The week, part un

Q's asleep, finally, I think. I have a new toy -- a nasal aspirator. It freaks him out, what with all the vibrating, but it makes music, so it has to be also worth tolerating. What a conundrum for a little punkinhead. Thanks, Melanie, for the tip. He's breathing softly in his chair and I'm hoping to move him to his crib in a couple of minutes here.

There's just a ton to tell about this last week, the most trivial thing (and yet not so) being that I got organic milk for half off. Eight gallons of it. Yup. I'm terribly proud of myself. If we get too close to the expiration date on that last one, we'll have ourselves a vat of homemade chocolate pudding. From scratch. It's a win, however you look at it.

But other than the finding of the cheap organic milk (I do rock, thanks), I'm just going to share a couple of quick funnies from the week. Everything else is bigger and has further explanations and possible follow-up scenarios to report. I'm not thinking well enough to drag us through all those details, so here's the fun stuff.

On Wednesday, S and I were discussing the definition of a verb. (A verb is a word that does an action, shows a state of being, links two words together, or helps another verb.) It was her job to link names with verbs. She reeled off several and then came to me. "Hmmmmm... Mommy spends most of her time telling us all what to do and helping us get the things done we need to... I know! Mommy commands." So I'm grinning, trying not to be led off-topic by the little sprite, and it's time to list off action verbs before moving on to the next thing. She reels off walk, talk, hop, skip, and all their many friends. I ask her if she can say just one more before we move on. "Sure!" she says. "Pregnant."

Um. "What?"

"Yes. Pregnant." She declined my requests for explanation. It wasn't until the scenario below commenced that it hit me -- Duh! It's a state of being. Pregnant is a state of being. So of course it's a verb. What was I thinking? I'm still a little puzzled about her trying to connect it to an action verb, though.

I never did laugh until she was out of the room. And then only after I put on my Mommy Commander hat.

G was taking an English test Thursday. The first question was: What parts of speech does an adjective modify? Now. It is not unusual for a brain to freeze when presented with a test, so as he was sitting, making muddled and frustrated noises, I reminded him to go on with the test and come back to that question and that this process would do what it usually does -- unlock that brain so it can access the answer that was in there not an hour earlier.

He found himself unable to do this. "Mom. Are nouns and pronouns parts of speech?"

Me (staring at him blankly): "This is a test. Are nouns and pronouns parts of speech?"

G: "Well, I don't know! Are they? I haven't studied parts of speech yet!"

Oh right. Only for the last, what, seven years? I sat, unable to form a logical response to the boy. Eventually, he moved on -- just about the time I started to think that if he was fussing about this, the following pages of adjective clauses and their friends were going to fry his not so little head right there.

Fast forward to him writing in the correct answer after his brain came out of vapor lock and me snorting (just a little, after he was out of the room) while grading the durned thing.

It's so nice that they're cute, isn't it?