Duh, Mom!

I had a few learning moments today as I was home with Mason. He's got his smarty pants on, that's for sure. Oftentimes, they double as sassy pants. Enjoy!


The scene: I'm feeding the baby (like always) and Mason has dismantled the couch and loveseat in our living room to build a cushion tower. Also, Mason has a certain set of blankets for his bed that he loves to drag around despite repeated requests to not. He is especially fond of dropping them over the half-wall that encloses the loft upstairs. Again, this is despite my repeated pleas to not.

Mason: Mom, did you see my blankets?
Mom: No, I didn't. Where are they?
Mason: They fell out of the sky! They're hiding my tower!
Mom (wearing a mom face):Did they fall because you threw them? Blankets don't just fall unless they have help.
Mason: No, I didn't throw them.
Mom: Did you drop them?
Mason (pause):...yeah.


The scene: In Target. After repeated begging and proclamation, I had agreed to purchase Mason a small reward for being good in the store. I'm leaving out the 20 minutes of discussion of the difference between large and small, and how size and price aren't always the same thing. We have agreed on a $3 spending limit. After 15minutes of haggling, I told him it would work if the first number in the price was 3 or smaller. He brought me a large, motorized cement truck that was $29.99. Anyone see where I'm going with this?

Mason: Mom, I can get this one!
Mom: Um, no. That's a lot more than three dollars.
Mason: No! The first number is only a two.


The scene: Home, approaching bedtime. Mason is playing with the helicopter we settled on after the previously listed conversation. Also, it should be noted, that he has a problem with a wet spot on his pants because he usually won't stop playing to go the bathroom without some *cough* loving *cough* reminders.

Mom: Mason, do you have to go potty?
Mason: No! No thank you!
Mom: The big wet spot on your pants says otherwise.
Mason: No, it doesn't! It doesn't talk!

Existentialism for the preschool set

Scene: driving to the zoo; please keep in mind that Mason hates driving on the freeway after our window blew out. He will beg, barter, and plead to keep us on the side roads.

Mason: STOP THE CAR!

Dad: ... why?

Mason: Why not?

Is anyone laughing as hard at this as I did?

An Economics Lesson

Mason: Dad, can you fix my train track?

Dad: Unfortunately, due to the slow economy, the county has run out of funding. You'll have to wait until the next budget year.

Mason: What did you say?

Dad: Yeah, buddy, I can fix your train track.

The Last Lecture

Yeah, I know. It's kind of horrible to rip off the title of a touching and important book for a blog post. Oh, well!

Mason has a routine as we leave the house on those occasions when we leave the dogs out of their kennels. His routine is to speak directly to them when Alan has them in a down command. What he says is a variation on the following:

"Now dogs.... don't do anything dumb. Don't eat anything, don't lay on anything, don't poop on anything, don't throw up, and don't die. Just take a nap and we'll be home in a little while."

That about sums it up, doesn't it?

Nice!

Being the sole caretaker of an infant led to a lack of photographic evidence of our recent camping trip. So while I attempt to steal pictures from my mother-in-law to post, chew on this conversation with Mason from earlier today.

First, let me set the stage. We were driving home from Mason's swimming lesson, engaged in fairly pleasant conversation, when he posed the following question.


Mason: How do you kill someone?

Dad (after he had picked his jaw up off the floor, under his breath to mom): You're so in charge of answering this one.

Mom (with a dirty look in Dad's direction): You don't. It's naughty. Like, the naughtiest thing ever.

Dad: Yeah, that would get you a really big time out.

MAN! Do you ever wonder where things your kids say come from? I for one have no idea what prompted this. We weren't having a conversation about where we would hide the bodies; we hadn't even jokingly referred to Achmed, the Dead Terrorist.

Mason: Decoded

As three year olds will do, Mason keeps on saying things that make us turn our heads and shake with silent laughter. Half the time, we wouldn't really want him to know that we think he's funny because we wouldn't want him to repeat himself. (For example: He approached a total stranger at the grocery store and told him "My mom hits me." What he neglected to mention was I had accidentally bumped into him with the cart. I was about six shades of purple.) He also has a funny way of explaining himself sometimes, so I thought I would share a few of his latest gems.

