If she had the proper words to say,

For the umpteenth time, I nearly killed myself trying to walk around the far side of the bed in our room in the TLF. Why? Because there is a warm lump of a cat, hidden from view under the bed comforter, yet sticking out in the way. I have tripped over said cat many times and grappled to the wall to spare my face a floor-smack.

Me: *walks into living room*
Me: I'm going to kill the cat soon, I swear.
Philip: What?
Me: I'm going to kill the cat. If I don't, she's going to kill me.
A.J.: Which cat?
Me: Kiki. She keeps sleeping in hiding on my side of the bed, and I'm tired of falling over her.
Philip: *laughs*
Me: I don't get it. I keep scooting her over under the bed so that I won't step on her... why does she do it?
Philip: Because she can't fit under the bed?
Me: No, she fits fine, 'cuz I scoot her under it with no problem.
A.J.: If you kill Kiki, I'm going to secede.
Me: *confused look*
Philip: You're what?
A.J.: I'm going to secede from this family.
ALL: *laughs*

And as I type this, Kiki *merps* into the room, purring and acting all adorable and sweet. That cat, I swear. *shakes head*

I'm really holding onto the last vestiges of Jack's babyhood. One could arguably say that he's not been a baby for a long time, but I won't hear that. He's *my* baby, you see.

There are so many things that your children say in particularly cute fashions as they learn to speak, and you almost wish they'd never learn to get the pronunciation right. We've already passed the point of pronunciation mistakes with Jack, but there is still one gem left: the "fr" sound instead of "th." For example, he still says "free," "frirteen" and "frirty" when counting to thirty. And it's adorable. :-)

Though I'm not sure how to classify it, he also is quite fond of using this phrase when something is no longer where it once was: "dis-AND-pearing" (for "disappear"). It's particularly cute when he'll quickly ask me where something "dissed to" or "peared to," rather than saying the whole word.

But since most of his problems are no longer speech-related, we find more usage errors - usually when he's trying to use a bigger word than what he'd normally say. For example, he'd been waiting all day to help me make spaghetti for dinner (he likes to break up the noodles into the pot of boiling water), and he clambored onto the counter to help just as I was setting the pot of cold water on the burner. I explained to him that it would still be a while before I needed his help, that the water needed to start boiling first.

Very somber, he looked at me and said, "It's okay. I don't matter." I said back, "Yes, you do matter, Jack. Very much. But the water's not ready yet." And he answered me back, "No, I don't matter if the water's not ready. I'll sit here and wait until it IS boiling."

I realized immediately that he didn't actually mean "matter" (he's too young to have such depressing self-esteem issues!) - he meant "care." But it was such a cute flub!

Jack-isms. They're going quickly, but the ones we've still got are precious.

Things said recently 'round here:

A.J.: At night, our car looks almost black, but in the day, it's 'zucchini green!'

Jack: My schools is going to be closed on forever for babies' labor. (meaning his preschool will be closed on both Friday and Monday for Labor Day)

(By the way, this whole first paragraph is mostly filler for the ending conversation... just so you know. *wink*)

Jack and I went to the commissary to do our grocery-shopping this afternoon while A.J. was still in school. At Jack's request, I bought the things needed and made spaghetti and breadsticks for dinner. Afterwards, the boys and I played Frisbee outside together for almost 45 minutes. We then decided to have ice cream for our dessert, and we had two choices: ice cream from home or ice cream from Runza® (we had 9 of the free kids' cone coupons stacked up from kids' meals over the past 3 months or so). The boys chose Runza ice cream, of course, so we loaded up in the van and went inside the restaurant to get our treats. And on the way home, the following conversation occurred:

(police car goes whizzes, lights flashing)
A.J.: Mom, can police go as fast as they want to?
Me: As long as they are driving a police car.
A.J.: (in an awe-filled voice) You mean they can go in FIFTH gear?
Me: (laughing) Yes, they can go in fifth gear.
A.J.: So as long as they drive a police car, they can go fast?
Me: Yep.
A.J.: (pauses for just a smidge) Mom, can we sell this car and get a police one?
Me: (laughing) No, bud, we can't sell this car and buy a police one.
A.J.: (in a very knowing tone) Yeah. I bet we don't have enough on our credit card to buy a police car. Not even if you put yours *and* Dad's credit cards together.
Me: (giggling) No, probably not.
A.J.: Yeah, we probably would need EIGHT HUNDRED credit cards, and *then* we could buy a police car.
A.J.: (turns to Jack) Hey Jack, let's stop picking up pennies on the ground and start watching for credit cards, okay?
Jack: Okay, A.J. (then, in an excited voice) Yeah, and we'll pick up lots and LOTS of them!

Heehee. One day, A.J.'s going to learn a hard lesson about buying a car. ;-)

A.J.'s been teaching Jack the Pledge of Allegiance. Jack's version?

"Jesus. Under God. Indibivable... with justice for me."

...

I love it! Heehee. :-)