Abuse!

Yes, there is abuse going on in our home ...but the guilty party may surprise you-- NOAH!!!

Yes, Noah gave Nate a black eye and himself a lip laceration in the space of 3 hours. You may think he looks small and sweet, but watch out!!!

Learned Behaviors...

Noah has been sleeping in our room for the last two nights because he has had a little cold. He doesn't sleep well anyway and the congestion makes the poor little sleeper a horrible little sleeper...Aarrgh! My philosophy is that it's better for me to be awake all night than Cannon, so that's that. This morning as he was crawling all over me (trying to squeeze in a few more minutes of sleep--HA!) he found a box of tissues. He proceeded to take a tissue down to the end of the bed where the dogs sleep, hold a tissue up to their nose and command... "Bwow! Bwow!" Then he took it to the other dog, "Bwow! Bwow!" Then he left the tissue for the dogs to rip to shreds (because that's what our dogs do with every tissue they get their paws on--they especially like the snotty ones). Noah then went back to the tissue box, retrieved another tissue and repeated the process.

Speaking of Noah copying behaviors ...one of my new favorites is when I tell him "No," which happens more often than I would like to admit. At first I think he may have confused the word "No" with his name. But now he thrusts his his finger in the air, back at me, and says, "NO,NO,NO!" (except it sounds more like "Nyo, Nyo, Nyo!") and then he busts up laughing because he thinks he's so funny. Of course, I think he's funny too, which isn't very good for the reenforcing/discipline side of things.

Don't be silly!

Dad, getting something for lunch shortly after Cannon came home from the second day of preschool: "Cannon, what did you do at school today?"

Cannon: "We learned about the color yellow."

Dad: "Good work! Did you learn how to write another letter [of the alphabet]?"

Cannon: "Dad, don't be silly. That's not the kind of thing we do at school!"

Luvin' Mom

One of the songs Cannon likes to play on my iPhone is Bruce Springsteen's "57 Channels (And Nothin' On)." It was also one of the favorite songs of my partner Jonathan's little boy, Zach, when he was Cannon's age. It's got a heavy bass beat that sticks in your head. If you're not familiar with it, you can get the feel of it from this audio preview at Amazon:

The other day, Cannon asked if we could play it while we were riding home in the van. As he was rocking along, he loudly sang out these lyrics:

"57 CHANNELS AND A LUUH-VIN' MOM! 57 CHANNELS AND A LUUH-VIN' MOM!"

Needless to say, Molly loves his version. :-)

This is why I can't leave Noah unattended

So, I left Noah in the kitchen for approximately 1 min. unattended. I checked on Cannon, who was supposed to be taking a nap, and grabbed a basket of laundry from our bedroom. When I came back to the kitchen this is what I found...

This is what he wanted....

Smart little stinker!!! Needless to say his mother gave him one for his ingenuity.

Common Courtesy

Cannon at breakfast: "Mom, I don't want you to sit here. I want dad to sit here."

Molly: "Cannon, sometimes that makes Mommy feel bad when you say you don't want her to sit by you."

Cannon, seeing Molly give Noah some yogurt snacks: "Mom, can I have some yogrit treats too?"

Molly: "Can you be nice to Mommy?"

Cannon: "Mommy, will you PLEASE not sit next to me."

Too sick for school

Cannon opens his bedroom door and walks into the living room, dragging his two blankets with him as he always does in the morning when he wakes up.

"Good morning, Cannon!" Molly greets him.

"Hi Mom."

"How do you feel this morning?"

"Good!"

"We better get ready for school!"

"I'm sick."

Word Associations

Cannon has a good sense of word association...

For instance, as we pulled into the airport on our way to Texas he asked:

"Are we going to stay in the ho-show-and-tell tonight?"

"What was that?"

"Are we going to stay in the HO-SHOW-AND-TELL tonight?!?"

When we got back he asked if he could take one of his toys to school for "ho-show-and-tell." Apparently the word works well in either situation!

Today was "It's a Small World" day at school where kids got to talk about their heritage or culture and dress up accordingly. We thought it would be fun for Cannon to talk about some of his Cannon family ancestors so we told him about Captain George Cannon, who some say was a pirate, and George Q. Cannon the pioneer. So, Cannon was all dressed up as a pirate/cowboy and I was quizzing him on his grandfathers...

"Who was your pirate Grandpa?"

"Captain Jack Sparrow!"

"Who was your pioneer grandpa?"

"George Q. Barbeque!"

Prison break!

Fortunately we caught the incident before the inmate could escape. His accomplice was sentenced to a doubly long timeout. He is now on parole, having sworn to never use scissors on anything but paper, and only with adult supervision.

The fire extinguisher does not appear to have been used as an instrument of the attempted escape.