Kids say the darndest things!

Ok, this one needs some background. We ran out of TP today and C goes into the bathroom and, upon discovering this, issues the standard call for help: "DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!" I go in, find that we're actually completely out and give her a box of Puff's Ultra tissues (the kind with moisturizer), telling her to use these instead. I walk out, shut the door. 10 minutes later:

C: "DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!"

Daddy: "Yes, sweetie?"

C: "This feels really good on my butt!"

- C (age eight)

Kids say the darndest things!

"Sometimes I can feel the top of my head without even touching it!"

-C (age eight)

Kids say the darndest things!

C (pausing while riding her bike): "Hey Dad! Did you see me look both ways? I used my eyes!"

Dad: "Awesome! Don't forget to use your ears too!"

C: "Huh?"

- C (age eight)

Kids say the darndest things!

"Ready! Set! Leaf!!!"

- C (age eight) preparing to jump into a pile of leaves...

Kids say the darndest things!

"Dad, why does Spock use a whole bunch of big words and a whole bunch of big attitude and why does he always win the argument?"

- C (age eight)

Kids say the darndest things!

Mom: "You're SO dramatic."

C: "Well, it is YOU who gave me the GIFT of being DRAMATIC!"

(emphasis theirs)
- C (age eight)

Kids say the darndest things!

C: "Dad, if you sit still in peace and quiet, you can actually FEEL the Earth rotating!"

Daddy: "I see. What does it feel like?"

C: "You know, like you're spinning around or something."

- C (age eight)

Kids say the darndest things!

"That was cute, but unacceptable."

- C (age 8)

Kids say the darndest things!

"I don't know why I keep saying ow, but it's really kind of driving me nuts even though I know I'm saying it."

- C (age eight)

Kids say the darndest things!

"Dad, look! Darkness appeared in my bowl!"

- C (age eight)

Kids say the darndest things!

"Commercials are kind of rude. They make everything seem like it doesn't have any bad parts and only has the good parts. It's kind of like they're controlling your mind and MAKING you buy stuff!"

- C (age eight)

Kids say the darndest things!

"I can understand German people! Even in English!"

- C (age eight)

Kids say the darndest things!

Daddy: "I'm not in charge of that."

C: "Yes, I know. Like you're in charge of telling me what I already know!"

- C (age 8)

Kids say the darndest things!

(after playing piano to a metronome for one hour)

"Wow! Dad! Music is exactly like setting up checkers!"

- C (age eight)

Kids say the darndest things!

(written on a piece of paper hung on the fridge)

"C's list of inches:
12 inches
13 inches
52 inches
3 inches
23 inches
16 inches"

- C (age 8)

Kids say the darndest things!

"All the things that matter are the worries we should keep. We don't need to worry about all the little things too."

- C (age 8)

Kids say the darndest things!

"If I agreed with you we'd BOTH be wrong!"

- C (age 8)

Kids say the darndest things!

Daddy: "Be careful you're going to..."

C: "I know. I'm going to fall down and hit my head on the grill and break my head open and die! Goodbye!"

- C (age 8)

Kids say the darndest things!

"I can see through invisible stuff!"

- C (age 8)

Kids say the darndest things!

"WowEow. I suction-cupped myself to the marshmallow!"

- C (age 8)

Kids say the darndest things!

C: "I'm an inventor."

Daddy: "Ok, what are you inventing?"

C: "I'm inventing a contraction."

- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

"Daddy, when I sleep my hair goes crazy. You're lucky that you don't have any hair."

- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

"This is seriously funny!"

- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

"Live is better than a tangled iPod!"

- C (age seven, proud owner of M's old iPod nano)

Kids say the darndest things!

C: "Daddy, what's an axy....er.....oxymoron?"

Daddy: "An oxymoron is like two words that commonly go together but kind of contradict each other. Hang on and I'll think of an example that you would understand."

C: "Oh. You mean like 'rubber-cement'?"

- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

C and daddy walking down High St:

C: "Daddy, why is that man asking for money?"

Daddy: "Because some people don't have jobs and when they want money for something they have to ask other people."

C: "Why didn't we give him any then?"

Daddy: "Well, because if I just give him money, he might spend it on something other than getting help - like cigarettes or liquor."

C: "So no one can help him because he might be lying?"

Daddy: "Oh no. We can definitely help him - in fact we already have. I already gave a whole bunch of money this year to places that offer help to people who need it. So I know there are places he can go if he really needs help."

