I just reviewed my Facebook status collection for 2010 and compiled this list of entertaining things said (or done) by my children in 2010. Hope it makes you chuckle, too!
1. Laurel, age 4, laments that it is just “too deep to play outside.” Never mind that the windchill is 4 degrees.
2. Laurel got up from her afternoon nap sniffling and said, “Mommy, my nose is all stuck up.”
3. Setting the table at dinner time, Laurel carefully covers each fork with a napkin. Then she announces, “Ssssh! The forks are sleeping.”
4. Laurel at the Arboretum: “Stop, Mommy, I think I have a piece of nature in my shoe.”
5. Here’s a new, summery way to mop the kitchen floor: Shut only the screen door while your 7-year-old waters the flowers on the patio. She’s never been a wild child, but give her a garden hose with a spray nozzle and WATCH OUT!
6. Linnea, age 7, was folding laundry and saw me set up the ironing board. Looking utterly shocked, she said: “Mommy, there are CLOTHES you have to iron?” I guess she thought we only had an ironing board to accommodate her fuse bead craft projects!
7. While we were babysitting 5-month-old John at our house yesterday evening, Laurel asked, “Do we have to give him back?”
8. Shortly after I put gel in my hair this morning, Laurel comes in and exclaims: “Mommy! You smell good. You smell like Benadryl!” Yep, that was so the fragrance I was going for today.
9. Laurel’s table manners must have drowned in the pool this afternoon. At supper after swimming lessons, she kept wiping the jelly on her fingers on her clothes, in her hair, and seemingly everywhere else but her napkin. Ick! “Don’t wipe it on your dress!” Michael yelled. Big sister Linnea chimes in, on Laurel’s behalf, “It’s actually a skirt, Daddy.”
10. I tried to be discreet when I tossed the decapitated potty-training baby doll into the trash can. But as the garbage man drove off this morning, Laurel came running inside, sobbing uncontrollably. “The broken baby doll is going to get all burned up at the dump!” Thank you, Toy Story 3. Sigh.
11. Laurel, while eating goldfish crackers for an afternoon snack, says: “Mommy! I need some water to drink so my fishes can go swimming!” So the chocolate shake and the iced tea I had already given her didn’t do the trick?
12. Michael just came home with half a dozen ears of fresh sweet corn, and now the girls are begging to help him “shuffle” it.
13. After quiet time yesterday afternoon I found Laurel in her bed, obviously just waking up, and I asked how her nap was. She replied: “I didn’t take a nap. I was too busy resting.”
14. Praying at lunchtime, Laurel says: “…And thank You, God, for creating the animals so that we can have animal crackers to eat…”
15. Laurel read her first sentence today: “See me eat.” She was so proud of herself she sprung off the couch and bolted into the next room to tell Linnea the exciting news.
16. How clever is Laurel? At the drug store this morning, she stops in the candy aisle and says very seriously, “Oh! We HAVE to get some raspberry chocolate candy for Sassy.” Sassy is her teddy bear.
17. Our breakfast conversation this morning — Laurel: “I just don’t like cannonballs.” Me: “Huh? What do you mean? Jawbreakers?” Laurel: “No, you know, cannonballs — people who eat other people. Why DO they do that?”
18. This morning as Michael was scrambling eggs and pulling the tortillas out of the refrigerator, Linnea asks, “Daddy, are you fixing a breakfast pinata?”
19. While I was helping Linnea fix her hair this morning, she sniffed and said, “Mommy, you smell good. Like jellybeans!” I guess that’s an improvement over Laurel’s thinking I smelled like Benadryl a few months ago…
20. Thinking about Advent at the dinner table this evening, Linnea says, “So, tomorrow is…” And Laurel quickly chimes in, “the last day of not getting any presents!”
21. In the middle of a Costco shopping trip this afternoon, Linnea wonders, “Mommy, what is ‘scratch?'” After I reply with a bewildered, “Huh?” she clarifies, “You know, scratch. You always say that you make pies and things from scratch. What is it?”
Linnea will be turning 8 before we know it, so here’s an exclusive interview with her.
Starlight Writer 
