Conversations with my 3 year old

Conversation #1

While I was feeding Tanner the other day, Erilyn was playing peek-a-boo with him by standing behind his hi-chair and popping around to the side.  We were all giggling when suddenly Erilyn said, "Mom, Tanner is like a puzzle." Slightly intrigued at her logic, I reply, "Really?  How?"  Patiently, she says, "Well, when he's broken, you can fix him." Now, I'm amused. "But Erilyn, he's not broken!"  "Yes, but when he's broken, you can fix him!"  Chuckling, but still failing to see the connection to a puzzle, I ask, "Okay, but if he breaks, how do you fix him?" At this point, she's getting a little frustrated that I don't seem to be taking her seriously, and, condescendingly, she says, "Well, Mom. You get a hammer and nails and just fix him."  ?!?!  Of course I explained to her that you can't use a hammer and nails to fix people if they break, but I still have a terrifying image of Tanner fussing on the floor while Erilyn approaches with a hammer, ready to "fix him."

Conversation #2

A couple of days ago, Erilyn and I went to the library for story time.  We didn't realize that the story time lady is taking a break until June, so we had lots of time to sit and cuddle and read books.  It seemed to me that we read a lot of books about flying: there was a unicorn one where a little girl flies around on a unicorn; there was one about a paper doll princess who gets blown around in the wind; and there was at least one other one I'm forgetting about.  They all had that dreamy, imaginations are so great kind of feel to them where everything turns out happily in the end and the child has a special secret that adults don't know about.  So, when Erilyn said to me on the way home, "Mom, if I jumped up really high in the air, all the way up to the sky, what do you think would happen?"  I naturally assumed she was thinking fantastically and responded in kind, "well, I think you would bump into a lot of tree branches."  

"Nope."

"Oh, okay, well then, I think you'd get blown away by the wind."

"Nope."

"Okay. Would you get stuck on the clouds?"

"Nope."

"Well, then, Erilyn.  What would happen?"

"I'd fall down on the ground and break my head open."

!!!

Conversation #3

This afternoon, Kirk and I took the kids to a splash park to commemorate the first day of 90 degree weather.  They had a blast, and since it was kind of a last minute thing, and a celebration of sorts, we stopped to get pizza on the way home.  When Kirk got back into the car, the conversation went like this.

Erilyn--Dad, did you get a pepperoni pizza? (her favorite)

Kirk--No.  I got the sausage, pickle, and other-gross-things kind. (she hates all those things.)

Erilyn--Oh.

I then passed out some breadsticks since it was late and everyone was starving.  A few minutes later, after some quiet munching, we hear Erilyn say to herself, incredulously, "Hmmmm...this pickle is good!"

!!!

The two things I love most about conversation #3 are first, that Kirk can, without missing a beat, and with such a straight face, make up something outlandish to tease the kids about, and second, that they believe him wholeheartedly and are therefore thoroughly surprised about, in this case, the pizza--or pickle, tasting good.

My two cool cats, on the way to the park.  I just love Erilyn's smile, and Tanner's chubby little cheeks.  It's Tanner's first time wearing sunglasses and it was a good 15 minutes before he even tried to take them off.  So cute!


And Anthon is definitely a book worm.  He reads at least one chapter book a day. And they often have up to, or sometimes even more than 200 pages.  He's running out of age-appropriate reading material...any suggestions?