So during this walk, I learned that Deep Thinker was really upset. His kindergarten class has a brief circle time when children can bring things to show their classmates. So, Deep Thinker brought his (and my) favorite sunglasses. They look so cute on him. So, he told me that he put them on, and everyone laughed at him!

We talked it over for several minutes, but he was still sad. I said, “Sweety, I am sure they laughed, because they liked your glasses! Not because they thought the glasses were funny. The glasses really look nice–no one would think they were funny.”

He said, “Mommy, that doesn’t cheer me up at all.” Poor thing.

(Update: I think he has forgotten about it now, because he wore the sunglasses again this morning:)

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Today in Rowdy Rebel’s preschool, the kids made these huge paper butterfly wings. They cut them out of paper, let the children color designs on them, and taped them to their backs. My son’s were so big, the wings are easily visible from all views.

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.

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We were having a nice evening at home. The boys were playing quietly, Deep Thinker (age 5) in their bedroom and Rowdy Rebel (age 2) in the living room. I was cleaning up in our room.

Deep Thinker is always quiet, so I really wasn’t too worried about the silence in their room. But when the silence in the living room hit the 5 minute mark, my child radar went off. I headed into the room to make sure Rowdy Rebel was okay.

HE SURE WAS OKAY. What was not okay was the living room. He had taken my entire carton of eggs (eight left in there) from the refrigerator and thrown in different parts of the living room. Broken egg in the middle of the carpet. Four broken eggs in the corner. Two broken eggs in front of the couch. My mouth dropped open, and I think I stood like that for about 5 minutes while Rowdy Rebel explained repeatedly and jovially “Rowdy Rebel break eggs!!!! Rowdy Rebel BREAK eggs!!! ROWDY REBEL BREAK EEEEEGGGGSSS!!!”

I wasn’t even sure about how to punish him. I resorted to the time-tested guilt trip a la modern-day time out. I sat him at the kitchen table so he could watch me clean up all of the eggs. As I did it, I repeated numerous times, “Breaking eggs is BAD. It’s very difficult for Mommy to clean up eggs!” He quietly watched me clean them up.

Finally, I stood up to survey that everything looked clean. There was still some yellow yolk residue visible here and there, but my back was aching, so I decided to rest and finish later. And Rowdy starts pointing toward the front door where we put our shoes. “Shoe! Shoe!” I said, “Don’t worry about the shoes.”

Then he clarified, “Egg shoe! EEEGGGGG SHOOOOE!”I walked over to the door and saw what he was talking about. There was big yellow egg yold plastered across my favorite pair of tennis shoes. Of course.

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People, it wasn’t enough to splatter eggs all over my living room. The next day, my husband was using his computer in the kitchen (which is basically part of the living room). Rowdy Rebel was playing right behind him.

My husband noticed an odd silence and turned to check on Rowdy. He had taken the egg cart out of the refrigerator and was cradling an egg in his hand, holding it over his shoulder ready to do a little up and over type toss. My husband leaped over, grabbed the egg, and went through the whole “Rowdy Rebel, it’s VERY BAD to break eggs” thing again.

After this, we all went shopping together and then to the park. Rowdy pouted the whole day. He kept bowing his head, wrinkling up his eyebrows and mumbling with his mouth almost closed, “Rowdy Rebel want break eggs. Rowdy Rebel want break EGGS.”

Uh, I guess watching Mom clean up all those eggs didn’t affect Rowdy’s conscience they way I thought it would. Apparently disciplinary action was needed. So, after being forced to clean up a roomful of broken eggs on carpet, I still managed to make parental errors in the way that I handle the aftermath. WOW. I have a feeling this is not over yet.

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It is amazing to watch my young son learn from his father’s words, but also by following his example. My husband uses many ways to teach my older son new concepts. When explaining a process, he draws pictures. To show the kids how to do things like use a new toy, he uses demonstrations. To help my son practice some situations, he uses role play. For example, my husband pretends to be the teacher and asks my son a question. This gives my son a chance to practice his answer before the real conversation.

It’s soooo sweet and touching to see how much my son learns from his father. My son is also now frequently using drawings, demonstrations, and role-play to explain and practice new things. He enjoys doing things like Daddy does them–it makes him feel sophisticated and mature.

Our favorite example happened when fthey went to the store, and my son had to go to the restroom. My husband gave him a few tips on avoiding germs in public restrooms. (For example, don’t touch the toilet, wash your hands with soap, and so on.) My son was careful to heed his father’s instructions.

When they came home, my son wanted to show me exactly how careful he had been in the store restroom. He said, “Mommy, I’m going to show you what I did. I’ll be me. Daddy, you be the dirty bathroom, okay?”

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A few years ago, my five-year old was in the church Nativity play. He and other children practiced their roles in the play four several weeks leading up to the performance. On our way home from practices, he was full of questions about events and characters in the play.

One evening, the children playing shepherds practiced the line, “No Samaritans allowed!” over and over. On the way home afterward, my son asked, “Mom, why did the shepherds say ‘No Samaritans allowed?'”

I answered in the simplest terms possible, “Well, the shepherds were Jews. They didn’t like Samaritans.”

He squinted his eyes and asked in a low, serious voice, “Why Mom? Were the Samaritans girls?”

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Deep Thinker built a spaceship out of lego’s, and Rowdy Rebel threw it on the ground. It broke in half (easy to fix though). So Deep Thinker was really mad, crying, and kept talking about it even after we fixed it–just all bent out of shape.

I wanted to teach him about forgiving and moving on. So I told him about the time my sister tore my favorite swirly-q picture. I was about 7, and she was 5. I liked drawing swirly-q’s and coloring them in. But every time I drew one, it turned out crooked, too dark, or too small. But finally, one day, I did it. I drew the perfect swirly-q ! I was sooo happy!

A few minutes later, my sister asked me to play inside with her, but I refused. Out of anger, she tore my picture in half. To Deep Thinker, I pointed out that my sister didn’t want to hurt me or my picture. I said, “See, sometimes little brothers and sisters do things like that. It doesn’t mean they want to hurt you–it sometimes means they really need your love and attention.” He got it. Or so I thought.

About 30 minutes later he comes up to me. I could see from his face that he was horribly upset. His little chin was quivering, and his mouth was pinched. I asked, “Are you okay? What’s wrong???? ”

He said, trying really hard not to cry, “Why don’t you buy a new curly thing NOW, Mommy?” I asked “What?” He said, “The thing that your sister BROKE. Why don’t you buy one for yourself now, Mommy?” He wanted me to buy myself another swirly Q picture that wasn’t torn. So compassionate.

He felt totally better after learning that my father had taped my picture back together for me:)

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