All my children are a bit prone to careless mistakes in their school work, but Kendra won the prize yesterday for the most extreme absent-minded error  to date.

I'd just started to grade her math drill when I noticed she'd gotten the first question on the page wrong.  Not the frist math problem, but rather the frist question on the page; the blank marked, "Name______________".   

I would have understood if she'd forgotten to fill it in, but she answered--incorrectly.  In hasty Kendra-scrawl, she'd written, "Kaira."  

She was surprised and bemused at herself when I pointed it out.  The only explanation she could think of was, "Well, it is a timed test, so I was in a hurry."  She must have been hurried indeed to have forgotten her name!

I'll occasionally say the wrong name, but this is the first time one of the children has mistakenly called herself by a sibling name! 

Throughout the day I've been sneaking up on her and giving a pop quiz, "Quick, what's your name?"   She usually even gets it right--at least when she can stop giggling long enough to answer.

Until a few weeks ago Kieran flatly refused to call me anything.  He'd come to me or point, and was full of loves and adoration, but didn't see a purpose in using a name.  Oddly, he rarely says his siblings names, but constantly says the names for friends at church and even the piano teacher's dog.

When I came back from Utah, Ken and Grandma both insisted he'd been talking about mommy while I was away. I was skeptical.  The word he'd been saying was "mama", which all my children used for "grandma" when first learning to talk.  I was always "mommie", never "mama."  I was certain that "mama" was grandma.  Sure enough, after Grandma left, often said "mama" and "bye bye" then make the sign for "drive" (indicating that she'd gone away).  To further cinch it, each time he'd sign grandma as well.  

Just this last week he decided to christen me!  It seems about time, since he says, "Dadeee!" quite constantly.  Now in addition to "Dadee!" he has "Mommu."  Not "Mommy", but "Mommu."  (Or is it spelled "Mommoo?")

 Why?  I've no idea,.  But, it is good to finally have a name, even an odd one that makes me feel a rather bovine. When he falls down, he comes running, calling for his "mommu". 

Keegan called out, "Mommy, do centimeters bite?  I found one under the rug." 

The creature he found, more often referred to as a centipede, participated in our creepy crawly relocation program and was restored to an outdoor habitat.  That's more than can be said for the wolf spider couple I found in the bathroom yesterday.   They um, didn't have the opportunity of participating in the relocation program--at least not unless you believe in an afterlife for arachnids.  One of them was the biggest I've seen.  I wanted to put it in a mason jar to show to the children (who were in bed at the time), but didn't have gloves handy.  Cowardice won out over education.

In reflecting on Keegan's question, I determined that if centimeters bite they'd bite digits and feet... (Ken's rolling his eyes at me, but hey, he couldn't help but smile too, even while eye rolling.)

This evening we were reviewing our previous week of Tapestry and introducing the upcoming week.  It's a fun time, with the three girls giggling on the couch in their nightgowns as we preview and review the vocabulary, people, places and events from the given weeks' study.  

 
Typically the girls look up vocabulary words that they don't glean from context, and are well prepared.  This week, however, it was obvious they didn't bother with the dictionary for words that slipped through the contextual cracks.

Unwilling to admit defeat, my history buffs became history bluffs and provided rather unique attempts:   

• Sanitation: (From Keianna): "Knowing Jesus is Lord".  (She was thinking of salvation, but He does cleanse us too.)
• Casualties: (From Kendra) "Clothes you wear not on Sundays."
• Hygiene: (From Kaira): "Um... isn't that a gas?"  (She was thinking of hydrogen)

Kendra has a way with words and often siezes the wrong one to humorous effect.  Last summer she asked it we could buy helicopters to serve with salsa.  It took a while to figure out that she meant avocados. 

Tonight Kendra kept talking about the "abogados" in our salad.  She doesn't know it, but abogado happens to be the Spanish word for lawyer.  While I know there are a lot of jokes disparaging lawyers, eating them goes a bit far.

(Keegan calls them zucchini.  Kaira calls them avocados but calls zucchini, "suzuki".  My poor confused children.)

Overheard as Keegan and Keianna play with blocks in the study:

Keegan: "Let’s play that I’m a child, and we are playing with blocks and that we live in Wyoming!"

Keianna (enthusiastically): "Oh, yes! And I can be your sister, and you can be my younger brother, and we can play that we live with our mommy and daddy and have sisters and a brother and a dog!"

With a reality like this, who needs pretend?

While visiting with the grandparents (before being treated to the chamber orchestra yesterday!) my girls were teasing about how old their daddy is, and how rough he had it as a boy. 

Kaira recalled Daddy saying he was as old as the dinosaurs. 

Kendra then added that he had to walk to school--uphill both ways, of course. 

Keianna chimed in, "Yes.  Uphill both ways, carrying a CAR DOOR." 
Grandma asked, "Why a car door?" 

