Thursday, January 20, 2011

Will You Play With Me?

Joe: "Caleb, what do you want to be when you grow up?"
Caleb: "Oh, I don't know."
Joe: "Do you want to be the President of the United States?"
Caleb: "The United States? Sure! I want to be Texas!"
Joe: "You mean, you want to be governor of Texas?"
Caleb: "Yeah! And Joshua will be Idaho. And Moses will be Wisconsin."

"I'm mad at you, Mommy. I still love you, but I'm mad at you right now." --Caleb, after I somehow offended him.

"Will you play with me, Mommy?" --Caleb and Joshua say this all the time. I guess it's something they've picked up from the preschool social scene. They ask this in lieu of "will you forgive me?" when they know they've done something naughty and want to make sure that we're not going to hold it against them.

"I need my own gun. Where'd my own gun go?" --Moses, looking for the toy drill.

"I shoot a very naughty bad guy." --Moses, while holding his "own gun".

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Cody Maverick & Curious George

Here are a couple more Moses quotes from the past couple days. Tomorrow he will be 23 months old!

"Mommy, I am awake." --Moses, after being carried downstairs in his Daddy's arms after a nap.

"I don't wanna finish my egg, alright? Ok, Mommy, can I have cold pizza?" --Moses, lobbying that I overlook his uneaten breakfast and let him proceed directly into lunch.

"I wanna close that door because it scary in there!" --Moses, explaining why he closed the door to the basement. In case you didn't notice, this is a 10-word-sentence! Just to give you some context, according to the "My Toddler This Week" email I received today, at around age 2 a child should be able to "form two- to four-word sentences" such as "Bird fly high."

"Cody Maverick splashes in the water, like Curious George." --Moses, drawing a connection between characters in a book and a movie. In Curious George, George tries to fly like a bird and falls into the ocean. Cody Maverick is the main character of Surf's Up, a movie about surfing penguins.

By the way, we first rented Surf's Up at the Red Box at Safeway a couple weeks ago and liked it so much that we bought a used copy on Ebay. The other day I could tell that Joshua was in deep contemplation, so I asked him what he was thinking about. "Mommy, I love the baby Cody Maverick," he replied (there is a touching scene in the movie that flashes back to when Cody was a baby). Anyway, it's a really cute movie. The Wolfs give it 5 stars!

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Moses, 1 Month Shy of 2 Years

Moses won't be 23 months for another few days, but since he is taking a nap at home in bed for a change, I'm going to go ahead and post this now while I have the chance. These days he usually only naps if he falls asleep on our way home from running errands while Caleb and Joshua are in school, and he wakes up when I try to move him inside.

Moses, getting ready to hold Pinky: “See Mommy, it not scary.”
Moses, holding Pinky: “It scary! It scary!”

Moses, pointing to the whiskers in an illustration of a cat: “That cat has spiders.”

Moses, while eating sections of a clementine: “Look, it's a boat! Tchooo Tchooo!”

Moses, while using the Buzz Lightyear laptop that our friend Mr. Ray gave the boys for Christmas: “I checking my email.”

Moses, while pointing a toy drill at me as if it’s a gun: “Mommy, you a bad guy.”

Moses, while playing with a toy motorcycle: “I not ride motorcycle. Only man ride motorcycle.”

Moses, while rifling through my clothes drawers and pulling out my pink fleece pullover: “Mommy, can you wear it?” I asked him why he wanted me to wear it, and he smugly replied, “Because I want to.”

Moses, asserting his independence about a hundred times a day: “No, I do it!” This is a stark contrast to the twins who always wanted (and still occasionally want) us to do everything for them.

Moses: “I love Caleb. I love Joshua, too.”

Moses, on our way home from Sam's Club, reflecting on all the samples he enjoyed: "I had fun. Let's see, I eat chicken, and chocolate milk, and yogurt, and chicken, and chocolate milk."

Moses, while watching “The Phantom” episode of Gospel Bill: “It scary! Turn it off! I don't like it!”
Caleb, while turning off the TV for his little brother: “It's ok, Moses. Gospel Bill will get him. It's over, baby.”

New Pet for a New Year

This past Sunday we got the boys their first pet, a guinea pig named Pinky that previously belonged to some friends from church. I honestly don’t know what possessed me to say, “Ok, we’ll try her out for a week, and if we’re not allergic, we’ll keep her.” Maybe it’s because lately the boys have been hounding me, “Can we have a cat in our home? Can we have a dog in our home?” and since I’m miserably allergic to cats and didn’t want the responsibility or cost of a pet that would ever require medical attention or grooming, I thought a guinea pig would be a fair compromise. I have a hard enough time remembering to take my own children to the doctor for their yearly check-ups (the twins' appointment is currently two months overdue), they have never been to the dentist, and it’s been over four years since I’ve had my hair cut in a professional establishment, so I couldn't fathom having to throw vet and grooming appointments into the mix.

When I agreed to take Pinky, I guess it didn’t occur to me that while guinea pigs may be more expendable than dogs, they still poop a lot and beg for food a lot. Pinky has far less shame than the demure rabbits I raised when I was a child, and will whine aggressively at us until we feed her. Thankfully, she seems to enjoy eating our discards (strawberry tops, carrot and cucumber peels, apple cores, and broccoli stalks). And since I’m apparently not allergic to her, and since the boys are so enamored with her, I have a feeling she is here to stay.

Unfortunately, I think her name is here to stay, too. We tried to encourage the boys to think of a new name for her, after all, “What was the name of your first pet?” is a common security question, and I was therefore concerned about the possible repercussions of a wussy name like “Pinky” haunting the boys for the rest of their lives. After some brainstorming, Joshua had settled on the name “Creed,” Caleb wanted to call her “Cranberry,” and Moses said he thought she should be named “Tigger.” But as soon as the original owners told the boys that her name was Pinky, they embraced it. Oh well. Now you will know how to hack into their online accounts twenty years from now.