Liam, like most kids, thinks he gets a toy every time we walk in a store. Granted, we’ve supported that misconception to some extent over the years, but he still knows better. So in Wal-Mart today, as expected, he went about his normal routine of ‘please can I have something little?‘ At least he wasn’t being greedy.

Finally, I was sick of hearing it. I said, “Liam, shut up about the toy. You’re not getting a toy. You got those trains at Target earlier. I’m sick of hearing about toys.”

After a brief pause, he replied with, “Dad, after I shut up, can I have a toy?”

Liam’s aforementioned monkey has magnetic hands and feet, and he’s been having a blast discovering the wonders of magnetism. He sniffs out every bit of metal that no one knew was there for the purpose of hanging his monkey. No, that’s not a euphemism for anything.

This evening, while we were at Wal-Mart, he discovered that the monkey sticks to the car. I said, “Hey, wanna let him ride there all the way home?”

“Yeah!” was his reply, so I hated to break his heart by saying that “But he may not stick so good, and when we get home, he might be gone. And that would be sad, ’cause you’ve been having so much fun with him.”

That got him thinking. “Yeah, if he was gone, someone might say, ‘Hey, look, a monkey. Someone just left him here.’”

While I was washing Liam’s hair this morning, he looked at me and said, “Dad, zombies never clean their hair.”

We went to the zoo yesterday… The kids both brought home stuffed monkeys.

Liam laid his monkey down on the living room floor, and Molly didn’t want hers to feel left out, so he tucked hers in with his, Molly said, “Monkey? Fweep?” and they went on playing.

A few moments later, Liam said, “I’m gonna go check on the monkeys, see if they’re talking.” Then he walked around the chair to where they were, and said, “Stop talking, and GO to SLEEP!”

If that wasn’t funny enough, Molly had to follow up with, “Go FWEEP!”

We were talking about Halloween…

Liam said, “Dad, I’m gonna be Dark Vader. You wanna be a Startrooper?”

Molly had the hiccups today, and Liam told her to open her mouth, because she’d hiccup funny.

Liam told Molly today: I’ll always love you, and I’ll always be in your heart.

My cousin bought this stupid dollar toy for Molly. It’s a little baby doll, with a crib, for a dollar, so you can imagine the stellar quality of this thing. On a side note, the crib proclaimed “Your Especially Choice,” so at least we could laugh at the Engrish. Anyhow, Molly fell in love with this stupid thing. Any time she caught a glimpse of it, it was Baby?! Baby?! until she got it. Well, we were driving, and she had the baby, and she started calling for the thing, but this time was louder and more distressed-sounding than normal: Ba-BY?! Ba-BY?!!

We looked back to see where she had thrown the baby, just to see that she was still holding the thing. But while the baby was in her left hand, the baby’s head was in her right. I suppose she had a reason to sound distressed.

I can’t remember how, but we got to discussing shins earlier, so I took the opportunity to teach Liam the ‘real’ names for some of his parts. I didn’t get into metatarsals or scapulae, but I did shin, calf, thigh, and the like. One thing I told him was that the real name for a belly button was a navel.

Later, I quizzed him. He didn’t remember very much, not that I expected him to. When I asked him about his belly button, though, he said he didn’t remember. But then he thought about it some more and said, “Umm… umm… Old Navy!”

Liam’s been interested in art lately (what three-year-old isnt?) so I decided to try something tonight, and we played our own version of WLD. I started by drawing something, then Meghan told Liam to draw something for me, then I told him something to draw for her, etc. I was guessing, and I guessed “pie.” Liam said that was right, but Meghan said it was supposed to be a banana. Liam said he couldn’t draw a banana so he drew a pie instead.

I asked him to draw a winkie. First he just drew a line, so Meghan said, “That’s not what a winkie looks like; what’s a winkie look like?” So he dropped his pants.

Later, Meghan told Liam to draw a book. He apparently misunderstood, because he drew some gobbledy-gook and proclaimed, “It’s a boo-gah!” When he actually drew the book, it was basically just a bunch of vertical lines, so I asked him what they were. He said they were the pages and that this one, pointing to the leftmost line, was the “stem.”

