I’ve never had too difficult of a time administering medicine to my two oldest children.  For whatever reason, perhaps taste? they love the stuff.  Tylenol?  Bring it on.  Amoxycillin?  Gimme the thick pink stuff.  Only recently has Engineer started denying the tonic for fear that it would force admittance of illness.  But for the most part, Sugar and Engineer are easy peasy medicine takers.

Spider is a different story.

The medicine could taste like chocolate cake and she would probably refuse it.

This is of course annoying when she falls ill, but highly beneficial when others are sick.

For example, I have been sick with a hacking coughy plague for a couple of weeks now.  Used tissues and cough drops are abundant around here.  When Spider sees a lozenge, she immediately asks what it is.  When I tell her it is my medicine she leaves it be.  She talks about it often, but never tries to taste it.  Now were it Sugar who was three years old right now, half tasted cough drops would be all over my house right now in addition to my snot filled kleenex that hasn’t quite made it to the bin yet.

She sure is an easy kid.

That said, I sure wish no one around here needed any medicine right now.  Though Spider is extra cuddly when she doesn’t feel good.

..at least I am hoping so.  The following videos are not for the faint of heart.  I shouldn’t even watch them…

Sugar always has the best prayers…

Dear Heavenly Father,

I am thankful for this day and for my family.  I love my whole family.  Even the ones that live in different houses- aunts, uncles, grandmas and grandpas.  I love even the old ones that are about to die.  I love them until they are done.

Lord of Commandments, Love One Another, In the name of Jesus Christ,

Amen

First grade is a whole new ball of wax.

I can’t get Engineer to tell me anything about his day until he is lying in bed trying to sleep.  And then if I want to get the dirt, I lay next to him and he won’t stop talking.  Ask him during the day and you get nothing but a blank look.  Ask him when he’s supposed to be asleep– jackpot.

I found out recently he’s been spending recess with Julia, a girl from his kindergarten class.  They hold hands apparently– which is fine since he holds hands with his 5 year old sister all the time.  And they talk.

Last night I asked about recess and this is what I got: "I just played with Julia.  We walked around and we talked.  We talked about the time when we saw the wood where they make love."

A wha?  Excuse me?  A hem?

I asked him what he was talking about.  He’s 6!  I said, "What do you mean they make love?"

"There’s a big piece of wood with words on it."

"And they have people’s names on it?"

"NO.  There’s just a bunch of writing.  And a HEART!"

Ah.  Heart=Love.  Make Love=Make Heart.  Oh the innocence.

I am not sure my children really get the concept of prayer.  I know they know the words to say, the format, and the behavior expected during prayer, but it’s fairly clear that they don’t really understand yet what it’s all about.  Their prayers however continue to amuse me, and they are all over the board:

Engineer (the know it all 6 year old, excuse me 6 and a half year old boy)

"Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this day.  Thank you for our family.  Please bless Sugar to be reverent during prayer.  Please bless that Spider will stop talking right now.  Please bless us to always be right.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

Sugar (the unpredictable, airy fairy 4 year old girl,)

"Heavenly Fath-eerr,  I’m thankful for our family.  I’m thankful we had fun.  Please bless us to be safe.  Bless us to have fun and do something tomorrow.  Lord of Commandments.  Love one another.   In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."  (she will not finish a prayer without the italicized part)

Spider (2 1/2, blesses the food regardless of type of prayer)

"Heavenly father, thankful for this day.  Bless that daddy can go to work.  Bless safe.  Bless the food.  Thankful for the food. Chryst.  Amen."

 So there you have it.  Hopefully when they begin to have real life issues, they will understand that they can turn to Heavenly Father in prayer to give them strength and lift their burdens.  For now though, they can continue to ask to "always be right" and love one another.

(And may the food be perpetually blessed.)

