Upon request for more Peanutisms this week, let me introduce you to this week in my child’s brain:

“Mommy, will you come play with me and my dollhouse? Yes? Okay. You have to pay me two nickels and two dimes. And if you can’t pay me two nickels and two dimes today, you can pay six dimes and two dimes and then tomorrow you can pay six nickels.”

Sitting in front of my typewriter, the ribbon to which is long since dried up: [for the sake of your eyes, I’m deleting the “And then what happened?” after every line.]
“I’m thinking of a story about ladybugs. A ladybug was hitting people. Then the people didn’t want a sorry. Then the ladybug went home to get something big to hit the people with. Then the ladybug hit the people and they still didn’t want a sorry. Then the ladybug ate the people.” Was this aphids? “No, people.” And then what happened? “Nothing. Nothing happens after you eat. Except poop.”

“Mommy, if I’m whining, I will just ignore you because my ears don’t understand whining.”

“Daddy, if you don’t say it nicely, I just won’t do it. If you say please, I still won’t do it.”

[I don’t make these up, people. I write them down and type them verbatim.]

“Once upon a time there was a girl who liked E. She just liked E. And she became E and just sat there. Because she was a E.”

“When we go to H’s house, I won’t share any toys, and I will just bring my toys and not share and if she asks me to share I will yell ‘NOOOOOO. Get your own!'” It’s her house and she’ll have her own toys. “Oh. Well then, I’m not going.”

“Once upon a time there was a coyote. And the coyote looked and looked for some meat that had already died but it couldn’t find any. So it pushed down another coyote and stomped on it and then ate it.”

[Good thing I just read and saw Raising Cain, so I know pretend violence is not real violence and not something to fear and something inherent, it seems, despite my previous belief that boys and girls are really the same, that crops up in boys’ stories over and over. Because the same story repeated with wolves and lions. Thanks to the relatives who gave him the visual dictionary of the animal kingdom which led to questions about what they were eating that was red and why the deer fell down and why its bleeding and can it feel when it dies and I don’t want to do die and when I die don’t let anything eat me. And why do some people believe the feeling part of you goes to the sky to be happy and other people believe the feeling part of you floats like a ghost and other people think the feeling part of you dies, too?…No, really, thanks for that gift that keeps on giving this month.]