You Heard It Here

"You want a taste of my medicine?!"

During a raucous game of chase this afternoon, I heard Harper hurl this threat at one of our neighbor's boys as they ran around outside. Translation of said phrase? Somewhere along the lines of, "You wanna piece of me?"

Not to worry. It was all in fun.

It was just one of the interesting phrases I have heard out of her mouth over the summer. Couple that with some interesting mistakes that Zane has made with speech (and a few surprise phrases), and you have yourself a new post.

Let's start in the food court.

After getting our plate of General Tso's chicken and noodles, Harper and I sat down to dine in the beauty that is a food court.

At one point, some lone noodles slipped from the plate on to the tray. Harper went to scoop them up and eat them off the tray, when I abruptly stopped her.

"What, Mom? Don't you think they clean their trays? You have something against the Asians?"

WHAT????????!!!!!!!!!!! Really. WHAT??????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Um, no, Harper. I do have something against eating directly off of a tray on which food is served by every single vendor here and thus touched by massive amounts of people throughout the day. It has nothing to do with Asians, but rather, humans in general. Just stick to your plate."

And at the recent Car Cruise in town a few week back, Harper picked up the phrase,

"That is one sweet ride!"

A mother just loves when her daughter is enamoured by hot rods and muscle cars. In her defense she likes the vintage cars as well . . . but still . . . sweet rides? Causes me to shiver a little.

And, Zane? Well, his statements are bit less controversial, but no less surprising.

"Mom, thank you so much that you let me do chores."

See, Zane has taken a HUGE liking for our new Dirt Devil Scorpion Stick. A very low-end, lightweight cordless vac that has finally solved my pet hair issues on the hard wood and tile floors in our house. Zane, loves to clean the kitchen floor, and can do so with this vac since it barely weighs anything. He can also remove it from the stick for hand-held cleaning, and knows how to replace the cord in the charger. In fact, cleaning the kitchen floor is now his daily chore. Harper gets the entryway (which angers Zane, because he wants complete control over the Scorpion).

During Taco night this week (which has become a staple in this house, as it guarantee's that our children will eat meat, cheese, and veggie's all in one delicious pocket of crunch), Zane would only accept "his" cheese.

"I don't like Harper's cheese. I only eat battalion cheese."

In case you can't follow, "battalion" cheese is not cheese served in the military, but rather, Italian cheese. And Harper's cheese to which Zane was referring? Colby Jack. Always and forever. Colby Jack.

It's interesting to me that he can mix up such an easy word, when after a trip to the ER due to some labored breathing (which turned out the be a touch of pneumonia), he was able to explain, in detail, everything that the MD's did to help him feel better, even down to demonstrating a gadget that they attached to his finger.

"And this? This measures the amount of oxygen in my blood."

But, the best and MOST surprising phrases coming out of my kids mouths recently are prayers. Always a bit nervous about praying out loud, my children have finally begun expressing their needs to God audibly. We are all for "talking to God with my mind", as they put it, but during family devotion time we've been focusing on helping them pray audibly for another family member, explaining how encouraging it is for us to hear their prayers.

Now, Harper couldn't contain her emotion enough to pray audibly for Zane last night as he left for the hospital - her worry erupted in tears. However, she did get on email right away to contact some people about praying for him. Both are learning, and seeing, and experiencing, the joy that is the immediacy of prayer.

And then there's all the:

"Mom, you are so beautiful."
"I just love being with my parents."

Etc. All the stuff that I'm sure you don't want to hear. ;-)

Never a dull word spoken in this house.

Oh, and on a completely unrelated note? Zane, four years old, now wears a size 11 shoe. Harper? Age eight? A 12 1/2.