"They look the same."

You may have heard us talk about how much Charlie looks like Jack when he was a baby, but I thought you might like to see some photographic evidence.

Jack


Charlie


Jack


Charlie

Inside guitars and under houses

It's so hard to imagine how three-year-olds see the world. What's even stranger is to imagine what they think of dreams and how they relate to that world. To my knowledge Jack had never told me about anything from his dreams, so I had never thought to explain to him what dreams are.

A few nights ago, Jack woke up in the middle of the night, crying. I went into his room to see what was the matter. He was crying and yelling something about "pop monsters". I thought that maybe he had a bad dream about monsters (which I thought strange since the only monsters he knows about are nice monsters-- Grover, Cookie Monster, etc.) Then Jack started yelling "I want my pop monsters!!" I said "OK, Jack. Where are your pop monsters?" He said "in my toy box!!!" I turned on his light, walked over to closet, opened the toy box and said "there aren't any monsters in here, Jack. Just Cookie Monster and he's a nice monster." This only added to the fury of his crying. "I WANT MY POP MONSTERS!!!!" I said "Sweetheart, I don't know what you're talking about. Where are the pop monsters?" He said "in my guitar". Well, I wasn't going to get his guitar for him because I didn't think it would help anything and also it's kind of loud. I just wanted him to go back to sleep. Jeremy came in the room and told me that Charlie was crying, so I went to tend to him. Jeremy held Jack and calmed him by saying that he could play with the "pop monsters" in the morning.

Well, 6:30 rolls around and Jack strolls into my room. "I found my guitar, Mommy." I yawned and said "oh, good, Jack." He walked over to my side of the bed and said "can you open it and get the pop monsters out?"

"Um... Sweetie, I can't open it. See? It doesn't open."

[Starts screaming and crying] I WANT MY POP MONSTERS, MOMMY!!!! GET MY POP MONSTERS OUT!!!" (By the way, Jack isn't prone to crying and screaming when he doesn't get his way) It was very alarming and I wondered if he ever went to sleep or if he just sat in his bed waiting for the first sign of light to get his pop monsters out of the guitar.

I started trying to calm him down.

"OK, Jack, well tell me what the pop monsters look like."

He calmed down and said "red, green, blue and yellow."

"Are they small?"

"No, they're big."

"Do they have eyes?"

"No, they have music notes."


???

(Later when I looked at his guitar he showed me the buttons on it. They were different colors and had music notes on them.)

He was still upset so I tried to explain to him what a dream is, and I found it a very difficult thing to explain. He seemed to accept it, but for the rest of the day, continued to tell everyone about the pop monsters.

Moving on from one crazy child to another...

Later on, we went over to a lady's house so our kids could have a "playdate." [Shudder.] (Can I just say how much I hate the word "playdate." I HATE IT. This lady, -we'll call her "Mrs.M"- asked us over for a "playdate." If you use that word, that's quite all right. I don't think there is anything wrong with you. Just try not to use that word around me. Or do.) Back to my story.

When we first got there I was talking to Mrs.M, asking her if there was anything my kids could get into, explaining to her that if there was, then my kids would get into it. I said "they're kind of wild." She said "oh my kids are very wild." (Maybe she meant to say "mild", because I never saw evidence of any wildness in them.) Later the kids all started playing outside. I saw Evie spot the three outdoor cats Mrs.M owned and she got so excited. It was her first time to see a cat in.... person? (Oh, okay. Definition: in one's bodily presence.) So her first time to see a cat in person. She ran over to the side of the house. I'm so used to my kids getting into all kinds of mischief that I have to think about the worst things that could happen. I thought about their house and how it was situated and I thought it seemed likely that the cats were running over to the side of the house to climb under the house. I immediately asked "is it possible for Evie to climb under your house?" She said "yeah, but I doubt she would." Her saying those words only confirmed it in my mind. Evie was under the house. I ran over there and sure enough, she was crawling in this extremely dark damp muddy place under the house. She was just crawling around with the cats. It would have been extremely amusing if it hadn't been so so very terrifying. I tried to sound calm and not think about the possibility of broken bottles and snakes that could be under that house. "Evie, sweetheart. Why don't you come over here to mommy? Maybe we can get some juice in your cup! Mmmm. OK? But you have to come over here to mommy."

..... Nothing.

Fortunately, she followed the cats to another opening at the back of the house and even though the open space was small, I was able to grab her and pull her out. Man, just typing that out and remembering how scary it was really stressed me out.

Maybe Mrs.M now knows just how literal I was being when I used the word "wild" to describe my children.