Mmmmm....

I was telling Nathan what I am going to make for dinner tonight. I told him I was making Patty's Pasta and Italian sausage. He asked what kind of pasta, and I told him I was using elbow macaroni. He got a worried look on his face and asked, "Do they have elbows in them?

My Little Fly Swatter

For the last few days, we have been plagued by an unusually large fly. It was so big that when it flew, it sounded like a bee buzzing in the house. It landed on the couch this morning and Alex tried to grab it, and I freaked out and scared her. Oops.

Then this afternoon I was upstairs ironing and Nathan came up and told me the fly was bugging him. I reminded him that he and his brother had thrown the fly swatter in the rain gutter outside a couple weeks ago, so we just had to wait for it to die. He wanted to squish it with a shoe, but I told him that he could NOT go around the house swinging a shoe around trying to kill it. I could just envision broken glass everywhere and the screen of the DSL TV smashed in. He agreed and wandered off, and I continued to iron without another thought about it.

When I finished ironing, I came downstairs and found Nathan in the kitchen. He proudly declared, "I killed the fly!" I inquired how, hoping he'd listened and didn't use a shoe.

"I flushed him down the toilet!" Nathan said.

"Wow, how did you catch it?"

"With a napkin," he says in his typical matter-of-fact way.

I was about to tell him he was pretty brave, when he said, "He was so scared. It was sure a bad day for that fly!" Then he thought for a second and said, "But it's a good day for us!"

Interesting Excuse

Taylor alerted us that a lamp in the living room wouldn't turn on. Sure enough, it wouldn't. It has had a CFL lightbulb in it for only a few months, so we were perplexed that it had gone out already. Until we looked, and the lightbulb was completely gone! We called Nathan in, who immediately produced it from behind one of the couch cushions. We told him that CFLs aren't like regular bulbs and can be very dangerous, and that he should never touch them. We then asked why he took it out, and he said, "Because I'm the lightbulb-stealer!" Where does he come up with these things?

Warts and Wizards

A commerical advertising The Sword in the Stone on DVD is on TV:

Nathan: Mom, can we buy that?

Mom: Sorry, no.

Nathan: Can we rent it?

Mom: I recorded it on the DVR and you wouldn't watch it, so I deleted it.

Nathan: But I want it. Can we rent it?

Mom: No, we'll record it the next time it comes on the Disney Channel.

Nathan: No, can we rent it?

Mom: No, we can record it. It comes on all the time.

Nathan: No, Mom, I want to rent it from Hollywood [Video]! (He really sounds exasperated with me now.)

Mom: Nathan, that costs money. I'll just record it when it comes on again and it won't cost us anything. And you can watch the Sword in the Stone as many times as you want.

Nathan: But I don't like the Sword in the Stone!

Mom: (Sigh)

Eating Healthy

The other day we were on the on ramp to the freeway, and on the side of the road there were some really tall, dry weeds that had gone to seed at the top. Taylor turned to Nathan and said, "Look, Nathan! Whole grain wheat!"

I guess he's noticed the whole grain symbols on the General Mills cereal boxes...

Well, she asked me first!

The other day we were at the pharmacy waiting in line to get a prescription filled, and a nice elderly woman was waiting behind us. She was making Alex giggle, and she asked me how old Alex was. Then she asked Nathan, who was only too happy to tell her that he was almost 5. Then he did something he's never done before. He looked at her and asked, "How old are you?" Luckily, she just laughed and said, "Oh, I'm a Grandma!"

I Didn't Do Anything!...Nope, Not a Thing!...Honest!

Matt noticed a spider in the kids' bathrooom last night just as Taylor was going to bed. He pointed at it and asked, "Hey, Taylor, what is that?" Taylor answered a little too quickly, "I don't know; I didn't do it!" Hmmmm.... Is there something he doesn't want us to know about?