There’s also a lot of unsavory language in the film, and needless to say, Owen learned some new words yesterday (the possibility of there not being an Easter bunny was also introduced in the film, on Easter, no less). He didn’t pick up on “shit,” “dammit,” or “asshole.” “Dick” was mildly amusing to him because a kid said it, but the one he perceived as being the worst in the film … well, let the conversation speak for itself:

Owen: “There was a really bad word in the movie Mommy and I watched today.”
Daddy: “Oh? What was it?”
Owen: “FRAUD! The man in the movie was named Mr. Mee, and they said, ‘Mr. Mee is a fraud!’ It sounded like a really bad word.”

So Owen learned a new vocabulary word, which outshined all of the not-so-nice words in the film (it was PG, don’t judge me!), and we learned that our kid is really still very innocent.

Last night, it was becoming a great restaurateur. After grabbing him some take-out at the 99, he was raving over the fries and thinking, thinking, thinking. “When I grow up, I’m going to open up a really good restaurant. It’s going to be even better than The 99. I’m going to call it The 100.”

“Daddy said there are no ingredients in it that need to be refrigerated!” he emphatically declared.

I calmly explained to him that was probably true, but I felt better about keeping it in the refrigerator. He was really agitated, and I couldn’t understand why he felt so strongly about where we keep the hot sauce. Then:

“What if it becomes cold sauce?!”

And you know this conversation ended with me saying, “Oh great, that was so cute that I have to write a Super Owen post tonight.”

“Mommy, why don’t you go start it now so you can do some other things tonight?” How thoughtful.

A few minutes later, he came and showed me what he wrote: “Look Mommy, I wrote my name: Ohin.” Can’t argue with  that, just many in a long life of lessons about the absurd and inconsistent English language.

“I just stepped on my own pinkie!”

That about sums up our last couple of weeks. Owen is growing so fast that his gross motor control can’t keep up with it. The result has been lots of banged heads, elbows and the like. Right now, he has a bruise on one knee and a gash on the other (complete with frog band-aid). He falls down. A lot. In tennis class, even.

We thought maybe a chiropractic treatment would help, but the pinkie incident and one of the knees happened the day after, so I think we’re stuck with Jack Tripper for a little while longer.

It’s OK, Owen, I know just what you mean. Life here is pretty great from my end, too!

However, after putting a hole in the antique reclaimed wood coffee table last weekend, I figured it was time to focus my efforts a bit more strongly. He now knows that when he climbs the baskets to the kitchen island, if one of them breaks, he pays for it with his piggy bank cash. Heartless, right? But that’s a logical consequence for the blatant disrespect of ignoring my pleas to not step on the baskets.

Today, while climbing the baskets, I repeated myself for the vigintillionth time to deaf ears … so I thought. But once he was perched happily on the kitchen island (which I need to leave more cluttered so there’s no room for him!), another Owen classic burst forth from King Clever. Have I mentioned I’m not quite sure where I got this kid?

“Well, I can’t break this (referring to the granite countertop) … unless I had pickaxe toes.”

It’s comments like this one that get me into trouble. Really, how can I discipline that kind of reasoning?

“I will tell you when your time is up, and when it is, you will not say ‘Wait a minute’ or ‘Just a second’ or ‘Hold on’; you will stop immediately and you will say ‘Yes, Ma’am!’”

“OK.”

*pause*

“Can I just say yes?”

Why, why, why must his defiance be so cute?

Then Keith came in and told me he thought it was way too dry in the house and that we needed to turn up the humidifiers or something, because Owen had just sneezed a bunch of brown gook out of his nose. Yuck.

All during bedtime reading, sneezing. (“Owen, is your nose itchy?” “Oh, yes, so itchy!”) During prayers, sneezing. Lights out, more sneezing. I finally asked Owen if there was something I could do to help and he said no. So I asked him if he knew what was going on with his nose:

“Yeah, when I was eating my trail mix I laughed and snarfed a carob chip up my nose and now it’s making me sneeze.”

When I told Keith, he said, “Oh. Now it makes sense why Owen said, ‘Yum!’ when he sneezed the brown gook.”

Ewwwww. ….

“In the name of George Lucas, stop shaking your head.”

There is not even a glimmer in my feeble brain as to where he would have gotten this from. All I know is it was worth the intense round of giggles that burst forth from the cutest 7-year-old in the land … every time he repeated this. Because he said it several times, once he saw the reaction he got — he knows a good thing when he sees it.