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.

Dec 2015, Jan and Feb 2016

Asmund: "Wystan, I don't like that you sang that in another language."
Wystan: "But it was BB-8 language."
Asmund: "Wystan, it was owl language."

Wystan crawls into bed next to Raedan this morning:
"Wanna know something, Raedan?"
"What?" 
"Last night when Daddy was downstairs some, I came in here and put your fingers in your nose."

Asmund to Wystan: "Wow! Mommy and Daddy are my valentine, too."

Parenting differences:
Asmund asks me if Santa is real, "No, babe. Santa is based on a real person, and is a fun game, but no, he's not real."
Asmund asks me if fairies etc are real, "Well, we don't really know. We don't have any scientific evidence that they are, but that doesn't mean that they aren't."
---
Asmund asks Dennis is Santa is real, "Of course!!"
Asmund asks Dennis if fairies etc are real, "No, but the feelings we have about them are."

So...Mom says Santa is fake but fairies are probably real, Dad says Santa is real but fairies are fake! Poor confused kid!

BB-8 is an oft overlooked part of the water cycle.

Wystan's proof of love to Raedan: "Want to pick my nose?"

Overheard this morning:
Asmund, "Raedan, do you want me to read the Good Dog, Carl book to you?"
R, "No! Dinosaur book!"
A, looking through his shelf, "How about this book about dragons? Dragons are dinosaurs' uncles."
R, "Yes, dragon book!"

Dennis, walking into the living room with something just pulled from the oven, "Do you know that you left a burner on? And that the oven was at 500? And why is there orange juice on top of the fridge? Should I have people come stay with you when I'm gone?"

A, "Mom, did you ever think about a zipline? For chickens?"

Only one chicken liked the zipline, so the boys are doing this instead. So far, they've got eight up there. Wystan catches them, and Asmund keeps them calm once they're up. The boys put a bucket of feed by the tire, and none have cared to come down. Of course, they might just be traumatized.

After trying to get the boys to clean their room all day, Asmund just said, "Dad, this place is a mess!"

Asmund's idea from Bugs Bunny, to make a mouse trap by painting a metal nut like cheese. The mouse will eat it. Then he will use his magnet to catch the mouse. He just asked if I could do a web search: "How do you get metal to smell like cheese?"

Last night I dreamed that while on a family vacation, the earth was "invaded" by aliens. I was immediately a part of a group meant to take out the leadership, but as soon as my camera was converted into a special sort of gun that would fry all their brains as soon as I shot the leader, we learned that they weren't here to invade, but were seeking our help to escape the oppression of an alien warlord. This evil warlord had foreseen that if they managed to garner our help, he would be defeated, and so he produced a series of television dramas portraying the aliens as dangerous and their invasion as violent, to insure that we saw them that way and destroyed them for him.
So that's how I process current events while pregnant.

Me, "OUCH! Raedan, did you pull my hair?!!" 
R, grinning, "No, mommy. I pull my finger in your hair!"

W: "My stomach is rumbling."

"Martin Luther King Jr was a black man who was a superhero and saved black people." --Asmund

Wystan (overheard playing): "He is the boy who doesn't listen to his dad."

Me: "Who?"

Wystan: "Nothing."

Wystan, in clean up time, "I'm a little bit tiring." 

Wystan asks me to do a search for Lego droids that go, "DOO-doo doo-DOO, DOO-doo doo-DOO, DOO-doo doo-DOO, DOO!"

Toddlers land on a few excuses and use them indiscriminately, hence, conversations like these:
Raedan, playing with an empty soap bottle, "This my beer, mom. Grandma give it for me."
or, 
Me, "Ok, we're done nursing, time to go to sleep."
R, "No! Me want more noonies!"
Me, attempting to redirect. "Hey, you have noonies too, don't you?!"
R, putting his hands over his nipples, "Here, Mom!!"
Me, "...but your noonies don't have milk, huh?"
R, "No, Mom! Me noonies have milk--Grandma give it for me!"

Asmund is writing a mashup of Little Red Riding Hood and the Three Little Pigs. He calls it Red Pigs. EEKS!

Me, on the phone with Dennis, crying because someone said something sweet to me, "I'm such a mess! Was I really this much of a mess with the other ones?"
D, "Oh, yeah, hon. You were."

Raedan:
"Call me Heat Miser
I Heat Miser
Whatever I touch"

Asmund has found a new way to try on new jeans: Dance in front of the mirror to see how your moves look in the new said jeans.

"Babe, I'm leaving, don't forget to be mean to the kids."
That's real partnering/parenting, folks.

Disappear Man made an appearance at lunch today. 
Me to Dennis, "We haven't seen him in a while, have we. Was he born in Denver? I'm trying to remember."
Wystan cuts in with, "No, Disappear Man was born on a different planet. He is an alien."

Asmund: "Can we listen to the John Brown Christmas?"
Carrie: "You mean Charlie Brown?"
Asmund: "Oh, yes."

Wy: "Asmund, did you hide the barbeque sauce?"
As: "No. I only hide the Wickles."

