Scene: Evan and Greg are looking around the farm. They see a group of small wooden crates nearby.
Greg: Look at all those boxes.
Evan: Oh, they're just the right size for me when I die.
Greg: What are you talking about?? You're not going to die!
Evan: You can bury me in them when I die.
Greg: No, I'll just throw you on that compost pile over there.
Evan: No, you have to bury me in a box!
Greg: Why do you want to be buried in a coffin?
Evan: Yeah, a coffin! Because then I can turn into a vampire and eat you!
Showing posts with label funny. Show all posts
Showing posts with label funny. Show all posts
08 May 2009
a conversation
05 May 2009
tractor evan**
Evan was thrilled to get the chance to sit on a real! live! tractor! on Saturday. Most of the other kids, including James, sat on the tractor for less than a minute before hopping down, but Evan was antsy to get up on that seat, and once he was there, he stayed put for a while, turning the wheel, asking, "Can I touch this?" and "What's this do?" He pushed and pulled every moving part he could find, exploring everywhere.
After a minute or two of playing with the various levers, he stopped and looked up at the girl who was helping show the tractor to the kids. He gave her an exasperated look and exclaimed, "Why isn't it starting?!"
He has the same trait I did as a child: an inability to believe that one's size or age should prevent them from doing anything they want to do.
**Post title suggested by Evan.
10 April 2009
friday photos: scratch-paper-comix edition
I've been wondering about the quality of James' art education all year, as he brings home one construction paper collage after another, but this week really topped them all. I know that kids love to draw on scratch paper, but this is something Evan regularly does in his preschooler art class. Are public school budgets for art classes really so low that first-graders are limited to construction paper and scratch paper projects?
Despite the questionable usefulness of public school art class, my first-grader has a lot of interesting things going on in his head, and he manages to produce some hilarious stuff. This week's scratch paper drawing is actually one of my favorite things he's made at school.
This is Part 1 of a comic-style story in which several of his favorite characters team up against one formidable foe. Read the full story below the fold.
First, Cyclops was tearing down the city. He smashed a building in half in New York City:
But then Luke Skywalker came and stabbed Cyclops in the foot with a lightsaber:
Then, Cyclops got angry:
He smashed the Empire State Building in half:
Then Indiana Jones came and whipped him in the leg and Luke said, "Thanks for coming to help me!":
Then Curious George stabbed Cyclops in the eye with a banana while he was hanging from a giant tree:
Then Spongebob pulled out one of Cyclops' teeth and made him swallow it:
Then Plankton came and wanted to make friends with Cyclops, but Cyclops burped the tooth out onto Plankton's face:
Then Plankton zapped Cyclops with electricity out of his remote control. Then R2D2 came and zapped Cyclops in the face:
Cyclops smashed everyone except Gary the snail, who had a lightsaber:
Then Gary stabbed Cyclops in the face with a lightsaber and he died:
You may have noticed the "Part 2 Come Soon" at the bottom of the page. If Part 2 does indeed come soon and is as fantastic as Part 1, I may post it as well.
Evan, by the way, thinks this is just about the greatest story ever, and while I'm not entirely on board with all the stabbing, I do think a giant Cyclops destroying New York would need to be stopped, even using violence if necessary.
Let me know if you're interested in seeing more of my kids' artwork, or if this is one of those blind parent moments in which I'm forcing everyone to look at something I think is brilliant and you're all dreading the prospect of having to look at more children's scrawling excuses for art.
24 February 2009
oh, right, i have a blog.
Hello, blog readers. You may not have noticed, but I haven't blogged in a while. I don't really have a good reason or even a decent excuse for not blogging. When I tried to pull the "my camera is broken" excuse on my sister, she was quick to point out that words can actually be posted on a blog without accompanying photos. And now that Greg has fixed the camera, I can't even use that weak excuse anymore.
So I guess it's back to blogging, if I can remember how to do this. I'll ease back into it by posting a video. Evan has been composing adorable zombie songs all morning, so I'll share the best one I managed to catch on video.
That's all for now, but I'm hoping to return to regular blogging, so I'll be back soon!
11 January 2009
evanisms
Evan says so many funny, ridiculous, and unexpected things that I can't help but share them. He constantly makes me laugh.
A few days ago we were playing a game where he was sitting on my lap, and I was wiggling my legs, throwing off his balance, and saying, "Oh no! Don't fall!" Evan slid off my lap and landed on the floor on his feet. He stood up, looked down and said, "Well. It's a good thing I have legs."
