My son has very convoluted theories when it comes to theology. Many an interesting philosophical conversation is held in the old family mini-van:
"I don't pray when I'm here. I pray when I'm up at Mammaw and Papa's because they make me, but when I'm back here, I don't."
"Why not?"
"Because Mammaw and Papa have more Bibles than we do. They have 10 Bibles and we only have 2, and they go to church a lot, and I don't go to church that much."
Donning my pedantic robes and setting aside my own confused perceptions of religion, I launched the following oration: "Vaughn, a relationship with God has nothing to do with how many Bibles you have or how often you attend church. It has nothing to do with things or places. It has everything to do with praying and talking to God." (Assuming, of course, there is a God.)
Long stretch of blissful silence.
"OH!...I GET IT!...God is the king of us because he's bigger than us, just like people who are big are the king of people who are little."
Yeah, something like that.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Saturday, January 12, 2008
And Our Sponser Is...
The setting: Father and son out for a drive. Vaughn is practicing his blossoming reading and spelling skills on roadside advertisements.
"Daddy, what does A-E-L spell?"
"I don't think it spells anything."
"Well... maybe it spells E.G. Edwards. Did you know that Home Depot is proud to support this Old House?"
When my son can spout off verbatim the sponsors of the various TV programs on OPB I think it's a sign that we should start weaning him off TV. Just a thought.
"Daddy, what does A-E-L spell?"
"I don't think it spells anything."
"Well... maybe it spells E.G. Edwards. Did you know that Home Depot is proud to support this Old House?"
When my son can spout off verbatim the sponsors of the various TV programs on OPB I think it's a sign that we should start weaning him off TV. Just a thought.
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?
Whenever Vaughn sees me in the process of cleaning the house the following conversation ensues:
"What are you doing?"
"Cleaning the house."
"Who's coming over?"
Now, there are 2 things painfully obvious here:
1. The sight of me housecleaning is so foreign to Vaughn that when he sees me kneeling on the wood floor, vigorously scrubbing away at months of caked on pasta sauce with a bucketful of cleaning supplies at my side, he has difficulty identifying this activity as cleaning the house and thus needs an explanation for Mommy's odd behavior.
2. When the rare occasion of cleaning the house does occur, the assumption (and usually rightly so) is that someone must be coming over.
This perpetual uncleanliness has reached a point where even I ask myself, "What do you do all day?"
Lest you think I'm exaggerating, keep in mind that my house contains one child, who I do believe at birth was swapped out for a pack rat and has all manner of debris accumulating in his room--sticks, leaves, empty water bottles, scraps of paper, tops of pineapples (no kidding), rocks, shells, wadded up duct tape and whatever else is hidden or growing underneath this layer. This paraphernalia is always on hand for Vaughn's next inspiration. One never knows when one might need the odd screw or stick. Currently, he's working on an air tank for scuba diving that involves two small water bottles duct taped to his fireman rain coat, and now he's talking about "making" an aquarium that he can swim in to put on top of his train table, which currently is serving as a salvage dump.
My house also contains two cats, one of which has chronic hairballs that can be found in all sorts of unexpected places throughout the house. This cat also has bulimia. When we leave extra food out, he gorges himself and then shortly thereafter scurries to the nearest rug or carpet to purge on. (This condition might have developed due to the fact that once Vaughn was born, the cat was fed once every few weeks or so. Either that or he has a body image problem.) The last time the cat expelled his dinner, the pile of regurgitated food sat on the carpet of the basement steps for over a day. You see, Dave and Vaughn, with the dog, were giving me one of those rare Mommy days and had left the house to me, so I was officially "off duty" and decided to "think about that tomorrow." After Dave came back home the next day, the pile of puke was removed, and I thanked him for being such a kind and considerate husband. After recovering from his shock, he told me he had no idea what I was talking about. We discussed at length the mysterious case of the disappearing cat vomit and deduced that our roving canine vacuum was the phantom consumer of said vanished cat barf. Evidently, Poe is indifferent as to whether the cat food is fresh or recycled--“It’s just plain good eatin.’” This forced me to admit that it sometimes comes in handy to have a dog.
