Conversations With a 3rd Grader

One of the many reasons I keep this blog is to remember things Max has said and I have been sadly remiss in that endeavor. She has been on a roll tonight. I don’t usually write in script form, but for today, it serves the purpose.

Me: I got some of your Teddy Roosevelt costume today.
Max: Nothin’ is better than that!
Me: You’re an odd little bird sometimes.
Max: Whuddya got against birds?

She never takes the mental path you would expect..

Max: You studied English, right? (I teach middle school English.)
Me: Little bit.
Max: Good, then, can you tell me what these hieroglyphics say?
Me: That’s not English.
Max: Well, what language is it?
Me: It’s a type of writing.
Max: Well, how the heck did they talk, then?!

Photo courtesy of whitehouse.gov

Photo credit dreamstime.com

Max loves animals.  All animals.  A couple of years ago she was very excited to hear that a coworker and her family owned a dairy farm.  She asked a bazillion questions about it that this city slicker mom had few answers for.  One thing I had no answer for was this question: “Does Miss Jessica have opera chickens on her farm?”

Opera chickens?  I have no idea.  With life being busy, we never made it to the farm to find out.

Fast forward two years and we arrive at the day the permission form for the second grade field trip was sent home.  Well, if that don’t beat all, the class is going to that very dairy farm!  What are the odds of that?  Probably about as good as there being opera chickens.

I immediately sent an email to Max’s teacher telling her that I knew that farm and that Max had been begging for two years to go see the opera chickens.  Of course, I had no idea what opera chickens were and Max had not been able to enlighten me as of yet.

A few hours later, I got an email from her teacher.  She had successfully extracted the answer to the chicken riddle:

Opera chickens are roosters.  They are the only chickens that can sing.  Cock-a-doodle-doo!

So, mystery solved.  Hens can’t sing opera.

Announcing……

……Max’s new book!  Okay, okay, it’s been a while in the making.  A lifetime actually.  The lifetime of one spunky six year old.  You have laughed along with the blog, now come re-live your favorites and a lot more!

Mushrooms In My Head, Dead Lions In The Yard  is the story of Max and all the hilarity and poignancy that comes with her.  Available through the Amazon Kindle Store for your KINDLE, KINDLE FIRE, and through the free downloadable Kindle app for your iPAD/POD/PHONE and DROID devices.  Also, coming soon to the NOOK and NOOK COLOR.

Get yours here for only $3.99!!!

We all know Max is hilarious.  Let’s make her a best-seller too!  Enjoy!

 

 

Acorn caps turn little pinkies into finger puppets with jaunty hats.

http://instagr.am/p/RoCiF7kUZs/

 

She’s Got A Million Of ‘Em

I thought the Page-a-day calendar idea may have been a stretch, but as I log more of Max’s one-liners, I think my friend Karyn may have really been on to something.

“Uncle Bubba is a cool police officer.  I want to go to work with him on Bring Your Uncle’s Grandkids To Work Day.”

“I wonder what Isaac will look like when he’s older. Probably a smart phone can figure that out.”   Is there an app for that?

“Isaac, today is movie day! We are going to see Ice Age: Cotton Little Drift!”

“Mom you almost dropped my bag from the dentist and I almost dropped my juice box. You should so post that.” (Going to be screening future posts for mundane-ness. Thanks, Max.)

Max: “You know Ohio where they speak that Ohio language?” Gracie: “She’s watching Lilo and Stitch. I’m pretty sure she means Hawaii. “

“Talking is really easy…unless you’re a skeleton. “

“It would be weird if you were allergic to your favorite song.”

“I don’t understand why birds poop on cars. They can hold it til they get home!”

“Mom, where’s my water bottle? I wanna start hibernating.”

Max, as she scrubbed her ears and played air guitar to a Foreigner song in the tub: ” When Isaac took off and I had to catch him, I was sweating like slime on a snail’s butt.”

The justice system as seen by Max : “People keep getting arrested on purpose. The police are arresting them on PURPOSE!”

“Driving a car looks easy but its not. You have to try really hard not to get lost and have to live on the side of the road.”

“Mom, I have a little bit gooder memory than you, except when it goes to fast mode. “

“The sun and the moon are connected to each other and they are both connected to the countries. What’s the planet that rhymes with Saturday?” Saturn. “What’s the hottest planet on Earth?” The hottest planet is Mercury. “That’s right, Murmmering.”

