Phillip (age 3) is going through a phase of calling anyone who disagrees with him “a liar.” He has also picked up the oh-so-mature habit of calling them a “Liar, Liar, pants on fire.” He started in on his daddy this morning, while we were still in bed (he’s our alarm clock), so in Lannie’s defense, he was still pretty groggy. The conversation went something like this…

Phillip: Liar, Liar, pants on fire.
Lannie: My pants aren’t on fire.
Phillip: You’re a liar, and your pants are on fire.
Lannie: If my pants were really on fire, I would hope you would put out the fire.
Phillip: I would get a bag of marshmallows and roast them.

I see an impeccable sense of comedic timing colliding with a long string of junior high school detentions in his future.

We took our second trip to the Little Rock Zoo (in 9 months) this week. Compared to the Memphis Zoo (which we visited at least 2-3 times a month while we lived in Memphis), it is a big disappointment; however, the visiting bird show was almost worth the price of admission. I’ll admit, the kids and I were both awed and terrified of the hawks and vultures that tapped our ears with the tips of their wings as they flew past our heads.

We didn’t sleep in as much as I wanted this summer, but we definitely visited the neighborhood pool more times than I can count. This may be the first time I’ve had an authentic (read non-tanning bed and non-tanning cream) tan since I was in middle school. The highlight of the summer for me came when Phillip learned to swim by himself (with his lifesaving vest), so that I could move from wrestling with him IN the pool to sitting on the side of the pool, thereby allowing my legs to see the light of day (at least from the knee up).

I am looking forward to starting our third (!) year of homeschooling on Monday, but I will miss the easy pace of summer. We’ve all gotten bored a time or two, but it has been a nice change.

We are settling into Little Rock.  It seems a little easier since we moved so recently.  We know what to do, or more importantly, what not to do.  The kids were so isolated when we first moved to Memphis, so I started trying to get them into homeschool groups before we even moved this time around.  They are going to enrichment classes (art, music, creative writing, etc.) one day a week at a place called the Homeschool Academy.  They are also taking P.E. classes at Arkansas Baptist through a satellite group.  Elizabeth seems satisfied with the number of new friends she’s made, so I’m happy with the arrangement.

The only thing we haven’t been able to jump-start is finding a church.  Looking for a church is a long and tedious process– I’ll never enjoy being a visitor.  We’ve visited five churches in the West Little Rock area so far, and I think we have one more to try tomorrow.  We definitely have a “type.”  Lannie (in particular) prefers a modern worship style, and a well-organized children’s program is important to me.  I also like a great missions outreach (local and international).  At this point, one church is definitely our favorite.  The only problem? It’s not a Baptist church.  This is really only a problem for the daughter of a Baptist preacher (who now works for a Baptist seminary).

One thing that has really suprised me since we’ve moved here is how easy it has been to re-connect with old friends from high school and college.  Facebook makes it so effortless!  I’ve messaged with friends and set up get-togethers without even having a phone number.  I’ve actually been out to eat with three friends in just a couple of weeks.  That has done so much to keep me from feeling lonely.

I’ll try to do better about keeping up with my blog.  The kids have said some really funny things in the past month.  Hopefully, I can remember what they said!

Each of my three children has developed some form of this, but none as complicated as Phillip. He’s developed his own code of speech that I like to call “Phillipese” (not to be confused with Philippines, which is a real country). Caleb told me that next time he stays with Papa and Grandma (or anyone else), I will need to make a translation sheet so they know what he is talking about. Here is a rough start:

“I want apple juice grape juice.” This could mean he wants apple juice or white grape juice. Since he can’t really tell the difference in taste, and the difference in color is nominal, I usually just give him whatever we have. Don’t ask, don’t tell.

