1.30.2020

an explosion of things

Oh boy. My collection of conversation bits has gotten out of hand. I blame Sebastian for being a third tiny human to take care of, leaving less time to blog the bits more frequently. I also blame Finley for learning how to talk and say hilarious things and doubling the number of things I want to jot down and remember forever. I also blame Lucas, just because it feels unfair to leave him out.

Okay, with all that blame appropriately assigned and out of the way, it's time to get to the good stuff. This is 9 months of stuff, so perhaps the considerate/smart thing to do would be split it up into two posts. But that would mean remembering to come back and make a second post... And we all know that won't be happening [see above blame] so...

Life in the Vermette Household Through the Lens of [an absurd amount of] Four Second Sound Bites, go!

*************

Lucas, huffing and puffing: "I'm trying to catch up with my breath."

Lucas: "Finley, when you grow up and have kids, don't tell them that's what an octopus sounds like."

Jason: "There's still some jerky in his bellybutton if you want some."

Jason: "I'm pretty sure contracts pre-marriage are still enforceable."

Lucas: "Do you think European babies cry differently?"

Finley, examining his kangaroo animal cracker: "Hop hop."
Finley, biting off the kangaroo head: "No more hop."

Jason, shaking his head and muttering: "Ugh, it's just chaos..."

Jason: "Stop touching that."
Lucas: "Even with things that aren't my hands?"

Lucas: "Some fun things lead to un-fun things, like washing hands."

Me: "Was there pandemonium?"
Lucas: "...what's monium?"

Lucas: "I feel like I have glitter on my tongue."

Lucas: "I can't hula hoop my whole life. I have other things to do, like eat and sleep and other things like that. If I don't sleep, I don't grow!"

Jason: "Who will go first?"
Lucas: "Me!"
Jason: "You went first last game AND you went last on the last game."
Lucas: "Okay... Then I'll go third."
Jason: "...it's a 2-player game."

Jason: "I don't think anyone named Edith has ever stolen a pie."

Me: "Oh the humanity!"
Lucas: "Oh the huge manatee!"

Jason: "What if squats were called scoots but everything else in the universe was the same?"

Lucas: "Well, I woke up at 6:16 and went pee. Then I went back to sleep until 6:24. Then me and Big Bear explored pandas. And then we got up at 6:34."

Lucas: "I KNOW what dramatic means, but I'M NOT DRAMATIC."

Lucas: "I'm fast as lightning! And tired as a monkey."

Me: "Finley, you're just going to town on your breakfast."
Finley: "Me town breakfast. Mommy town breakfast. Daddy town breakfast."
Lucas: "I only go to town on the road."
Finley: "Geegee town road."

Me: "Or I could have a chalkboard."
Jason: "No. You cannot have a chalkboard. I forbid it. If you buy one, I'm throwing it out at the curb."

Jason: "Okay, boys, Daddy needs to go pee so don't get in a fight while I'm gone."

Finley: "Geegee, me turtle gone. Me turtle go? Geegee, me turtle go?"
Lucas: "You'll have to find him yourself."
Finley: "No, Daddy find me turtle."
Lucas: "Well then you'll have to ask him and see if he wants to."
Finley: "Daaaaadddddy. Me turtle go? Me turtle gone. Daaaaadddddy."

Lucas, asking for a round tortilla chip: "May I please have one of those edible heads?"

Lucas: "Finley, you know how Big Bear is my favorite toy, but I will let you hold him if you let me hold the panda bear that you have."

Lucas: "I wish my whole life could be playing, eating, and running! And growing... I guess."

Finley: "Yucky booger me got."

Jason: "It wouldn't be very satisfying to stuff a bunch of Cheerios down my throat."

Finley: "Daddy, fall into the ball pit, please."

Jason: "You're my Walmart girl."

Jason: "Is that man running with a fanny pack??"

Lucas: "...that's because you drink COW milk, Daddy, not MOMMY milk."

Me, to Lucas in the bathroom: "Are you done yet?"
Lucas: "Um... yes. But how did you not already know?"
Me: "How would I know if you were done?"
Lucas: "Because you're, like, the pee tracker."

Lucas: "What's the most magical thing about birthdays?"
Me: "What?"
Lucas: "The pin-tada! Because a pinata is an animal that you burst open to get candy in holidays and birthdays and "tada!" is something you say when something happens."

Lucas: "Almost everything except poop starts off small and gets bigger. A baby koala is smaller than a five cent coin."

Lucas: "I like how Finley says 'Why take apart it?'"

Jason: "Lucas has a nature jar - you can have a hair jar. I'm just going to say, though, that's pretty weird."

Lucas: "Well, in skip year..."
Me: "...is skip year something like leap year?"
Lucas: "Oh. Leap year. That's what I meant."

Jason, after putting the boys to bed: "I feel like I might have told them Merry Christmas instead of goodnight..."
Me: "Yep, you definitely did."

