Good Lines From Today

I love the things my kids say.  Here's a representative sample--just from today:

Ava (while pointing at herself and smiling big, because she knows what she's doing): "Dad!"  (I've been trying to teach her her own name, by pointing to her and saying "Ava".  She knows her name, but she points at herself and says "Dad" to be funny and laugh.)

Max: "Kate?  When are you going to get bath-tized?"  (In fairness to Max, it does look like a big bathtub.)

Kaitlyn, trying to argue her case that we should go on a family-ish walk: "Mom, how about the rest of us all go for a walk and you can stay home and watch The Firm?"  (She clearly overheard Megan earlier in the day who said that we had DVR'ed it but not watched it yet.)

Alison: "Dad, when you knocked Kate over you made child dominoes!"  (I accidentally bumped Kaitlyn into Max and they both fell over.)

Classic Dad, Classic

Since I already demolished my 2012 blogging goal of posting once for the entire year, I thought I'd go ahead and be an overachiever.  Besides, according to my informal spy networks, the faithful blog reader(s) of the Comings and Goings of Nathan and Megan are growing anxious for some new entertainment news.

The other day for lunch (or was it dinner) we were in rush so we decided to have Kraft® Macaroni and Cheese.  Megan, of course, did all of the real work, but after I reminded the kids to thank their mom for the meal, I decided to get in on some of the credit.  I said, "Yea...Mom did the simple stuff with just adding the final ingredients, but I did most of it.  First, I had to find the pot to cook it in.  And, it wasn't in the first place I looked.  Then, I looked in the dishwasher and it wasn't there either.  Then, I looked somewhere else and finally found it.  After that, I had to  go all the way to the sink to fill it with water, and then determine which of the burners to cook it on by carefully matching the right burner with little picture next to the knob on the stove.  Then..."

Before I could finish, Kaitlyn just looked at me and shook her head while saying, "Classic Dad.  Classic."

Speaking of food, we stopped by a Wendy's on the way home from a quick Saturday morning trip to the Columbia South Carolina Temple.  As we pulled into the gas station next door, Alison started crying; I mean sobbing.  We asked her what was the matter.  She responded, "My hamburger meat keeps slipping out of the bun and getting ketchup all over so I literally can't eat my hamburger!"  It was fairly tragic.  After our first suggestions at a remedy were scoffed at, we were finally able to re-wrap the burger in the paper wrapper to keep the slippery meat from escaping her bite.  Fortunately, we are all able to laugh about it now that someone else cried over something equally ridiculous at the dinner table a few days later.

Since Max has so much feminine influence in his life with 3 sisters and a mom, I've been trying to make sure he's getting more man time in his life.  We recently signed him up for flag football at the local YMCA.  I showed him the "man shake" to use in a lieu of a hug wherein we 'high five' but then pull each other in close to bump opposite shoulders and then smack each other on the back as hard as we can stand.  I also started trying to call him "best friend"--as in, "Let's go outside and play soccer, best friend" or "Hey, best friend, do you want to watch Jake and Neverland Pirates?"  Unfortunately, it didn't even last a day (or the better part of 30 minutes).  After trying to invite my "best friend" to go upstairs and play cars he looked at me sternly and, "Dad, we're not best friends.  We already talked about this."  Man, it's no good when even my 4-year old son is embarrassed of me...around the house. 

I think Ava is sensing that she's not going to be the baby in the family forever and is becoming increasingly lazy.  She can go up and down stairs just fine.  But, if you are upstairs and don't pick her up and carry her downstairs with you, she now lays down on the floor and cries while pointing down the stairs, all while giving you a look that implies something like "What you can't even carry your own poor, helpless daughter down the stairs?"  She also now refuses to hold her own sippy cup up at the angle necessary to cause the liquid to reach the sipping mechanism.  Oh, she can do that too; she's been doing that for 6 months.  But, she just wants to show who's boss--and clearly she is.

Megan also said something funny the other day.  I think it had something to do with the Jim Carrey movie, Leap Dave William, since we just celebrated Leap Day by wearing our traditional blue and yellow garb.

Happy New Year!

Ok. So, it's New Year's Day. Time for some resolutions. I thought that the faithful Coming and Goings blog reader(s) would want to know what was on my list. Here you go:

1. Contract the cold that has been going around various people in both Indiana and North Carolina. (A little bit of each one for good measure.)
2. Post on the blog.
3. Once.
4. For the entire year.

Wow. I'm done and we're not even 24 hours into the new year yet. How's that for efficiency?

In case there were too many words on this page for your liking, here are some photos from December of the kids doing various and sundry random things. (Sheesh! It was only 84 words...)

Happy New Year!