He's just trying to find himself

Danny comes into the room, crying, obviously distraught about something.
Danny: Where Demmy? Mommy, where Demmy go?
Me: You are Danny.
Danny: (perks up) I am Demmy! (runs toward bedroom) I Demmy! Tommy, I find Demmy! I Demmy.

I think maybe I get their names mixed up too much. Poor kid doesn't even know his own name.

Birthday Cakes, Made By Daddy

Jessamit!

Danny runs up to Tom: Jessamit!
Tom: What?
Danny: Jessamit!
Tom: Listen, you're cute but I just can't understand you. (Nemo reference)
Danny: Jess.  A. Min. It.  Daddy.
Tom: Oh. 'Just a minute.' Got it.

Wherefor art thou, Jooey-et?

You know those green plastic things that sit under the downspout to direct the water away from the foundation of the house?  Well we have one in our driveway under the gutter off the back of the house, which is kind of dumb because the downspout goes about ten feet away from the house as it is and an 18" plastic tray isn't going to save anything.  But I have no better place to put the tray so I leave it in the driveway.
And under that tray is a hole in the gravel. It's about big enough that I could set a golf ball in it and the tray would still sit flat.
And in that hole lives a toad. A toad Tommy has named Juliet, except it's pronounced Jooey-et. A toad Danny has named Frog. Except it's pronounced Fwock. It's a very important toad, to have so many exotic aliases.

So tonight, when I took the boys to bed, they wanted to sleep in frog-holes rather than beds. So I piled the quilts up in a circle in Tommy's bed to make the walls for a frog-hole, and I turned to do the same in the crib, but Tommy was in the crib. And Danny climbed up into the bed. And it might have worked all night except that I took a shower and the boys yelled because the cat was in their room and when Ryan went to get the cat she switched the boys back to their own beds because 14 year old girls value nothing more than strict adherence to tradition.
Tomorrow I will see if Juliet/Frog has returned to its bed in the driveway and try to take pictures of it. But I have to face the sad possibility that being discovered and renamed by my sons has chased it away for good. It's like white flight but slimier. Fwock flight.

Danny hijacked this blog post. A film review.

Dowie, way aw you?
Jess keep simming. Jess keep simming.
Da oh-sen! Dey simming da oh-sen!
Whale!!
Mommy, I watching Meemo!

Party Planning

I was just told that Tommy wants a Godzilla party for his birthday and Danny wants a dinosaur party. Now, their birthdays are 2 days apart so it's going to be the first party. And you'd think I could just make one party and tell the other kid that Godzilla is a T Rex or that the T Rex is Godzilla, but I can't.  Tommy knows the difference and he is very insistent that everyone else know it, too. Godzilla has pokey spikes! And he stands up straight like me! 
So I will probably end up throwing a very generic dinosaur party with google image pictures of Godzilla printed out on the invitations and hung on the wall, too. I sense lots of clashing birthday parties in my future.  Much like last year's Spongebob/Gummibar party.  And now, to help with that imagery, here's the Gummibar singing about his pacifier.

Don't hate the player; hate the game.

Okay we're going to play "Who can stay quiet the longest?" Whoever wins gets a strawberry! Starting.....now!

5 seconds later......

*slap*

"OW!"

"I WIN!!!"

I'm still the only one who can understand him

"Chetch! Chetch!"  Danny comes walking into the room with a half-deflated miniature basketball held on top of his head. He throws it to me, and I "chetch" it. I half toss - half hand it back to him and he holds it over/on his head again and walks out of the room calling to his brother to play with him. "Tah-ee! Chetch!"

Mommy number 2

ME: Danny, what are you eating? Oh, just a crayon? Well, bon appetite.
TOMMY: No. Mommy, Danny not eat crayon. It not nummy, Mommy. It not food.

He's a much better mother than I am sometimes.

a life without chocolate requires medical attention

My mom is on a strict chemo schedule.  Three days of chemo every 3 weeks, for twelve weeks.  As long as she sticks to that schedule, she has a decent chance of remission.  If she doesn't, she's got about 6 months.  The main thing that can interfere with her chemo schedule is infection.  If she gets any kind of infection, even a simple cold, they postpone the chemo.  So naturally I now view my children as walking petri dishes full of plague.

My mom wants to have Thanksgiving dinner.  Since she flat-out refused my suggestion that she live in a bubble instead, I have invited her to my house, but only IF my germ-basket children are 100% healthy.  Thanksgiving is one week from today, and I am paranoid like you wouldn't believe.  Is Danny fussy because he's teething or sick? Did he sleep in because of a growth spurt or a cold?  Today he woke up and wouldn't drink his milk.  He'd suck the straw but then cry.  Suck suck scream, suck suck scream.  So naturally, I thought "ear infection" and called the doctor.  I bundled both boys up, drove them out to the clinic, held Danny down so the doctor could look into his head through every direct orifice, and got a verdict of healthy.  "But Dr, he won't drink the milk! He sucks a couple times then cries, like an ear infection. He could kill his grandmother!"  Still, I was sent home with hollow assurances and about a foot of Spiderman stickers.
We got in the house, I took off their coats and shoes, I gave them back their milk cups, and again, suck suck scream.  I was at a loss. The kid drinks his milk out of that cup every morning; what could be different?  So out of desperation, I added a spoonful of Nestle Quick powder to it.  Suck suck smile. 

I just rushed to the clinic, as a matter of life and death, because my spoiled kid decided this morning that he no longer likes plain milk.  Fucking yay.

Gimme another caycake, bitch!

When I get lazy around here, I make waffles as a meal for the boys.  They walk around, going about their business, and eat them dry, as do I.  Then, after eating all the crunchy edges, they bring me the soft (and therefor inedible) waffle and trade it in for a new one.  Also, because their friend was over one day and he was unfamiliar with waffles but very much liked pancakes, we call the waffles pancakes.  Danny's at that age where he's learning about a dozen new words a week and today it was "pancake".  I'd hear his little voice say, "Caycake" and then he'd throw a floppy nibbled-upon waffle at my chest.  I hope I never forget how the word "Caycake" sounds.

Why would he even think of it?

Danny has a sippy cup of water and takes it into the bedroom to play with his brother. Ten minutes later I hear crying.  I go in to check.
ME: What happened?
Tommy: "I bit on Deeny."
ME: "You bit Danny?"
Tommy: "No. I bit on Deeny."
ME: "You sit on Danny?"
Tommy: exasperated. "No. I bit on Deeny."  He then mimmicks a hocking throat-clearing sound and (thankfully) pantomimes spitting on his brother.
ME: "You spit on Danny?!"
Tommy: "Alright."

Danny's water cup was empty, his hair and clothes were soaked. Tommy's shirt was soaked. Tommy got his butt smacked, all while crying "I dorry, Deeny. I yuh you. I dorry!"  Danny seemed relatively unscathed, nothing a boob couldn't fix.  But, why would he spit on his brother? What could make him think to do it, and then tell on himself for it, too?