Overheard

It seems that I'm on a bi-weekly schedule with this column lately.

We've been busy soaking up the very last days of tolerable weather here in North Carolina. Except for one day last week when it rained all day and I had a mini panic attack as I realized that I'd soon be forced indoors with these hoodlums. I've been kicking the kids out of the house as much as possible, though. There've been long days in the yard, bike rides in the neighborhood and on the Tobacco Trail, trips to the park. And yet I'm still sweeping floors about a half dozen times a day and every night, I'm picking up toys and laundry and shoes scatter far and wide. I have no idea how this happens.

I am feeling a little like Lucy in the chocolate factory, though, in that I just can't keep up with their antics. For instance, I awoke one morning to  Danny and Fiona having a conversation about bridges in his bedroom. How nice, I thought, they're playing together; maybe they're building with the TRIO blocks. I peeked in on them and saw Fiona on the top bunk with her arms reaching across to the bookshelf and Danny marching his stuffed animals over her back. The next day, I came in on Fiona climbing up the bunk bed on the desk end, despite there being a perfectly good ladder 3 feet away. They know they're not supposed to play on the top bunk, too. Sometimes I find all three of them up there.

Hey, mom, there's three of us. 1-2-3, Danny says with a huge grin. Clearly, he's trying to distract me with cuteness and his academic skills.


Owen surprises me daily with his language skills. For instance, he tells me when he's hungry by  pointing to my chest and saying Hungry. Charming.

Fiona seems quite enamored with the fact that she's a girl.

I was a baby and now I'm a girl, she tells me about 10 times a day. And sometimes she just randomly blurts out, I'm a girl, and then giggles with glee.

And Danny and Fiona seem to fight all the time.

DANNY PUSHED ME, Fiona cried.
Hey, hey, hey, how about this? Jim said. How would you two like to live in an orphanage?


Mom, why is she wearing dance clothes? Danny asks of a woman wearing a flowy skirt and scarf at the park.

HEY, her hair is red, Danny says as he notices a woman with an obvious dye job.
She probably dyed it that way, I told him.
Or maybe it's a wig, he says. Thank God we were in the van when he saw this woman.

When I get my NASCAR, I'm going to go speedy and go bump, bump, bump over the grass to get there, Danny informs us.
And I'm going to take your keys, Jim replies. We have 12 years until he gets his license. And by then, he'll surely know how to drive. He's already a back seat driver.

Mom, you forgot to use your turn signal, he tells me every time I forget.

When I'm a daddy, you can go away and I'll take care of the kids, Danny tells us at dinner one night. Excellent.

A few minutes later ...

Hey, I can get my own house, he realizes. Even more excellent.

What's a cape, mom? Danny asks as he was putting on his Cape Cod T-shirt.
It's a piece of land that juts way out into the water. There's water on three sides of the land.
No, no, he says, it's something you wear around your neck, like my blanket.

Okay, Danny, what do we need to do to not have a meltdown over this? I ask him. He was about to go ballistic because his best buddy was having a camp out with his parents that night. I'm trying to teach him some skills to deal with his disappointments.
Have a camp out. Okay, other than have a camp out, which is just not going to happen.

Have a great weekend.