Raedan is a good bad guy

Raedan is a good bad guy, with two scary eyes, and a monkey on his back that eats bad guys like bananas, and is a pirate monkey, which makes him scary. He flies his Raedan airplane and saves owls from bad guys. He crushes them into good bad guys.

Stop salts!

Asmund, "MOM can you come stop Raedan from salting me?"
Thinking he meant assault, and impressed with his vocabulary, I walk in to find Raedan actually salting him, with the salt shaker.

Yesterday, Ron and I were discussing whether superhero movies present reality as black and white. Asmund walked in and said, "Mom, they ARE black and white. Are you forgetting, Falcon is a black man?"

I know that in his mind, that screaming fit made sense--"oh no! Mom got off the bed AT THE END instead of the side! AND she's holding BOTH water cups! I must warn her that she is about to be eaten by the "end of the bed, two water cup"monster!!"
Toddlers only make sense if you assume that the rules to their world are radically different than those of reality.

Asmund just showed me his new laser. He tapped a magnifying glass to a small solar panel taken from a robot kit, then tapped a battery behind it and a flashlight to to the handle to store power. He figured that the magnifying glass would concentrate the sun's rays into the solar panel, and amplify onto a lazer.
Honestly, I'm glad we're still at the non-working inventions phase.

Update

Raedan is now saying a lot more this year. I've been behind, due to the two new boys!

Raedan: "When I was a kid my granddaughter gave me a dinosaur truck and a blue horse. It was too small for me."

Raedan: "Can you play Royals with me?"

Asmund, referencing my metronome after watching me practice: "Can I play with it? It looks fun! Is it fun?"

Metronomes fun? I think the jury is still out on that one.

Raedan is in love with his birthday bike. He's pretending to show everyone:
Dennis: "Where are you going, Raedan?" 
R: "To Grandma's house! (wheels into the next room) Hi Grandma! See my new bike?!" (wheels into the living room) "Mom, are you Grandma?"
Me: "Sure, baby--Oh Raedan, I love your bike!"
R: "Yes, you be Grandma, Daddy be Aunt DeAnn. Asmund be a marshmallow! (chuckles) Asmund-marshmallow, that a funny word and I eat him."

Asmund is writing a rock song. So far his lyrics are "dying in love", and his air guitar is sick. O.o Wystan and Asmund have decided that they want to be inventor/scientist/rock stars.

Me, "We're going to bed as soon as we get up from the table, so make sure you aren't hungry."
Asmund, "I'm not hungry."
Wystan, "I'm not hungry. I won't be hungry until I get into bed."

Asmund, breaking from singing "On Top of Spaghetti":

"Wow, this is a really emotional song. About meatballs. And spaghetti."

Wystan is selling his Spider-Man versus Electro comic for five nickels!

Tonight's bedtime story involved a dragon-leprechaun, and a horse who found his pot of gold and was given three wishes. He wished for wings so he could fly with a sphinx, food that appeared when he wanted, and a magic necklace and crown. As a bonus he was turned into a horse-dragon. Characters and wishes provided by Raedan, who was, in fact, the dragon-leprechaun, and acted out giving all the wishes to his stuffed horse.

Raedan, looking at the twins: "Mom, when I born, I baby!"

Wystan: "I want to go through time someday."

Wystan, about his career: "I am going to be a ninja, a scientist, and an inventor."
Me: "But being a ninja would mean being bad."
Wystan: "I'll be a good ninja."

Asmund: Do you know who Bernie is? He's a dinosaur. 
Me: What?
I go into the other room to find Asmund watching Barney.

I just learned that Asmund thought scorpions cut holes in people and climbed inside.

"WOW, no they DON'T! That would be super creepy!"
"Well Mom, scorpions ARE creepy."
"Not THAT creepy, son."

"Stop licking the cheese!"

After I annoyed Asmund for a change: "You gave _me_ a turn."

Wystan, climbing the fence: "I am easy at this."

Raedan is a robber and is making a robber trap so he can steal other robbers with his powers.

Wystan: I am going to be an inventor, a scientist, and a Kung Fu Panda.

Instead of asking what something says, Raedan asks, "What is this ABC?"

Asmund: "Wystan is such a joker. Not the villain Joker."

Carrie had a dream that Wilson Fisk was paying off the twins to stay awake at night. She then realized it couldn't be, as the boys were sleeping.

"Mom, babies want cheeses?" "No, sweetie. Babies can't eat cheese. Do you remember what babies can have?" "Um...fruit leather?"

Asmund, "The babies don't laugh because their funny bones haven't grown yet. Am I right, Mom?"

Kelsey: "Do you have two baby brothers?"
Raedan: "Yes. One for me and one for Wystan."

Asmund: "Atlantis is so old, even Netflix doesn't remember it."

Wystan, waking us up: "Can I go downstairs to clean the windows?" How awesome is that?

Asmund and Wystan want to use science to figure out whether The Queen of the Night sits on the moon, or is a star.

Raedan: "will you type all yoda videos, have a person's arms, have a lightsaber, have a head"

Me: "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
Raedan"Big."

A conversation this morning before I woke up:
Wystan: "Let's go jump on daddy!"
Raedan: "No, I not jump on daddy. Daddy is nice."
Wystan: "But, Raedan, we like to wake up daddy in fun ways."

