The Mouths of Babes...

Here is a smattering of some of the funny stuff that's been coming out of our kids the past few months. (Disclaimer: many of these stories concern only Abigail. She's the one that says stuff so far.) Enjoy :)

Abi: (while driving her car) "You wanna drive the car, daddy?"
Daddy: "I'm too big for that car!"
Abi: "You drive a big car. Daddy drives the blue car. Abi drives the little car. Maybe when you a big girl, you can drive the little car, too, daddy!"


Abi: "Don't step in the puddles, daddy. Only jump in them!"

The story of Jonah, according to Abigail: "Once upon a time, there was a man named Jonah and Jonah talked to God and God said GO TO NIVENAH. But Jonah didn't want to go to Nivenah so God sent a BIG FISH who swallowed him up *HOMP* And Jonah stayed inside for TWO WEEKS. And then the whale turned Jonah INTO A FUZZBALL!"

Mom: "Abi, do you know what this is called?"
Abi: "It's the tower in Paris, where Madeline lives!"
Mom: "That's right!! Do you remember what it's called?"
Abi: "Um...the...Awful Tower!"


Driving by an office building Abi noticed how seamless the windows were around the building. "That building has no doors!" she exclaimed. "How do people get out?" Jon asked her. "Through the windows," was her reply. Naturally, Jon then asked, "How do the people get in?" Abi threw her hands up in the air in her best Superman impression and shouted, "WITH THEIR CAPES!"

Daddy: "Abi, what are you doing?"
Abi: "I'm hiding!"
Daddy: "Hiding, eh? Where are you hiding?"
Abi: "Right here!"


We were discussing how to give and receive compliments one day. I told her that when you compliment someone you say something nice about them, like how kind they are, or that you like their eyes or hair. At dinner that night, Abigail practiced giving compliments to us. "Mama, you have pretty eyes," she told me. "What a nice compliment, thank you Abi!" I responded. Then she turned to Jon and said, "Daddy you have nice h..." I watched the gears turn in her head for a second before she blurted out "HEAD!"

Abi: (looking in the mirror making faces) "Look at my eyebrows! They're getting sad!"

Abigail writes a poem about Lucie:
She don't wants a barrette,
She wants a headband.
She don't wants a headband,
She wants hair!


Abi to Lucie: "Look at your big tummy! You have a baby sister in there! And look at your big bottom! You have a baby brother in there!"

Abi to Uncle Jay: "You're squeezing me like a juice box!"

Abi: (holding a remote to her ear) "Oh hi, Uncle Matt! Can we come over to your house this weekend? Oh your house fell down? Well, I guess we can't come over..."

Abi: "Will I be 3 again after I'm 4, Daddy?"
Daddy: "No, you'll never be 3 again. You'll be 4, then 5, then 6..."
Abi: "And then 7, and then 8, and then 9, and THEN I'll be 20!!"
Daddy: "Yes, I'm sure that's how it will go..."


Mommy to Lucie: "Lulu, you little stinker! You took your mittens off!"
Abi: (quite indignant) "No, Mama, she's not a stinker; she's a precious girl!"

As we returned home one day from running errands, Abigail became more and more excited to see her little goat lovey "B." She even started to call to him from the hallway. "I'm home, B! I missed you! Where are you?" We were all taking off our coats and shoes in the entryway when Lucie shot off into the house still wearing all her winter gear. "Lucie, come back! We have to take off your coat!" we called after her. A few moments later she returned holding B! She proudly presented it to her big sister who thanked her with a big hug :) I live for moments like this!

Lucie was attempting to put her blocks in the shape sorter. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get the star to fit into the square hole. She looked at the box for a second, then simply took off the lid and placed the block inside the container! I think that's what you'd call thinking outside the box and inside the box at the same time :)

One day in the hallway, our neighbor Gladys gave the girls each a dollar. Later on I told Abi we could go to the store and pick out a toy to buy with her dollar. "Or mom," she said, "I can give it to someone who doesn't have any moneys or a car or a house." "That would make God very happy," I told her.

Abi rearranged all the letters in an alphabet puzzle, so I decided to sing Lucie the newly arranged "C, X, I's." She looked at me funny at first as I began, "C, X, I, M, L, Q, J..." Then half-way through the mixed-up alphabet she began protesting, "Noooo! NOOOOOOO!" violently shaking her head. Apparently, this is TOO much outside the box...


Abigail was playing with her Angelina Ballerina mouse who came with real clothes. I noticed she wasn't wearing her little ballet slippers, so I asked Abi about them. She replied, "Well, one of them is lost. I can't find it. And the other one is missing." HA! (We did eventually find both shoes.)

The Definition of Passive Aggressive

For those of you who live in Minnesota, you may not need a definition. For those of you outside our state, you may not know it, but being passive aggressive runs in our blood, just like blond hair, blue eyes, and skin that burns even in the winter time. People often associate passive aggressiveness as "Minnesota Nice." We aren't going to come right out and tell you you're a pain in the butt, but we will ignore your phone calls and purposefully not invite you to the potluck. If you are also passive aggressive, you will pick up on these hints and stop being a pain in the butt. HOWEVER, if you are not passive aggressive, you will not pick up on these hints, and the tension will mount and mount until...until you have a story like this one:

Once upon a time a rural Minnesota girl who was your typical Minnesota-Nice, passive-aggressive type fell in love with an atypical "just tell me how it is and quit beating around the bush" Twin Cities boy. They got married and all was well for a while. The girl vowed to try to be more assertive and the boy promised to try to pick up on her signals. But one can't change how they were raised to deal with problems overnight. Or even in 4 years.

One day Minnesota Girl was fixin' breakfast for her curly-haired daughters and herself (who was not quite great-with-child). They happened to run out of FOUR boxes of cereal at the same time! Girl thought, "I can't put all these boxes in the garbage at the same time! My husband is so faithful to empty the trash, he will be upset that it is full already this morning. When he wakes up and tries to empty his coffee grounds into the garbage with his eyes shut, the grounds will spill all over his feet and he will be very put out." So Girl placed the boxes neatly on the counter as a silent reminder for him to take them out with the next full garbage bag. And Twin Cities Boy certainly did wake, empty his coffee grounds and fix his breakfast with his eyes closed and didn't see the boxes sitting there through his eyelids.


Days passed. The boxes remained. The garbage was taken out several times and still the boxes remained. Girl found this curious. "Maybe he has grown accustomed to seeing them on the counter here and has adapted to their presence. I will put them somewhere he will see them and surely he will take them out with the garbage." So Girl took the bags out of the boxes and scattered the boxes on the floor. "There! He will step on them and take notice!" She nodded and went on her way.


But alas, when she came into the kitchen later on, the garbage had been emptied, but the boxes were kicked neatly under the cupboard overhangs to clear a path.


Girl inwardly seethed. "How can he not see these boxes? I have done everything to bring them to his attention outside of actually telling him about them! Drastic measures must be taken."

On their day of rest, Girl collected the boxes and coolly stacked them on Boy's office chair while he sat in it. Boy looked at Girl incredulously. "What is this?" he asked, clearly offended. "These are the empty boxes that have been waiting to be taken out with the trash for over a week. Maybe now that they are on your chair, you will remember to take them out."

Boy, in his great wisdom, said nothing to Girl, but requested a bag for them and placed them in the hallway for near-instant removal. This act of love on his part brought her to realize her lack of assertiveness. She repented of her passive aggressiveness. But we'll never really know what Boy's thought process was when he kicked the boxes under the cupboard overhangs.

The End.