Me: "How do you like the cornbread?"
Lucas: "You know how I like burritos just below pandas? This cornbread is the same amount of space below burritos that burritos are from pandas."
Me: "Wow. And how much space IS between pandas and burritos?"
Lucas: "Not much."

Jason: "Half of being a parent is forgetting you need to pee for two hours."

Lucas, singing one his original songs: "🎶God is preparing a place for me. He is the only God that is real. Some people may worship other gods, but I only praise Him.🎶"

Finley, climbing onto his giraffe: "Me go to work now."
Me: "Hope you have a good day at work! What kind of work do you do?"
Finley: "Me work like Daddy - me eat lunch at work and me play with tissues at work and sometimes me play in a barn at work."

Lucas: "Sebi is a funny little honey bunny. Especially when he poops somewhere he's not supposed to."

Lucas: "I'm laying eggs everywhere! When they hatch, they'll be cabies - half cub, half baby; half human, half bear."

Lucas: "Do you know what a chipmunk is?"
Finley: "It's kinda like a beaver."
Lucas: "No... not exactly."
Finley: "...kinda like a baby beaver?"
Lucas: "Well. Maybe."

Finley: "I'm peeing in my diaper!"
Lucas: "DADDY, FINLEY IS PEEING IN HIS DIAPER!"
Finley: "It's gone now."
Lucas: "It's gone now? Well, that doesn't mean you don't have pee. Just because you don't feel it, doesn't mean you don't have any pee. Maybe you just don't feel it but you still have pee."
Finley: "Go to sleep, Wucas. My pee is gone."

Jason: "The last time you smelled poop, it was bacon."

Lucas: "Don't look, Mommy."
Finley: "No, Wucas! Don't talk to Mommy."
Lucas: "Why not?"
Finley: "Because you're a kid."
Lucas: "You're a kid too."
Finley: "No! I'm not!"
Lucas: "Okay, then what are you?"
Finley: "I'm A FINN."

Finley, examining everyone's ears with an otoscope: "Hmm... It smells good. No hairs."

Jason: "I didn't think I would fall out of bed. I just didn't know where my pool noodle was."

Lucas: "Look what I made! It's a platypus pretending to eat a fish so it can look like a walrus narwhal."

Lucas: "Daddy is VERY smart and he knows a lot of things, but some things he just doesn't seem to know. For example, sometimes you can't just TRY, you have to DO."

Finley: "That's my eye booger."
Lucas: "You mean, eye wax?"

Jason, having run some errands with Sebi in tow: "We got some compliments while we were at the store."
Lucas: "...did people say Sebi was cute or did they say YOU were cute?"

Lucas, wanting to ask Jason one more question at bedtime: "Daaadddddy!"
Finley, having just been taken to the bathroom by Jason for the third time in as many minutes: "He's not coming back, Wucas. He's tired."

Finley: "On the first day of Christmas, I gave to me..!"

Lucas: "What is that?"
Finley: "It's my Lego flying duck."
Lucas: "But all ducks can fly."
Finley: "Yeah."
Lucas: "So... it's just a duck."

Lucas: "Nevermind means they don't need to talk to you anymore."

Finley: "It's time to go to sleep."
Lucas: "What are you going to do?"
Finley: "I'm not going to do nothing."
Lucas: " So... you're going to do... something?"
Finley: "No, I'm going to stop talking."
Lucas: "...and what else will you do?"
Finley: "Not close my eyes, that's for sure."

Finley: "I'm a Finn."
Jason: "What's a Finn?"
Finley: "It's a kind of a boy."

Me: "Do you think all men are like that?"
Jason: "I just don't think all women are like you."

Finley: "Go back into your hole, Wucas."

Lucas: "What's a gene pool?"
Jason: "Well, a gene is-."
Lucas: "I know what a GENE is."
Jason: "Well, you're five! I don't know what you know!"
Lucas: "A gene is what controls what you look like."
Jason: "That's... right."

Lucas: "When can I have my animals back?"
Finley: "When I'm born."
Lucas: "You've always been born for the whole time you've been alive. Since you are alive right now, then you are already born."
Finley: "I don't think so, Wucas."

Sebastian: "Bwah!"
Finley: "Are you a sheep, Sebi?"

Finley: "When I cough, hiccups come out."

*************

Whew. If you made it through that, you are either related to us or are having a really, really, really slow Thursday night. Or both.

I hope you enjoyed hearing 0.00003% of the nonsense that is spoken around here. Now go and have an intelligent conversation with another adult. It will help you recover.

it's never too early to introduce elephants to your baby brother


1.05.2020

this chapter of life

Last year, conveniently at the beginning of the year, Lucas started announcing what that day's "Chapter of Life" was called. I don't know where he came up with the idea. I didn't know how long he would continue this trend. But I, being the documentarian/documentist/documenter that I am, started jotting them down. You have no idea how pleased I was that he did it for the entire year, more or less. Every day didn't get a title. Sometimes a couple of weeks would go by chapterless-ly. But then, with seemingly no rhyme or reason, he would suddenly declare a new Chapter of Life!