• Last morning = yesterday; or sometimes a vague time period when he can't recall when something happened.
• "Let's do it today!" = I want to do it right now, even if you just told me no.
• "Is it nooning?" = Are the railroad crossings down?
• Shower-bath = allowing the bathtub to fill with water as he showers, and then turning off the water and splashing in it for hours on end.
• "Poop happens." = pretty self explanatory in a potty-training scenario. Also not a great comfort when you're the responsible party for cleaning up after said accident.
• "Right there, right there, right there -- BOOM!" = a delightful game where you repeatedly point to the spot you're about to punch and then punch it. Claire is not a big fan of this game.
• "I'm thirsty." = I'm going to drink all of your water. He prefers my hospital mug over anything else, even when I've filled the other hospital mug for him.
• "I need a snack." = I want junk food/candy.
• "I want to be a digger!" = I want chocolate milk. I'm going to scoop amazing amounts of Nesquick into my milk if you'll let me.
• Chocolate sandwich = new treat introduced by dad consisting of two graham cracker halves held together with chocolate frosting. Oh, all right, mom likes them as well.
• "That scared me out of the crap!"
• "Where are the handles?" = he has taken to pulling the stitched edging off some of his blankets into loops, and then puts his fingers through the loops. After a twisting incident that resulted in hysterics, I cut the loops on one blanket, only to find several more later that day. He reserves this mostly for his "candy blankets". We have one with Tootsie Pop logos and one with Junior Mint logos.

He also recently asked me "Mom, how do you close your mouth?" ... much to his father's delight. I wish I could actually keep track of all the funny things he says, but half the time I'm so busy trying to cover up my initial reaction that I can't write them down.

More Bedtime Stories

Dad: Maybe mom will sing you three songs tonight.

Mom: I think we can do that.

Dad: Score!

Mason: No, I already did that.

Dad: Were the girls there?

Mason: No.

Dad: Umm.. uh-oh.

I'm a little worried...

...that our brains might be too full. One of my favorite aunts is having some serious health problems, and even in the midst of all of it, our family is still just as sarcastic and comedic as ever. Here are a few things from our day and night.

(As Alan was approaching the waiting room we were in, dressed in his red flight uniform.)

Tyler (my funny cousin): Hey, look. It's Mah-rio!
Me: Oh, please say that to his face when he walks in.

***

(Alan and I were talking about the risk factors for heart attack due to my apparently total family history)

Alan: ... and a sedimentary lifestyle.
Me (giggle): Sedimentary? Do you mean sedentary?
Alan (realizing his slip up): No. Sedimentary. Like full of rocks and dirt and stuff.

(Just a side note that if this really were a risk factor, Mason would be in huge trouble. Life among the dirt and rocks suits him well!)

***

Mason: What are you doin?

Me: Watching Samson. (I was looking out the back door at Samson in the snow.)
Mason: What's he peeing on? (Since he's always peeing on something-- really.)

I'll get right on that

Alan took advantage of the warmer weather to take down our Christmas lights yesterday. While he was working up on the roof, Mason and I were working in what will be the new baby's room, which has a window leading right out onto the roof. Alan asked me to hand something out to him, so off came the screen... and thanks to the fabulous wind of late, down to the driveway below it went.

So I left to grab the requested item, and when I returned, I saw Mason leaning out the partially opened window, talking to his dad. What was he saying, you might ask?

"Can I get a small fry, please?"

Umm, no. We don't eat out that often. Why would you think so?

Scenes from Bedtime

Dad (pointing to a picture in a book): Mason, what is that?

Mason: I don't know, what is it?

Dad: Is it a worm?

Mason: Umm... yeah, a worm!

Dad: No, it's a caterpillar. Can you say caterpillar?

Mason: No, not a caterpillar. Caterpillar is a truck.

Mom and Dad: *blank stares at each other* Well, yeah... that's true.

Coincidence?

So this morning while we were eating breakfast (maybe an hour ago), Mason said: The brown truck needs to bring you a present today.

A few minutes ago, UPS dropped off a box of items we had ordered from Target.com for the baby.

I have not said anything to Mason about the stuff that we ordered. I haven't said anything about the 'brown truck' coming to our house. And we don't order things off the internet very often.

This prompts the question: is there any place that Mason's abilities don't extend? He's already smarter than me. I guess the gap is just increasing!

Smarty Pants

Alan: For the love of Mike!

Mason: No, Mike is grandpa.

(It should be noted that Mason actually said 'for the love of Mike' out of nowhere a couple of months ago).