Tattle

Thing One: Mom! (Thing Two) says I'm tattling on him, but I'm not.

A wedding and a funeral

Thing Two (to Nana): One night, when Mommy and Daddy and Bubba and (Thing Three) and Kitty are sleeping, we can go to a funeral and kiss and get rings and be married!

Veterans Day

Thing Two (holding a gummy sandwich candy up for me to see): This guy is going to have a gummy after the war!

Thing One (to Thing Two, who is eating gummies): You'd better go home and get some air support and surprise your team.

(Since it's Veterans Day, they talked about veterans at kindergarten today. This prompted a discussion about whether we know any veterans and, ultimately, a battle or "war" in the living room between boys.)

Police justice

The boys like to pretend that they are police officers eating at a Mexican restaurant and that I am the server there. They also like to feed me lines, like this one:

Thing Two: Mommy, say (to me), "If you get that bad guy who's drinking alcohol and kill him, you can play Star Wars Lego Wii."

Castle birthday cake

Thing One wanted to have a Robin Hood-themed friend birthday party. I had decided to make him a castle cake with some Robin Hood figures around it because I thought that was a workable idea, but when I could only find knights-in-armor figures at the craft store, I set about changing his mind and having a knights and dragon party instead. He agreed.

We made dragon invitations out of fancy paper, drew a pin-the-tail on the dragon board and researched castle cakes online. Thing One had some definite ideas of that cake he wanted me to make. Specifically, he wanted me to make this cake:


But this cake would also be acceptable:


Since I didn't even know what materials were used to make the first cake, and the second cake would take me until his next birthday to complete, we discussed finding a backup castle cake design. No problem:


I tried to explain that a dragon cake with a full castle cake sitting in the background would actually be more difficult than making just a castle cake. So he started sketching his vision.


It took an afternoon to bake and four hours to decorate. I dropped it two hours into it, ruining a large corner and rendering part of the salvaged area lopsided, so I had to reconfigure and redecorate part of it hours before the guests arrived. It got the customary underwhelming response from the birthday boy, but it did the job.


Now that his birthday has passed, Thing One has moved on to designing his own Battle on Mustafar "Star Wars" set and describing it in detail in a letter to Santa because even though Hasbro hasn't made it yet, Santa's elves can build anything.


(Letter dictated by Thing One and transcribed by Dapper Dad. Sketches may follow.)

No talking

Thing One: Mom, he hit me really hard in my shoulder.

Me: Don't hit your brother.

Thing Two: I didn't! (To his brother) If you say that again, I'm going to punch your guts out!

Me: We don't talk like that. That's mean talk.

Thing Two: I'm not going to talk until Earth Day!

Bugs

In an attempt to calm Thing One about a gnat that was bothering him by sitting on a nearby window, I was explaining to the boys about a couple of spiders I saw at the film festival barn this past weekend.

Me: They were this big (looping my thumb and index finger), and they were just hanging around the barn the whole weekend.

Thing Two: Were they as big as tiny chickens?

And here I thought the weekend was going well...

Mommy was out of town for a weekend of cinema. She called and left a message for the boys. I thought they should hear it first, so I put the phone next to Thing 2's ear. He didn't quite understand that it was prerecorded Mommy, so he answered and responded to her voice. This is what I heard.

Thing 2: Hi ... Love you ... I not.

After Thing 1 got his turn, I listened to the message. It went like this: "Hi, boys, this is Mommy ... I love you ... and I hope you're having a fun time with Daddy."

Like his face

Thing Two: Mom, I want to tell Albert Pujols that I like his face.

Sorry shirt

Thing Two: I'm not wearing my sorry shirt. It's over there.

Blasters

The boys were playing Star Wars.

Thing One to Thing Two: Great shot, kid.
Me (being cute and quoting the movie): Don't get cocky.
Thing Two: Why did you say that?
Me: Well, that's the rest of the line. From Star Wars.
Thing Two: Cocky's not in that movie!

Wingman

Sometimes, I talk with the boys after they've gone to bed. I often bring Thing 2 up and put him in Thing 1's upper bunk so we can all talk. Thing 2 always insists on bringing one (or more) of his stuffed "guys" with him. I finally got annoyed the other night as he mulled over which "guy" to bring.

