A Day with James (and George)

James has started talking to George. Almost incessantly, in fact. He's always carried around with him and I suspect that until recently (when he became comfortable processing the world out loud) he's kept a silent conversation with his very curious friend. But now pretty much anything that happens is relayed out loud to George. "We're at Wegmans now, George. Did you see that?" (then he will hold George up the window so he can see.) "George, where did my car go? Oh, there it is George. Yay! We did it!" (James always refers to himself as "we" now, because George is there too.)

I. James and I were throwing a football around in the living room--this is the way many great father-son stories start, by the way; it's almost as good an opening line as "it was a dark and stormy night"--and James whipped it at me much harder than expected, so that the catch was almost as much in self-defense as anything else. 

"Wow!" I exclaimed, "that one had some mustard on it."

He started giggling.

"Daddy, you said that had MUSTER on it."

"Yeah, that throw had some mustard on it."

<More giggling.>

"George, that throw had some MUSTURP on it."

From then on, every throw had "mustard" on it, which made him laugh so hard that he could barely stand up, and when he announced that one particularly wobbly toss had "ketchup" on it, he got to laughing so hard that he just collapsed in a heap of giggles.

"That's funny, George!"

II. "James, if we're going to go outside we need to put your hat on."

"I don't want to wear my hat."

"You need to wear your hat if we're going to go outside."

"My nose is wunny."

"Yeah, don't do that with Steven. You don't want to wipe your snot on him."

"What's snot?"

"Never mind. Do you want a kleenex."

"I wipe my snot on Steven. That's what Steven is for. George, I wipe my snot on Steven."
"Don't wipe your snot on Steven, James. He'll need to take a bath."

"I wipe my snot on George too."

"Here's your hat, put it on please."

"George, I need to wipe more snot on Steven."

III. It is with enormous vindictive pleasure that I hereby report that the tag "cooking disasters" attached to this blog has NOTHING to do with anything that I screwed up. J made chili in the crock pot earlier in the afternoon and told us to eat that for dinner. When the clock hit six I walked over to the chili crock and found it completely cold. Sure enough, it was unplugged. Unplugged from the exact same outlet where I'd seen her ironing her clothes just before she left. I texted her.

She wrote back:

"Blargh! I told James to remind me to plug the crock pot back in!"

I suspect that James told George to remind him to remind J, and George just forgot to remind James.

I made hot dogs on the stove, cut James' up into pennies, and set it out for him with a squirt of mustard and a squirt of ketchup. "That's a funny noise, Daddy. George, that's a funny noise." He ended up having the dinner of champions. Half a hot dog worth of pennies, a pickle, three enormous piles of banana pepper rings, and several spoonfuls of ketchup directly off his plate before I caught him and took it away.

IV. James was working on a birthday card for Grandma Davis earlier today, so I think he had her birthday on his mind. That must have been why he was making her a cake in the bathtub.

"Daddy, I'm makin' a cake for Gra-maw. Here's her cake."

He put a cup full of water on the side of the tub.

"Here's another cake for Gran-maw. I need to tell George I'm drinkin' some cake."

He put another cup of water on the lip of the tub, and started drinking a third.

"I'm drinkin' yummy cake. Daddy, you keep Gran-maw's cake right there."

V. While James was making cake in the tub I saw this video posted on facebook by about four different musician friends. I know absolutely nothing about the tune that it's making fun of, but I absolutely love this woman's voice. If something should ever happen to J, and I say this in the full knowledge that she will read this in my blog, I would track this girl down and marry her so that she can come and do Flock of Uncles gigs.

James says "I want...to have to watch that again."

VI. When the bath was over I pulled the plug on the tub and the water started to drain out.

"Daddy, why that water go down?"

"Gravity makes it go down."

"What's grabbity?"

"You see this toothpaste tube? If I drop it, will it fall up or fall down?"

"It's gonna fall down."

"Yup, look it fell down. Gravity makes things go down."

"Why grabbity make things go down?"

"It's a force. It pulls down on everything that has mass. I think."

"Why it have mass?"

"Because...of something to do with...I don't know. There is a reason, though."

"Daddy, this is why you go to school."

"Are you telling me I should go to school to learn about gravity?"

"No, I wanna talk to George."