Liam got a sea turtle stuffed animal from the Dollar Tree. He wondered, “Why his belly is bright green and his shell is old green?”

Liam ran into the living room and told his mom, “Mom, Sister got on the schedulator!”

She got on the bathroom scale.

Liam has these wooden vegetables that can separate into pieces and stick back together with Velcro. Granted, it’s probably not 3M’s Velcro, but rather a generic hook-and-loop closure tab, but you get the idea. He hasn’t played with them in a while, and he wanted us to find them for him. He didn’t know what to call them.

“I want my play food.”
“It’s in your kitchen.”
“No, the play food with sticks.”
Now, had he said the play food that sticks, we may have gotten it. But we didn’t, so he went into his room and got his Velcro-strap shoes and said, “like this!”

I played Burnout 3 when it came out, and little Liam called it “car-broke.”

We were driving home tonight and Liam said, “Did you hear the crickets? They said: [makes kissing sounds]“

Liam got a fish for his birthday. A betta. I was always a little worried about it because it wasn’t very active at all. Just about every day we had to tap the tank to make sure it was still breathing. Well, it died on Saturday. But I was so used to it being perfectly still in weird positions, I didn’t think anything of it. In fact, I actually showed it to my cousin and we laughed about the ridiculous position it was in. I didn’t realize it was dead until Sunday night when it was in the same position. I told Liam about it on Monday and we buried it outside. When I told him, he got a real sad look on his face and said, “But who’s gonna watch me when I’m sleep?” It was so sad. So I told him we’d go get another fish that night.

So we went to Wal-Mart, but we saw a 1-gallon aquarium kit was only $10. So we thought maybe we’d get that (as opposed to the fishbowl) and a couple of small fish instead of just one. The employee informed us that a tank has to be set up for at least 24 hours before you can introduce fish to it, though. So we got the aquarium and would go back the next day for fish.

Instead of going back to Wal-Mart, though, we went to Houma to Petsmart for a bigger selection. Some scraggly-haired, baggy-pantsed kid showed up to help us and I groaned. But let me tell you, that kid knew his stuff. He helped us pick out a couple of small fish that would live together nicely, a Mickey Mouse Platy and an X-Ray Tetra. We got a couple of Ghost Shrimp to help keep the tank clean. I’ll post a photo of the aquarium as soon as I take one.

We’ve tried our best to teach Liam manners. For example, saying “bless you” when someone sneezes.

Last night, Molly sneezed in his face. He said, “Eww, Sister blessed me!”

Twice recently, once last night about Target, and once last week about Rouses, Liam said he didn’t want to go to the store because of the smell.

“The smell of it smells bad,” he said.

Don’t ask me.

We thought Liam was stuttering when he would say ‘yester-yesterday,’ but then we realized he meant two days ago.

What’s more, if he’s talking about something that happened a long time ago, it was yester- yester- yester- yester- yester- yesterday. Or sometimes more yesters.

So today is Mother’s day, the day when you’re supposed to be extra nice to your mother and not embarrass her…

At the dinner table this afternoon, Liam and Meghan’s Aunt Amy were arguing about fault. Fault for what? No one knows. She told Liam it was his fault, and he denied it. After going back and forth for a minute, Amy decided to attach something to this blame with “It is your fault that your mom’s a mommy!” When Liam denied it again, she asked, “Then whose fault is it?”

He pointed straight at me. I can assure you, it was five kinds of funny.

So we’re at Meghan’s grandma’s house this weekend… Her grandparents have a black and white rat terrier named Lulu. Liam was playing with the dog with a little soccer ball, when he suddenly stopped and announced: “Hey, this matches Lulu!”

Random

Liam came in our bed this morning, and I really don't remember how it started, but he started calling me random things like You are… a lamp!

So I started calling him random things back, and we went on and on… some of the things this kid comes up with!

You are…
a ladder
a ‘some clothes’
a WOMAN!
(after I said a sock) a stinky sock!
(after I said a speedometer) a 'dometer (which sounds like odometer)
a suckup (?)
a Popsicle
a letters
umm… a racket
(after I said a rock) a rock—a BIG rock!
a ‘plug down hole for water’ (?)
(after I said a hot dog) a bun
some pants on your head!
this! (pointing to the alarm clock)
(Meghan had previously called him ‘cream soda&rsquo') a so-cream
a thingie
a tea
(after I said a fingernail) a fing

Liam had to pee...