C: "Oh. You mean like a bank?"

- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

Daddy: How many children will you have?

C: I am not going to have any children.

Daddy: Ok. That part is up to you.

C: Yep, the girls make all the decisions!

- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

"Dear Daddy,

I love you so much and even when you die I know you will still be with me.

Love, C"

- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

"You know what I hate about rain? When it gets into your sandals. Then it looks, feels and sounds disgusting."

- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

"I'm not weird, I'm just a person who likes tasting weird things."

- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

"Dad, 'en Francais' means French in French."

- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

"Come on, evolve yourself! ! !"

- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

Mommy to Daddy in the middle of a conversation: "You're just dangling a carrot out in front of me."

C: "I know what you're talking about and that's NOT a carrot!"

- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

"I have everything I need! I have a disposable lunch, my toothbrush, my toothpaste, a change of clothes and my pajamas in my backback. I also have a "thank you" and a "your welcome" in my heart just in case."

- C (age seven) describing how ready she is for her sleepover with her friend tonight

Mom's say the darndest things!

"This is why bands shouldn't do covers. Because if you suck you can tell!"

-M (age 34) listening to a bad rock band playing for Race For The Cure right outside our condo complex.

Kids say the darndest things!

The Magnolia

The magnolia is a tree
That has beautiful flowers
On it and the flower smells
So sweet that I just want
To pick it.
But wait, if I pick this flower,
Then it would die
And I would not want that
To happen.

(C - age seven - to Mom for Mother's Day)

Kids say the darndest things!

"That's not a roar, that's a violent squeal!"

(C - age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

"I'm imagining what God's house looks like. I think it's red with a little green and some yellow and orange too. It has lots of rooms in it and there are no slaves."

- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

"Daddy, I think the force is just engineering. If you want something to move by itself you just engineer a remote control and push the buttons when nobody's looking."

- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

"Trust the Chloe..."

- C (age seven), right index finger held aloft with eyes at a sage-like half mast

And the master said...

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It's like a storm in the atmosphere."

- Thomas Jefferson (to Abigail Adams)

Kids say the darndest things!

"Whoa...I'm being hijacked by weird things!"

- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

"If your nose was numb, it wouldn't feel like your nose was numb."

- C (age seven)

And the master said...

"...but as for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to perceive a horror, and could still be social with it—would they let me—since it is but well to be on friendly terms with all the inmates of the place one lodges in."

- Ishmael, Moby Dick, Herman Melville

And the master said...

These words were part of Thomas Jefferson's rough draft of the Declaration of Independence. Meant to be part of a scathing inditement of King George III, these words were removed during the two days of debate over the document by a group of representatives from southern states who used slaves, and northern ones who delivered them:

"[The King of England] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them to slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportations thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distiguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms against us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another."

- Thomas Jefferson (accepted with minor clarifying edits by Benjamin Franklin), July 2, 1776

Kids say the darndest things!

"I'm always interrupting myself."

- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

"I'm smart enough not to do anything."

- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

"Whoa! Bad cheese things!"

- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

"There is such thing as Columbia!"

- C (age seven)

They're willing to raise your taxes, but not pay theirs.

How could someone so smart be so stupid? The answer is out there...

"Daschle's stunning statement came less than three hours after another Obama nominee also withdrew from consideration, and also over tax problems. Nancy Killefer, nominated by Obama to be the government's first chief performance officer, said she didn't want her bungling of payroll taxes on her household help to be a distraction.

Daschle was the third high-profile Obama nominee to bow out. Obama initially had tapped Bill Richardson to be Commerce secretary, but the New Mexico governor withdrew amid a grand jury investigation into a state contract awarded to his political donors.

Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Daschle's former Democratic colleagues had rallied to his defense in the wake of questions about his failure to fully pay his taxes from 2005 through 2007. Last month, Daschle paid $128,203 in back taxes and $11,964 in interest."

Drudge wins again!

One day after Drudge reported that Citigroup was purchasing a $50M jet, the Obama administration puts a stop to it with a phone call.

Drudge wins again!

One day after Drudge reported that Citigroup was purchasing a $50M jet, the Obama administration puts a stop to it with a phone call.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Politics/story?id=6740011&page=1

Kids say the darndest things!

"Wait! My toes aren't ready!"

- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

"There is no such thing as a person that is not a creature. So be nice to everyone."

- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

"It's time to open presents! ! ! Everyone goes first! ! !"

C - age seven

Kids say the darndest things...

"Daddy, if you want to get married but don't want to have a baby, how do you do that?"

- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

"Excuse me. My hands are sweaty and the gun just fell on my toe."

- C (age seven) during a hot nurf gun firefight

Kids say the darndest things!

Daddy: "That mom sure is pretty smart isn't she?"

C: "Yes, she's a LOT smarter than I used to be."

- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

"I know how to work at a job, Daddy. You just type stuff into a computer and then you get money."

- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things...

Daddy to Mommy: "Well, I think our best hope for the possibility that our child has no vices is that you secretly had her fathered by another man."

Mommy: Hmmm.

C (age seven): "Daddy, I don't really think that's a very good sentence....because I don't understand a word you just said."

Kids say the darndest things!

"Daddy, did you know that ten 10's is equal to 100 and one hundred 10's is equal to 1000? I just figured that second part out using my fingers."

- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

At a Halloween party:

C (age seven): "Daddy, look! An angel and a devil!"

Daddy: "Cool! Which one do you like better?"

C: "I like the devil best."

Kids say the darndest things!

"Father, a proper lady has a sword."

- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

"Daddy, I'm offending myself!"

- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

"Oh I get it, insurance is another word for money!"

- C (age six)

Kids say the darndest things!

"I don't play music, I sing!"

- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

"Is ice cream polite? Because ice cream you have to lick like a dog!"
- C (age seven)

Kids say the darndest things!

"I'm as hungry as a mountain eats clouds."

- C (age five)

Kids say the darndest things!

"I'm so tired of hearing ha ah wa wa ee ee ah ah leh ah ah me ne!"

- C (age five) listening to a Hawaiian radio station

Kids say the darndest things!

We took my youngest daughter C to Hawaii last year. She saw a beautiful bird sitting in a tree on one of our hikes and spoke to it:

"Excuse me, do you have a cousin named Pablo?"

- C (age five)

Kids say the darndest things!

C and I were walking back from Starbucks this morning after getting our morning coffee and breakfast. One of the slabs of cement that make up the sidewalk between Starbucks and home has been washed out and now moves when you step on it with an audible "clunk". So when I stepped on it today I looked down at her and said, "Weird".

Her reply: "That's not weird, dad, that's mysterious."

- C (age 6)

Kids say the darndest things!

"The rule of the beach is, never touch anything that is wiggling."

- C (age six)

Kids say the darndest things!

Daddy (on observing C hard at work making something): "Wow. What are you making?"

C: "Whatever it turns out to be."

- C (age six)

Kids say the darndest things!

My Mommy
- By C (age six, for mother's day)

I loved my mommy when she was young.
I love her so, she's lots of fun.
Even if she's very sad.
I still love her so she loves my daddy.
Even when I'm bad.
Just like my daddy.

Kids say the darndest things!

"Everybody has to love someone."

- C (age six)

Kids say the darndest things!

C: "What is the video game doing?"

Daddy: "It's updating."

C: "What does that mean?"

Daddy: "Sometimes the system needs new software and this is how it gets it. Don't worry about it - it's just how the system does it."

C: "Oh. Well, my way of updating is very much looking forward to dating someone someday."

Daddy: "Huh?"

C: "Don't worry about it. That's just how I do it."

- C (age six)

Kids say the darndest things!

"You're so goofy you could explode the earth. Pshfewwww! See, that was you...you exploded the earth!"

- C (age six)

Clinton / Sagan?

Come to think of it, I never did see Hillary Rodham Clinton and Carl Sagan in the same room...

Kids say the darndest things!

"Daddy, what if I was a chocolate covered grasshopper? I mean, hopping, hopping, baking, hot, hot, swimming in chocolate, eaten, hurts!! "

- C (age six)

Kids say the darndest things!

Daddy: "My brain doesn't work very good sometimes."

C: "Go see the doctor and she'll tell you what's wrong with you."

C: "And, by the way, patients rhymes with patience!"

- C (age six)

And the master said...

"If ever there was a city designed to distract us from our troubles, it would be Paris."

- Thomas Jefferson

Kids say the darndest things!

"Wow! It's so warm out here that all I need to go outside is nothing!"

- C (age six)

Kids say the darndest things!