Kendra explained, "So he could roll down the window when it got hot!"

Finally someone (I don't recall who) said, "Uphill both ways is impossible!"

Remembering a recent dinner-time art discussion and her perusal of some art books, Kendra chimed in, "Mr. Escher could do it!  Uphill both ways is possible if you are Mr. Escher."

I love the connections young minds make, and was delighted at the notion of M.C. Escher walking to school, and the upside-down, inside-out, inverted route he might have imagined for his journey!

 

Relativity by M.C. Escher

Four-year-olds ask fascinating questions.  Keegan yesterday inquired, "Mommy, how do we coop?" 

My brain grasped at straws.  Was he thinking of housing chickens and building a hen coop?  Or was he pondering finances--surely if we can recoup money we must coup it to begin with. 

Perplexed I said, "I'm not sure, what do you mean?" 

He repeated his question, then asked, "Can we go next door to ask?"

This was getting even stranger, involving the whole neighborhood, "Umm... Why should we ask next door?"

In a decisive tone, Keegan cleared it all up, "Mr. and Mrs. Cooper would know how!"

Ah, yes!  Our neighbors the Coopers might be just the people to ask!  I told Keegan he can ask them when they are over here the next time.

I’ve been a wee bit tired lately, and must be letting on even more than I realized.

Last night before bed Keegan prayed, "Dear Jesus, help Mommy’s tireds to run away and walk away to nobody’s house where not anybody is home and then the tireds can stay there. Thank you Jesus, Amen."

I loved his image of "nobody’s house where not anybody is home."

I’m gonna keep that adorable boy!

Keianna (4) was gazing at her stomach and pondering how many wee ones are in there.   See, she holds to a unique conviction that a lady has all their babies in her "tummy" from childhood, and they just bide their time until she marries and it is time for them to each to grow in turn.  Some ladies don't start out with any, some with lots... a girl never knows. 

I've tried correcting Keianna on this point, but it never "takes". 

This time Kendra (6) stepped in to educate her little sister.  "No, Keianna.  They aren't in your tummy until you have a husband and he puts them in.  Men have a special tool  that puts the babies in the mommies.  They are only supposed to use it on their wife, but sometimes they use it when they shouldn't.  That's bad stewardship.  David (King David) used his tool lots and used it on ladies he shouldn't have, and that's bad.  A lady shouldn't let any man but her husband put babies in her with his tool."

We discuss "things" from time to time, just naturally, as they come up.  It isn't a topic we avoid, but neither have we sought out to have "The Talk" per se.  Kendra's unique (yet oddly accurate) depiction was a surprise to me.

Keianna comes into the kitchen, "Mommy, I'm a purple rubber band."

I reply, "You're a what?"

Keianna, matter of factly (and with exacting enunciation, so I'll understand this time), "I am a purple rubber band."

Intrigued, I ask, "Why are you a purple rubber band?" 

She looks at me with patient bewilderment.  "I just am.  I've been one all week.."

Um... Ok.

As I gave Keianna a goodnight snuggle last night, and said, "Have a sound sleep." 

Shaking her head and looking very serious she replied, "Oh, no, mommy!  I will be nice and quiet."

Kendrakan is a unique form of English, spoken by my resident six year old. 

"Daddy, can we do cashew?"  Ken pondered that silently a moment before asking, "How do you DO cashew, Kendra?"  She said, "You know... cashew.  Where we mix things together to see what happens?"  Still perplexed, Ken asked her to show him, and she led him to the chemistry materials.  Ah!  Chemistry!

When she's not doing cashew, she enjoys hopping on a pilgrim.  Over and over we tell her it is called a pogo stick.  Sometimes she remembers the "stick" part and calls it a pilgrim stick.

Then there are avocados--you know, kinda like airplanes--they fly up in the sky.  There are rescue avocados and military avocados...

And tornados.  Tornados are goooood on a salad.  (Helicopters are good on tossed salads too.  Yummy green helicopters are delicious with red juicy tornados--But we should only eat them in migration.  Tornados are like honey that way, and at dinner last night she explained that honey is healthful, so long as we eat it in migration.  (Moderation?)

Evidently Keegan pays attention to his sisters' geography discussions.  While driving around town the children were inquiring about the plants beside the road or on medians.  I explained that many were just prairie weeds growing wild, but that others--especially within city limits--are planted and tended by hired workers.  We talked a bit more about the purposes of these grassy islands between lanes of traffic.  Keegan perked up at my makeshift term, "islands in the road."  Pointing at the center median he asked, "Is that Road Island?"   Befrore I could answer he was shaking his head and declared, "Road Island is small." 

In other news, I will be working with Keianna on her memory work.  Specifically on John 3:16.  Her unfortunate rendering is, "For God so loved the world  that he gave his only forgotten Son..."  That just won't do.