The opposite of cute

I tackled Ruby to put her shoes on and when the chore was complete, I gave her a giant kiss on the face. This apparently was not okay. She screamed, "No! Don't kiss me!"

I said, "But I love my kids and you're so cute!"

Her response: "Kiefer's not cute; he's AWESOME!"

Kid, you need some more of that...

While emptying the dishwasher tonight I hear the unmistakable sound of Ruby taking a pretty spectacular spill. I pause and wait for the scream, and when there is none I ask, "Are you okay?" After a deep breath she says, "Yeah! That didn't hurt! That was MAGIC!"

What?

Kiefer: "Mommy, zombies are *really* good listeners."

Perfect Angel

While riding in the car at the end of a long day, Kiefer robustly exclaimed, "Daddy! You didn't even have to spank me today!"

(No, we don't spank our children often. That's why it was so funny. To us.)

Here we go.

So I'm going to start this blog thing. You can see that I did start it once, a long time ago, but my attention span is not long enough for *real* posts. Thanks to suggestions from numerous people, I'm going to dedicate this blog to the sweet/provocative/hilarious/disturbing quotes from our kids.

Thing 1

This is Thing 1, Kiefer, "K-Fox" or a host of other names too numerous for this blog to maintain. His favorite pastime is asking questions. Lots and lots of questions. Especially at bedtime when he's stalling. (Apparently my favorite pastime is sentence fragments...) In the last few minutes I've heard, "Are giraffe shoulders a long way down?" "Are stuffed animals like Bunbun just animals that are dead?" "Is this shirt made out of material?" "Does your shirt itch your back?" "My hands are small; are they growing up?" "When dogs taste blood in their nose do you have to keep cats away from them?" "When you see that stranger cat that bit me will you kick it hard?"

He has recently learned the word "nasty" from some punk kid at preschool, and he loves the reaction he gets from using it creatively. I'm trying to get him to substitute "special" for "nasty," mostly because it makes me laugh. For example, instead of sitting in your car seat and declaring "My tongue tastes nasty today!" You could say, "My tongue tastes special today!" Eh? Eh? Yeah, he's not buying it either. This kid is on to me. Gotta love it.

Thing 2

This is Thing 2, AKA Ruby Jo or "Jason" as Thing 1 now calls her. He informed me yesterday that he wanted a baby brother, and since he's not getting one, he's going to pretend Ruby is a brother. Named Jason.

She looks innocent and sweet. Don't be fooled; she's 2. As in, it takes her 2 seconds to cover a wall with a Sharpie marker. Or, it takes her 2 milliseconds to soak a section of carpet in chocolate milk. Or, I need 2 cases of Magic Erasers to keep up with the little pistola.

Two. It's a fun age! She's so cute, though, it's hard to get upset with her. And she knows it. Boy, does she know it...