The boy’s inventing New Words:
We started a new unit in science recently: geology. Eric is absolutely enthralled: there is an entire science devoted to rocks. He has abandoned his former goal of becoming a cowboy, and now is leaning toward a career in geology. Monday, after school was over, he raced past me with my garden trowel, weeding fork, and a bucket in hand, and shouted, “Mom, I’m going outside to do some geologisting!”
“Look! I have Geologists!”
Now that there’s a purpose to all of his muddy adventures, he needs a staff/audience. So, out come the army men. He lines them up around his newly created Lake Eric in the backyard and beams, “Look! I have geologists!”
Later that evening, while cleaning up, I checked outside to make sure he put my gardening tools away. Everything he took outside was laying around absolutely untouched, as though he’d been raptured, except his action figures/geologsts had vanished.
“Eric, ” I asked, “What happened to your action figures?”
“Oh. They fell in the big puddle and died. Now, they’re Zombie Geologists.”
Those are some unruly little pinky toes…
A complaint: ”My pinky toe is bothering me. It’s too far away from the rest of my foot.”
I was quoting Lonesome Dove at the breakfast table the other day:
“I’d like to shoot at an educated man once in my life.”
“Dad’s educated,” Eric said.
Halo-The Musical. Coming soon to a breakfast table near you.
Eric has been suffering through his sister’s new obsession with Les Mis, the soundtrack from which she sings or plays on nearly a daily basis.
“Mom, do you know what would be The Worst Thing Ever?” Eric asked as he arrived at the school table with his ever-present Pooh Bear blanket and his Halo guys.
“What?”
“If they made Halo into a musical.” He grabs Master Chief and starts warbling, “Figaro! Fee-garr-oww!”
Dad took Eric to the bank and returned with the following report:
The teller gushed over Eric, “Oh! He’s so cute!”
When they returned to the car, Dad looked at him, “Eric, she said you were cute.”
“Yeah. All older women say I’m cute.”
“What about girls your own age? What do they say?”
“They just say ‘Hi’.”
Gazing out at the weather, Dad reports, ”It sure turned grey on us.”
“Yeah,” I said.
Eric pipes in: “You know what turned grey on us? Your hair.”
Please note that Batman has joined us.
After lunch, the little man thrusts The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh at me. “Mom, it’s time for the In-Whiching.”
Coming back in the house after a bit of geologisting, his alarmed sister yells:
“Eric! You’re filthy!”
“Mom just said I couldn’t get dirty. It’s just my clothes that are dirty.”
