Out of the mouths of babes

Well yes, hello again - after a long break. If you are still checking back for posts I really must say a big thank you for your loyalty.

Here is my peace offering.

Two stories about Eric. His innocence and way of summing up a situation just makes that saying so true: out of the mouths of babes...

A few weeks ago, he was spending the weekend with us. Early one morning he came running through to announce, "I saw a bird".
Being the only one he can converse with so early in the morning (everyone else is still sound asleep), I murmured: "Really? Where did you see this bird?"

An indignant sigh, and the placing of hands on hips said more about his disdain for this question, than any words could have conveyed, "Through my WINDOW!"  Unsaid words hung in the air: do you really mean to tell me you can't figure out where I saw that bird?

Trying to regroup, I made another attempt:
"Oh, so what colour was this bird?".
Another sigh (you really are daft so early in the morning, Aunty Yvonne): "he didn't HAVE a colour, he just had lots of speckles."
His little hands fluttered in the air around his neck, making poking gestures to indicate "spots" - without colour.
"He was looking for water", Eric added helpfully.
"Uh huh! What did you tell him?" I finally got out past the huge giggle in my throat.
"Well, there isn't water outside my window. I told him...go THAT way".
The THAT was punctuated by a hand gesture, where Eric threw his thumb over his shoulder in a gesture you make to flag down a passing car for a lift. That gesture and moment were so fleeting and then gone, much like the bird itself, there for a moment and then just living in your memory. We laughed until the tears ran down our cheeks. He hadn't merely pointed a finger in the direction of water, but with real attitude, thrown a thumb over his shoulder, to indicate the direction the bird should go. Some of the same disdain remained, a silly bird, and a silly Aunty Yvonne: these people and birds need HELP.

My second story happened during the Easter weekend. Werner and I happened to be in Cum Books - Christian book store. We had Eric and Carissa with us. The store was hung full of banners showing a cross and a crown of thorns.

Eric stood for a long time looking at that crown of thorns. Finally, he turned to Werner and said: "If you put THAT on your head, you will have one heck of a headache".

The Devil wears Prada!

If you haven't gathered this before, I am so not "in" on fashion. One of the Prof's pet hates about me, was that "I would not suffer for fashion" - his words, not mine.

In that vein then, my following story.
The kids spent last weekend with the Prof and Cream  Puff. Being driven by "looks" as always, the Prof thought it a good idea to educate the girls into areas in which my expertise was obviously lacking. The following discussion turned around high heel shoes and went something along these lines:

The Prof told Marinda: You know, high heels really makes your calf muscles stand out, and you should learn to walk on high heels as a matter of course - and not just at year end functions.
That last bit was a direct dig at me, because I would only ever wear high heels to the year end function!
"So", he continued, "wear high heels, because it will make your husband's heart beat faster."
At exactly this point Marielle wondered in on the conversation and wanted to know what it was about.

Marinda turned out this very priceless comment: Dad was just explaining to me, that if I want to "keep" my husband one day, I will have to wear high heels.

Apparently  at that point, the Prof decided not to say another word.

Out of the mouths of babes? Well done my girl, well done.

10 and a HALF

Eric and Carissa spent the time between Christmas and New year with us. Amongst the hard stuff - there was cute stuff too. The "10 and a half" was cute. But wait. Let me start with the hard stuff and move to cute.

When we got the children, we picked up problems on day 1. Cream Puff apparently doesn't "DO" bedtimes. So, you may ask, what  DOES she do? Well apparently, she goes to her room when she is ready to retire, locks the door, and leaves the little ones to amuse themselves until they fall over. "Falling over time" for Carissa seems to be a 1 am in the morning. Sounds like child abuse to me.
SO... this presented boundary problems in our house - because our house rules say - bedtime - at 8pm, latest 9 pm during holidays. We bashed heads a few nights over this issue with them, until they came over to our way of thinking. Ha - more because we stopped naming the time - than because we were so clever. LOL.

The 2nd problem had me feeling like a class A witch. Eric is a very bad eater. He looks at food and decides: I don't eat that. Mostly I ignore him and get on with life, but one particular evening, when Werner had made lovely food that the kids all loved, it stuck in my craw. He would not even taste it. I looked across the table and said quietly: Eric if you don't eat that, you are not getting pudding either.
He looked at me with big beautiful eyes that said: O - I have heard that one before. My mommy threatens me with that all the time.

Dinner dragged to a close, with his plate being untouched. We cleared the table, and took out 1 pudding bowl too little. Those big eyes turned to disbelief as we had pudds and he had none. Later that evening, he told Cream Puff about it - I didn't get any pudding because I didn't eat my food. Don't know what Cream Puff told him, but in an attempt to get sympathy from her, he told her- and daddy doesn't put me in bed nicely every evening.

Werner threw his toys out the cot at that one. He told Eric to stop talking nonsense to his mother.

Well, the up side of the story is that after that episode - he tried to eat at least some of the food we prepared.

Now the 10 and a half. It began with Eric. He started to use it as a phrase for everything denoting "much". Eric would you like to go swimming - yes - like 10 and a half.
Eric, are you hungry -like 10 and a half. (Which of course is most of the time since he doesn't do our food!)

We now have a new and precious expression to add to our collection: 10 and a half.

Want to end off with that. I am typing this blog from work on  the first day of my NEW job! I wrote a while back - that I was making some life changes. SARS is a thing of the past. Now I think I can say - this new place is nice, very NICE - like 10 and a half!