My family's future

My school was giving away some (really) old iMacs. Not one to turn down a freebie, I figured I'd bring it home for the kids to play with and learn to type on, etc.. They were absolutely overjoyed when they saw it. As I was putting it together, they were dancing around me excitedly. When I turned it on, Mordechai caught his breath in a little gasp and looked at me with shining eyes and said, "Does this mean we can have our own blogs?"

Looks like I'm headed down the same road taken by the PT family. G-d help the blogosphere.;)

Kie-Wak-Eee

Since Kaiser was taken kayaking last summer he has not forgotten it. He saw a commercial on TV yesterday of two men kayaking and said, "Mom, I wanna go Ky-wak-eeeeee." I like the way he said it. I had to keep asking him, "what is it called?"

"Kie-Wa-Keeeee"

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Sari (4) and Ada (2) went down the hall to visit Penina. Apparently she wasn't home because no one answered their knocks. Sari came back to the door and was holding it open, urging Ada to come back home while Ada was stubbornly holding her ground. After a moment or two of this, Sari called out:

Mom, I need some assistance.

Me (surprised to hear her use that word): Assistance, eh? Where did you hear that? Who says that?

Sari (with a mischievous twinkle in her eye): Daddy says that to you.

Me: He does? When?

Sari: When I'm not going to bed!

No Wonder She Is So Good At Scrabble

She is my 7 1/2 year old daughter. She has a great vocabulary and loves to play boggle and scrabble.

When we play word games with her, we are often pleasantly surprised by her choice of words she uses, and other times, we are stunned. She is the cunning, oops I mean the quiet observer and listener. She's always been this way.

So why should I be so shocked when, out of the blue last night, she asked me -

"Momma, what does Shmuck mean?"

Clearing my throat, I said, "Uh, what?"

"Shmuck. I heard you use it when you were talking about your friend."

"Um, well, uh, a Shmuck is a jerk. When someone is acting like a big jerk, that's what it means."

"Hmm", she sighed to herself.

"Then, momma, there is sure a lot of Shmucks at my school."

"Well, Nat, I am sure there are, but it's not a word you want to use at school."


Let's just save it for Scrabble. How many points is it worth?

Help Me Do It Myself

We were getting ready to go to town I told Kaiser to change from shorts to pants. He asked me to help him. I said, "No, do it yourself." He said, "NO, I want you to help me do it myself."

My sister-in-law came to visit. We don't see her very often, when Kaiser (4) came in, he kept looking at her then came to me and said, "Mom, what is that?" pointing to my sister-in-law. She laughed and asked if she looked that bad. I said, "That's aunt Carolyn."

Peer pressure?

Chana (7), Rivka (5), and I were walking home from synagogue, when Rivka bent down to pick up a lollipop stick she had dropped.

Chana: What's that?

Rivka: My lolli stick.

Chana: Oh, I thought it was a cigarette.

Rivka: What's a cigarette.

Chana: It's something that you should never, ever, use. It can kill you. But it makes you look cool.

Me: WHAT!!!!????

Chana: It does, Daddy.

Me: How does it make you look cool?

Chana: It just does.

Me: What do you know about cool, anyway?

Chana: A whole lot more than you.

(My guess is that at some anti-smoking assembly at school, someone said that smoking might make you look cool, but it's dangerous. In any case, we straightened it out and agreed that it is not cool.)

Steppenwolf, eat your heart out

Chana (7) was having a friend sleep over. Rivka (5) was a little out of control.

Mrs. Ralphie: Rivka, you need to stop being so wild.

Rivka (completely genuinely, searching for the right words): But, Mom, I was... born to be wild.

No, she's never heard - or heard of - the song.

Arctic construction materials

We were at a Purim party today. My wife asked me to find her some bottled water (which she saw others drinking) but I couldn't. Then, as we were leaving, I noticed where they were.

Me: Oh, there's an igloo of water under the table.

Rivka (5): How can an igloo be made of water? It would just fall apart.