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We had a thunderstorm with a lot of lightning, just after the kids’ bedtime. My wife and I noticed one particular flash of lightning that originated near the ground (not close though) and was greenish. And then the power went out.

My comment was that it looked like a transformer blew up. When the transformers around here blow, they are hurt-your-eyes bright, the light from the blast is green, and there is a very loud buzzing noise during the blast.

After the storm calmed down (and the power came back), I put Alpha back to bed. He was asking about what if the power went out, what if this, what if that, etc.

Then he asked, “What happens if another transformer comes?”

Transformer comes? That’s an odd way to phrase it – the transformer goes out when it blows up.

Then I caught on.

“No, not that type of Transformer. Just an electrical transformer. It’s part of the electrical system. I’ll point one out to you next time we drive by the substation.”

I didn’t exactly confirm my suspicion, but I got the inkling that he thought a Decepticon got in a good hit and blew up the Transformer and that Transformers blow up with a greenish blast.

Secrets

My wife was sitting at the computer. She saw me walk in and asked “Do you want me to check your email for you?”

It was a helpful gesture, but she had never asked that before so I had a somewhat surprised look on my face.

Before I could give an answer, she responded to my puzzlement with “What? you didn’t want me to do that? Why not? What are you hiding from me?” which was meant in a humorous, not suspicious, manner.

We both heard Alpha pipe up from the other room: “chocolate!”
which is funny because I don’t recall ever having hidden any chocolate from my wife, let alone telling Alpha about it.

Cheese

After dinner, Alpha came running into the living room – “Dadda, Gamma made a mess!”

Sure enough, Gamma, who was secured in his high chair because he was still finishing his meal, had dumped Parmesan cheese on his tray and on the floor.

Quite a mess.

But wait, the Parmesan cheese wasn’t anywhere near Gamma when I left the table. And he can’t open the top either.

Me: “Alpha, how did he get the cheese?”

“I gave it to him.”
“And did you open the top for him too?”
“Yes”
“Then go get the broom and dustpan and sweep it up.”

The kids sure are good at trying to get the other one in trouble.

Here are some things said in conversation with Beta recently:

Compound Words

It is fun when kids transpose the parts of compound words. The other one that I have heard is “rollersteam“.

And if you’ll excuse me for a moment, I have to go hide my toothbrush.

Half a Conversation

And now we’ve come to the part of the show where I write only one side of the conversation and you must imagine the other side of the conversation as well as the circumstances:

Beta likes to hug Gamma more than Gamma likes to be hugged. I sensed that Gamma was getting frustrated and I tried to rescue him. I forget exactly what Beta said, but he did use the phrase “baby tug-of-war“.

TV Shows

Don’t you just love Beta’s child-like faith? God is in control of everything.

My wife answered that people chose the shows’ times – a little appetizer for the youngster on the free-will/sovereignty discussion perhaps. How much freedom does God give man? Does man really get to choose things in this life? Maybe these people just think that they picked the show times. What about unbelievers who disobey God – does that mean they are thwarting God’s plans? Such heavy topics for a 4-year-old…

My answer would have been “Because God knows that kids should be in bed at night and should not be watching TV.” But that’s with the luxury of hindsight – I don’t know that I would have come up with that one on the spot.

At dinner one night:

And at dinner another night, when we were having salmon:

This was at a park:

We looked, and sure enough, there was a gummy bear lying face down on the path. I wouldn’t have thought much about it normally, but since Beta implied that it once had life, I suddenly felt sorry for it.

Someone in the household may have left her razor in the bathtub, and the boys may have found it during their bath. This is the exchange that occurred when I checked on them. Note that the Snug Tub now has an aftermarket hole in it, and the boys have been instructed not to touch razors anymore.

This exchange happened a couple weeks ago, when icicles were hanging off our front porch and I was outside with the kids.

Well, you gotta learn somehow.

Now on to last week:
We had finished dinner, and Alpha decided he wanted Fun Dip for his dessert. After mulling over the package, he announced that he was going to have the “Cherry Yum-Diddly” flavor. Then he read some more of the package.

I would have to agree.

I still haven’t figured out what a Yum-Diddly tastes like, real or artificial.

Finally, a clip from earlier this week, where we deal with the ever-present problem of children who are ready to be done with the shopping trip and have nothing constructive to do while waiting in the check-out line :

The packages do usually say “Keep away from children” don’t they?

For your entertainment today, here are a couple of scenes from our life.

Scene 1

The whole family is in the minivan, just starting a trip into town.

We had not been discussing fontanels with him recently. We didn’t know he even knew about the soft spot on a baby’s head and that the skull needs to grow together. My first thought when he said that was that he wasn’t answering us and was talking to his brother about something they made with Legos (yes, there are skeletons from some of their sets). But then we realized he was concerned about Gamma’s growth and development, and it became quite funny.

Scene 2

The whole family is in the minivan, halfway to home from a trip into town.

I think I got the point across, although it may have taken the fun out of the conversation.

The things you never considered before being a parent…

When discussing LASIK with people, you would assume they have enough common sense to know not to try laser eye surgery on their own. But how do people get that common sense in the first place? That’s part of the parents’ job – teaching children lessons as they go through life.

And yes, I still have my old glasses. They fit in the very broad category of Things With Sentimental Value that I like to save. And it’s fun to show people how bad my eyes were before LASIK.

A few random conversations this time, starring Beta. And with a special guest appearance by cousin O.

• My son held out the empty cardboard toilet-paper tube so that I could throw it away. Unfortunately, we fumbled the hand-off and the tube tumbled into the toilet bowl. Also unfortunately, this was as he was finishing the reason he was in the bathroom in the first place.

  I announced my dissatisfaction with the circumstances with an exclamation of “Aaagh!” My wife heard the noise and asked what was going on. I replied that I had to fish the cardboard tube out of the potty; we certainly couldn’t just flush it. To which Beta responded, in a mix of bewilderment and amusement, “You’re going fishing in the potty?“

• Beta (meaning that he can see well in the dark): I have good eyes at night
  O: I have good eyes at night too, because I’m a princess

  She matched his bet and then played the royalty card. It’s hard to argue with royalty, unless you know that she’s only a princess because she has a princessy dress.

• We took a trip to the local nursing home so the kids’ Sunday School classes could sing to the residents. Beta did not enjoy the trip, and he told me so when we got back into the minivan.
  Nursing homes are not fun.
  Why not?
  They don’t have Legos or TV. That’s what we like.