Ada (5) was sitting in a shopping cart and started scratching the back of her knee vigorously. I asked her what the matter was and she answered, "My legpit itches me."

Yesterday, I had this conversation with my 7-year-old.

Sari: Mommy, do I go to a private school?

Me: Yes, you do.

Sari (after a moment's pause): Then how come it's out in middle of the street?

Almost five!

Someone asked Ada the other day how old she was. Her response:

"Four and a half and three-quarters."

Beating Eggs

On Friday, Ada and I were preparing challah dough. I was narrating the process and after we had checked the eggs to make sure they were kosher, I announced that I was going to beat the eggs. After I had whisked them for a few moments, Ada called out in glee:

"You won!"

Say what?

Mordechai picked up a tube of Lotrimin that was on the table.

Mordechai: What's this?
Daddy: Medicine.
M: For what?
D: For athlete's foot.
M: For who's foot?

Wrong foot

Ada (2 1/2) is all too familiar with the experience of trying to put her shoe on the wrong foot. She usually figures it out when she realizes she is having way too much trouble than would normally be expected from a harmless velcro shoe. The other day she was trying to put on her sock by herself and the sock just didn't seem to want to cooperate. She turned to me in frustration and asked, "It's the wrong foot?"

Oh, brother!

Mordechai (7) was wondering about Mothers' Day and about how the whole thing got started. I explained to him the whole Hallmark thing. He then asked, "Why don't they have Brothers' Day?"

"Well, um, I don't really know," I replied.

Mordechai shrugged and said, "It doesn't matter anyway because one day I'll be a father."

UPDATE: I was telling the story over to Dovid and Sari (4) piped up to say, quite matter-of-factly, "On Mothers' Day all the non-Jewish fathers take the mothers to a fancy restaurant."

Got that Dovid?

So literal!

At the hotel, in the children's dining room, as I'm bringing some chicken over to Ada (2 1/2):

Me: Ada, look! I got you the best chicken in the house.

She (laughing at the "joke"): Dis not a house!

And then, a short while later...

Me (hugging her to pieces): I love you, baby doll.

She (looking at me like I'm an idiot): I not a doll, I'm a Ada!

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.;)

Quote

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!

Mordechai's rebbe met up with Dovid today in yeshiva and told over the following conversation he had had today with Mordechai (just turned 7!):

Mordechai: Is it okay to ask a rebbe when his birthday is?

Rebbe: The Torah doesn't say you can't but it's not so nice to ask older people because it's considered a private question.

Rebbe: Why? Does it make a difference?

Mordechai: Not really. I just wanted to know your birthday so I could tell my mother to bake a cake.

Good neighbors aren't everything

After wrestling with a jar of marinara sauce with no luck, I sent Mordechai with the jar to my neighbor's house so she could try her hand at getting it open. He came back a few minutes later with the opened jar.

Me: Oh, wow, great. How'd she get it open?

Mordechai: Oh, she had this can opener thing she used to twist it open.

Me: Well, isn't it great to have good neighbors?

Mordechai (shrugs, as if to say, "yeah, whatever."): It's even better to have a can opener.

Life and Death

Almost every Sunday, the kids and I travel along the Jackie Robinson Parkway (a.k.a. the Interboro) en route to my mom and dad's house in Brooklyn. Sari (4) and Ada (2) have a habit of shouting "cemetery!" as soon as the headstones along the parkway come into view. Sari has been enjoying this ritual for quite some time and is thrilled to see that Ada has joined her. Last week, she seemed a bit more thoughtful:

Sari: Mommy, when I die, can you bury me next to you?

Me: Honey, that's not going to happen for a very, very long time so I don't think we have to plan about that yet.

Sari: I know, I know. But when I die, could you bury me next to you?

Me: Sure, okay.

Sari: And Daddy and Mordechai and Ada, too?

Me: Yeah, sure. But you know that's not going to happen for a very, very long time when we're very, very old.

Sari (clapping her hands, gleefully): Yay! We're going to be all together just like now! It's going to be so much fun!

Everyday Math

I was doing a puzzle a few weeks ago when Mordechai (almost 7) asked me if 15 times 20 is 300. I was totally shocked and then he explained how he knew that. He had counted the pieces along the width and length of the puzzle and realized that by multiplying those numbers he would get the amount of pieces in the puzzle. Then he just had to look at the puzzle box for the answer!

(His math homework tonight was simple word problems requiring subtraction or addition with single-digit numbers. Something tells me he's not exactly being challenged in math class.)

Clean-Up Time

We were expecting an important guest that was interviewing us for a position. I was kind of stressing out about getting the place in order. (I actually considered using my neighbor's apartment which is always immaculate, but decided it would be tough to explain the large number of pictures of a different couple around the entire apartment.) Mordechai(6) came up with a plan:

"Don't worry. We'll just make the closets messier and the room will be neater!"

Under control ;)

I was in my bedroom tidying up while the kids were playing in the living room. Ada (2) waddled into the room and announced to me, "Muchai bozzing Sayi." (translated from kidspeak: Mordechai is bothering Sari).

Me (concentrating on the pile of socks that seemed to have not a single pair): Mmhmm.

Ada (with added emphasis to convey a strong sense of urgency): Mommy, Muchai bozzing Sayi!

Me (shaking my head over the socks): *sigh*

Ada (giving up): I go tell Muchai.

With that, she bustled off importantly. And I was left to deal with my socks with the knowledge that Ada had everything in hand. Such a help, that little one ;).

cross-posted at May Cuties.

Age calculations

My uncle Menachem is visiting from Israel. Menachem is something of a clown and drives everyone crazy sometimes. We were at my mom's house today and so got to see them.

Menachem to Mordechai: How old are you now?

Mordechai: Six.

Menachem: How long did it take you to become six?

Mordechai: Two years.

Menachem: Two years? How do you figure that?

Mordechai: Well, the last time you were here I was four!

(How he remebered that Menachem was here about two years ago is beoyond me.)

A public reading

Cross-posted at May Cuties.

In a word

Ada (2) was playing with a baby doll in a play stroller. Suddenly, she leaned over the baby, sniffed, and said, "Eeeew!" She whisked the doll out of the stroller, marched her over to the bed, and proceeded to "wipe" the doll's bottom, all the while muttering, "Eeew. Uch. Ichy." (Of course, she peeked up at me with a mischievous smile playing at her lips to make sure I was enjoying her show :))

Rosh hashana according to Mordechai

From last year's playbook when Mordechai was five:

This is how it works: There are three books. One is for mal'achim (angels) and they for sure get a sweet new year. One is for resha'im (wicked people) and they don't get a sweet new year. And most of us are in the middle book. We sometimes do mitzvos and sometimes do aveiros. If we daven and do teshuva we'll get to the book for a sweet new year. If not, chas v'shalom, we go to the book for not a sweet new year. But children don't have to worry so much 'cause this is mostly for grown-ups.