This morning we were playing a high-five game. You know, up high, down low, in the middle (pull your hand away), too slow! Evan likes to say "Too slow, Joe!" at the end, but this morning I said, "I'm not Joe. You're not Joe." So the next time around I try to slap in the middle and he exclaims, "Too slow, Hobo!"
Lately he's been saying "No way, Jose!" all the time. A day or two again I said something to him and he thought it fitting to reply, "No thanks, Ho-zanks!"
He's recently learned the word privacy. Not the definition, though. He will insist on having privacy in the bathroom... right up until he needs someone to come wipe him up. Nor does a need for privacy prevent him from parading around naked after a bath.
When he's surprised, Evan will exclaim in an incredulous tone, "What the?!?" Sometimes he adds on a little something: "What the holy cow?!?" is common, and we've also heard "What the holy mustache?!?"
And he still has a flair for the melodramatic. It's pretty common in our house, once the kids are bed, to hear little footsteps running around upstairs, and for Greg or me to yell up the stairs, "Back in bed!" A couple of nights ago Greg was putting Evan to bed and told him to stay in bed so we wouldn't have to yell at him. Evan burst into tears, crying, "You don't love me anymore??"
He keeps us laughing, alright.
03 December 2008
three and a half
I have been feeling, shall we say, rather negative lately. I have been tempted to write posts complaining about the price of airfare, or the insurance annoyances we're having lately, or about James' various illnesses, but I thought I'd make an effort to be more positive and write a post instead about Evan, who is nearing 3 and a half years old, which is, despite its challenges, an endlessly amusing age for a child to be.
Evan talks pretty much all the time, narrating everything, and I've started writing down some of the funnier things he says. There are basically two categories of Evan-speak: the definitions, and the narration.
Some recent Evan definitions:
"Mom, remember when Dad’s taco was all fludged over? Fludged means that something’s dirty or yucky."
Evan: My nose hurts.
Me: What did you do to your nose?
Evan: Maybe I skicked it.
Me: What does “skicked” mean?
Evan: It means you hurt your nose, or maybe bonked it on a door.
Me: Did you bonk your nose on a door?
Evan: No.
Evan: I’m gonna whip-notize you. (while swinging his “whip” [i.e. the belt of his bathrobe] around.)
Me: Hypnotize me?
Evan: No, WHIPnotize.
Me: What does that mean?
Evan: It means someone is going to put a banana on your head. Or a fish.
Me: Who's hitting my stomach?
Evan: Oh, I thought that was a hitterang.
Me: A hitterang?
Evan: A hitterang means something you can hit.
And some classic narration:
[While jumping on the bed and practicing his moves in front of the mirror] "You know what this attack is called? Punch! Hit! Chop! I do the dance of punch! Hit! Chop! I do the dance about punch! Hit! Chop! And then I jump and then I punch! Hit! Chop! Jump! Hop! Punch! Hit! Chop! Whack! Jump!"
"Mmm. Goody. When I say goody, that means I like this dinner. Mmm, goody. Hot hot! When I say hot hot, that means I need a drink. Hot hot! [takes a drink] Soupy! When I take a drink I say soupy! [drinks] Soupy!"
He still has his moments as far as tantrums go, but he makes me laugh at least twice as often as he makes me cry, so I'll take it.
29 October 2008
i have failed as a parent.
Somebody's been reading right-wing propoganda behind my back:
Evan: I'm voting for McCain!
Me: Oh? Why are you voting for McCain?
Evan: Because he has a better plan.
Me: Really? What's his plan?
Evan: To save the world. And Obama's plan is to destroy the world.
09 October 2008
best ever trip to the doctor's
I had an appointment this afternoon with a new doctor. He is an odd little man, and apparently he's very busy, because he had a brusque, impatient manner.
No chatting, no small talk, he didn't even ask what I was there for, but just launched into an examination. He listened to my heart first.
"Sounds a little crooked," he declared. "You need to eat more food."
"What kind of food?" I asked.
"Umm... like some pretzels or stuff," he said dismissively as he exchanged the stethoscope for another instrument. This one, I'm not sure what it was, he jammed into my ear and exclaimed incredulously, "It's 20,000!"
Then, another instrument, this one with explanation: "Now I'm going to look in your ear with this telephone." A brief glance into my ear through the instrument: "Whoa, it's pretty dark in there."
Next the good doctor asked me to photograph him with each of his instruments individually.
"Are you a real doctor?" I asked suspiciously.