...but he didn't tell anybody.

Liam in a motorcycle helmet

Chickun

Liam's been doing this weird thing lately where he says -in words as if they end in -un. My favorite is "chickun."

Old man pants

I was walking around hunched over, with my sleep pants hiked up to my chest, and Liam was laughing at me. Then I pulled them down to a normal height and Liam said, "Mom, haha! When Dad covers his belly button, he looks like an old man!"

Proclamation

We're in Rouses and Liam just proclaimed, "I farted at the cereal! Ha ha ha!"

Potato Head

Liam's silly Potato Head creation. Photo by Liam.

All that junk

We were watching a movie on VHS, a rare occurrence in our house, and Liam needed to pause the movie to go pee. When we did, he stopped and said, "Why they got all that junk on the screen? Why that's how they pause?" Because, obviously, with DVDs and TiVo, the paused show looks just like the live show, only not moving.

On a related note, remember the sound at the beginning of VHS movies that sounded like a phone dialing? What was that?

Dora Live

After the show
Originally uploaded by Jοe.

So we took the kids to the Dora's Pirate Adventure live show last night, not sure how they would do. We brought Liam to the Blue's Birthday Party show this time last year, and he spent most of the time in a daze. Well, they both had fun this year. They were a bit apprehensive at first, but they loosened up and were both singing and dancing. Well, Molly wasn't really singing, but you get the idea. See more photos on Flickr.

Liam's 3rd birthday

So Liam's three today. His big present was the Peg Perego John Deere Gator. I'll post a photo, but my net connection is like dial up at the moment.

Meet 'Turkey'

Liam and 'Turkey'
Originally uploaded by Jοe.

Cindy bought Liam a Betta for an early birthday present. He named it 'Turkey.'

Liam's new belt

Meet 'Sammy'

Liam and Sammy
Originally uploaded by Jοe.

We let Liam make a Wacky Bear as an early birthday gift. He chose a frog, dressed it in PJs and named it 'Sammy.' He loves it.

Dirty face

Liam was pottying this morning and he told me he needed to wipe his face. Because it had dirt on it from all that sleepin'.

Dumb

We were in the car last night, and Liam told us that "they said a bad word" on one of his shows. It was dumb. So we tried to explain that dumb itself wasn't really a bad word, it was just not nice to call people dumb. But we said that, for instance, if he was frustrated with a toy, he could call it dumb. So he started listing all the things that were dumb: trees, potties, toys, ... So Meghan told him that if he kept calling everything dumb, then it would be a bad word. So he decided to sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat": Dum dum dum da dum, dum da dum da dum...

Glasses

Meghan got new glasses today, her first pair since junior high. She put them on for Liam to see, asking him what she looked like. His reply was, "You look like a person who wears glasses!"

Helicopter

Meghan saw a helicopter and pointed it out to Liam, but by the time he turned around, it wasn't visible anymore. We knew he hadn't seen it, but he swore he did. So I asked him what color it was, and he said, "It was yellow like Paw Paw made it!"

(Paw Paw paints yellow Deere equipment and comes home covered in yellow paint.)

Cow feet

This is a stuffed animal Molly got for her birthday. Liam and Meg were playing with it, with Meg talking for the dog. Liam said, "Where'd you get those feet, Doggie? Those are cow feet!"

Stethoscope

Liam came up to me with a string of beads around his ears like this, and he said he wanted to listen to my "beat-heart."

Toddler area

Molly playing in the toddler area at Chick-fil-a.

Molly in Chick-fil-A

Ice

I was laying on the sofa with my arm above my head, and Liam came up to me and, pointing to my armpit, said, "Dad, what's that?"
"What?" I asked.
"That ice. What is that?"
"Silly, that's not ice. It's deodorant."

Belly button

This morning, Liam and I were taking turns tickling sister's belly button. Then Liam said, "Dad, remember when Sister was this little bitty tiny big," holding his fingers very close together, "and she had that thing sticking out of her belly button? What was that?"