One Liners

It has been requested of me that I make a “Quote-A-Day” calendar of Max’s recent one liners and quotes.  Mind you, these are just candid observations, in her oh-so-Max fashion.  Here’s a few that have inspired the calendar idea:

“I don’t really want a job when I grow up, I just want an opportunity. Like riding a horse out into the West. That’s what I wish to do.”

“I just found a nerd on the floor. The sweet kind, not like ‘You’re a nerd, bro.'”

“Mom, can I not wear flip flops for a while? I’m getting a red line between my thumb toe and my pointer toe.”

Max, pointing at my dinner plate: ” Mom, that’s meat!” Me: “That’s fish. I can eat fish.” Max: “Sorry, Mom, didn’t mean to call your fish names. ”

Max: “Why were you late getting me?” Me: ” I had a meeting. ” Max: “Is a meeting just a bunch of people sitting by papers?”

Max: “Mom, are you 50?” Me: “No, I’m 36.” Max: “Wow, that’s… ” Daddy: “Careful, Beth! ”

Max sassing big brother Cam: “You can call me a doofus all you want, I don’t care! I know my mom calls me Bethany! ”

A la military march song: “I dont know what I’ve been told, I dont know what I’ve been told, I dont know what I’ve been toooooold, but everybody else knows.”

“Usually girls like jazz, but I like ROCK AND ROLL!!!! ”

“I want to be a police officer. My friend Simon does too. He can be on my team, but I’m going to be the boss.”

Max on the fact that even police officers can get arrested: “How can the cops ever get arrested??  I mean, they are the bossiest people EVER!”

Me: “This way, Beth. That’s not our car, but it looks like it. We have a Ford Explorer. That’s a Chevy Tahoe. ” Max : “That’s a weird name for a car. A Shovey Taco. ”

Max:  “You have to dress me cute for our tea party today.”  Me: “This is a very cute outfit.”  Max: “I was thinking more like a teacup.”

Max: “What was that you gave me a drink of? ” Me : ” Passionfruit mango green tea. ” Max : ” Fashion dip Bacos green tea? It was good. “

Little Squirt

As we all know by now, bathing Max is an adventure.  She has now added a pool squirt toy to her arsenal of aquatic mayhem.  She targets wall tiles, the faucet, and occasionally, me.

I had managed to scrub her and her hair clean with the no tears kids wash.  Time to condition.  “Keep your head back, Bethany.  This is grown-up conditioner.  You don’t want it in your eyes,” I advised.

I let her keep squirting bath tiles as I combed it through her tangled locks.  After quite a bit of wrangling a squirmy slippery kid, I managed to get it all rinsed out without incident to her eyes.  Until…

I let her play for a second while I got her towel, at which point she decided to load up her squirt toy one last time.  This time she aimed right for her face and let fly with it.  “OW!  MY EYE!” she yelped grabbing for the towel.

“Honey, I told you that was grown up conditioner.  You shouldn’t have squirted yourself in the eye with that water.”

“I didn’t!” Max protested.  “I squirted it at my face, but then the water went in that crack I keep my eyeball in!”

Beg Your Pardon

It has been the common experience in our house that Max understands what people say in a very unique and usually incorrect way.   Daddy and I have spent countless hours correcting her only to have her insist she heard us her way.  (As a side note, I should add that she learned from the best of them.  Daddy and I are famous for doing this with each other, too.)

This particular car ride was a convoluted mess all the way around.

“I smell Cheez-Its,” declared Max out of left field in the back seat.

“How do you know what Jesus smells like?” asked Daddy.

“Cheez-Its!” said Max loudly and with decided emphasis.

Daddy shook his head.  “I don’t think Jesus smells like Cheez-Its.”

photo credit: Wikipedia

A Little Sass Goes A Long Way

Max has been particularly sassy lately, especially when we ask her about her day at school which is usually fraught with some sort of drama.  On the ride home, she asked Daddy to turn the radio off because she needed some “quiet time”, which she almost instantly broke with a barrage of attitudinal sass.

“You need to drop a little of that sass, Scooter,” Daddy warned her.

To which she replied: “I’ll still have a lot of sass even if I drop a little of it.”

Age Is Relative

Big sister Gracie was tickling Max on the couch.  She noticed a freckle by Max’s bellybutton.  “Look at that freckle right there,” she said tickling it.

Max, not missing a beat, said, “Yeah, it used to be little, but it just had a birthday.  It was teeny, now it’s all grown up.  It’s 10,000 years old.”