"Mm-hmm," he answered, and that was all I could get out of him after that.
"Alright then," I said, "let me take a photo of your best doctor face."
08 October 2008
scene from the bus stop
Waiting at the bus stop with Neighbor Girl and Neighbor Girl's Dad:
James, to kid across the street: Hey, Captain! Hi, Captain!
Me: James, why do you call that kid Captain?
James: The first time I met him, he just told me his name was Captain.
Neighbor Girl's Dad: And Tennille?
James: I can kneel! [drops to knees on the sidewalk]
Me and NGD: [cannot contain laughter]
It's my least favorite part of day, morning, even when I don't have to drag myself out of bed and down to the bus stop in the chilly autumn air, twenty minutes earlier than the scheduled time due to the unpredictability of the new bus driver. (Of course, it's the days we're out there twenty minutes early, in the rain, when she comes nearly on time, and the days we only make it out ten or fifteen minutes early, we barely catch the bus.)
But early mornings are made infinitely more bearable when you spend the worst part of it with a thirty-year-old guy who cracks pop culture jokes and starts singing "Substitutiary Locomotion" when you mention the kids have just watched Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Then it's actually a pretty good way to start the day.
12 September 2008
friday photos: the evan is funny edition
Let me tell you, when you go shopping at Target with a superhero in tow, you get a lot of attention.
And when that little superhero stops in the Lego aisle, he is so overcome with excitement that he is unable to speak the words "Star Wars" or "Indiana Jones" but instead fills the air with what would sound, to an uneducated observer, like a series of high-pitched tuneless wails, but is actually the respective theme songs for these two movies with which our little superhero is obsessed.
Here is a characteristic photo of Evan reading his favorite book, otherwise known as the Lego catalog. Every little superhero-in-training needs a thorough knowledge of current Lego sets.
You're lucky he's wearing pants in that photo. Evan's always scheming ways to avoid wearing pants. I may have mentioned his recent refusal to wear a pair of shorts on the grounds that they were too distinguished, and a couple of days ago he tried to convince me he couldn't wear pants because he would look too adorable in them. Kid needs to learn a thing or two about effective persuasion.
01 July 2008
maybe i should raise my standards
I have been trying to get motivated this summer, to do a lot of fun things with the kids, and accomplish some things of my own as well. I've started an incentive system where every day the kids and I complete a list of tasks (a mix of chores and errands and fun things too -- I have mandated both reading and playing outdoors as every day "tasks") and if we do well enough, we will "earn" a trip to a local water park at the end of the summer. So far it's turning out to be as good for me as for the kids in terms of being productive and not just lazing around.
So yesterday, I spent much of the day cleaning and organizing and putting things away, enough so that when Greg came home he remarked on a visible difference. This afternoon we invited one of James' friends over to play, so I spent a good portion of the morning cleaning up as well. I hate cleaning, but I feel so victorious when I can cross something off my list, not to mention how much better the house looks in general. So I was feeling pretty pleased with myself after this whole bout of productivity.
James' friend came over after lunch, and as soon as he came in, almost the first words out of his mouth were, "Wow! This house is messy!!" As if that weren't enough, he felt the need to reiterate after seeing another part of the house. There's nothing like the discerning eye of a six-year-old to deflate your ego.
16 June 2008
and i don't even have gray hair yet
James: Mom, how old were you in 1804?
Me: I wasn't born yet.
James: You mean Brown's Berry Patch was around before you were born?
Me: Yes.
James: Wow!! That's really old!!
04 June 2008
jedis don't read books
Greg and I were talking about books recently, and I said that I hope our children will continue to be readers when they get older. Evan overheard me, and, as always, had to be contradictory.
Evan: I'm not going to be a reader when I grow up. I'm going to be Qui-gon Jin!
Me: But don't you think you'll still like to read books?
Evan: No! I will eat Pez and play with light-sabers.
I suppose I should at least be glad that he's starting to think about the future at such a young age.
06 May 2008
identity crisis
My darling younger son is entering a phase of identity crisis. Every day, we hear (multiple times) a very detailed description of who he is at that moment. Often he must stand still and repeat his title several times in a row before he is able to, say, walk to the bus stop, or get into the bathtub. Some examples:
"I'm super-duper big mean red blue Obi-Wan Kenobi on Hoth."
"I'm super-duper ultra mean brown Tuscan Raider."
"I'm super-duper big mean black white clone trooper."
He is always super-duper. I have to agree with that bit. But please don't address him as Evan, unless you wish to be corrected and reminded at least three times.
