they make me laugh

In between the meltdowns and all the other ways they make me crazy, Garrett and Caleb keep me laughing. Here's a sampling of how they've made me smile lately.

Garrett

Though dogs still hold the top spot in his heart as far as potential pets are concerned, he has recently developed a love for kitty cats. He especially likes to pretend to be one, wandering around on all fours meowing and licking himself. But what makes this devotion particularly funny is the way he commands me to command him to be cat. "Mom, say 'Kitty cats, come in the chichen,'" he'll tell me, to which I'll have to reply, "Okay, 'Kitty cats, come in the kitchen,'" so that he can prance, meowing as he does, to the table for lunch. Or, to get him to come up the stairs after an outing, I'll have to say, at his request, "Kitty cats, come up the stairs,'" before he'll crawl [on a filthy floor] up to our door.

Another phrase he's recently adopted is, "You fink so? You fink so, huh?" This he appends to a wide variety of both statements and questions, as if is asking and telling me something with confident uncertainty. "You see that kitty cat? I want buy one. You fink so? You fink so, huh?" Or, "My sunglasses cool. You fink so?"


Going back to school has reminded Garrett just how much he likes girls. He has decided this year to reciprocate Sofia's blatant affections for him. They ride the bus home together each day, and apparently their only topic of conversation is the elaborate play date they are planning. "Mom, Fia come to my house and we play toys and we watch shows and we climb my bed! You fink so?"

But it's not just Sofia. The other day we, along with a lot of the rest of our ward, attended the triplet's first birthday party. Bailey, a darling 10-year-old girl, caught Garrett's eye, and he swooned and showed off every chance he could. He'd break away from her side only to tell me, in the hushed tones of someone completely smitten, "Mom, that Bailey. She so nice. She my friend. I like her." The next day at church her family sat in front of us, and by the end of Sacrament Meeting, he was passing her special notes and drawings. In Primary he behaved, for the first time in months, like an angel, and I think that was in large part because Bailey was sitting in the chair next to his.


We've been trying recently to encourage Garrett to put a little more thought into his prayers so that he's not just automatically saying the same things every time. Some of the things he's started to include have been incredibly thoughtful, though not necessarily lines typically heard in a prayer: "Thank you for the food. I like Fia. She go to my school." Or, "Me sleep good. I go on a train." And sometimes he sneaks in descriptions of some of his favorite shows: "It's Fam-Mee-Mee Day. Charlie Lola lost tooth."


Caleb

When Caleb gets upset or hurt or embarrassed, the only thing he wants to be is alone. Last week at the park, after he got in trouble for acting on his jealous fear that the triplets were trying to hog his mother's attentions by pushing them out of the way, climbing up onto my lap, and then, as if to underscore the claim he had staked, kicking them out of the way and knocking them to the ground. In response to this, I yanked him away from the scene of assault, told him that his behavior was unacceptable and that he couldn't come back to that bench until he was ready to be nice. He in turn sulked away to an empty bench on the other side of the playground where he pouted and pretended that I wasn't watching him.


On another visit to a different park, Caleb got a little carried away in his love of the swing set. As he propelled himself on his stomach, he accidentally bumped into a mother, swinging next to him with her child on her lap. He didn't hit her hard, but his first reaction was to collapse in a heap like a dead little possum. Apparently he wasn't hurt physically, but his ego sure took a hard blow, and by playing possum he hoped to shut out the world and the sting of his embarrassment. It took quite a bit of coaxing from me to convince to stand back up again.

Caleb knows and says all of our names, but he struggles with his own. "What's your name?" I'll ask him. "Dahrett," he'll answer, pointing to himself. "No," I'll reply, pointing to his brother, "that's Garrett. You're Caleb. Say Caleb." But he cannot be persuaded "No!" he'll say firmly, pointing again to himself, "Dahrett."

Likewise, he has come to the conclusion that all fruits are just different varieties of apples. "More apple," he'll demand. "You mean 'more peaches'?" we'll attempt to clarify. "No. Apple." We'll keep practicing.

Now that he's verbal, he has started to get songs stuck in his head. One day he couldn't seem to get the Blue's Clues "Blue Skidoo" song off his mind.




Oh, man. Those boys crack me up. You fink so, huh?