Weird things happen when I read to the kids

One of Darby's favorite books is The Spooky Old Tree, the story of the three bears that go in the tree and a bunch of mildly scary stuff happens. When it gets to the part where they have to go over the Great Sleeping Bear, for some reason, I find myself doing a Gregory Peck impression, this really low gravelly voice when I say "Great Sleeping Bear. Do they dare go over Great Sleeping Bear?" It makes it sound more ominous or something. Except, it's not really a Gregory Peck impression at all. It's my impression of Robert Downey Jr. doing an impression of Gregory Peck, which he did some years ago in a silly romantic comedy that I can't remember the name of now. I think Marisa Tomei was in it? Anyway. I'm not sure why this is the way it is. I've seen Gregory Peck himself in several movies. But the voice I'm channeling is Robert Downey Jr.'s. But only when I'm reading The Spooky Old Tree.

Now Darby knows pretty much every word in The Spooky Old Tree and sometimes insists on saying the words himself (it's a pretty short book). When he gets to that page, he does the low gravelly voice like I do it. So ... as I told Chris, that's Darby doing an impression of his mom doing an impression of Robert Downey Jr. doing an impression of Gregory Peck. He thought that was amusing and that I should share it.

Under the weather

Casey couldn't keep anything down yesterday. My job was to bring Gatorade home after work, and even Casey seemed to know it. "Did you bring Gatorade?" were the first words out of his mouth when I arrived. I put some in a cup for him and left him to drink it ("No ice," he says. "It just came home from the store -- without ice, it's going to be warm. Do you want it with ice, or do you want it warm?" "Warm," he answers. That's when I knew he was really sick.).

Then I returned to the kitchen to check in with Erika a bit. We talked a while, and I got myself some dinner, and finally I asked: so, how long does it usually take him to throw it up once you give him something to drink? Not long, Erika said: maybe 5 or 10 minutes. Whoa, I said, I should probably get down there and check on him again.

I find Casey staring listlessly at the TV. It's pretty dark in the room, so I can't see much else.

"Hey, Casey. How are you doing with the Gatorade? Did you throw it up?"

"Yeah."

"Oh. ... In the bowl?"

"No."

Dang it. "OK ... where did you throw up?"

He shrugs and points at his lap. C'mon, man, the bowl is like a foot away.

(He was looking and acting much better this morning.)

At least he's warm

A story Erika told me:

Casey's been responsible for dressing himself for a while now, and we don't have many problems with it. So we've relaxed the degree of monitoring that he used to require. But lately he's been making some strange choices. Not in the fashion sense, but ... well, I don't know how to describe this. For example, Mom will provide a new pair of underwear. Then we find out at bedtime that he never bothered to remove the old pair, just pulled the new ones on over them.

Yesterday he took this to a whole new level. Given clothes to wear for the day, apparently he kept his old underwear and pajamas, put the new underwear on top of the pajamas, and then the clothes on top of that. We've decided to keep a closer eye on him for a little while.

In which Mom's new pants arrive

Erika ordered some jeans online (ordinary denim jeans, that part's important), and one day last week they turned up in the mailbox.

Darby: Mommy, I'm so proud of you! You got new pants!
Mom: You're proud of me? Uh, thank you, Darby.
Darby: They're so furry!
Dad: Darby, are you stoned right now?*

*Note: I only thought, and did not actually speak, that last line out loud.

Erika reminded me of this conversation when I observed that I spend most of my time around here correcting Darby. Erika pointed out that Darby just likes to talk and doesn't much care what he says or what the context is. He just remembers that he's heard this combination of words before, and he's going to speak them now. And I'm excitedly posting that here, because as soon as she said it, I realized: YES. THAT'S IT EXACTLY.

In which Darby discovers trash talk

The boys and I saw the Conners in Rochester last week (more on that later), and let me just say how startling it is to see Paige, who is (1) younger than Darby and (2) a girl, ahead of him in height and weight. And that's despite the fact that, of my two sons, Darby is the one who won't stop eating. Sorry, Darby: your genes have failed you.

But he's not letting it get to him. Darby and Paige got along very well, which was a delight to see.

For example, Darby loves to play catch, so we spent several sessions in the Conners family kitchen bouncing a rubber ball back and forth. Paige wanted to play, too, but she doesn't have as much practice as Darby, so she struggled with the catching part. The ball would squirt away across the room, and the two of them would race to chase it down, but Darby -- well, I'm not kidding, Darby has a LOT of practice at this, so he usually came up with the ball, only to have Paige feeling left out and trying to take it out of his hands. But I didn't even have a chance to work out a balanced system before Darby solved the problem for me. "Here, I'll share," he announced, and handed Paige the ball. Go Darby!

And that became the pattern: I bounce the ball to Darby; Darby catches it and hands it to Paige; Paige throws the heavy, water-filled glitter ball at my head or my groin from 36 inches away; repeat. Excitement for everyone!

We continued in that fashion for quite a while, and I was so proud and relieved to see Darby and Paige cheerfully and spontaneously sharing duties. I had two toddlers and one ball, and we were all getting along and playing nicely. I don't know how else to put it: this moment was magical.

But then I bounced it to Darby, and the ball slipped away, and the two kids dove for it in a mad scrum. Again, Darby got to it first. He rose to his feet with the ball in his grasp.

"I got it!" he cheered.

"Good job!" I exclaimed, because that's what you do.

And Paige loves attention and praise too, I'm sure, because she immediately stood and lifted her empty arms in the air: "I got it!" And she's 2, so she says this with no irony, which is already pretty funny.

And Darby just turned and gave her this shockingly mature affronted look, like he couldn't believe the gall of this girl.

"No, I got it," he corrects her. "You got nothing!"

Cheeseburgers do not hide!

Classic Darby quote to kick off the year:

We're driving to Indiana to visit Erika's family for Christmas in 2010, and I plead exhaustion and make Erika drive. For some reason, she thinks it's a good idea to grab fast food for dinner along the way but keep on driving. I disagreed but failed to put up a fight. So our 4-year-old and 2-year-old had cheeseburgers handed to them, in the car, in the dark, with helpless and vague instructions to "be careful."

Casey did all right, but soon enough I checked on Darby to find his dinner missing. Hmm. He's a good eater, but finishing that fast? I was skeptical.

Dad: Darby, did you finish your cheeseburger?
Darby: No.
Dad: Where's your cheeseburger, Darby?
Darby: It's hiding in my pants!

Ugh. So in the dark, I fish around in his lap until I find his burger, and that's when I discover he's eaten the top half of the bun and left everything else, so that when I find it in the dark, my fingers squelch unpleasantly into the cheese and ketchup and mustard. That's the last time I asked Erika to drive.