My favorite, though, was the night we were having dinner with friends, and, at a lull in the general conversation, Evan said, mostly to himself, "Everyone calls me Evan, but I call me a bounty hunter."
Good to know.
14 April 2008
overheard
"Let's play The Three Little Pigs."
"Okay!"
"Who do you want to be?"
"A sand person!"
"No, you have to be a pig or the wolf."
"I want to be a sand person!"
"Okay, let's play The Three Little Sand People."
[Some time later]
"Little Luke, little Luke, let me in!"
"Not by the point of my sharp, sharp lightsaber!"
"Then I'll load and I'll load and I'll shoot your house down!"
I don't condone their use of violence, but I do appreciate their creativity. (Possibly inspired by reading this book incessantly over the last week. If you have small children, find some of David Wiesner's picture books -- the several we've read are beautiful and imaginative.)
03 April 2008
not what i'm used to
Apparently I live in the sort of neighbrohood where, when an allegedly rabid raccoon is reported to management, a maintenace guy sits in his car below the tree in which said raccoon is hiding, and shoots at the raccoon with a BB gun. I'm not sure whether this was before or after Animal Control was called, but it definitely happened before they arrived. We have yet to discover the fate of the raccoon.
Also, this afternoon I was talking with a neighbor who's coming down with a cold. She told me she's been using lozenges that have a lot of vitamin C, zinc, and euthanasia. She continued talking, completely oblivious of what she had said, and it was a very difficult task, my friends, not to start laughing.
14 March 2008
friday video
We've been encouraging Evan to work on his "L" sounds. Sometimes he's cooperative, sometimes he's indifferent, and sometimes, as this video shows, he's a little comedian. My favorite part is the way he just cracks himself up.
04 March 2008
so i guess he's not gay
James: Excuse me.
Me: Yes, James?
James: I have a crush on girls.
Greg: What girls? All girls?
James: Yeah.
Me: What do you think that means, to have a crush?
James: That you really, really like some one.
Me: Oh. So you don't like boys, then?
James: I do like boys, butI don't have a crush on them. I have a crush on girls.
I wonder if the fact that he wants to be Cinderella for Halloween will help or hurt his chances with all those girls he's crushing on?
28 February 2008
a lesson in phonics
Evan: Mama, my cars are sweeping.
Me: They're sweeping?
Evan: No! They're sweeping.
Me: They're sweeping the floor?
Evan: NO! They're... sah-LEEEP-ing.
Me: Oh, sleeping. That's very different from sweeping.
Progress is slow, but he's coming along.
27 February 2008
random snippets of the last week
Scene: We are in the car, talking about a classmate of Greg's who has completed her Ph.D. **** Now I have to post a photo for Greg, so that he can have it online. This is Gradient Index Jell-O, which causes light to bend when it shines through the Jell-O. This is the stuff Greg does for fun -- he spends hours tinkering with Jell-O, adjusting ingredient amounts, until he can use it to bend light. Now that James wants to be a scientist too, I sense a lot of this sort of stuff in our future.
Greg: Now she'll be a doctor.
Me: But not the kind of doctor you go to when you're sick.
James: Oh, I know -- a veterinarian!
Greg: No --
James: A dentist?
Greg: No... [begins to try to explain Ph.D.s in six-year-old terms]
James: Excuse me, Dad?
Greg: Yes?
James: Did you know that dogs can hear things that people can't?
****I have a nephew! William is the new son of my sister Kim and her husband, and baby brother to Molly. I bought plane tickets to go visit them for a weekend next month, by myself, and my children are a wee bit jealous that they won't get to come with me and play with their cousins. I momentarily felt guilty about that, but then I considered that Greg has two upcoming work trips (one of them to freaking Spain) and I no longer feel anything less than jubilant about taking a weekend for myself.****James: Mom, my new name is E.S.Me: What does E.S. stand for?James: Extreme scientist! Evan, what's your new name?Evan: Pwincess Leia.****In the course of a week and half, Evan has bruised his gums by crashing teeth-first into James' head during a wrestling match (Have you ever seen bruised gums? Gross.) and chipped a tooth. We have no idea when or how he chipped his tooth. The bruised gums caused crying for two days, but the chipped tooth? Whatever he did to cause that was apparently not worthy of a whimper. That child is continually reinforcing my suspicion that if one of my children ever breaks a bone or needs stitches, it will be him. And probably several years before I expect it.
Hopefully I'll be back to regular blogging soon. We're all slowly returning to good health.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
