I think we must be doing something a little bit right

We keep a big container for change in the house and haven't emptied it in ages. Mostly it's pennies, nickels, and dimes, because I tend to pilfer the quarters for tolls and parking meters, but we had a sizable pile of coins in the container.

This weekend, I gathered it up and said to Jack, "Know what we should do with these coins?" It was mostly a rhetorical question, but he answered anyhow. His response?

"Give them to charity?"

Awwww. Excellent choice! Now, what I was really going for was that we should take them to the CoinStar machine at the grocery store and exchange them for an Amazon.com gift card, but I really like that his very first choice was to give to charity. It was one of those parenting moments when you think that maybe you aren't a complete failure.

Jedi Mind Trick

I came back from the grocery store today and told Jack that I bought some break and bake cookies (yeah, I'm no Betty Crocker, ok?). He asked if he could eat some of the dough raw and I told him he couldn't. Thinking, perhaps, that he is a real Jedi, he waved his fingers at me like Obi-Wan in A New Hope and said, "Give me the cookie dough" in a deep voice.

Alas, his Jedi mind tricks don't work on me. I just laughed like Jabba and told him to get out of the kitchen.

Learning to Read

Tonight Kyle was reading Mr Strong to Jack, which is is one of the books in the Mr. Men series from the 70s. Kyle was trying to get Jack to sound out the word "Strong" on the first page by getting Jack to go through each letter and tell us what sound it makes.

They then started grouping the sounds together and Kyle was getting frustrated that Jack couldn't figure out the word, especially considering that it's in the title of the book. So, I jumped in and helped Jack with the sound "st" makes by making the sound a few times for him. Kyle then asked Jack, "do you know what word has the 'st' sound in it?"

Jack exclaimed, "Intestines!"

True. Perhaps next time we'll be more specific and tell him that we're going for a word in THIS book rather than a random one.

I Love Her, But She's Not That Smart

Jack and I were talking about school today and I was asking him about the "red" and "blue" teams in class and who was on his (red) team. He went through some names and then started telling me about the blue team. As the teams (I hear from other parents) are supposed to be broken up into groups of kids with similar academic capabilities, I've been listening for any hint of whether Jack is in the more on target group or the more advanced group (yeah, yeah, I'm that parent).

When Jack got to the "blue" team, he listed a few names and then he said, "Oh, I have something to tell you." He got a big smile on his face and said, "There's someone in class that I love and her name is Olivia."

Now, for a little back story, Olivia is the name of the teenage girl next door that Jack also adores because she babysits him and he thinks she is pretty (and encourages me to do my hair like her and everything. My sweet little Oedipus). So, the logical leap for me was that the name association made him like this girl. Therefore, I asked.

He informed me that I was decidedly wrong. "No," he said, when I asked about the name, "I like her because she's pretty." Intrigued, I asked him what she looked like and he laid out the following description:

"She has short blond hair," (and he mimicked a short cut with his hands to the side of his head), "and she talks funny, like 'Hi,'" in little boy falsetto. He then furrowed his brows, apparently displeased with his imitation of her voice and said, "I didn't do it exactly right, but that's the best I can do. She has squeaky voice."

By this time, I was shaking with silent laughter and he got a little sheepish, so I kissed him on the cheek and told him he was adorable. However, still moving on my quest to find out which team he was on, I asked, "Is she smart?"

He said, "She's a little smart, but not very much." I asked why and he said, "Because she knows some things, but not a lot of things." I asked him if she knew her letters (yes) and knew her numbers (yes) so then I asked what she didn't know that made him think she wasn't smart.

His response?

"She doesn't know what Abraham Lincoln looks like or if he has a big hat."

Well, there is that. Obviously, the poor girl is doomed forever since she doesn't know this, and I am still uncertain as to which group Jack is in. But, his falsetto is excellent, so that's a plus.

Adjectives

Jack has become more creative with his vocabulary the older he gets. In most cases, he uses words correctly, and in some cases, he uses a fabulous word (like "condescending") in a completely incorrect way. Those are really fun times.

However, in all cases lately, he's learning to paint imagery with his words and detail things to us so we understand rather than just getting frustrated and throwing his hands up, shouting "You just don't get it!"

Yesterday I picked him up from school and he was telling me that one of his teachers made a picture for him (it was pretty- had flowers, grass, clouds). I asked which one and he didn't know her name. He then began describing her...

"The one with the long, beautiful hair." When I still didn't get it, he added, "The brown hair. The one with the long, beautiful brown hair." When I still get it, he added, "The nice one with long, beautiful brown hair that stays in clubhouse with me."

Ah! I finally got it. It was Ms. L and she does indeed have long brown hair and I'm sure it's quite lovely (it was in a ponytail when I saw her) and she is super nice. In addition to the flattering description of his teacher making me giggle, I was pleased that he chose to continue to enlighten me rather than calling me a dunce and moving on.

Maybe he'll learn to be more patient than me one day. (Not really a hard thing to achieve, though.)

Geography?

While driving past the volunteer fire station, the alarm was going off. It appeared to me that the fire station was having a BBQ, so I suggested "Maybe the grill is on fire!" Jack was excited by this and decided to create a short narrative.

"Maybe South America is on fire?"

VIenna responds, "Do you know where South America is?"

"I have no idea."

If Mom Should Die...

So, we went out to dinner last night and during the course of the meal, we were talking about crazy boy names. Jack had an epiphany and looked very seriously at Kyle and said, "When she dies," and pointed over to me, "and you get a new wife, you can have a boy and name him Poopface."

Kyle told him that he'd keep that in mind in the event of my untimely death. Good that we're raising someone who wants to plan ahead.