7 Quick Takes Friday

A little late on my Quick Takes today, but here they are:

1.

My parents had their carpet cleaned today, which seemed like as good a reason as any to keep my kids out of the house.  So, after picking up Josh from school at noon, I took everyone to Chik-fil-A for lunch (thanks, Grandma, for the gift card) and a little playground time.  Then my mom got Lauren from me, and I took the boys to see the movie Earth.

It was nothing you couldn't see on the Discovery Channel, but we all enjoyed it.  The boys liked the part where the great white shark jumped completely out of the water, and I liked the part where they completely left out mating.  Yeah, that was a relief.

2.  

I consider myself a pretty honest person.  If someone gives me more change than I'm due, I always give it back.  I won't put soda in a cup if I purchased water.   

However, when I go to the movies, I become a completely different person.  I sneak in bottled soda along with M&M's and plastic bags to divy them up.  Today, as I was pulling all my contraband out of my purse, Joshua said, "Mom, isn't it against the rules to sneak food into the movie?"  As if God Himself was answering the question, when I opened the coke bottle, coke spewed everywhere.  Then, I somehow tore open bag #1 of M&M's upside down so that half of them fell straight onto the floor.  So, I opened bag #2 and began to pour some into a baggie for Ethan, but I accidentally poured them into the little fold part (of the cheap sandwich bags) instead of into the actual bag, thereby losing half of bag #2 as well.

Perhaps there's a lesson to be learned here.  Like distribute the M&M's ahead of time.

3.

I let my kids  watch The Princess Bride recently, so the boys now run around saying, "My name is Indigo Montoya; you killed my father; prepare to die" all the time.  What's funny, though, is Lauren (who didn't watch the movie), because she doesn't know the entire line, so she just runs around pretending to swing a sword and saying, "Prepare to die!"  Yes, this girl has brothers.

4.

We attended a piano recital tonight for all four of my nieces as well as my nephew.  As piano recitals go, it was not too unbearably long, but when the penultimate song started, Joshua leaned over and said, "Mom, haven't we hear this song already?"  I understood the question.

5.

I think I'm a pretty nice person.  I let people pull out in front of me when an intersection is busy, and from time to time, I even let someone else have the front row seat at a red light.  But, I'm always surprised by people who flash their lights to let others know that there is a police car ahead.

This happened to me the other day, and it took a minute for it to register what the car was telling me . . . well, those around me; I was not even speeding because I can't afford it anymore.  Who goes out of their way to warn speeders about a cop?  Honestly, I usually think to myself something supremely charitable like, "Ooh, I hope he gets a ticket!"  

This anonymous light flasher has revealed depths of my depravity of which I was hitherto unaware.  Who knew a 10 minute drove could be so "enlightening?"

6.

At dinner tonight Joshua informed me that he was pretending he was eating a "dinosaur's insistence." 

Huh?

He repeated it, and then it took me just a minute of his colorful description to figure out that he meant "intestines."  

Yeah, I know.  Boys.

7.

Two weeks until we leave.  On the way home from the piano recital tonight, Lauren asked me, "Mommy, is Pennsylvania a palace?"

Wouldn't that be nice.  She, of course, has no concept of what a state is, and I've noticed lately that she always refers to our being "at Pennsylvania" rather than "in" it.  For instance, she'll say, "When we're at Pennsylvania, can we get a dog?" or "When we're at Pennsylvania, it's going to snow."

Makes me wonder if she thinks it's sort of like Walmart.