And that brings me to the fourth dirt contributor to our household. Poe is neither short haired nor long haired, somewhere in between, but she sheds hair like a duck sheds water--constantly. These little puffs of hair line every wall of our house like an army of little black dust bunnies, so it appears as if we have intentionally fur lined the interior of our house. Add to that her obsession with pencils and using her mouth on them as a wood chipper, and our home looks like a cross between the shag-carpeted back of a 1970s van and a country bar with a sawdust-covered floor to absorb the occasional spilled beer or juice box--the only thing missing is a mechanical bull and a lava lamp.
The bright side of all this is Vaughn's expectations of having a clean house after having spent his whole childhood in this environment will be so low, his wife will just have to do housework every leap year, at most, to appear as Martha Stewart to my Felix Unger, and my daughter-in-law certainly won't have to worry about me visiting with my white glove.
"What are you doing?"
"Cleaning the house."
"Who's coming over?"
Now, there are 2 things painfully obvious here:
1. The sight of me housecleaning is so foreign to Vaughn that when he sees me kneeling on the wood floor, vigorously scrubbing away at months of caked on pasta sauce with a bucketful of cleaning supplies at my side, he has difficulty identifying this activity as cleaning the house and thus needs an explanation for Mommy's odd behavior.
2. When the rare occasion of cleaning the house does occur, the assumption (and usually rightly so) is that someone must be coming over.
This perpetual uncleanliness has reached a point where even I ask myself, "What do you do all day?"
Lest you think I'm exaggerating, keep in mind that my house contains one child, who I do believe at birth was swapped out for a pack rat and has all manner of debris accumulating in his room--sticks, leaves, empty water bottles, scraps of paper, tops of pineapples (no kidding), rocks, shells, wadded up duct tape and whatever else is hidden or growing underneath this layer. This paraphernalia is always on hand for Vaughn's next inspiration. One never knows when one might need the odd screw or stick. Currently, he's working on an air tank for scuba diving that involves two small water bottles duct taped to his fireman rain coat, and now he's talking about "making" an aquarium that he can swim in to put on top of his train table, which currently is serving as a salvage dump.
My house also contains two cats, one of which has chronic hairballs that can be found in all sorts of unexpected places throughout the house. This cat also has bulimia. When we leave extra food out, he gorges himself and then shortly thereafter scurries to the nearest rug or carpet to purge on. (This condition might have developed due to the fact that once Vaughn was born, the cat was fed once every few weeks or so. Either that or he has a body image problem.) The last time the cat expelled his dinner, the pile of regurgitated food sat on the carpet of the basement steps for over a day. You see, Dave and Vaughn, with the dog, were giving me one of those rare Mommy days and had left the house to me, so I was officially "off duty" and decided to "think about that tomorrow." After Dave came back home the next day, the pile of puke was removed, and I thanked him for being such a kind and considerate husband. After recovering from his shock, he told me he had no idea what I was talking about. We discussed at length the mysterious case of the disappearing cat vomit and deduced that our roving canine vacuum was the phantom consumer of said vanished cat barf. Evidently, Poe is indifferent as to whether the cat food is fresh or recycled--“It’s just plain good eatin.’” This forced me to admit that it sometimes comes in handy to have a dog.
And that brings me to the fourth dirt contributor to our household. Poe is neither short haired nor long haired, somewhere in between, but she sheds hair like a duck sheds water--constantly. These little puffs of hair line every wall of our house like an army of little black dust bunnies, so it appears as if we have intentionally fur lined the interior of our house. Add to that her obsession with pencils and using her mouth on them as a wood chipper, and our home looks like a cross between the shag-carpeted back of a 1970s van and a country bar with a sawdust-covered floor to absorb the occasional spilled beer or juice box--the only thing missing is a mechanical bull and a lava lamp.
The bright side of all this is Vaughn's expectations of having a clean house after having spent his whole childhood in this environment will be so low, his wife will just have to do housework every leap year, at most, to appear as Martha Stewart to my Felix Unger, and my daughter-in-law certainly won't have to worry about me visiting with my white glove.
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