Cup o' Goldfish and the Tinks Eye

The boys and I had the munchies late yesterday evening, so we headed to the cupboard to see what we could snack on. There were some Pepperidge Farm Goldfish in there, which sounded good to me. I asked the boys, "Would you like a couple goldfish?" They enthusiastically responded, "Peese!" So I sat them down at the table and gave them each a little handful. Owen started crying. When I asked him what was wrong, he cried, "Cup! Cup goldfish!" I guess when I said "a couple goldfish," he heard "cup o' goldfish." I gave him a paper cup with some goldfish in it, and he was happy as could be. Drew then wanted a cup too, of course, so I got him one. Now when the boys have a cup of anything, it's a cup o'. Cup o' chocolate milk. Cup o' water. And they can't hear the difference between couple and cup o', but as long as it comes in a cup, they're happy. I think I like this new system. The previous system was the nack bag (or snack bag, in regular English). All the little crackers and things fell out of those so easily, and it was tricky for the boys to hold the bag and grab things out of it at the same time. Also, I'd have little baggies all over the house, and I'd have to end up chucking them 'cause they'd be covered in dog hair or something. The cups are easier to keep track of as well as being washable, so we'll stick with the cup o' and see how that works for us.

The boys and I have a little game that we play at meal time. We just make funny faces at each other and see who laughs first. (This is sort of how I get them to feel like part of the goings-on, because when everyone is home, there isn't room for their chairs at the table and they have to sit kind of away from the group.) Drew likes to pretend he's upset and not going to laugh. He'll have his mouth all puckered up, but the corners always twitch and turn upward, especially when I give him the stink eye. The stink eye involves narrowing my eyes into little slits, pursing my lips, raising one eyebrow and moving toward the boys menacingly. I introduced the name yesterday, when Drew tried copy the look. I asked, "Are you givin' me the stink eye? Are you?" He and Owen thought it was pretty funny, because they know what the word stink means, but had probably never thought to connect it with the word eye. Owen squinted his eyes, leaned toward me and yelled, "Tinks eye!" It cracked me up. Then Owen came up with a game where we bump foreheads while giving each other the stink eye. He thought it hilarious, until he bumped me a little roughly and I said, "Ouch!" Then he got all wide-eyed and said, "I sorry, Mom." He's so sweet; he almost always apologizes immediately after hurting someone (if it's an accident, that is-- if he pushes Drew on purpose, it's harder to get him to apologize).

I'm just amazed at how quickly Drew and Owen are learning things, and how much they actually remember. We were cleaning up toys tonight, and Drew started singing the clean-up song, which he's known for a while, then he stopped and said, "Clean up, and snack!" He figured we'd have a snack because in the nursery at church, they always have the snack after cleaning up the toys. Clever, clever.

Well, all this writing about snacks and meal times is making me a little hungry. Since my strep throat has healed and I can open my mouth all the way again,* I can eat more than chicken broth and Powerade. I'm off to get a midnight snack, then off to bed I go!

*Last Monday, the day I went to the doc to get a diagnosis and some antibiotics, I couldn't open my mouth more than just enough to put a spoon in it. If there was any food on the spoon, it would get knocked off by my teeth or my lips. That made eating a little tricky and a lot frustrating. I didn't care so much on Monday, or even on Tuesday, because I mostly slept those days, just waking every three hours to feed Samantha. As the week went on, though, and I felt a lot better, I really wanted to eat something substantial. But it hurt so bad to try to force my mouth open. (If you've ever had dental work on your molars, you know the spot where they give you the shot to numb your mouth; the inside of the hinge of your jaw--that's where it hurt. It felt like I'd gotten a shot there and the pain just stuck around for a week, especially when I tried to open my mouth.) I ended up cutting everything into teeny-tiny pieces so that it took forever to finish a meal. The pain slowly went a way, but I felt like I had lockjaw because I hadn't opened my mouth all the way for almost a week. Then, during dinner last night, my jaw suddenly unhinged. Something popped, or did something; I'm not sure what happened, except that it hurt really bad, then after the pain went away, I could open my mouth again. It's been so nice. I can eat, I can yawn, it's great.