What did you say?

Ethan: [Turns up in the living room with an old cell phone and holds it out to me.] Say hi.
Sophia: [To Ethan.] Ooh! Can I play with it?
Ethan: ...
Sophia: Say, "Yeah you can have it!" [Takes the pone from Ethan.]
Ethan: Yeah you can have it.

I don't know if Ethan ever got the phone back.* Sophia spent the rest of the afternoon having pretend conversations with various friends and family members (none of whom she will actually talk to when they are really in the phone). Good thing Ethan was in a sharing mood. I wasn't in any condition to break up a fight.


*The phone has resurfaced since I first wrote down the above at the beginning of the month. It has been the source of more than one altercation.

***

Sophia: [With a pillow held above her head with both hands.] I'm going to kill you!

Ethan, the most common object of her inexplicable blood lust, wisely armed himself with a pillow. I disarmed them both after a few wild swings that got only the air and the couch.

***

Sophia: [Cell phone in hand.] Count to zero with me. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0! Hello?

***

The Scene: Isaiah's in the bath tub after being discovered anointing his head with sun block. Ethan decided to join him, in the bath tub. Sophia (silent witness and accomplice to the anointing) has chosen to forgo a bath but is hanging around the bathroom in case anything interesting happens.

Ethan: Daddy why are you here?
Hubby: I'm here to keep you guys out of trouble.

Ethan still firmly believes that if we don't see him doing something that he's not supposed to be doing we don't know that he's doing, or is going to do, it. This frequently results in amusing confrontations in the kitchen and pantry. Often with evidence of his perfidy on his hands and face, his brother's and sister's hands and faces, and the floor.

***

Hubby: Her dad's deaf.
Sophia: What does that mean?
Hubby: It means he can't hear.
Sophia: What?
Hubby: His ears don't work.
Sophia: Huh?

During this exchange I was giving hubby the "did she really just say that?" look. He gave me the "yes that's what she said" look. Then I gave him the "end the conversation now" look. If she were older I would have thought she was trying to make a bad joke.

***

Me: [Searching under the couch cushions.] Where did the hair brush go?
Ethan: [Singing] Oh where is my hairbrush!

I managed to keep a straight face for about 2 seconds. Then I started singing with him. Combs and hairbrushes have an annoying habit of disappearing in our house. I once caught Ethan in the act of hiding a comb under the diaper pail in the kids' bathroom. Currently the only hairbrush I can find has toothpaste all over it. Isaiah seems to firmly believe that hair, tooth, and body brushes are interchangeable despite frequent reminders that this is not so.

***

Isaiah: [Standing on the toilet lid, toothbrush in hand, one leg lifted with his pajama pant leg pulled up to his knee, singing.] This is the way we brush our leg early in the morning.

See above for some explanation. I would have offered him something besides his toothbrush to use but I couldn't find one. Besides, I was too happy to hear him labeling a body part. He's also sung about (and attempted to brush with his toothbrush) his arms, elbows, hands, back, knees, feet, tummy, hair, and teeth.

***

Here ends this installment of "What did you say?" Stay tuned for next time.