One of my favorite things about Engineer right now is his writing.  I love seeing him write in his journal and I love seeing what he comes up with on his kindergarten homework.  I think this is my favorite set of sentences so far:

I love that he wrote: "I am over you."  He was supposed to use the word over in a sentence.  It cracks me up.  I am over you as in, I was totally in love with you and your paste eating ways little Cynthia, but then you broke my heart… those days are gone, I am so totally over you.

(I’m sure that’s not what he was thinking, but still….)

Engineer is into his calendars these days.  While looking at April today, he suddenly exclaimed, "Oh NO!  Easter is on a SUNDAY!"

I told him that it always was.

"But I don’t want to go to church on EASTER!  Why can’t it be on…. Wednesday?"

So we had a chat about why we celebrate Easter.  That it was about Jesus.  That we celebrate his resurrection.  Jesus=Church.  Easter Sunday. 

"I don’t want Jesus to die on Easter."

Well….

"Oh I know.  I have an idea."

He became satisfied only when he wrote on the calendar that there would be an Easter egg hunt the Saturday before Easter Sunday.  He asked about Good Friday.  Mormons don’t really celebrate it, so I didn’t know what to tell him.

This kid is so literal that it both irritates me and cracks me up.

In the foyer at church today, Engineer spotted a woman with white hair.  He mentioned it loudly enough for her to hear.  She commented that she had had white hair for a very long time, ever since she was 13.

To which Engineer replied, "My mom’s hair used to be brown.  It’s blonde now.  She’s been dying it since she was 28 and she’s still 28."

Thank you son.

This isn’t the first time such information has been divulged.  I have a feeling that perfect strangers are going to know EVERYTHING about me for the next ten years anytime the boy is with me.  I guess if I want to maintain a sense of mystery, I will need to either leave him at home, or invest in some strong duct tape.

You know that really gooby, nauseating in love/engaged couple?  You know the couple who are always making eyes at each other, giggling and tickling and just making you want to vomit in their presence?  You’re familiar right?  Perhaps you’ve been that couple yourself, or gasp, you are that couple right now.

Well, that couple lives at my very house.  And it is nauseating, and annoying and weird.

They’re 4 and 6 and they are brother and sister.

Yes, Sugar and Engineer are in love, my friends.  They are constantly tickling and giggling at the table and they want to be with each other ALL THE TIME, regardless of whether or not the interactions are pleasant ones.  They constantly hug and smack each other’s bums.  Charming is in denial about it– thinks it’s ridiculous, but he was not in on the following conversation:

We had been discussing the story of the widow’s mite, and Engineer had many questions as to what a widow was.  He just had to wrap his little six year old brain around the concept.  I told him a widow was someone with no husband because her husband had died.

Eng: So does Aunty Jessica have a husband?

Me: No…

Eng: So is she a widow?

Me: No.  Grandma Chris is a widow because her husband died.

Eng: Oh.  So when I grow up and get married, and Sugar grows up and gets married… and I die…

Me: Mmm hmmm

Eng: Then SUGAR will be a widow!

Me: No, your wife will be a widow. 

Eng: Why?

Me: Because you’ll be married to your wife.  You can’t marry your sister.

Eng: (dismissive) No, no, no, no.  Wait, why?

And there you have it.  They are in love and intend to marry.  But seeing as he hasn’t yet passed through the valley of hating girls and being sicked out by them, I’m not too worried.  I think he’ll figure it out in the next 15 years or so.

In the meantime, I’ll just have to learn to deal with the goo-goo eyes.

According to Sugar, you need to grow up.

We’re at the Target the other day, walking past the baby aisle and my four year old says to me, ‘Mom, I’d like to have another little baby at our house." 

To which I replied, "Well, what do you think has to happen to get a little baby at our house?" 

"You need to grow up."

Looking at it now, she was probably talking about herself, but it sounded a lot like, "Mom, you need to grow up.  Get real.  Just do it.  Get a hold of yourself and procreate."

And that’s all. 

UPDATE:  Engineer today told me he was going to wish really hard that Heavenly Father sends another kid to our family.