Some Quotes and Stories from My First-Born

Because this kid is a real hand-full sometimes...

-1-

We've explained to Sly before that superheros are "just cartoon characters."  A couple weeks ago, Tom and the kids went to cheer me on while I was running in a 10K race.  One of the other runners was dressed as Captain America.  Sly was pretty excited about it, and recounted it to me after the race.  He ended with, "Captain America looked pretty real to me."

-2-

Last week for St. Therese's feast day, we were digging around inside our altar to find a special St. Therese chaplet of ours.  The search unearthed our little stash of relics, which Sly had never seen before.  He was completely fascinated by them, and wanted to hear the story about each of them, and give each one a kiss [we own a number of third class relics, and one second class relic.  No first class ones...yet].  The next night, Tom asked if Sly had any intentions for our Rosary.  He quickly offered, "That we get more relics!"

-3-

Tom's been teaching Sly how to pray on his own - each night before bed he tells Sly to think of a prayer in his head and say it to God.  Afterwards, Tom asks Sly what he'd said.  The first night, Sly's prayer was, "Jesus, I really really love you.  Help me to be more like You." We were pretty impressed.  But then the following night, Sly came up with, "Jesus, help me to get more toys."  So....we have some more work to do.

-4-

Tom often says that watching tv "turns your brains to mush."  The other day while Sly was "at naptime", I was downstairs, folding huge piles of laundry with the tv on.  Sly must have heard it, so he came down and said, "Mommy, I think your brain turned into mush."

-5-

Speaking of "naptime", Sly hasn't actually slept during the day for at least a year, but I still insist he spend a couple hours in his room each day because I need that time.  But he's constantly coming up with new schemes and excuses for getting out of his room, however briefly.  Usually some "really important" thing he has to say to us. 

Last weekend, he began to employ a new strategy that really had us baffled for a while.  He would come downstairs with quite convincing tears streaming down his face, acting incredibly contrite, saying he needed to apologize for something - usually something dumb that there were no rules against anyways.    "<sniffle, sniffle> I'm sorry <sniffle> that I smacked the floooooooooor <cry, whine, sniffle>".  Tom or I would tell him it was alright, pat him on the back, and send him back up with instructions not to come down again.  But each time it got more ridiculous. A little later you'd hear him sniffling his way down again.  I'd sternlysay  his name, and ask why he was out of bed.  Then he'd appear around the corner, red-eyed, saying, "I'm <sniffle!> sorry I <sniffle> came dowwwwwwn!"  And finally it devolved into - my favorite - "I'm <sniffle> sorry for <sniffle> everything bad....in the <intake of breath> whooooooooole wooooooorld <bursting into tears>".  Ugh. 

I think we finally nipped it in the bud, but it was a weird couple days, and we couldn't really figure out how to handle him since he already seemed so genuinely upset.  Tom suggested that he could probably have earned an Oscar for his performance.

-6-

Sly: "Stella, you're bad!"
Me: "No, we don't say that. You need to apologize."
Sly: "Stella, I'm sorry that you're bad."