So, here is a glimpse, a recap if you will, of Lucas's 2019.

This chapter of life is called...
01.25: musician Finley
01.27: the very very busy day
01.29: the very windy GUP crashing day
02.11: the bear tangle
02.12: the surprise
02.14: the heart monsters
02.16: the vitamin stacking show
02.17: the negative freeze
02.18: the zoom vipers
02.21: the panda show
02.22: the exploding octopod
02.27: the bear hunt
02.28: the surprise after breakfast
03.04: the tow truck smash
03.05: the big-footed little goo
03.06: the bear mess
03.07: the boys who like to eat parallelograms
03.11: the sharks on tails
03.12: the balloon dance
03.13: trains galore
03.15: the ginormous car mess
03.16: the bears in jails
03.18: the climbing pandas who eat sandwiches
03.22: the walk
03.23: Big Bear's song
03.24: the boys and the bears and the balls
03.27: the three ups trucks
03.28: the ship
03.29: Big Bear and the slide
03.29: the jungle gym daddy
03.31: monster Lucas
04.02: the fox brother
04.03: the unexpected pig at breakfast
04.04: the thousand invisible monsters
04.05: the cars, the bears, and the baby in the chair
04.07: pushing Daddy
04.09: Finley the cat
04.10: the nature walk and the garbage truck
04.12: the very heavy bucket
04.14: planes galore!
04.18: Lucas and the string
04.20: Lucas and Finley clean the floor with cars
04.21: Lucas's first Dr Seuss book
04.24: the really fast dancers
04.25: the beautiful picture
04.27: the unexpected visitors
04.29: the ball snowman
05.01: the car seat fight
05.03: the most exciting times
05.04: the pandas drink too much water
05.05: "There are some monsters-. Wait, where did they go?"
05.12: the second missing Lucas
05.19: the mystery sound part 2/feathers galore part 1
05.20: the mystery sound part 3/feathers galore part 2
05.22: Big Bear and the obstacle course
05.23: the echo part 3 - the one where Furball feels unloved
05.30: Big Bear has grown
05.31: the mystery of the whooshing blurs
06.01: the meowing jar
06.05: Big Bear teaches Lucas how to read cat language messages
06.06: the pearl chase
06.10: the walking hat
06.11: cleaning the floor with cars again
06.15: the... running foods?
06.17: the hula hooping contest
06.20: Lucas and Finley and the fish
06.22: a sleepy tale
06.24: lots of mysteries
07.02: the very weird butterflies
07.04: the ball chase
07.05: the mischievous mouse
07.07: the earthquake
07.08: the tornado part 2
07.09: the running speck of dust - where the mischievous mouse is caught
07.10: Lucas-tastrophe!
07.17: Big Bear's baseball
07.19: the treasure part 1
07.21: the crashing lot
07.24: big poop, small poop, balloon poop..? all poop
07.29: the case of the missing fly fruit
07.30: the meowy sucking machine
08.04: the tangled squid - the one where Big Bear gets poisoned by the poison thing and Peso gets a squid all tangled up in bandages
08.09: the recipe
08.10: the ball mess
08.12: the alert
08.17: my sweet... smoke?
08.19: the two spies
08.22: the case of the missing mudskipper
08.24: the green upstairs
08.29: the runaway giraffe
08.30: the animal chase
09.12: the mess and the mice
09.15: the crumby mess
09.17: the splat-icane
09.18: the flood
09.20: the syrup-y splotch
09.21: the galaxy flooded with fishy biscuits part 1
10.07: the big tangle and the very noisy day
10.10: the house destruction
10.11: the mess soup robber
10.13: the second hurricane
10.15: the second hurricane part 2 and 3 and the house destruction part 2
10.16: the moon disaster
10.21: the truffula problem
10.24: the moon hurricane
10.25: the glump destruction
10.31: the creature's poisons everywhere
11.01: activate octobears?
11.03: the dirt and dye paintings
11.04: the seashore assembly
11.05: too many animals
11.06: the destruction
11.08: silly songs with Lucas and Finley, featuring Big Bear
11.11: the poison factory (the poisonous creatures wrote this)
11.14: operation moon
11.15: operation moon part 2
11.16: Big Bear's contraption part 1 and 2
11.17: Little Dog's mischief machine
12.10: the plan
12.18: the mischief tiger part 1

So there you go. Congratulations if you made it through. You now have a pretty accurate look into the mind of a 4/5-year-old and it is possibly the most unique tribute to 2019 you'll ever come across.

I love, so much, the way this kid's mind works. Some days I never quite know what is going on in there. Other days, I can predict to the moment what he's going to say when. He is such a fascinating mix of creativity/silliness and reason/precision, and I love him quite a bit.

Lucas, may your 2020 be even more ridiculous than your 2019!