The boys are really excited about me taking them to see the new Star Wars movie. The plan is to see the movie, then go to PT's [Flying Monkey] for hot chocolate, where it is "so chocolatey and the whipped cream is so creamy." BB-8 is a favorite around here, and Asmund created a Star Wars book with crayoned pictures. This does my heart good.

Me: "Thank you for your drawing."
Wy: "Thank my brain. My brain is full of thinking!"

Raedan: "Santa will bring me birthday presents!" (His birthday is in May.)

Asmund, "Dad, do you want to see your grandma again? Cause I'm going to make a time machine so that you can."

After Wystan asked if he could talk to Gramma on the phone: "Hi, Gramma! For Christmas, I want a baby robin, but Mommy and Daddy said no." Ha ha ha. Next will be a letter to Santa.

A: "How do you get smart?"
Me: "Well, you learn a lot as you grow up."
A: "Can you use the internet?"
Me: "Yes. That's a way to do it."
A: "That is why we are not smart. You won't let us on the internet."

He's already smart.

Asmund, "Daddy, can I write something in your book?"

A: "We need Uncle Carl to make a machine that when you turn on a movie you can push a button. Then this portal opens and the people from the movie come out, like the chipmunks. We are going to have a singing contest with the real chipmunks. You know they aren't real. Chipmunks don't actually sing. But they can be here with the machine before Christmas [when the contest will be]."

New things

These are the doofsa, underwater creatures similar to fish.





Wystan's drawing of the boys

Asmund is writing Doctor who fan fiction. The Doctor and his companion go into the Pinky and the Brain universe, where Brain has made a skyscraper to enslave all humans, and the Doctor explains that he needs to stop trying to take over the world.

Asmund, "MOM! Raedan pee'd on my FACE!"
Wystan, "What did it taste like?"
Asmund, "Like corn, salted too much."

Asmund wants to invite a handful of friends. A six year old handful of friends. And only four friends fit in his room. If his hand was giant, his hand would be as big as his room. And if he was a giant, his hand would fit four people.

Dear Raedan,
No, the apple (cabbage, train, egg) is not a "baeball", and no, the fork (pen, train track, book) is not a "baeball" bat. Please go back to carefully dumping and refilling your piggy bank.

"Raedan, you're terrorizing everyone in the family!"
"Taint tou, Mom." (Thank you, Mom.)

Asmund, "Dad took Wystan to the bathroom. Will you snuggle with me?"
"Sure, but you'll need to scoot over."
(After situating ourselves) "Wow Mom, you're much bigger than before. You're as big as Dad! Well, almost as big as Dad."

Asmund, swinging, "I'm going to give the BEST underdogs to my children."
"When are you having children?"
"About two months. Maybe four."
"Hum, how about twenty years?"
"Okay."

At dinner: Asmund, "We're all set for our candlelight supper! Who wants to start prayering?"

A, "What is this music?"
Me, "It's called The Barber of Seville."
A, "Ah. Is that a Disney movie?"

Me: "Is mom happy?"
A: "Well, she is not a hopping on the floor, hugging and kissing everyone kind of happy. She is a kind of slow happy."

A: "That was a house dog back there. House dogs can come and go from their house as they like. They don't even need a map. That's why some people teach their dogs to read, so they can find their way home."

"Mom, is this dangerous?"
"Hum, probably not. Why don't you try it and see?"
In the end, he decided against going down the slide backwards and went headfirst instead.

Wystan, "I am a ghost expert. Ghosts are live blankets, and you only can see them at night. They say 'Ooooooo'. But they are not real."

My kids say "you're welcome" in the best ways. For example,
Me, "Thanks for being my shopping helper, Wystan."
Wy, "My pleasure!"
or,
Me, "Thanks for making the chicken grit, Asmund."
A, "Well, I do what I can. "

Wystan is unhappy with his body. He wants to be red.

Dennis: "Why did you have your legos taken away today?"
Wy: "Bad luck."

Asmund thinks our globe stinks because it's color coded by country rather than continent.

Wystan wants a diamond ring for his birthday.

Asmund: "Having a Mommy day means having a treat. And getting those pops out of my back was a real treat."

"Dahn Henme, Dahn Henme, DAHN HENME IS PAHFOR MAHN!"
It's pretty cute when Raedan sings "Let it Go", but "John Henry" is my current favorite.

W: "Do you know what I want for my birthday? A movie theatre, a shooting star, a butterfly, and a baby lego set."

Carrie: Off for a day of celebrating my delightful five year old! Wystan loves to tell people, "I 'uprised Mommy's heart", and he did--my jovial baby.

Food Chain

Asmund, "Mom, lets make a picture of a food chain. We'll start with plants, then vegetarians, then meat eaters, then, at the top, the BIGGEST one--vultures!"
(Because vultures eat dead lions.)

"How are you almost five years old?!"
Wystan, "Birthdays."

Asmund, with missing front teeth: "My daddy teeth are coming in."
In bed, in the middle of the night:
"Aum

aum
aum."
Me: "Are you meditating?"
A: "Put you' aum under my head."

Science Day

A: "Mom, I picked out me and Wystan's clothes for science. Um, Mom, do I look like Bill Nye?"