Sticky #5

The kids are cracking me up so hard today, I had to do a sticky.

Bella
* I am a person who believes children of different ages/stages should bathe seperately. However, the day we returned from our camping vacation, everything was behind schedule and we knew both kids needed to be in bed at bedtime to ensure good next days. So I told Javi to get undressed and climb in the tub with Bella.

Big mistake. She was obsessed with his ... parts. I got them both scrubbed down quickly and broke out the shower head to rinse them and get them out of the tub. Except I forgot to unplug the tub, so I asked Javi to do it. I saw it happening in slow motion but couldn't get in there to stop it. Bella stuck her finger straight up into his butt! He jumped about 7 feet and she kept the most inquisitive facial expression until we were dying laughing and she realized something funny just happened.

She's been obsessed with her own parts for a while now. Needless to say, we'll be keeping naked bodies away from her. Poor Javi!

* This weekend, Bella turned into a "mama." She hasn't been very interested in babying her dolls, but something clicked and now she wants to cuddle them, rest them against her shoulder so she can pat their backs, feed them from her cup, and rock them to sleep. Usually to do that, she puts a blanket over their faces and yells at me to be quiet. (I promise I have not modelled that behavior.) She also likes to be babyied (babied?) - she wants me to hold her and say, "Look at my big baby!" and she'll say, "I a good baby" and I have to say, "You're my best baby." It has to happen that way. Later I'll hear her patting her own baby and assure it, "You is a best good baby!"

* For the past year, Bella has been a big fan of Dora, Backyardigans, and Thomas. However, this weekend, there was a camper full of children watching SpongeBob on repeat. We went to an arcade and a sweet teen boy gave her all his tickets. We used them to buy the only age-appropriate toy available -- a stuffed SpongeBob. So now SpongeBob is her baby and she tries to watch the show. It doesn't hold her attention, but she likes it being on. She tells me, "I wub GahGop Guhfast. I wub it so much. It a good best baby." Couldn't you just eat her up?

Javi
- Access to that aforementioned camper was due to our spending Labor Day weekend camping at Myrtle Beach. Javi loves being on the coast, but this year he found a new obsession: shark teeth. He spent all of his time on the beach searching for shark teeth. I began agreeing with him that the shell shards he was scooping up were, indeed, broken out shark molars. I mean, of course shark teeth are a dime a dozen. To comemmorate his new love, we bought him a shark necklace from one of the cheapo beach stores. It cost us $0.68 and I almost bought a baby turtle to go along with it. I heart baby turtles. Too bad I'm on the list.

* The place where we camped has a golf-cart culture. Not only does every campsite have a golf cart parked outside it, the campers cruise at night time giving each other high fives and passing out neon glow necklaces and beads. Javi and Bella were mesmerized by this culture. On night 2,I sent Javi and Billy out for a joy ride. When they got back, Javi tripped overhimself to tell me that he "drove" the cart.

Billy said he allowed Javi to steer. He said Javi was all over the road, but that his chest was puffed out so far, Billy wasn't sure Javi's chest wouldn't crack in two. Also, Javi's chin was cocked almost straight up. Such a proud little man! Billy swore him to secrecy, but you know you can't expect an 8 year old to keep that kind of achievement to himself.

* We're back in the swing of things: school, work, volunteering, etc. Tonight I was helping Javi with his math homework (which Billy normally does because my math skills are so bad). He is learning to add coins, so all 10 problems were centered around him figuring out how much change a person should get for a purchase and then translating that amount into coins. Boring, right? I would agree, except that I saw Javi's answers.

To the bitter end my child tried to force every amount to fit into dimes. For $0.36, he put 3 dimes, one nickel, one penny; $0.91 was nine dimes and one penny; $1.90 was 19 dimes. What a silly kid! I made him come up with a different coin combination for each answer. So instead of 19 dimes, he said 18 dimes and 2 nickels. Let's hope he eventually learns that God gave us many more coins to further Capitalism than just dimes!