Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Farting, Framing, and Philosophizing

Moses is no longer a "teen" toddler--he is now 20 months old, and boy does he have a lot to say. I have given up on keeping track of all of his new words, but here are a few snippets from the past couple days. The first two stand out in my mind because of their common theme...

With a sly grin on his face after making a loud slurping noise while eating yogurt, Moses told me, "I farted, Mommy."

A few days later, in response to witnessing what must've been an alarmingly loud bout of coughing and hacking, Moses asked me, "You farted, Mommy?"
"No, I didn't fart," I replied. "What that sound?" he asked inquisitively. I told him, "I was coughing."
"Oh," he replied.

And now for our more modest readers, some dialogue that doesn't relate to flatulence:

While trying to get past his brothers who were sitting in the hallway with their backs towards him and therefore blocking his access to the laundry chute, Moses said, "Excuse me, guys." When "the guys" didn't immediately move, Moses hit Joshua (whose back was turned to him) and screamed "Move, Caleb!"

That must be one of the worst aspects of being an identical twin--you frequently get blamed for your brother's offences. I realized this the other day while the boys were playing with their classmates after school. Another little boy had brought in one of those dollar-store parachute men, and in the course of play Caleb and another child were both tugging on it, and the strings broke. When the toy's owner saw what had happened, he marched over to Joshua, shoved him, and angrily berated him for breaking his toy. Joshua naturally became angry at the boy for falsely accusing him and a scuffle ensued. Meanwhile, Caleb was happy to be off the hook and had no qualms about letting his twin be framed for his crime.

And speaking of the twins, I'll leave you with a somewhat philosophical conversation that caught me off-guard the other day:

Joshua: Is Jesus by the Sun and the Moon?
Me: Jesus is everywhere.
Caleb: Just like the bad guys?
Me: ...

I guess I should have explained to them that unlike God, bad guys aren't omnipresent, but rather that there are a lot of them out in the world. You see, I have been trying to get Caleb and Joshua to realize that the reason why we don't want them to wander out of our yard and down the street all by themselves--as they have been apt to do lately--is because "bad guys are everywhere". I guess I need to clarify from now. At least I know they've been listening to me!