“Do it little bit big.” This refers to how much liquid he wants in his cup. It just means fill it up as far as it will go without spilling over. At one time, he would demand that we fill it to the top then pour some of it out into the sink (I think this is a sign of OCD), until Lannie convinced him that there were poor children in the world that didn’t have any juice to drink so he couldn’t waste it by pouring it down the drain. I think that is a circular argument, because you don’t do the starving children any favors by drinking more of it yourself. Fortunately, Phillip doesn’t have a very high level of logical thinking skills, so that argument worked for him.

“Mommy, you prayed the wrong way. Pray the front in the back and the back in the front.” I have no idea what this means. He says it every time I pray with him. When I figure it out, I’ll let you know.

When I stopped to pick up a much-needed feminine product, he stomped his foot.  “No, Mama, I want to buy Diego pull-ups!”

“These are not for you, Phillip.  They’re for me.”

“Mama, you wear pull-up diapers?”

Phillip had a hard time staying still and paying attention throughout much of the movie.  The musical numbers kept his attention, but the dialog and story line were lost on a three year old boy.  He did catch the kissing scene between Troy and Gabriela, though, as evidenced by his very loud, “YUCK!” which caught the attention of everyone around us.

As I was putting him to bed, I asked him about his favorite part of the movie.  To my surprise, he said, “The kiss.”

“Really?”  I said.  “I thought you said the kiss was yucky.”

“I liked it,” he said.

“Do you know what it means when people kiss?” I asked.

He thought for a moment, then said, “People bump their lips together.”

He has been observing our school situation (Caleb is homeschooled, and Ellie goes to public school) without much comment, so I wasn’t really sure how he was processing it until recently.  I heard him playing with his little people when he said, “You can’t go to school.  You’re not a girl!  Boys don’t go to school.”  Seems we may need to have a little clarification.

With his third birthday just around the corner, Phillip has been potty-trained for a while; however, he still needs help removing and replacing his clothes, so every trip is pretty much a two-person job.  Earlier in the week, he cocked his head at me lovingly while he was doing his business and said, “Mommy, I can’t pee without you.”  I’m not quite sure that is a good thing.

Another thing he is learning is how to pray before he goes to bed.  He’s been learning this for a while, but for the past few months he’s been stuck in a rut.  His routine prayer is to say, “Jesus, thank you for that and that and that” indiscriminately.  We’ve been working on being specific about “that,” and he is making progress.  Last week, he prayed one of the sweetest prayers I’ve ever heard.  He said, “Jesus, thank you for being my friend.  Jesus loves me, Amen.”

Lannie called me on the way home from work yesterday and wanted to go out for dinner. He had been seeing IHOP commercials and was craving pancakes. I already had dinner in the oven, but I saved it for later, and we took Phillip to IHOP.

Normally, a last-minute dinner out like that would have been an ordeal with all three kids, but since the other two are gone this week, it was just the three of us. Phillip was in a pretty good mood, so I felt good about taking him out.

We sat in a booth with a glass partition separating us from the lady in the booth beside us. Phillip had one little outburst when the waiter came to take our order because he had been playing with the syrup, and Lannie took the syrup away from him. It wasn’t a big outburst, just a little yell of protest.

I was distracted by Phillip and the waiter when suddenly Lannie turned to the lady in the booth next to us and said, “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t make comments to me about how to raise my kid.”

I looked at him quizzically, then the lady yelled at Phillip to “Sit down and shut up!” I think the original comment had been directed to Lannie about how Phillip needed a spanking, because she then threatened to spank him herself!

Lannie told me later he was proud of the way he controlled himself, but he threw down his menu, picked Phillip up, and headed out of the restaurant. He turned back to the waiter and told him, “It’s not you.” As I was chasing him out the door, I heard the man in the booth behind us chewing out the other lady, saying, “I’ve never seen anything as rude as that in my whole life!”

Thinking about it later, I wondered if maybe the lady had some kind of dementia. She was about 70 years old. Lannie thought she was just mean. He said he thought the threat to spank Phillip was a real physical threat, and he had to get him out of there.

We did find another IHOP down the street, so Lannie got his pancakes. We all eventually had a pleasant meal.