Schooled

I have not exactly been a model of patience and long-suffering with my children this week.

Evidence:

Today Mary kindly suggested, "Mom, you need to go to a special school where you can learn to be nice."

(Does anyone know of such a school?  I would gladly enroll.)

Rotten pickle

This, my friends, is a rotten pickle...

showing off in her garden....of weeds.  (Also, every picture is better with a cozy coupe in the background.)

She is proud to be a rotten pickle.

Let me explain.

You know how kids say, "Last one is a rotten egg!"  Well, Mary says, "Last one is a rotten pickle!"  Except that if you WIN, you are the rotten pickle.  And winning is good.  So Mary will race to the car, announcing, "Last one is a rotten pickle!"  Then she'll smoke us all, reach the car first, and announce, "I win!  I'm the rotten pickle!!"

It's just too cute to correct her.

I also haven't told her that the doorbell is not a "ding-bell."  "Ding-bell" is a much better word, I think. And I've adopted her usage of the term "pony hair."  Instead of asking her if she wants pigtails, I ask if she wants "pony hair."  Sometimes she likes "pony hair," other days she prefers "no pony hair."  And, as she explained to me, when her hair gets long enough, she can have "pony hair" in the back.

She's a rotten pickle.  And proud of it!

I sure do love my rotten pickle.

Be

This post is for my mom.  (Don't worry, I didn't forget to post something in her honor with all this Mother's Day hoopla.  Here it is.)  This is something my mom and I have laughed about on many occasions.

The word "be" has a special place in our home.  You see, the whole figuring out how to conjugate the verb "to be" has been a rough road for David.  In fact, "am,"  "was," and "were" have no place in his vocabulary.  So he says things like

"I be playing."
"I be in my room."
"The computer be broken."

To manage past tense, he uses the word "did," saying things like

"I did be at school."
"I did be the first one to finish!"
"I did be sad."
"Mary did be hitting me."
"You did be late."

It was cute as a four-year-old preschooler (last year, when we lived with my mom) . . . but as a soon-to-be first grader?  Not so much.  But we're working on it.

Meanwhile, Mary started talking like her brother.  Does she choose to speak like her English major mother?! Of course not!  She mimics her five-year-old brother.  So now Mary says things like

"I be crying."
"I be on my bed."
"I did be picking daisies."
"My baby did be lost downstairs."
"David did be mean."
"Those flowers did be dying."

Now, Mary, overachiever that she is, has taken BE to a new level.  She's begun replacing first syllables with the word "be."  So

"gymnastics" is now "be-nastics"
"forgot" is now "be-got"
"banana" is now "be-nana"

It's sort of cute.  But sort of not.  Seriously, when I hear a sentence like, "I be-got my be-nana when I did be at be-nastics,"  I want to go BE-BONKERS!

(Love you, Mom.)