The memory on this kid. Whoa.

Glasses

Liam trying on glasses. (No, he doesn't need them.)

The spit game

Liam and Molly were spitting at each other, so I told Liam to stop. He said, "But Dad, we're playing the spit game. You have to practice to do the hard spits."

Hot

Today, for lunch, I was trying to give Molly a bite of food, but it was hot, so I had to blow it first. When I brought it to her mouth, instead of opening it, she leaned in close and blew it!

Happy birthday!

Today's Molly's first (technically second) birthday! Happy Birthday, Molly!

Camera phone

This is me trying to get my phone back from my son. I looked up, and he had my phone open and pointed at me. I was holding out my hand when I heard the click.

Layin' around

Liam was eating supper, and he saw Cindy's jacket laying on the floor by the table. Out of nowhere, he said, "I told Cici not to leave her stuff laying around!"

Parrot potty

We were at the mall today, and Liam had to potty. I brought him, he used the urinal like always, but it was an auto-flush. But it wasn't the regular type of auto-flush, it was like a manual flush that had been upgraded, so where there used to be a flush handle, there was a black box with a sensor. So inside the black box was basically a servo motor that performed the same action as physically pulling the handle. Since it was a motor, it made a "Wzzzz" sound when it flushed.

Obviously, Liam was too short for the sensor to detect his presence, so he had to press the button to flush. When he did, and it made the noise, he said, "What was that noise?" I told him that it was a motor that flushed the potty. "Why it sounds like a parrot?"

Now with milk!

Liam ate his first bowl of cereal with milk this morning. He did surprisingly well, too. I mean, yeah, he spilled some, but it was very little. In case you're interested, it was Cap'n Crunch.

First steps!

Molly took her first steps today!

It's funny, because she finally stood on her own for the first time this morning, and I knew I needed to post about that, but before I had the chance, she took a few steps! Ashley had come over to see Molly's new trick (standing), and she stood her up and let go, and she just started walking!

Fishy

Molly's watching Baby Neptune, which is a Baby Einstien movie about sea animals. Anytime there's fish on the screen and we say "fishy?", she pops with her mouth like a fish. It's so cute!

Ketchup

We just left Dragon Garden. Liam, being a kid, needs ketchup, even at the Chinese place. After we got our food, Meghan told me to watch for our waitress so I could stop her and ask for some ketchup. But then we noticed that the empty table next to it had a bottle on it, so Meghan told my to "just go steal theirs." A few minutes later, the waitress came by and asked if we needed anything. Of course, we all said no, but Liam stood up and said, quite loundly, "No, we just stealed some ketchup!" So then we had to explain to her what that meant.

Suck in the belly

We're at Nana's house, and Cindy's laying on the floor with Liam near her. Nana was teasing Cindy about having a fat belly (which she doesn't) and told Liam to "tell Cici to suck her belly in!" So Liam leaned over, put his mouth on her belly, and tried to suck it in as if through a straw! Hah!

It's a game!

This is the control panel of Liam's LEGO fire helicopter. When he saw it, he said, "Look! It's a game!" Notice the joystick controller.

Blanket

Earlier today, Liam got mad at me... I don't even remember what it was about. Anyway, he said, "I'm going to my room," and that's what he did. But he came right back out, dragging the big blanket from his bed behind him. Meghan asked him what he was doing, he told her, "I'm gonna throw this at daddy!"

Pigzute

When Liam was little, he couldn't say "music," so it always came out as "migzute." Just to be silly, I would call his PJs his "pigzute." His pronunciation it correct now, of course. Tonight, I used "pigzute" again, but when he repeated it, it came out "pusic." Ha! It works both ways!

Stripes

Liam: (referring to the grain of a wooden block) Look! This one has stripes!

Hair

It's kinda hard to tell go this picture, but Molly's hair is very sticky-uppy today.

Wish

We do the thing with Liam where you make a wish on a fallen eyelash. He just said Mommy, I blowed my wish!

Last bottle

Molly's last formula bottle. Tomorrow starts whole milk.

Snow

Liam: (about a frosted gingerbread cookie) No, I want the kind with snow on it!

Cold

Liam: Can you turn down the air a little?