"Daddy, did you know that there's very little gravity on the moon and that means that when you jump you go up much higher and stay up longer. So, that means you can jump up and do poses before you come back down just like Pocahontas does."

- C (age six)

Kids say the darndest things!

C, holding up a small sundial-shaped device she has made from construction paper:

"Daddy, this is the new game I made. This is the spinner and whoever is up gets to spin it. And if this big giant pointy part points to someone, then they get to sprinkle the magic dust and then we all have a party. Then you clean up the party, clean up the magic dust, put it back into the thing and then we do it all again...

It's a very big game."

- C (age six)

Kids say the darndest things!

C, holding up a five foot long paper snake that she had made:

"Daddy, this is my new pet. It's an anaconda that can turn into a king cobra when it wants to strike. And she's very nervous..."

- C (age six)

Kids say the darndest things!

"Oh. That's kind of like 'cheating magic'."

- C, (age 6) upon daddy showing her a magic trick purchased from a magic show.

Kids say the darndest things!

"'Syllables' has three syllables."

- C (age 6)

Kids say the darndest things!

"Wow! Clouds are made by trains! Look!"

- C, age six

Kids say the darndest things!

Watching the desert town battle scene in the movie Transformers:

"Wow! All the people in the whole beach are here to fight the dragon Transformer!"

- C, age six

Kids say the darndest things!

"Daddy, can people do what the sunshine does?"

- C (age six)

SOS

Just a castaway
An island lost at sea
Another lonely day
With no one here but me
More loneliness
Than any man could bear
Rescue me before I fall into despair

I'll send an SOS to the world
I'll send an SOS to the world
I hope that someone gets my
Message in a bottle

A year has passed since I wrote my note
But I should have known this right from the start
Only hope can keep me together
Love can mend your life
But love can break your heart

I'll send an SOS to the world
I'll send an SOS to the world
I hope that someone gets my
Message in a bottle

Walked out this morning
Don't believe what I saw
A hundred billion bottles
Washed up on the shore
Seems I'm not alone at being alone
A hundred billion castaways
Looking for a home

I'll send an SOS to the world
I'll send an SOS to the world
I hope that someone gets my
Message in a bottle

Sending out an SOS

- Message in the Bottle, The Police

Kids say the darndest things!

C: "Daddy, where is heaven?"

Daddy: "Heaven is everywhere."

C: "Really? Is heaven in a movie?"

Daddy: "Good question."

- C (age six)

Kids say the darndest things!

"Hurting parents is what kids do best!"

- C (age six)

Number One

Go Bucks!

Kids say the darndest things!

"Darth Vader is a bad guy, except he's cool."

- C (age 6)

Free your mind...

...from the matrix.

The coming dawn...

As the dew turns into frost
There is something that I hope will not be lost
The leaves will change, they'll start to fall
I still wonder if it mattered much at all
When my world starts to fade
I can only hope that every choice I made
Will endure, and carry on ... into the
Coming dawn

The breezes blow, soft clouds drift by
Like some artists' canvas captured in my eye
I am sure, I'm holding fast
I am dying for a lifetime that will last
But when my world starts to fade
I'm still hoping this foundation that I laid
Will endure, and carry on ... into the
Coming dawn

We're so close, yet never touch
Can there be a love that changes me this much
I can't see, eyes open wide
Yet I'll never doubt you're standing by my side
When my world, starts to fade
I can only hope that every choice I made
Will endure, and carry on ... into the
Coming dawn

- Kerry Livgren
Kansas - Somewhere To Elsewhere

Historic

"We reviewed and we can't find a team in the history of the AP Poll that has ever lost to a lower division team..."

- Sports Center



"Uh...uh.....i think it's a combination...i think...uh.... inexperience.....uh....uh......ya hafta play to get it and...uh.....uh....Appalachian State had tremendous speed at the....uh....skilled positions....and......uh....uh .....you know.....uh ......they did a good job.

- "Coach" Lloyd Carr

Pain is a necessary part of beauty...

Artists suck unless they really, fundamentally hurt. And so they seek pain, and in so doing hurt those around them.

Those who believe themselves to be artists are similarly possessed of this tendency. And thus, despite their lack of ability to heal, they hurt - fundamentally.

Damn.

Quotable quotes...

"Nothing says revenge like mother nature."

- Chris Harmon, artist, father, excellent host!