Mommy, Take a Look at This...

I'm busy typing away on my computer while my four-year-old son calls out to me from the den. "Mommy, you have to come see this!" "What is it?" I call out to him. "Come see my penis!" He screams. I think to myself, oh this can't be good. I climb up the steps and ask him what the problem is. "Look, mommy - my penis keeps wiggling and jiggling." Completely flustered, I haven't the faintest idea how to respond to this comment, so I just tell him to take his hand away from his wee wee and it'll stop doing parlor tricks for him. "But Mommy, I don't want to!" he shouts. "Look, it's really hard Mommy." At this point, I am completely flushed, have no clue how to tell him that he needs to revisit himself in another decade or so, give or take a few years and so I just say, "Just wait until Daddy comes home - his does tricks too."

The Scary Movie

We're on line at the movie theater about to see the premiere of Flushed Away (Click Here for our review), and my son walks over to a poster-sized ad featuring some scary horror flick that's coming out in a few months. While staring at the face of some menacing madman, he looks at me and says, "Mommy, I don't think I can see this movie because it'll give me night mirrors."

Halloween House Hunt

Every year we attempt to go trick or treating on our street and the pickings are pretty slim. Most of the houses have their lights off which is a natural deterrent to not wanting to give kids candy, so this year, we decided to try a new plan of action. We left a load of candy in a cauldron on our front porch and headed off to a busier part of town where scores of trick or treaters were busy ringing doorbells and coming up with fistfuls of candy. Our kids were thrilled with this new Halloween destination and when we returned home, we found that no one...not one single kid had taken a piece of candy out of the cauldron. My daughter looked at the bagfuls of candy that were left over this year and came to one simple conclusion. "Maybe we should move," she said. I stared at her incredulously and said "No, we're not going to move just because no one trick or treats at our house." To which she responded, "But mommy, if we moved, then you wouldn't have to waste all that money on that candy since nobody takes it anyway."

CAN I GO BACK INSIDE?

Melissa is having a meaningful conversation with her wide-eyed three-year-old who has just asked her where she came from. Melissa explains that she grew inside her belly for nine months. "But how did I come out of your belly?" she asks. Melissa continues to share the story of her birth by explaining that she couldn't come out the normal way (from between Mommy's legs) so the doctors "reached in and took you out of my belly." Enthralled by the prospect of going on a ride inside her mom's body, her daughter points to Melissa's stomach and exclaims, "Can I go back inside? I want to do it again!"

THE FACTORY

This weekend my daughter was in question mode. While eating a hamburger she inspected it, and then asked? "Mommy, where do burgers come from?" "That's easy, from a cow," I respond. Then we were out apple picking and following our 45 minute walk through the orchards where we picked some pretty lame fruit because the crowds had beaten us to the great produce, my daughter asked: "Mommy, which came first, the apple or the apple tree?" You try to answer that one...it's kind of hard to figure out. Then, following our apple picking extravaganza, we headed to a diner, where my daughter, who was enjoying her spaghetti slathered in butter sauce, peered over at my son's hot dog and asks me her inquisitive question of the day: "Mommy, where do frankfurters come from?" I give her a look, figuring she already knew the answer and reply, "Come on, it's the same place that hamburgers come from." "A factory?" Technically yes, but jeez, whatever happened to easy questions anyway!

BE KIND...REWIND!

You know your kid has been watching way too many videos when you're out with him in a restaurant, he breaks into a song from his favorite movie (still the "Wizard of Oz" of course), finishes the tune and then says "Wait, I'm going to rewind and start all over again." Since there's no video player in sight, he does the next best thing. Purses his lips together, jiggles them back and forth, makes a whirring noise, and voila...he's ready to start from the top..."I could while away the hours..."

PICKING A WINNER

My son is hosting a four-year-old playmate at our house and I'm about to hand him a snack when I notice that his index finger is lodged way up his nostril. "Find anything good up there?" I ask, thinking he'll decide it's time to find a tissue. "Not yet," he answers. "I'm digging for my brain."