Dapper Dad: You don't need a guy.
Thing 2: Yes I do.
Dapper Dad: No, you're just going up here with Bubba and me. Why do you need a guy?
Thing 2: So I'll know someone there.

A lesson in logic

Thing One to Thing Two: Your eyes are cucumbers.
Thing Two: (Silence)
Dapper Dad, trying to help Thing Two defend himself: If his eyes were cucumbers, he wouldn't be able to see out of them.
Thing One to Thing Two: Your nose is a potato.
Thing Two: Um, um! No, I wouldn't be able to get my finger in it.

Newsroom

The boys set up a newsroom with desks for themselves this afternoon. Thing One said his name was Timmy Tim Tim, and he works at a newspaper writing stories, drawing pictures and fixing mistakes. His desk is the art table in the dining room, and his markers stand up on his desk (but they fall down every time he moves). He has a stack of paper, a baseball, and candy on his desk. Thing Two has partitioned the dining room table into a cubicle for himself, he has a cash register (which serves as a computer/typewriter), some boxes and a stack of paper. His name is Pete, and he looks at other people's work and fixes their mistakes (like Dapper Dad). My name is Violet, and I make art on the computer. My cubicle is on the other side of Pete's on the dining room table. This is how we spent the afternoon. Although, it's the first office I've worked in where some of the office workers were climbing on others' desks and chairs while doing some sort of potty dance.

Pac-Man (part 1)

Day 1: Thing One wanted to make a Pan-Man board out of paper, so Nana helped him cut out thin blue strips for the edges, yellow pellets, and of course Pac-Man, Blinky, Inky, Pinky and Sue. We play a lot of paper Pac-Man on the coffee table.

Day 2: One level of Pac-Man is not enough for Thing One. He needs to do a pink level (2) and a yellow level (3). He also needs Dapper Dad to scout out the level beyond the yellow level on the video game to see what the proper color is, should we make a fourth level. He has not been able to do this yet. Meanwhile, I regret not buying a paper punch at Target earlier in the day as I cut lots of tiny pellets for each board. We all play more paper Pac-Man, a game where the speeds of the manually operated characters are highly irregular with three-year-old and five-year-old operators. I told Thing One my idea of making a Pac-Man birthday cake for Dapper Dad's brother-in-law. Now he wants the Pac-Man cake for his birthday party. "I'm really into Pac-Man right now," he said.

Day 3: Since the boards are made of strips of paper, I had the idea that we could draw them on a bigger piece of paper, eliminating the need to rebuild the board several times during a single game. Thing One liked the idea and wanted to use my special black art board so that the levels look more like the TV version with the black background. I suggested that he work on sketches of the boards so that he is happy with the final board we make on the (relatively pricey) black board. He made five sketches that get progressively better before finishing two more final sketches of the final board. This took much of the afternoon. And of course, one board isn't enough. We must do three in the right colors, so we need to analyze and rank the boards according to difficulty so that we can color code them properly (blue, then pink, then yellow). Also, we still play a lot of paper Pac-Man.

J. J. Hardy

Thing Two (to the tune of "Luke and Leia" from Star Wars (think Luke staring at the two suns)): Jay Jay Jay Jay Jaaaaaaay Jay. Jay Jay Ha-a-a-a-a-ar-deeeeee. J. J. Haaaaar-deee Har- dee Har-ar-ar-deeeeeee. Har-ar-ar-ar-aaaaaaar-Har-ar-ar-ar-ar-deeeeee.

Baa Baa Byack Sheep

Thing Two: Baa, Baa byack sheep have you any wool? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Three bags full. One for my master and one for my Dane and one for my me and one for my little boy who lives down the lane. Baa, baa, baa, baa-- byack sheep have you any wool? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Three bags full.

Just a burrito

At nap time, as I tuck in Thing Two,
Me: I love you, boy.
Thing Two: But I'm just a burrito.

Baby Candace

Thing Two: If we have a girl, we could name her Candace (the same name as our neighbor) and then Candace would say, 'Hello, Candace," and baby Candace would say [insert screechy baby impersonation], "Hello, Candace."

Not waste my time

Thing One: Mom, can you not waste my time while I go to the bathroom?