Our green kid

So the other day I mentioned to John that the price of gas has gone down enough that we see Hummers driving around again. Cade heard this and filled it away in his steel trap of a memory (where he gets this I don't know I can't even find my keys most days). The other day, he said" Look Mom there's a Hummer. Do you know what kind of car I want when I grow up?" I thought "of course, a Hummer" but said, "What?" Imagine my surprise when he said, " I want a Toyota Prius." When I asked him why he said because they get such great gas mileage. He was very impressed that his grandpa already had one. He probably wants to save all that gas money for video games. We were trying to talk about if the house was on fire what we should do for his health homework. He still hasn't told me that he wouldn't rush back in the house to save his Wii.

A Boy's Best Friend

Kellen has decided that this heavy plastic puppy is now his best friend and takes him everywhere. He has to be tucked into Kellen's elmo chair with the puppy's blanket at naptime and borrows some of Kellen's blanket to listen to books. He has to bring him to the bus stop, the store, the school, friend's houses. I bought him for Cade for like 3 dollars at walmart and all this love could kill him off. This day, Kellen was letting his puppy use his scooter while he rode his bike.

Why?

Kellen is in full on "why" mode and has been so for the past month or so. And Why is a question that can be asked of any explanation and almost always is. Even our best attempts have been foiled - that is until we learned a new technique from a friend.

Our previous best efforts have been to answer "just because" or "Heavenly Father made it that way" or asking "what do you think, Kellen." These are desperate attempts but really do you have any better answers to the original query of why the car's tire was flat and having been through explanations as far-ranging as the basics of the impact of a nail on a tire and up to the complex of the vagaries of vulcanized rubber with steel radials versus a galvanized steel nail and the differences between two-penny and six-penny nails and on to the basic forces to physics?

To each of these he earnestly responds, "because why, daddy?" "Why Heavenly Father make it that way, Daddy" "Daddy what YOU think?"

So yesterday I tried our new technique:
Kellen: "Daddy why there a park here?"
Dad: "Because they thought it would be fun for little boys to play on"
K: "Why they it be fun?"
D: "Well, because little boys like to swing. Do you like to swing?"
K: "Why little boys like to swing?"
D: "Because its fun and you can go fast. Do you like to swing?"
K: "Why you go fast Daddy?"
D: "Well because I'm big and I can push you in the air and the combined force of the gravity pulling you back to the earth and tension of the chains on the swings cause you to move in an arc like motion that when I act upon it with my mass causes acceleration that is significantly greater than the friction of the air or of the friction of the chains on the swing's structure."
K: "Why gravy pull you back Daddy?"
[and this is where the new technique comes in] D: "because the car won't start"

That really caused his head to churn. I almost laughed out loud with glee that I had cold-cocked the questions with a notion that was so out of place and incongruous that it short circuited the logical process in his little brain.

We walked on towards the play area in blissful silence.

Well, at least for another minute we did.

As we reached the edge of the bark chips, Kellen asked, "Daddy, why car won't start?"

Gabby's Teeth

Gabby lost another tooth (her second or third) last week and was very excited about it, insisting on taking it to school with her and showing all of her friends. This of course concerned her Mom and Dad that she might lose her tooth. So when it was time to go to bed, Dad was not surprised when the tooth was nowhere to be found. After enlisting Kellen to help her look through the house to no result. I reassured Gabby that we'd do everything we could to find it that night and I put her to bed.

After putting her to bed I similarly tore apart the downstairs and places upstairs that I could easily get to. This included a comprehensive search of the kitchen garbage (complete with watermelon rind, chicken packaging, and other assorted treats) and morass that is the little desk we have in our kitchen.

Crystal eventually returned from her meeting and she too searched everywhere (including a re-search of the kitchen garbage) to no avail . We finally decided that the tooth fairy would come anyway and that Gabby would have to find and replace the tooth for the tooth fairy another day and headed upstairs to go to bed and check on the kids.

Lo and behold, right in the middle of the floor of Cade's room was the tooth. I think the real lesson here is not trust a 2 1/2 year old to do a comprehensive search as that was the room that Kellen took on and cheerfully reported that the tooth was "not here!"

In the end, the crisis was averted, the tooth was found and Gabby is $1 richer and eagerly anticipating the next payday as she has four more loose teeth.