Life is a Trip

As we sat in the car about to leave, Sophie yelled out, "It stinks. Who tooted?"

As Nadine was about to say, "It's coming from outside", Domino interrupted and said, "Me. Me tooted."

And the truth comes out.........and mom and dad were set straight.

As Sophie departed the bathroom, freshly bathed, she informed everyone in the living, "I don't think you wiped my butt that good."

"Well Sophie, you can wipe your own butt if you want!"

"Noooo, that's gross!"

Sometimes reasoning doesn't work.

Nadine tends hide cookies once I leave the room since she thinks I am going to eat them all.

I went for a bike ride and when I returned, Sophie was already under the covers of her purple bed.

I walked in her room and she said, "There are two cookies for you in the kitchen."

"But . . . but, Mommy hid the rest of the cookies."

I quipped, "why did Mommy hide the cookies from me?"

"So you don't eat all of them tonight."

"And get a stomachache from all the cookies."

So the Cookie Monster in our house isn't actually covered in blue fur, it's just me.

Kids say the darnest things.

As I sat in the living room one evening with Domino and Sophie running around, Domino suddenly noticed a shiny, silver can of beer sitting on the brown coffee table.

He slowly walked over to the can, picked it up with his two small hands, and put his right eye up to the hole. He pulled his head away, and looked at Grandma and said in his limited, but accurate vocabulary, "Is Daddy's juice!"

Yes son, that is Daddy's juice.

One evening, Sophie let both of her parents knows their importance.

"Daddy, you're really good at changing channels."

Not to be outdone.

"Mommy, you're really good at washing the dishes."

Thanks lil' girl, appreciate it.

Little kids sometimes have a hard time following directions, but they usually find a way to totally redeem themselves.

Two nights ago, Sophie was stalling on putting on her pajamas. Momma was getting a bit angry and yelled from the kitchen, "You better have your pajamas on by the time I get to your room."

I placed myself between Big Momma and Little Momma and held her off until Sophie got those pajamas on.

After Sophie brushed her teeth and combed her hair, she came out to me a bit later on and said, "Daddy, you were really good tonight. You earned TWO merit badges! I'm so proud of you."

Where does girl think up this stuff?

Our family was at one of our favorite restaurants with our visitor from Uruguay, Julio. Sophie leans over and whispers to me, "Mommy, I have a secret and you can't tell anyone. Julio speaks Spanish really good."

Five minutes prior, Dominic had yelled out, "Booyah Mommy!" loud enough in the restaurant for everyone to hear. I responded, "Booyah, Domino!" with a little less volume and enthusiasm.

Seeing a new expression from a one year old is amazing.

For someone who studies languages and language acquisition, seeing this child use Spanglish is fascinating.

Domino can't open bottles, fridges, boxes on his own, so he often asks help from me or Nadine.

In English, it is simply "Open it!" and in Spanish "¡Ábrelo!". He prefers to combine the two.

He will look up at us and simply say, "Open lo!"

After picking Sophie up from daycare, I asked her, "Did you play with Adelle (one of her friends) today?"

Sophie replied, "Yes, she said she stayed up all night last night."

I responded, "She probably slept a little bit."

Then she responded with all seriousness, "No, she said she's nocturnal."

Kids transform the mundane into memorable.

Recently, I was woken up by Sophie.

She felt it would be funny to wake me up by pulling the covers off my feet and expose them to the cold.

Unexpectedly, she then licked the bottom one of my feet and in a joyous morning voice proclaimed, "Daddy, wake up! It's time to join the day!"

I couldn't have agreed with her more, it was time to join the day.

And then wipe the spit off the bottom of my right foot.