A: "Can we make yogurt?"
Me: "We will need a yogurt machine?"
A: "Can we build a yogurt machine?"

Marvel + yoga = a five year old in tree pose, repeating "I am Groot."

Raedan, with a LEGO human, "I am a ninja."
Dennis, "What do you do?"
"Red."
"But what is your job description?"
"Read books."
"Wow!"
"I have a alphabet--Y, Z, elf, and bat."

(Alphabet/elf-and-bat?)

Wystan, " I need the lessons of PI-anos. I know very well about PI-anos."

Only a boy mom knows the terror that strikes upon hearing the words, "PEE FIGHT!!" from the bathroom.

"That girl in a pink dress and me are building a tree house. It's going to have SOLO power, so we get our power from the sun, just like leaves!"

Raedan, "Mom, can you call Bumblebee?"

Wystan: "I want BB-8 to be able to transform into Bumblebee."
Dennis: "Yes! They have the same personality."
Wysyan: "No. They have the same robot-ality."

Etzel home, 9:30pm, twenty minutes after (delayed) lights out, third attempt to be allowed downstairs:
Asmund, "Mom, we're downstairs because Wystan needs to throw up."
Wystan, who has the hiccups, "I just need done water."
Asmund, "No, you need to throw up! I hear the sound of it!"
Me, "Go upstairs. Wystan, if you need to throw up, just open up Asmund's dresser drawer and throw up in there."

Asmund is worried about the tornado, so he duct taped the toilet lid shut. "For security" he explained. 
I know this must make sense in his brain, right?

Raedan is crying because we won't let him "fly that baby like a superman."

Rae just brought me his swim shorts, "Mom, my pants wet!" and ran back to the pool. Um, yeah kid, that's the point of swim shorts!

Raedan, wearing his Creature Power Suit, touched Aldwyn, "Activate baby powers! Mom, I a baby! I have baby powers!"

Early celebration of Raedan's third birthday, with a pony ride and Mexican food. He was in love, "I riding a pony! I cowboy!" 

Raedan is in love with his birthday bike. He's pretending to show everyone:
Dennis: "Where are you going, Raedan?" 
R: "To Grandma's house! (wheels into the next room) Hi Grandma! See my new bike?!" (wheels into the living room) "Mom, are you Grandma?"
Me: "Sure, baby--Oh Raedan, I love your bike!"
R: "Yes, you be Grandma, Daddy be Aunt DeAnn. Asmund be a marshmallow! (chuckles) Asmund-marshmallow, that a funny word and I eat him."

Raedan picked this from the Little Free Library at the Kansas Children's Discovery Center. He says, "This my ZOMBIE book!!"

Asmund, "Hey, Mom, I moved the chicken wood shavings to their place...
...with THESE muscles!!" (Shows his guns)

Actual conversation this morning:
Me: "I'm making potato and eggs for breakfast."
Kids: GROANS
Wystan: "Can I have soup instead?"
Me: (finds desirable leftovers when heating up soup, heats them too)
"Never mind, we'll have this!"
Asmund: MOM!!! We wanted potatos and eggs!!"
Me: ....
(Makes potatoes and eggs)
Asmund: (eats anemic amount) "Ugh, I'm done, this is making me sick."

Raedan, "I has present for you babies."
Proceeds to crayon on their heads.

Seven year olds are pretty suggestible. Particularly when the suggestion is that, thanks to those bites, they may be becoming spider-man.

Wystan and Raedan are playing a game that involves either escaping from an angry triangle, or one of them being an angry triangle.

Martha: The boys and I had a grand adventure today. We were sailing dangerous seas full of sharks, radioactive leeches as long as my arm and electric eels. Thankfully,Wystan's entire body (head excluded) was made of ademantium (tragic tale) and he could enter the water unharmed. I was the daughter of Black Widow & Spiderman, which made me Spidergirl. My superpowers included punching through walls, lazer eyes and freezing breath. We were hunting Atlantis and/or the 5 triangles (which once assembled would lead us to something awesome). Asmund was first mate and chief hole fixer since our ship seemed to spring many leaks. Raedan manned the guns and kept the engines running with his mighty swinging (outside swing set).

"I read a WHOLE BOOK yesterday! And I read ANOTHER ONE today!!"
It may still be a while before he's reading independently, but Asmund loves his new phonics storybooks. 

"I hold one my babies? My baby want my noonie. My noonie right here."

Raedan is attacking Wystan with a beaver puppet, Wystan is teaching Eldric how to spell poop, and Asmund is concocting elaborate plans to catch mice.
Just another evening at the Etzel house.

Wystan, holding his mini Lego X-Wing Fighter: "I am shooting the Death Star which is your head."

A: "Grandma, this chicken is as old as you are!"

"I want hugs and kisses for my Dosey!" Raedan already misses you, Kelsey!

Sarah: Raedan is running upstairs to uncle Carl and his brothers (who are folding and putting away laundry), then coming back down to me saying "Aunt Sarah, it's surprise" and pulling socks out of his shirt.

Raedan is a good bad guy, With two scary eyes, and a monkey on his back that eats bad guys like bananas, and is a pirate monkey, which makes him scary. He flies his Raedan airplane and saves owls from bad guys. He crushes them into good bad guys.